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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) westerfeld_blog | |
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http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/?p=2022 As we all approach the end of NaNoWriMo, you may be thinking, “Well, I might not ever finish this sucker, but at least I got my 50,000 words done. And that’s what I set out to do, so I’m awesome!”
Um, no.
You need to complete your NaNoWriMo novel, even if it takes you till next November. Here’s why:
Finishing is a habit, and it’s a very important ones for writers to cultivate. In fact, my very first writing advice post, back on June 26, 2005, was about finishing. So let me end my month of Nano Tips by reposting that long-ago advice, which is as true today as it was back then . . .
Finish everything!
There will always be a part of your brain that wants to give up when characters aren’t behaving, when you don’t know where to go next, when the inspiration has faded. Don’t give the start-something-else part of your brain any extra leverage, or it will win every time. And once it starts winning . . . Well, let’s just say that the not-finishing habit is a hard one to break.
It’s easy to think up logical reasons to stop writing a story. You say to yourself: “This sucks. Why waste any more time? I’ll start something new that inspires me!”
Yeah, well, the inspiration of a new story is exciting. But if you wind up not finishing ninety percent of what you start, guess what happens. After a few years you’ll have written 100 beginnings, 40 middles, and only 10 endings. Which means you’ll be great at writing beginnings, only so-so at middles, and you’ll suck at endings. Which means you will almost certainly keep faltering between the middle and the end of every story, which means you’ll keep giving up and not finishing . . . Rinse, repeat.
And that’s a hole you don’t want to fall into. So finish, even if you know this story isn’t going to win you the Nobel Prize—it’s good practice to type THE END.
That’s it from me! Good luck with the remaining hours of NaNoWriMo. Don’t forget to check out Justine’s post yesterday, and her big finish tomorrow!
I’ll see you in December with non-writing advice posts. Phew.
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larbalestier | |
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http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/11/29/blogging-teaching/ http://justinelarbalestier.com/?p=6928 One of my highlights of NCTE was doing a panel on blogging with Laurie Halse Anderson, Maureen Johnson, Barbara O’Connor and Lisa Yee. The panel was put together and moderated by Denise Anderson, who was just splendid and had done a tonne of research. I was very impressed. They’ve all now blogged about the panel. (Links to their posts are on their names.) All except for me and Maureen. As I think it’s a sign of deep failure not to blog about a panel on blogging I am now fixing my omission. I doubt Maureen will, however, because hers is not that kind of a blog.
The panel was aimed at teachers and concerned with demonstrating how they can make use of authors’ blogs in the classroom. Denise observed that many of her colleagues were unaware of authors blogs and was on a mission to open their eyes. I suspect, though, that most of the educators in the audience were well aware of blogs and that was why they were there. Certainly the questions we were asked were very knowledegable.
We authors took the opportunity to ask the teachers not to set writing to authors as an assignment. Yes, that’s right, we whinged. We explained how much time it takes for us to answer questions especially when there are forty students writing us at once. Volume is not our only issue. The students tend to write asking us questions that are already answered on our sites, revealing they have the skills to find our email addresses, but not to find the answers to their questions, which are also in plain slight.
We also mentioned that some of the letters we get from students are flat out rude:
YOU MUST ANSWER THIS EMAIL STRAIGHT AWAY. MY HOMEWORK IS DUE TOMORROW. HERE ARE MY 456 QUESTIONS.
Laurie asked the following question: “Should we continue to spend classroom time on letter writing or has the time come to teach how to compose appropriate email communication?”
Our panel gave a very emphatic yes to the second half. Teach them how to write polite emails, please! I saw many heads nodding in the audience.
Another concern we had was students leaving comments on our blog making their phone numbers or email addresses public. We made it clear that we delete such information but thought that was another thing that could be addressed in the classroom.
We were all very clear that we love hearing from our readers and try very hard to answer them all. It’s just the students demanding we do their homework that we’re reluctant to respond to. We write for a living. Our novels are our top priorities, any additional writing comes after that. Which is why most of us started blogging in the first place—to have a method of communicating directly with our readers. We all agreed that the comments are the best part of blogging. Laurie said that she feels the readers of her blog have become family.
Laurie also mentioned that if they ever have parents wanting to remove a book from the school library or prevent it being taught they should get in contact with the writer because often the writer’s been through this before and can offer support. (Oh, look: it’s happened again, this time in Kentucky. And Laurie Halse Anderson’s Twisted is one of the books.)
