Mur Lafferty's Blog, page 78

Treading water- just barely

I'm trying to get my novel edited. Besides the paying work deadlines, it is my only priority. Hence no blogging or podcasting.

I have gone through the horrible angst of, "this is nothing but derivative tripe," and have reached the point in creation that Connie Willis refers to as "The f***ing book." It is only my knowledge that this is normal that keeps me going.

I'm not on twitter much. I'm not on chat much. My priorities right now are a) family, b) paying work, c) novel. Usually in that...

All Write! Pin-Ups: Vengence!

July is ALL WRITE! Pin-Up Month, and we're kicked off  by nothing  less than the fantastic artwork of  Josef Komenda! Feel free to leave you appreciation of this fine work of art in the comments.

The Many Colors Of Sir Pussykins

With such talented artist providing Sit Pussykins artwork, it became clear that future illustrations of the cat-making an omelet variety had to be in color. The bar, as they say, had been set.

Josef Komenda started by reworking his first entry, but the proceeded to knock our socks with a whole new drawing that shows the serious side of a cat making an omelet.

Meanwhile, Elfie M. Noyes served up her own version of Sir Pussykins, with a bit more whismy:

So many ways for a cat to make an omelet...

All Write! #21: By The Tweve Heavens

Summer is now dead upon us, and the All Write! crew likes to take a vacation as much as anyone else.  So we're taking July off.  Not to worry though, as I've arranged some very talented folks to do some fill-in content while Natalie and I take a breather.  Your Mondays will still be filled with the joy that only these characters can provide.

Also, I've been collecting new pictures of Sir Pussykins making an omelet, and they are all fantastic. I'll be posting them all on Friday, so if you've...

All Write! #20 – Racketeering

Silk Purses and Sow's Ears

There's that old country saying: "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Meaning that if you start with crap ingredients, you won't make anything good.

I was talking to a nonfic author who had received some bad editorial comments on something he had written, and the publisher had given him a one day turnaround time. He did the edits on time, but still worried that the editor's negative comments were bad enough to hurt his reputation with a publisher.

When I wrote RPGs, the number one ...

All Write! #19 – Bold Feelings

ISBW #147: Writing Tools/Liz Gorinsky Interview

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A much more … sane ISBW returns to talk writing tools and to play the fantastic interview conducted by Chris Lester of the Hugo-nominated Tor editor, Liz Gorinsky!

You can learn more about Metamor City, Chris's award winning project.

More Than One Way For A Cat To Make An Omelet

The immensely talented J.R. Blackwell, so taken with the most recent All Write! comic, sent out a call for illustrations of Sir Pussykins making an omelet. In her own inimitable style.

It will surprise no one that J.R.'s force of will gave us not one, not two, but three versions of Sir Pussykin's culinary expertise:

Josef Komenda

Bryan Prindiville

Jennifer Rodgers

I adore them all. I can only hope that this is merely the first entries of long and lustrous series of cat-making-an-omelet...

Ebook Publishing

Ebook formatting isn't easy. I know this. I put out my own book, Playing For Keeps, on Kindle, and the formatting has garnered some one star reviews on an otherwise popularly reviewed book.

I know this because I've seen horrible books put out on Lulu (this starts with a PDF, so I still count it as ebook formatting.) When my and JR Blackwell's book Her Side was formatted by a professional, Daniel Solis, (more on that project in a later post), I had editors and authors at Balticon commenting...