Tag: writing
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Plethoria Mediocrita?
Over at Ticonderoga Online, punkrocker1991 muses in his editorial about the state of modern SF writing in Oz. “Yes, we’re publishing more, but is our writing getting better? I’m not convinced.” Healthier, he says, but not stronger. (Also, he mentions my name. I wish he wouldn’t do that, it makes it harder to quote him…
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Yikes, Jung.
From quotez: “The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.” -Carl Jung Not sure I’d stretch it to ‘all’ mental illness (though, y’know, out of me & Jung, pick the famous psychologist type. So … ), but I’d pay this one. Avoidance is a mental ouroboros. A green-eyed monster that…
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Writers talk shop
docbrite makes some nice comments about writing rules here and here. I particularly like: “In light of all the recent discussion about “self-indulgence” in fiction writing, I have decided I believe self-indulgent writing is generally of a higher quality, more enjoyable to read, and likelier to touch a chord in readers’ hearts than non-self-indulgent writing.…
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Meta-texts, thanks
Tonight Keifer Sutherland spoke to me. He told me that terrorism was serious, that muslims ‘stood beside us’ in opposition to terrorism. That they, too, were good people who loved their families. Unlike in the following episode of 24, he said. Or similar. I paraphrase. A few things struck me. 1. Muslims are like ‘us’,…
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Same, same, different, same…
The other week I saw Destiny’s Child interviewed (in the days when Destiny’s Child still existed, of course) & Beyonce Knowles was talking about how the band worked to do something different with its music. ‘It’s not just pop music,’ she said, or words to that effect. Except, of course, it is. Destiny’s Child produced…
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Twisted
The Lester Dent thing got some notice recently, & slithytove noted: 1) it mentions character almost not at all; 2) it emphasizes plot twists, which I rarely hear talked about. Interesting. Because plot, I thought, was more important to genre writers than mainstream writers. I mean, just anecdotally. Just going from what you hear discussed…
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Ashbery to Ashbery
You are John Ashbery. People love your work buthave no idea why, really. You are respected byall kinds of scholars and poets. Even artistslike you. Which Famous Modern American Poet Are You Quizilla, etc. Ashbery’s works are characterized by a free-flowing, often disjunctive syntax, extensive linguistic play, often infused with considerable humor, and a prosaic,…
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Lines in the sand. Or, in the dirt.
When is it self-indulgence & when would you call it courage? When do you go from uncompromising to obscurantist, from individual to irrelevant, from subverting the dominant paradigm, to wilfully antagonistic? I saw ‘Yes’ the other night at the Syd Film Festival, a film written/directed by Sally Potter starring Joan Allen and Sam Neil, delivered…
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Genre #1: The Cocktail
“Whether it’s a sign of the declining quality of film or illustration in general, these days most movie posters just don’t inspire the same artistic awe.” [big snip] “Today, a lot of posters are put together on computers, but back in the day when posters were completely handmade, illustrators worked in a variety of mediums…
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‘We laughed!’ we cried.
Hello, hello, I have discovered my Peek’s Five Questions up over at benpeek‘s blog, along with a bunch of other interviews with a bunch of other people. I’m liking the way this is teasing out the individual thoughts of a complex system often simplistically referred to as ‘the scene’. Definitely worth checking out all week…