Hmm, we seem to have agreed about many things. The only disagreement I can think of is when we were answering a question from the audience about the relationship of our blog writing to our novel writing. I said that I found blogging much more relaxing and easy than novel writing. While I craft it, the writing here doesn’t go through any where near as many drafts as my fiction does. Nor is it professionally edited, copyedited or proofed. It also has a different voice than my novel writing, but I do still think of it as writing and it has an influence on my novels.
Maureen said that she views all her writing the same whether it’s a novel or a blog post or a tweet and that it all has the same voice. Which I think is one of the main things that makes Maureen’s blog so different to most other blogs I read. Every entry reads like a story and the voice is indeed very like her novel writing voice (but quite distinct from the Maureen I know). And is why a post about a blogging panel wouldn’t work there.
Sadly I can no longer remember Lisa or Laurie’s response but Barbara was very clear that she did not see her blog writing as real writing at all. It’s completely distinct from her fiction.
I have to admit that before I was contacted to be part of this panel I had not given much thought to the use my blog might have for educators. For me this panel was an eye opener to look at blogs from a different point of view. Not just from the “this is fun” pov.
Though blogging is fun. I feel like that’s the one thing we didn’t talk about. Maybe next time.
Do any of you have any comments or ideas about blogging and teaching? Do any of you use blogs in the classroom? Encourage your students to read blogs? To blog?
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) sfwa
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sfwa_admin | |
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 Ansible has reported the tragic news that fantasy author, Robert Holdstock, passed away this morning at the age of 61. He had become ill on August 18th from an e coli infection and was admitted to ICU at the hospital.
His first published story (Pauper’s Plot) was in 1968 and he continued to write throughout his life. In his early career he used a variety of pseudonyms, such as Robert Faulcon, Chris Carlsen, Richard Kirk, Robert Black, Ken Blake, and Steven Eisler. His breakthrough novel, Mythago Woods, published under his own name, became the start of the Ryhope wood series. It went on to win BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1984 and the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1985.
Our condolences to his partner Sarah Biggs and the rest of his family.
Mirrored from SFWA | Comment at SFWA Tags: in memoriam, news, robert holdstock, sfwa blog
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bboffworld | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/offworld/~3/wUi0qa4IO5k/everything-but-the-g-2.html 
The true magic of LittleBigPlanet -- the PS3 debut from former Lionhead designers at then upstart Media Molecule -- wasn't fully understood until the game was in our collective hands for some time after its initial release.
What was then (mis-)understood as the videogame that would let us design our own videogames turned out to be one level abstracted from that. LittleBigPlanet had no intention of letting us faithfully recreate Mario's World 1-1 or Sonic's Green Hill Zone with pixel precision. Instead, what it does is take us back to the childhoods where we built those levels -- and every other bit of the world around us -- with the only materials we had at the time: markerpens, cardboard, felt and stickers.
And that's precisely what gives the game -- still continuing to grow and evolve both on the backs of its dedicated community (last reported to have created some 1.3 million levels) and through updates from MM themselves (their upcoming water pack has caused more excitement over a ubiquitous liquid than anyone imagined) -- its peerless charm.
That's not to discount the brilliance of its digital puppetry -- turning your tiny plush avatar into something you actually embody rather than simply propel forward -- or the delicate balance of its 'co-opertition' (as you attempt to hinder your friends' race toward score bubbles as evenly as you beg for their help). But it's the naive and innocent joy inherent in a game that's at heart about the arbitrary rules of the real-world games we created as kids ('you can only walk on the couch cushions, the floor is made of lava') as it is about its own crafted experience that's made it a modern classic.
So, in celebration of its recent first birthday, and its even Littler debut on the PlayStation Portable, below is a collection of the concepts and sketches (happily provided by its relaunched community site) that trace how the game's little pan-planet were cut-out constructed.
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bboffworld | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/offworld/~3/ePYAGR8KidM/sex-advice-from-dd-p.html Nerve is running "Sex Advice From Dungeons & Dragons Players," answering questions about RPGs, role-playing, and finding mating opportunities among the nerdy. It's a delight.
What's the best way to pick up a D&D player?
