Category: Guest Post
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Love the One You’re With
by - November 12th, 2010
This being November, I’ve been wasting my internet time on my favorite pre-holiday activity: lurking on the NaNoWriMo forums. In fact, if you post in the fantasy section, I’ve probably read your description of your story in 15 words or less or your critique of the above user’s excerpt. Reading the NaNoWriMo fantasy forums is an exercise in masochism on my part because they make me so freaking mad. Allow me to give you an example. Nine times out of ten, when you navigate over to the forum to see what’s new, you will find some variation of the following:
- Top ten most hated fantasy cliches
- How do you avoid cliches?
- Help! I’m worried my novel is too cliched! T__T
- How my novel is going to lift fantasy out of the stinking pile of cliche we all know it is
Ok, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea. Read the rest of this entry »
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The Walking Dead 1.02 with Jesse Petersen
by - November 8th, 2010
Jesse Petersen is the author of MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES and the forthcoming FLIP THIS ZOMBIE. Like many of us here at Orbit HQ, she’s also a fan of The Walking Dead on AMC. She’ll be offering recaps of each week’s episode here every Monday. This post will contain SPOILERS (also zombies) after the jump. For previous recaps see 1.01 Read the rest of this entry »
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The Walking Dead with Jesse Petersen
by - November 4th, 2010
Jesse Petersen is the author of MARRIED WITH ZOMBIES and the forthcoming FLIP THIS ZOMBIE. Like many of us here at Orbit HQ, she’s also a fan of The Walking Dead on AMC. She’ll be offering recaps of each week’s episode here every Monday (she’s a few days late this week because she just returned from ZOMBCON, which takes a bit out of a girl, what with all the zombie action.) It should go without saying that this post has a giant SPOILER ALERT!
For months I’ve been salivating for the start of “The Walking Dead”, the new series on AMC that is based on the fantastic graphic novels by Robert Kirkman. So when Orbit asked me if I’d like to recap and review each episode here on the blog, the question hadn’t even been completely asked when I answered, “Yes… Yes… Yes… YES!!!” There shall be spoilers, so be aware. And my grade at the end, along with my comments. And so I give you, “The Walking Dead”:
Read the rest of this entry »
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Ideas about Ideas
by - October 28th, 2010
Where do you get your ideas?
Ever since I got my agent and it was no longer an act of extreme hubris to introduce myself as a writer at parties, I’ve been waiting for someone to ask this question. I’ve got my answer all ready! It would go like this:
Random starry-eyed person: Where do you get your ideas?!
Me: China, where everything else in America comes from.
*drumroll*
China is the new Schenectady, folks! Read the rest of this entry »
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A few thoughts about The Sworn and The Dread—Looking Towards the Future
by - October 27th, 2010
As this blog comes out, The Sworn is getting closer and closer to its publication date in late January, and The Dread is nearly completed in first draft. It’s been very interesting for me working on these two books, since they show the characters maturing and dealing with some new and troubling issues, compared to the challenges faced in the first four books.
Of course, one way that The Sworn and The Dread are different is that they offer a gateway into my world of the Winter Kingdoms for readers who haven’t read the other four books. I like the idea of offering multiple points of entry into a fantasy world, so that as the number of books set in that world grows, readers don’t feel like they have to get caught up if they don’t want to do so or aren’t ready to tackle the project. So for new readers, The Sworn and The Dread are a fresh start, while readers who have been with the series since the beginning will see old friends facing a brand new adventure. Read the rest of this entry »
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The Analytical Reader
by - October 21st, 2010
I was just over at Gary Corby’s blog, simply checking in. Gary was giving a nod to his beta readers with comments such as, ‘Asks all the tough plot, theme and character questions that I really wish no one had noticed’ and ‘His critiques are always so depressingly right.”
Yes, yes, been there. I expect most writers have. This is exactly why good beta readers are so crucial, because they notice plot, theme and character problems and issue critiques that are ‘depressingly right’. I vividly remember, for example, my brother’s suggestion to cut a hundred or so pages out of the middle of one of my books (this advice was spot on, as it was [depressingly] obvious as soon as it was given). From time to time people tell me about the book they are writing or have written, and the best advice I can give them is: You need a beta reader and you need this person to be (a) widely read in your genre, and (b) HIGHLY ANALYTICAL. Read the rest of this entry »
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“The Heir of Night”: Keeping It Real with Armour and Weapons
by - October 11th, 2010
As a kid, I always loved armour and weapons. We lived in Singapore for some years, too, so in addition to western traditions including medieval armour, then cuirassiers, and later the long rifle, I was also aware of oriental armour and weaponry. I even had a Chinese sword—imitation, of course—and horse rider’s composite bow. From endless childhood games in which wars and battles were re-enacted, it is perhaps not surprising that I graduated to fencing during my high school and university years. As an adult, I trained first in tai chi and kung fu, and then the Japanese martial art aikido, which involves both “empty hand” training and weapons, including the Japanese sword, knife, and staff. Read the rest of this entry »
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Writing and Writer’s Workshops
by - October 6th, 2010
The dog ate my homework.
I have a writer’s workshop coming up soon, so I’ve been going through my notes and reminding myself of what it is I wish to convey and how to best go about communicating it to my students. I can’t stand waffling and hot air, so I tend to give very short very concentrated workshops. They last a week maximum (sometimes in the case of workshops given to schools, the week is spread out in little pieces over a month or more) I don’t tend to focus on ‘voice’ or ‘finding your story’ or any of the other more esoteric subjects. My aim is simply to bring the participants back to the basics and to have them build themselves up from that base level, a piece at a time, until they’ve explored what it is they are writing and how they are writing it. Read the rest of this entry »
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The Writer’s Precious Workplace
by - October 4th, 2010
Ask any writer what tools are invaluable to their trade and it’s likely they’ll answer mostly in abstracts. For example, a good memory, an ear for dialogue, and a familiarity with the beats of a well-constructed sentence could all be prized tools for any writer. Physical, concrete tools favored by writers are usually complicated pieces of technology that only a very slim margin of working writers can afford.
But it seems these days that fewer and fewer writers are giving thought to one of the most invaluable tools of all: their workplace. Any craft requires a station; the carpenter has his workshop, and the painter his studio, so the writer must also have a place of creation, a peaceful sanctuary that allows mental abilities the room for action.
My own workplace is a great example of what any writer needs to get through the day-to-day toil of attempting literature. Come with me, and I’ll guide you through its many components, detailing how each article lends itself to my work. Follow my advice, and perhaps you too can create your own literary asylum, one that will help you survive both in the writing world and the physical one, protecting you against the many foes your writing will doubtlessly enrage. Read the rest of this entry »
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The Heir of Night: Introducing The World of Haarth
by - October 4th, 2010
Although Worldcon goers got a sneak preview several weeks back, The Heir of Night, (which is the first book of my epic The Wall of Night quartet) will be officially available for sale in Australia and New Zealand on 7 October — although UK readers will have to wait a little longer, until March 2011 — and I will definitely be celebrating! But a book coming on sale is a time for reflection, as well: not just about the path to that point, but also about the nature of the story I’ve told and what makes it special—for me, and I hope for readers ‘out there’.
One of the aspects I have always loved about Fantasy-Science Fiction (F-SF) is the door it opens into fantastic worlds. Science Fiction offers worlds such as Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s Dune and the Union/Alliance space of CJ Cherryh’s Downbelow Station, while Fantasy gives us Middle-Earth (Tolkien), Earthsea (Le Guin) and Bas-Lag (Miéville), to name only a very few. So it is perhaps not surprising that in The Heir of Night (Heir) I introduce my own world of Haarth. Read the rest of this entry »
