Harry Connolly's Blog, page 179

Randomness for 7/21

1) The Creative Process, in graphic/maze form.

2) This is pretty exciting: BLU has a new stop motion video out!

3) I'm sure many of you know that there's a new storyline in the Superman comics where he walks across America to reacquaint himself with regular people. Well, now The Mighty Thor is doing it too!

4) Baby eats his way out of a watermelon. This one isn't very interesting, but it is awfully cute.

5) Parkour from 1930.

6) Serial book thief gets three and a half years.

7) When Josh...

Harry Potter and the Constant Lulz

My family is reading the Harry Potter series right now. We're on the second book, and we're reading it aloud to each other.

I did not remember how funny these books are. Maybe it's just the difference between hearing them aloud and in my head, but we have been laughing and laughing throughout. Rowling really has a feel for broad characters and light comedy.

It's fun!

Talent and craft

Jay Lake talks about the value of talent and craft right here. It seems to me that this is a misguided post, mainly because it never really defines the difference between "talent" and "craft." If I'm reading him correctly, he's asserting that there are a set number of skills a writer needs, and the writer's talent is made up of the skills they have without practice, while craft is made up of the skills acquired with practice.

I think this is misguided. Let me go further. "Talent" is not ...

"Step into my cage:" thoughts on Sorcerer's Apprentice (plus bonus family stuff)

Yesterday we planned to go to the beach, hit the library and head downtown to watch SORCERER'S APPRENTICE. The weather report promised us that the day would be mostly cloudy, leading to a drizzle at the end of the day. Being Seattle-ites, we headed to the beach anyway. Being Seattle, the day turned clear and beautiful. And me without my sunscreen.

We played Frisbee golf (more like Frisbee putt putt), built driftwood shelters on the beach, took photographs at low tide, (Oh, look! a bald...

I didn't bother with that "I Write Like" meme, but…

not because I knew ahead of time that it was a promotional gambit by a vanity press to boost their Google ranking and rope in unsuspecting writers. I just figured it was a waste of time.

If you've posted an "I Write Like" banner in your blog or LiveJournal, you might want to go back and strip out any links to vanity publishers (or redirect them to Making Light post above).

A link for myself

I'm posting this here so I can find it later and follow some of the links. I'm leaving it public in case you guys are interested, too.

NY Times on book trailers.

Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams advised to polish his resume

He needed to respond to the NAACP's request that Tea Partiers "to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches." Hey, the guy is the national spokesman, right? I'm sure he handled this with dignity and tact.

Quote:

"You're dealing with people who are professional race-baiters, who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It's time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history ...

Randomness for 7/16

1) Letters written to fictional characters by actual people. I like this one, this one, this one and this one. And now I can't help but wonder what letter I would write.

2) Proving there's a niche blog for everything (until someone creates a niche blog you never even thought of before): Handsome Men Who Are Now Dead.

3) Prank rollercoaster photos. Maybe not entirely safe for work, but not too bad.

4) via Steve Barr: Ferris Beuller is Tyler Durdin!. And now in video form (which I can't...

Randomness for 7/15

1) Every _____ Comic in three panels, by Marvel editor Nathan Crosby.
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2) Mainstream journalism throws more pop-science against the shoals of cultural prejudice.
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3) "Have you read all these books? When do you watch TV?" A husband works in his wife's bookstore while she's sick, and records the conversations he has with customers.
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4) How "non-lethal" weapons are too often used by police.
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5) The history of the term "slush pile."
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6) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design. ...

Good thing I don't have any hair to tear out

I swear to God, I have never sweated over anything as much as I just sweated over the "script" (really a shot list w/ dialog) for the book trailer for Man Bites World. Never. And believe me, I sweat. I'm a sweaty, sweaty man.

Remember when I realized that I had the same thirty people leave a building and then magically leave it again 20 pages later? That I was a third of the way into MBW without having introduced a vital subplot? When I was sweating my query/synopsis for Child of Fire?

Ki...