If you're a geek and you see a girl geek browsing the comic books and players' manuals, don't make assumptions. Nothing irritates me more than having someone tell me what I'm holding. I know what I'm holding. Aside from the fact that I came in here specifically looking for it, I CAN READ. Instead, try a trivia tidbit or a commentary on the quality/author/whatever. Your goal is to sound interested, not condescending. For the non-geek, we're really not that strange and different, but we tend to be a little defensive. Be willing to listen, stumble through some conversation you don't have the lingo for. Don't mock. Unless your romantic candidate starts talking about their characters in detail. No one finds that interesting. Really. Get out while you still can.
Sex Advice From Dungeons & Dragons Players
(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
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bboffworld | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/offworld/~3/LTFCZ3cmomQ/man-to-marry-his-vid.html  Last month, I wrote about a Japanese husband who confessed to his wife that he had a virtual girlfriend, a character from an addictive Nintendo DS game called Love Plus. Now, another man is planning to hold a wedding ceremony with his Love Plus girlfriend this coming Sunday. The man, who calls himself SAL9000, was so in love with Nene Anegasaki that he decided to marry her and take her on a honeymoon to Guam. Of course, this means that he literally just took his Nintendo DS to Guam... while there, he took photos, livecast their adventures on popular video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga, and documented their adventures using the augmented reality iPhone app Sekai Camera. In any case, the guy plans on having a public reception in Tokyo this Sunday. It will be livecast on Nico Nico Douga, but in case you miss it, we'll be bringing you an update early next week. Stay tuned!
via IT Media News (Japanese)
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bboffworld | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/offworld/~3/N9sXK7_Cptk/please-release-me-ma.html
It's a sure sign it's gearing up to the holidays when the games start pouring in thick and fast, and this week saw the high profile release of two just as highly-anticipated (and by all accounts excellent) sequels: the renaissance stealth of Assassin's Creed II to the dirty Delta zombie-slaughter of Left 4 Dead 2, but there's one return that's captured more of my time than all the above.
New Super Mario Bros. [Nintendo, Wii]
Classing the latest Super Mario Bros. as a sequel would be a bit of a misnomer: so unabashed is Nintendo about letting this latest game sit directly alongside its decades old brethren that they're using NES-era screenshots to advertise the game in Japan.
And that's precisely what it gives you (as it did with the DS NSMB), in modern dress, letting all of the true forward-looking innovation run off the evolutionary fork spawned by Mario 64 that led down to Galaxy and the upcoming Galaxy 2.
Which is by no means a slight, simply a forewarning that while it will trigger all the nostalgia you might expect, it can't -- and doesn't bother to -- feel like the classic reinvention (that each successive 8-, 16- and 64-bit entry did) that it now saves for its 3D kin.
Except for its four-player multiplayer, obviously. Because while the Bros. might at first seem to move a bit more mechanically this time around (a necessity for its now more technical wall-jumping play, compared to the classic free-wheeling right-ward sprint), it does allow expert players to perform the staggeringly complex ballet you see in the video at top. Even though the majority might never fully experience that dance themselves, that's what this New Super Mario is all about.
Art Style: DigiDrive [Q-Games, DS]
Nintendo's second best release this week is actually another refresh, this time the DSi downloadable release of DigiDrive, originally one of the keystones of the 'bit Generations' series -- a cult franchise of import-only art/experimental Game Boy Advance games released alongside the GBA Micro, in an effort to give that device a lifestyle vibe that would take it off the playground and into the boutique.
The first release from developer Q-Games to give us a taste of what they'd eventually accomplish on the PlayStation 3 with their own art-styled PixelJunk series, DigiDrive was the most boldly abstract of all the bit Generations games, but still one of its most instantly compelling.
Per the video above (taken, obviously, from the GBA version [the only DSi video is hopelessly low-res]), its an action-puzzle game of crossroads color-sorting, where successful stacking earns you fuel reserves collected by the flashing ambulance-syringes (Trigger Cars) to propel the shuffle puck (Core) at right (or, in the DSi version, on bottom) forward and away from an approaching Spike.
It's never explained in which realm of existence the Core actually relates to the cars, or why the Spike can't touch the Core, nor does it have to be, really, because the woman says Danger! when the Spike gets close, and that's all the impetus anyone should need. Those are the rules.
