So for the last thirty years or so, whenever I’ve been working on a book or short story (which has been most of the time), I would do it in the mornings before going (or, since our office closed, “going”) to work. Also, for the past 15 years or so, when I’ve been working on the blog—mostly not this one, of course, but rather, the one with the animals on it—I’ve been doing that in the mornings befor work, too, or else on the weekends. But it’s only the last year or so that I’ve been trying to work on a book and do a daily post on the animals’ blog, and that, it turns out, is just a little too much to manage.
Continue reading “A Change Of Scenery”Category: Books
Teaser Tuesday: “The Future is Blue”
So this week I was reading The Future is Blue, a story collection by one of my favorite writers, Catherynne M. Valente:
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Teaser Tuesday: “The Poppy War”
So this week I was reading The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang, which I would characterize as Big Trouble in Little China meets Harry Potter meets Mulan, although insofar as I have never actually seen Mulan (any version) I’m kind of just guessing on that last one*.
Wrong Turn, Clyde
So as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t plan my books out in advance, except for that one time, and that one time the book didn’t come out anything like how I planned it. This tends to end up working out well for me, but it also means that, sometimes, I end up going in a direction that doesn’t work out. In the case of Dragon Stones, that entailed the wholesale excision of a character’s point of view scenes*; but in the case of the book I’m currently working on, Blue Roses, I’ve decided that the direction it was going with three of the main characters (four if you count the squirrel**) just wasn’t working out, and so I’ve axed the last 20,000 words or so, pruning the story back to where it branched in the direction that proved unproductive***. Because sometimes you’ve gotta be ruthless.
Teaser Tuesday: “Theory of Bastards”
So this week I was reading Theory of Bastards, by Audrey Schulman, AKA Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Bonobo Sex But Were Afraid To Ask.
Teaser Tuesday: “All Systems Red”
So this week I was reading All Systems Red, the first novella in “The Introvertbot Murderbot Diaries”, the multiple-award-winning series by Martha Wells:
Teaser Tuesday: “Space Opera”
So this week I was reading Space Opera, by one of my favorite authors, Catherynne M. Valente:
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Teaser Tuesday: “The Seventh Sword” Collection
So this week, and likely for several weeks yet to come*, I have been reading The Seventh Sword, an omnibus collecting the four books in “The Seventh Sword” series, by Dave Duncan:
Teaser Tuesday: “The Boy Who Lost Fairyland”
So this week I was reading The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, the next-to-last entry in Catherynne M. Valente’s “Fairyland” series (not counting a couple of interstitial short stories):
Teaser Tuesday: “A Scanner Darkly”
So this week I was reading A Scanner Darkly, a shortish dystopian novel by some guy named Philip K. Dick. Maybe you’ve heard of him. If not, you’ve almost certainly heard of the movie Blade Runner, which was based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?*
Viscosity 