Kate Elliott's Blog, page 72

Deep Genre Post on Spoilers

Busy night here, because it's cold and rainy, and because I will be gone this weekend.

I posted on Deep Genre:

Spoilers, Or, the Joy of Reading and Viewing without Preconceptions.

Not what you think it is! Or maybe it is.

Deals and Deliveries

I want to thank all my fellow authors whose books have done well in France for opening the door for me. It seems French publisher Bragelonne has acquired King's Dragon and Prince of Dogs for translation rights. We'll see if they ever want any others, but for the time being: Whoo-hoo!

Also, I forgot to mention this because I had forgotten that Orbit UK had only acquired two (rather than four) Crossroads books back in, um, 2004 or whenever I initially sold the series to Tor Books in the USA and O

Writing the Wrong Words

I am at one of those scenes that I have to write wrong in order to get through it, in order to keep moving, in order to get eventually to the end, at which point -- theoretically -- I will have figured out the details that are preventing me from making this scene I am currently writing work correctly.

I am not a writer who must get every word right in the first go round. Who writes achingly slowly for that reason. Because the way my mind works has to do with the layers and interconnections, the

Writing Process: Writing with a Craft Goal in Mind

I’ve written a lot of books. Traitors’ Gate (due August 09 USA with Tor Books USA and early Sept 09 with Orbit Books UK) will be my 19th published novel. That’s counting The Golden Key, the collaboration I wrote with Melanie Rawn and Jennifer Roberson, but not counting the two early unpublished works which are unpublishable and will remain that way because they’re also really embarrassing. Hey, I was young once, too.

That’s not my point.

My point is, that I continually strive to improve as a wr

Traitors' Gate - Page Proofs Edition

I received the page proofs of Traitors' Gate some days ago. I'm concerned, though. The page proofs did not come at the most inconvenient possible time, AND I was given an adequate--even generous--amount of time to finish them, so much so that I am done a week ahead of "schedule" (although any schedule re: Hawaii has to include the significant factor that there is no overnight mail to locations east of Denver available here; the best one can do is 2 day and that's if you get it in by, I think,

Film Talk - romantic comedy, and the year of opinions about rubbish films

On the night of the Oscars, which I'm not watching for no reason except that I generally never do, I do think about film.

First, oursin flagged this article in the Guardian about romantic comedy: Where have all the good women gone?.

Romantic comedies have, of course, long been formulaic, and often palpably dumb, but recently they actually seem to have become contemptuous of women.

I was going to write up approving commentary on the article, and my reaction to the portrayal of women in film in thes

Bill 444

Bill 444--allowing civil unions between same-sex couples--has passed the State House here and gone on to the Senate. I knew this was making its way through the legislature but wasn't paying much attention to it until I heard an awful No-on-444 radio ad last night (on a Clear Channel affiliate, natch) while driving home from paddling.

When I got home--about the same time as my spouse--I said to him, "I've got to write to our state legislators--" to which he broke in, "Yeah, me too. I just heard

Creativity

At SFNovelists, I post about Creativity.