While it may easily be the most baffling gameplay description I've ever tried to convey, in practice it's a fantastically meditative experience, punctuated with quick bursts of more frantic traffic-directing in its Overdrive mode, and, three years on from its original release, again ranks at the top of the now Art Style brand.
Mini Squadron [MrFungFung, iPhone]
Full disclosure: even after decades of repeat exposure and furious concentration, I've still never managed to wrap my head around 3D dogfighting games, which in nearly ever case rapidly devolve into catching fast glimpses of my foes passing on either side to circle around behind and destroy me, or impotently spinning in tight loops hoping to spot an opening in someone else's defense, if not just to spot anyone at all.
Enter Mini Squadron, the first, best dogfighting game to let out the ace baron I knew I had in me all along, and all it took was stripping that z-axis nuisance and letting the aerial dance commence in 2D.
The indie debut of former Lionhead/Microsoft/Sony programmer Tak 'MrFungFung' Fung, Mini Squadron's pastel downsizing belies the arcade intensity of its battles (including local multiplayer fights), and the true tantalizing draw is the collecting and compulsive re-testing of new fighter planes unlocked in the course of each level.
 MinMe [Chaim Gingold, iPhone]
The eagle-eyed will note that MinMe isn't exactly new, having first been released in late September as a rare App Store entry as part of the ongoing Experimental Gameplay Project, but this week saw an update that was a wish fulfilled.
Developer Chaim Gingold -- best known as the design lead behind Spore's Creature Creator (and who you now may also recall from his previously covered more official App Store debut Earth Dragon) -- took that month's EGP 'Bare Minimum' theme even more seriously than fellow EGP entrant Adam Saltman's Canabalt, devising a stripped-bare square-pushing puzzle game of nine tutorial levels and a single final proper puzzle, ending precisely when the going was getting good.
I joked at the time that the game duly deserved another 60 some odd puzzles, and lo, Gingold did deliver, reconfiguring the game to give players 15 levels in its free download, and an additional 45 unlocked via an in-app purchase of a dollar.
It's this week's dollar best spent, too: running off a simple mechanic of pushing consecutive colored tiles into adjacent grid cell receptacles, Gingold wastes no time in conjuring up level after level of deviously complex and awesomely rewarding puzzles that are precisely what I'd hoped for after quickly conquering the original demo.
Captain Forever / Captain Successor [Farbs, web]
And finally, a special bonus entry released just hours before publication, as indie dev Farbs announces the completion of Captain Successor -- the follow-up to his original ship-constructing space-shooter Captain Forever -- and sets that latter game free for all to play, giving everyone a chance to finally understand why it's most hardcore indies' game of the year.
I've previously talked a bit more at length about what makes Forever special, and while I still haven't had the chance to fully explore what Successor brings to its simulated low-tech display, the promise of new ship parts and weaponry, and the chroma-spanning wireframe landscape that now glitches and flows beneath your ship is more than enough to bring me back.
Donating to the Forever Project gives you access to play Successor -- and, indeed, each further successor Farbs has planned down the road -- before its public release, and there are few indie efforts this year more deserving of that support.
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boingboing_net | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/avrUIb51tFo/boing-boing-gift-gui-4.html Mark and I have rounded up some of our favorite items from our 2009 Boing Boing reviews for the second-annual Boing Boing gift guide. We'll do one a day for the next six days, covering media (music/games/DVDs), gadgets and stuff, kids' books, novels, nonfiction, and comics/graphic novels/art books. Today, it's novels!
Makers (Cory Doctorow):
Technology lets low-cost providers take market share away from established companies, as Detroit auto makers and Paris fashion house designers have seen. Even high-tech companies have a hard time building sustainable businesses now that good ideas are copied so quickly that they become commodities.
In a time of great change, fiction can sometimes provide better understanding than facts alone. "As the pace of technological change accelerates, the job of the science fiction writer becomes not harder, but easier--and more necessary," he writes. "After all, the more confused we are by our contemporary technology, the more opportunities there are to tell stories that lessen that confusion."
L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal
Full review | Purchase
 The Strain: Book One
of The Strain Trilogy Someone said The Strain is a
combination of The Stand, Invasion of the Body
Snatchers, and I am Legend, which I'd say is a pretty
fair way of describing it. The first chapter is about an airplane that
lands at JFK from Germany and goes completely dark on the runway. It's
so creepy that when I told my wife and daughter about it *they* got
creeped out just from my description.
