Ben Bova holds forth on one of the lesser known parts of verisimilitude. You're story isn't a "two ferengi and a klingon walk into a bar" joke. People are where they are for reasons. While there are always diamonds in the rough, the sad tale is that most people aren't. Your characters should be, but they should also make sense (or where they are should make sense). In Bladesman all the characters are where they are because their lives made sense there (our main character is sort of thrown into the position, and the book is also about his discovery that he is a diamond in the rough).
Chuck Wendig and his take on NaNoWriMo and his famous 25 things.Yes, that. When I first encountered NaNo, I was dismissive. However, I've changed. In fact, if I didn't have so damn much going on, I would try it this year with the new novel. Look, if in a year I can hammer out 75,000 words in a first(ish) draft (actually the first 8 chapters were pretty advanced, in their 6th and 7th rewrites) that was mostly coherent, and that's with a day job with severe overtime, a night job, freelance, and hour long commute, yadda yadda yadda, if you don't have all that, surely you could bang out 50,000 words in a month. If you want to. YMMV, and yes I know many an excellent writer who, if given domestic staff and a winning lottery ticket, couldn't crank out 50k words in half a year. Everybody's speed is different.
Ten things you should know about creating an e-commerce site. That's mostly about the nuts-and-bolts, not about the whys, wherefores, and what you're selling and how to promote it.
John Scalzi points out six reasons being a Jedi isn't all the promotional brochures make it out to be.
Slime molds, our world is stranger than you think. Turns out slime molds are colonies of amebas that work in conjunction with each other. (Grokked from Jay Lake)
More proof that our world is weirder than we think, the Nikon Small World winners. A tour de force of microscopy. And now I've got that damn song in my head. (Pointed to by John)
Some highlights from the first 25 years of Microsoft's Windows. Except that Windows is 28 years old. Sigh. (Pointed to by John)
Jim Wright once again channels my thoughts. This time concerning the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.
4 comments:
Oh noes! The link to the e-commerce article didn't work.
I'll just mosey along and check out the other links...
Sorry about that Sheila. It's fixed now. As well as you can see the rest of my witty comments on Chuck's article.
I love NaNoWriMo. I write, I coach teenagers through it, I recruit everyone I can find. Chuck's not wrong in his 25 Things, but there are more benefits than he notes, and he's a bit anal about the drawbacks (yes, pun intended.)
This year's novel is cureently titled Pigs In Space with a hope that the tribute to Hensen will encourage them to hire my son for a co-op next year.
Anonymous Cassie
Hey Cassie, that's excellent. And yeah, I think the whole point of Chuck's 25 things meme is that he is a little bit anal (and offensive) about things. Good luck with NaNo, though.
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