Tag: Meme

Works in Progress

Juvenalia Week

After realising that the last few years have been rather good to him on the writing front, Jason Fischer has decided to take a quick tour through the lands of the writer he used to be and declared this Juvenalia Week. And since he’s under the assumption that the embarrassing mistakes of yesteryear are something all writers share, he’s encouraging others to join him in his public display of work from our misbegotten pasts. I’m nothing if not a joiner, but seeing as I can’t find my old book of short stories from when I was actually a jouvenile I set the way-back machine to the file on my computer marked “Poetry, 1998” and grabbed one of the hundreds at random. I wrote a lot of poetry over ’98 and ’99 – I’d decided that I’d write a poem a day while I worked on my honors thesis in place and white-space poetics – but this one seems to hit all

Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Twenty-Five Random Thoughts About Writing

Right what is says on the tin – it got inspired by a facebook meme but my natural love of verbage meant it raged out of control. Anyway, this is actually a pretty good summary of what the interior of my head looks like when the subject of writing comes up. Some are me-specific, some a general, and most were written down fast in order to see what the first twenty-five thoughts that came to mind actually were. I take no responsibility for accidents caused if you follow any of these hastily constructed thoughts and give the usual warnings of upcoming writer-angst (it’s been that kind of week): 1) There is no “one true way to write,” but there are several commonly touted pieces of advice that both make sense to me and largely represent an decent list of “things worth doing unless you’ve got a good reason not to.” 2) This list is not one of them. 3) There

Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

Interview Meme, part three

Another round of questions, this time from the ever-stylin’ Ben Francisco. He starts with a big genre question that’s very close to the thesis that’s rattling around my head, then asks a bunch of tricky questions to follow up, so I’m going to be long-winded for this one. Consider yourself warned: 1. You were once somewhat active with the Goth community, and your stories are still often influenced by Gothic tropes (and noir tropes) just as much as they are by spec fic tropes. What is it about these other, darker genres that attracts you? Is it just the make-up and sexy black outfits, or is it something deeper? I think the phrase you’re looking for is “just barely active within the goth community” -I was a goth lurker, for the most part. At the time I was living on the Gold Coast, which is one of those places that’s fairly isolating if you’re young and you don’t have a

Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

More Interview Meme

Another five questions answered (see Yesterday’s post for the meme rules). Today’s interview comes courtesy of Lee Battersby. 1. 20 000 word unicorn novella, hey? What’s the follow up? If everything goes to plan, a 20,000 word noir story about a PI and her magical-talking cat partner. I’m thinking there may well be more after that, depending on the kind of fantasy tropes I come accross and want to corrupt, but I figure the magic talking cat genre is the next one I want to pit the gritty realities of noir against. 2. Where is this writing journey taking you, ultimately? I wish I knew. I’ve never really planned my writing career, just followed the chain of opportunities and challenges as they came along. For a long time that meant writing poetry, then writing and publishing RPG material, and now it’s the short story. Given that I finally seem to be getting a grip on the novella, which was the

Madcap Adventures and Distracting Hijinx

It’s a Slow News Day, so you get a Meme

It’s the day after the Aurealis Awards and I’m basically running on fumes at this point (courtesy of an early start for the official recovery breakfast, an industry seminar, lunch, and a reading by Margo Lanagan this afternoon). With that in mind, I’m suspending any pretense of coming up with original content and embracing the ancient art of memeage. The Rules: 1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me!” 2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions. 3. You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal. 4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. 5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. And thus the endless cycle of the meme goes on and on and on and on… Current Interview Questions courtesy of Jason Fischer (If you want to ask