Full
review | Purchase
[ Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img<br>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.] <p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/avrUIb51tFo/boing-boing-gift-gui-4.html">http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/avrUIb51tFo/boing-boing-gift-gui-4.html</a></p>Mark and I have rounded up some of our favorite items from our 2009 Boing Boing reviews for the second-annual Boing Boing gift guide. We'll do one a day for the next six days, covering media (music/games/DVDs), gadgets and stuff, kids' books, novels, nonfiction, and comics/graphic novels/art books. Today, it's novels!
<p>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765312794/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofmakerslaunch.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a>
<strong>Makers (Cory Doctorow)</strong>:
Technology lets low-cost providers take market share away from established companies, as Detroit auto makers and Paris fashion house designers have seen. Even high-tech companies have a hard time building sustainable businesses now that good ideas are copied so quickly that they become commodities.
<p>
In a time of great change, fiction can sometimes provide better understanding than facts alone. "As the pace of technological change accelerates, the job of the science fiction writer becomes not harder, but easier--and more necessary," he writes. "After all, the more confused we are by our contemporary technology, the more opportunities there are to tell stories that lessen that confusion."
L. Gordon Crovitz, Wall Street Journal
<a href="http://craphound.com/makers">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765312794/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all">
<p>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061558230/boingboing"><img
src="http://boingboing.net/images/the-strain-tb.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><strong>The Strain: Book One
of The Strain Trilogy</strong> Someone said The Strain is a
combination of <em>The Stand</em>, <em>Invasion of the Body
Snatchers</em>, and <em>I am Legend</em>, which I'd say is a pretty
fair way of describing it. The first chapter is about an airplane that
lands at JFK from Germany and goes completely dark on the runway. It's
so creepy that when I told my wife and daughter about it *they* got
creeped out just from my description.
<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/26/the-strain-by-guille.html">Full
review</a> | <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061558230/boingboing">Purchase</a><br clear="all">
<p><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871139782/boingboing/"><img<br />
src="http://boingboing.net/images/world-made-by-hand-tb.jpg"<br />
width="100" height="100" align="left"></a> <strong>World Made by<br />
Hand</strong> In the sweet and sad novel, World Made By Hand by James<br />
Howard Kunstler, the population of the United States (and most likely,<br />
the world) has been decimated by an energy shortage, starvation,<br />
plagues, terrorism, and global warming. The story takes place in an<br />
unspecified time in the near future (I'm guessing it's around 2025 or<br />
so).<br />
<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/06/world-made-by-hand-b.html">Full<br />
review</a> | <a<br />
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871139782/boingboing/">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p><br clear="all"></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/061161705/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofunseenacademicals.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Unseen Academicals (Terry Pratchett)</strong>:<br />
Here's the setup: the wizards of Unseen University have discovered that a key grant from a former Archchancellor requires them to keep a football team that plays regular matches. It's been decades since the last UU team was fielded, and they're in imminent danger of losing a substantial source of funding. Meanwhile, football itself -- as played on the streets of Ankh-Morpork -- is a vicious game that is more riot than sport, and the wizards of UU have no intention of getting involved in that mess.<br />
<p><br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/11/11/pratchetts-unseen-ac.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/061161705/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0067121148X/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofABZBook.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book: A Primer for Adults Only (Shel Silverstein)</strong>:<br />
R is for Red: The fire is red, the fire engine is red, the fireman's hat is red... Too bad the fireman only goes to places WHERE THERE IS A FIRE.<br />
<p><br />
T is for TV: See the nice TV. The TV is warm... The TV loves you. Do you know that there are little elves who live inside the TV? ...If you take Daddy's hammer and break open the TV you will see the funny little elves. What will you name them? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/09/shel-silversteins-un.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0067121148X/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345460626/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofcaryatidscomver.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>The Caryatids (Bruce Sterling)</strong>:<br />
In The Caryatids, global warming has melted practically every government in the world (except China) -- leaving behind a slurry of refugees, rising seas, and inconceivable misery. But there are two stable monoliths sticking out of the chaos, a pair of "civil society groups" that embody the two major schools of smart green thought today: the Dispensation are Al Gore green capitalists based out of California who understand that glamor and profits, properly aimed, achieve more than any amount of stern determination and chaste conservation; their rivals are the Aquis, mostly European anarcho-techno-geeks who have abandoned money in favor of technologically mediated communal life where giant, powerful, barely controlled machines are deployed to save the refugees and heal the Earth.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/24/bruce-sterlings-the.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345460626/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1933929820/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofshatnercoversmall.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Shatnerquake (Jeff Burk)</strong>:<br />
It's the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner. <br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/04/30/shatnerquake-bizarro.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1933929820/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p> </p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061714305/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofsandmanslimcover.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Sandman Slim (Richard Kadrey)</strong>:<br />
Eleven years ago, James Stark was banished to hell by his circle of magic buddies, betrayed by his supposed friends for the crime of being a better magician than them. For eleven years, he's suffered hell's torments as Azazel's mortal slave, first made to fight in the pits and then turned into an assassin. And now he's escaped hell by stabbing himself in the heart with a key that opens every lock, and he's returned to Los Angeles to seek his vengeance on the magicians who betrayed him. He hunts them across a demon-infested Los Angeles, dishing out and receiving relentless, graphic violence, determined to take his revenge and then die and leave the Earth behind forever. <br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/24/kadreys-sandman-slim.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061714305/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p> </p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594743347/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/pride-zombies.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! (Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith)</strong>:<br />
Here's the pitch: Seth Grahame-Smith has taken Jane Austen's classic, beloved novel Pride and Prejudice and, by means of cunning textual insertions and deletions, changed the story so that it takes place in the midst of a Regency England that has been plunged into chaos by a plague of the living dead. It takes surprisingly little work to do this, and the book ends up feeling substantially like the classic mannered novel that so many adore. Except with zombie mayhem. The execution is flawless, often hilarious, and just plain clever. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/01/pride-and-prejudice.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594743347/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765317494/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofn285946.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Mind Over Ship (David Marusek)</strong>:<br />
Mind Over Ship returns to the awesomely weird and exciting Marusek future, where humanity trembles on the verge of transcendence, splintering into people, clones, avatars, AIs, temporary and permanent models (some made without the model-ee's consent) and a thousand other fragments. Each of these factions battles for the best deal it can get -- even as the individual members of each clade fight for their own personal best interests. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/17/mind-over-ship-david.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765317494/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416971734/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestof1p_leviathan_jkt_small.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Leviathan (Scott Westerfeld)</strong>:<br />
Leviathan is set in an alternate steampunk past, in which the powers of the world are divided into "Clankers" who favour huge, steam-powered walking war-machines; and "Darwinists," whose hybrid "beasties" can stand in for airships, steam-trains, war-ships, and subs (they even have a giant squid/octopus hybrid called the kraken that can seize whole warships and drag them to their watery graves). </p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/06/scott-westerfelds-le.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416971734/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765319713/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofcomstockcover.jpeg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (Robert Charles Wilson)</strong>:<br />
Julian is the story of a world sunk into feudal barbarism, 150 years after Peak Oil, plagues, economic collapse and war left the planet in tatters. Now, America (grown to encompass most of Canada, save for deeply entrenched Dutch and "mitteleuropean" forces in the now-verdant Labrador) is ruled over by a mad hereditary president, whose power is buoyed up by the Dominion, a religious authority that represents the true power in a nation where the new First Amendment guarantees the right to worship at any sanctioned church of your choosing. <br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/06/24/julian-comstock-robe.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765319713/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0441017940/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofarielreprintcover.jpeg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Ariel (Steven R Boyett)</strong>:<br />
I first read Steven R Boyett's novel Ariel in 1983: I was twelve years old, and I was absolutely, totally hooked.<br />
<p><br />
Here's the premise: one day at 4:30 PM, the world Changes. Complex technology (anything beyond a simple machine) stops working. Magic starts working. Planes fall out of the sky, dragons take wing. Chaos wracks the world. Riots. Starvation. Murder. <br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/08/25/ariel-post-apocalypt.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0441017940/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591026997/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofCyberabadDays.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Cyberabad Days (Ian McDonald)</strong>:<br />
In Cyberabad Days, seven stories (one a Hugo winner, another a Hugo nominee) McDonald performs the quintessential science fictional magic trick: imagining massive technological change and making it intensely personal by telling the stories of real, vividly realized people who leap off the page and into our minds. And he does this with a deft prose that is half-poetic, conjuring up the rhythms and taste and smells of his places and people, so that you are really, truly transported into these unimaginably weird worlds. McDonald's India research is prodigious, but it's nothing to the fabulous future he imagines arising from today's reality. <br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/02/27/ian-mcdonalds-cybera.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591026997/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765318415/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofBoneshaker_Cover_Front.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Boneshaker (Cherie Priest)</strong>:<br />
Cherie Priest's zombie steampunk mad-science dungeon crawl family adventure novel Boneshaker is everything you'd want in such a volume and much more. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/29/boneshaker-cherie-pr.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765318415/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p> </p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1906727422/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestofLeilaJohnsonenemy.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>Enemy of Chaos (Leila Johnston)</strong>:<br />
Leila Johnston's Enemy of Chaos is a geekily hilarious modern choose-your-own-adventure novel in which you play a middle aged bitter geek who is drafted into a branching narrative in which your goal is to save reality, while negotiating many of the familiar indignities of modern geekish life, from over-exuberant role-players to nuclear apocalypse. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/15/enemy-of-chaos-hilar.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1906727422/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p></p>
<p> <br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670020559/downandoutint-20"><img src="http://craphound.com/images/bestof8978AA29-15A3-42F3-A563-AA31AF638310Img100.jpg" width="100" height="100" align="left"></a><br />
<strong>The Magicians (Lev Grossman)</strong>:<br />
Lev Grossman's novel The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I've read this century. Quentin Coldwater is a nerdy, depressed, high-achieving Brooklyn kid who finds himself hijacked from his Princeton interview and whisked away to Brakebills Academy, a school of magic upstate on the Hudson. He passes the entrance exam and begins his education as a wizard. <br />
<p><br />
<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/10/20/the-magicians-a-fant.html">Full review</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670020559/downandoutint-20">Purchase</a><br clear="all"><br />
<p><br />
<b>Other installments:</b><br />
<p><br />
<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/25/boing-boing-gift-gui.html">Part One: Kids</a><br></p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/26/boing-boing-gift-gui-1.html">Part Two: Media</a><br></p>
<p><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/27/boing-boing-gift-gui-2.html">Part Three: Gadgets</a><br></p>
<p><br />
<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/28/boing-boing-gift-gui-3.html">Part Four: Nonfiction</a><br></p>
<p><br />
<a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/29/boing-boing-gift-gui-4.html">Part Five: Fiction!</a><br />
<div class="previously2"><br />
<em>Last year's guides:</em><ul><br />
<li><a href="http://boingboing.net/2008/11/26/boing-boings-holiday.html#previouspost">Boing Boing's Holiday Gift Guide part one: Kids</a></li><br />
<li><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/27/boing-boings-holiday-1.html#previouspost">Boing Boing's Holiday Gift Guide part two: Fiction - Boing Boing</a></li><br />
<li><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/28/boing-boings-holiday-2.html#previouspost">Boing Boing's Holiday Gift Guide part three: Gadgets and stuff ...</a></li><br />
<li><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/29/boing-boings-holiday-3.html#previouspost">Boing Boing's Holiday Gift Guide part four: Comics, graphic novels ...</a></li><br />
<li><a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/30/boing-boings-holiday-4.html#previouspost">Boing Boing's Holiday Gift Guide part five: Nonfiction - Boing Boing</a></li><br />
</ul><br />
</div></p><br clear="both" style="clear: both;"/>
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<a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=77e1b58269f0c4afd56485a3a4619a32&p=1"><img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=77e1b58269f0c4afd56485a3a4619a32&p=1"/></a>
<img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" style="display:none" src="http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226"/><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~4/avrUIb51tFo" height="1" width="1"/>
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tobiasbuckell | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TobiasBuckell/~3/ChyY46-Anzw/ http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2009/11/29/dreads/  Been listening to a lot of roots rock (reggae) over the last few days (different novels have different soundtracks).
Which made me remember: I was at a con a while back where someone swore they’d met me ‘back in the days when you had dreadlocks’ and nothing I could do would dissuade this person from believing I’ve never had them.
It’s true though, nonetheless.
I’ve had long hair, but not locks.
Because I’m not rasta.
Let me take you back to the first rastafarian I met. I remember the man clearly to this day. I met him under the old rickety jetty by the hotel bar my parents ran in Lance Aux Pines bay on the southern tip of Grenada. The old weathered gray planks ran overhead, but they were fastened to an old concrete slab.
