or, Training for NaNoWriMo… my way November is coming up, and already in writerly circles you can hear the whispers… “NaNoWriMo is coming…” “Are you going to do it?” “Did you do it last year?” “Did you finish it?” NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month (ironically, it is now an international sensation), is a …
My mom (the Wonderful Mother so often alluded to on this blog) always gets the latest gadgets on her phone. Recently she upgraded the camera and got the ability to take “burst photos.” That is, you press down the shutter button and the camera takes dozens of pictures per second until you take your finger …
The climax of World Fantasy is, of course, the banquet. They clear out the biggest hall and fill it with round tables and put a stage at one end. There is a catered dinner, and then they announce the winners of that year’s World Fantasy awards. Publishers can reserve entire tables for their employees and …
Rambling around the internet earlier today I stumbled on a quote from an article about Mary Sues, and how we need more of them. The article in question is here but I should say that I haven’t read all of it, because I can tell at a glance that it is exactly the sort of …
Last night I read an article on The Mary Sue that got me surprisingly upset. It inspired this tweet from my alter-ego, Agent Elrond: Please read this article about lack of female villains: themarysue.com/on-female-vill… And then this page from Angeldevil: fav.me/d5kk95v — Agent Elrond (@agentelrond42) June 7, 2013 Now, if you go read that article you’ll …
HORSES are of a breed unique to Fantasyland. They are capable of galloping full-tilt all day without rest. Sometimes they do not require food or water. They never cast shoes, go lame, or put their hooves down holes, except when Management deems it necessary, as when the forces of the DARK LORD are only half …
Author’s Note: This is a vignette I wrote some years ago to accompany a drawing I had made. I recently came across it and thought I’d share it (and the drawing) here. I have also committed Poetry at the end. Forgive me. —G In times long past the Prince of Hell was prone to fits of …
I had this brilliant idea to do a blog post about horses in fiction and how they are misrepresented and how to do them justice. 5,000 words later I realized what I had was a series of blog posts, and ones that would need to be heavily proofed at that. So while those are getting shaken …
NOTE: I wrote this journal some time ago and have been sitting on it. However, this piece in the New Yorker made me realize now is the time to let it out. In her article, Joan Acocella talks about famous novels with bad endings, and postulates about why this is. I’m surprised she never touched …
I’ve been watching a lot (some would argue too much) of Supernatural lately. Supernatural (to be henceforth abbreviated to SPN) is an dark fantasy/horror/ghost story TV show. It follows the adventures of the brothers Dean and Sam Winchester as they drive around a version of the U.S. that looks remarkably like British Columbia in an …
