Apr
19

Word Whore Thursday

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I’ve actually pulled in another guest poster for my normal weekly Word Whore blog. (And there will be another one next week as well.) I was lamenting that fact a bit last night because this week’s topic was foreign TV shows and I would have loved to talk about anime…but the deadline continues to loom and I have to streamline my time. (And I totally screwed up this weekend – I was supposed to have done my monthly League of Reluctant Adults post on Saturday and completely forgot.) Anyway, in the meantime, have a shiny – this is a sketchcard done by Aimo for the winner of the sketchcard contest Jeffe held for me on her blog during A Sliver of Shadow’s release week. (Such pretty colors!!) (There’s another shiny coming, but I can’t post it yet because the person doesn’t know about it. Ha ha.)  … Read more
Apr
18

Doodle Me This

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I’m not an artist and I don’t play one on TV. But when I’m stressed or distracted (or attempting to do revisions and feeling overwhelmed, *ahem*) I tend to doodle. And I doodle eyes. A lot. And little squiggly vine things. I’m not entirely sure what the eye thing means – I’ve done it for as long as I can remember. It’s almost always just one eye. And vine things. Sometimes cat faces or dog faces or snakes, but it always comes back to eyes and vines. I’m sure there’s some esoteric meaning or process to explain it. I’ve heard doodling eyes means you’re paranoid or feeling like everyone is watching you. (Possible). I don’t know about the vines – maybe I’m feeling trapped? Or maybe I just like drawing eyes and vines. (Incidentally, I’m also a rabid gum chewer when I’m writing. Or stressed out – I’ve been trying… Read more
Apr
17

Review Advice

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I get a lot of questions sometimes about my writing methods, such as they are. I always feel vaguely uncomfortable answering them because there isn’t any real big secret. The way I do things may not be the way you do things, and there certainly isn’t any sort of magic pill. Except the Ass-In-Chair-Fingers-On-Keyboard sort. Because really, having all the writing rituals in the world isn’t actually going to write your story for you. Rituals are all well and good if they help you get into the proper mindset to work, but if you’re using them as an avoidance technique? That’s no good. (“I can’t write, right now! I don’t have my special candle/footwarmers/chocolate jellybeans, etc.”) But one thing I can say that I don’t do around revision time? Read reviews. Reviews can be a bit of a mindfield at the best of times, particularly on a site like GoodReads… Read more
Apr
16

Did Buffy Destroy Urban Fantasy?

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First off, let me preface this by saying I adore Buffy. I adore Joss Whedon. I adore Urban Fantasy.  So this isn’t a post geared toward stirring up any major sort of controversy or anything – just some general obeservations.  (And it’s not meant to be all encompassing – just my thoughts…) I was doing a fair amount of thinking of genre over the weekend (in between revisions, of course. As one does, when you have a deadline looming over your head. >_< ) (Also, I should note this is going to get rambly and without purpose, as so many of my posts often do. Sorry about that.) But anyway – when I was younger – my early and late teens – I was a pretty big reader of fantasy and sci-fi. Urban Fantasy as a genre didn’t really exist, but there were a few authors/books that fall under that… Read more
Apr
12

You Deserve a Drink

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Did I say I was going to stay offline? Yeah, I guess I did. Guess I lied. But I have taken a few amusing breaks here and there (between using Freedom, which is very helpful, btw.) At the moment I’m a bit mentally frazzled, because it’s taken me nearly the entire day to rewrite most of a chapter (one of those things where one small change ended up changing a ton of other things. It’s a bit of a domino effect. *sigh*) And even though I don’t really drink, I sorta feel like I deserve one. Failing that, I’ve been amusing myself by watching this (and the ton of other videos she’s got.)… Read more