If you swam under the jetty, you swam in a private little place in the clear water, over the white sand, by the thick slab of stone like a shelf.
I met him under there, a place I considered my own hangout. I usually splashed around that little space, but this time, he squatted in the water where I usually played.
He was using that slab of concrete, with barnacles and algae all covering it, to hold several slabs of cactus that he’d cut. He washed his hair, and slathered and squeezed the aloe out of the cactus into his somewhat long, knotting hair.
Never said boo to me, after doing his thing, he walked out from under the jetty and across the beach, past tourists lying in the sand watching him curiously, and off into the bush.
I saw him a few times after that, using the beach to clean up, before he went back into the bush.
You see some poor people, see people hard up, but he had an air of deliberateness. Someone said he’d taken ‘the vow.’ He was spending forty days in the wilderness, not talking to anyone, living wild.
The wildness scared me at first. Here was something different.
I never realized how tied I was as a little child to social mores, but meeting a wildman, turning his back on things and society for the wilderness: it was somewhat scary.
Why was he doing this?
What did it mean that others didn’t?
What did he believe, that drew him to do such a thing?
Some people, black like the nice lady who made hops bread and shared it with me from time to time and some of the maids, said locks were dirty and something poor people ‘got.’ White people sniffed about them in similar fashion. As a child, I’d grown to assume they happened to people who couldn’t cut their hair.
So why would this man purposefully create them?
It was something I shelved for a while. The man under the jetty, he didn’t look ready to talk to anyone. Others told me ‘that’s just rasta.’
Then an older man with long, natty dreadlocks started squatting in a stone cottage halfway down the beach: one of those old ruins, probably from colonial times.
He would talk to me. He’d ‘breaks them bread’ with me whenever I’d come by. Things were lean in my life. We lived on the old wooden boat out at anchor and I roamed the beach. Often I’d skip lunch, eat seagrapes or mangoes from trees around the area, skinning up them like a monkey.
But this rasta always welcomed me, a little blonde boy with pale skin and a lot of questions, into the cottage with its thatched palm trees fixing the roof, somewhat, against some of the rain. He often had fish stew with thick, chewy dumplings, which he’d ladle out into a wooden bowl and share with me.
And this rastaman would talk. About the bible, about rastas, about my questions. About ital food, and how it was good for your body.
Locks were grown to signify rasta, he said. Because he’d taken the Nazerene vow: no shaving or combing the hair or beard. The other rasta had gone into the wilderness, like Jesus.
There were other young men, out of jobs, throughout the area. They would shout things like ‘yankee go home’ at me. Words that hurt because the island was all I’d ever known, and was home. Half my family was Grenadian.
But most people didn’t say such things.
And even though others didn’t like rasta, and were relieved when the man in the stone cottage was busted by the police and taken away for squatting, I always felt comfortable around true natty dreadlocks because of him, his charity, gentle patience, humor, and friendship. Long locks, irregular, lifelong. Not styled, or carefully managed. They were a sign of devotion and faith and lifestyle.
They taught me my own bubble of perception wasn’t the only path. Other perspectives existed. That there was more than one interpretation of religion. Ways of eating. These things added to my growing framework of questioning, pluralism, and questing that books later then nurtured far further.
I wonder about that man sometimes, and if he remembered sharing what little he had with a little white boy on the beach. If he’s still alive.
But those two rastamen had a bit impact on me. And they’re also why I don’t have locks, anymore than I wear yellow robes, or a priest’s white collar. The locks were a definitive statement, and thinking of the man who’d spent time in the wilderness, and man in the cottage and his almost monk-like manner, every time I considered locks, I thought it wouldn’t be true.
I know they’re more of a fashion statement these days, and for many, a tie or a claim to ethnicity. Later on, I would meet more and more people who took on the dreads, but not the careful thought and commitment, the philosophy, the monk-like approach.
But for me growing locks would ring hollow to the memory of what they really meant. So I may joke about it, or consider it.
But I don’t see myself doing it.
Because I’m not rasta, but I respect rasta.
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boingboing_net | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/9E0KD70f8M0/charity-auction-whos.html The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund is a venerable institution that sends sf fans from North America to Europe and vice-versa, to bridge the world's fandoms (there are other funds that bring together fans from other parts of the world). