Science-fiction writer
I’ve never quite managed to take a real break from writing. Not because I write every day (I certainly don’t), but because even after weeks or months of not putting in any wordcount, I still think of my story, my ambitions and all the work I still need to do. Always have. And while it [...]
Always a hot topic, but mostly for the wrong reasons. With triggers and taboos I mean everything from profanity, religion, sex, racism, sexism, sexual variations and paraphilias, mental illnesses and other “common” triggers, right down to pedophilia, violent sexual abuse, sadistic torture, slaughter, cannibalism, and more such atrocities that are rarely discussed in public. The [...]
Stereotypes are oversimplified ways of cataloging groups of people based on the differences between them and other groups of people. They are sometimes rooted in fact, sometimes in prejudice, and if taken at face value, they contribute to intolerance and discrimination and limit people in their understanding of society. Stereotypes exist, and they will continue to [...]
Know what writers are particularly good at? Compromises. Know what makes the difference between mediocre and extraordinary fiction? Compromises. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, about the rush and excitement of the writing community, especially now after NaNo, and about how many compromises writers make that end up dilluting their work and their [...]
I’m still wondering about the expectations and priorities of writers in general, and of science-fiction writers in particular. My sincere apologies if this seems repetitive, but I need to set a few things straight before I move on, otherwise this thingum will gnaw at me and suck much needed neuronal capacity away from my revision. [...]
Science-fiction writers have an enormous advantage over scientists, but unfortunately most of us don’t realize it, and the rest don’t exploit it to its full extent. It’s something most scientists lack, it’s the cause of their limitations, compromises and inflexibility, and the main reason today’s mainstream scientific theory about the workings and origin of the [...]
November is the perfect month for writing and being creative, whether along with the gazillion people doing NaNoWriMo, or just because the weather has begun to suck so badly there’s just no other viable thing to do but curl up with a good book (preferably your own manuscript) and travel to another world. This year [...]
Last week, Amazon introduced a new author ranking system based on the sales of an author’s entire portfolio, not just on the sales of individual novels. It’s supposedly intended to empower authors, and Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords.com says “It’s a smart feature. It recognizes that the author — not the publisher — is the brand [...]
Science is what separates sci-fi from fantasy, and its usually the nature, plausibility and degree of scientific detail that tiers the genre into several “levels”. Hard sci-fi is the one with the balls of steel in that respect, but what about the other subgenres? How important is the plausibility, and by extension the probability, of [...]
To round up the little series of posts on the ingredients of a professional attitude as writers, let’s take a look at the last two, positivity and vision. They are closely related, and it’s important to realize that we have a distinctive choice in the matter. Life is the result of a series of choices, [...]
I'm fascinated with the dynamics of the human mind and the mechanics of the universe, so I twist both of them into a twine and make a pretty little bow. Around a plasma cannon!
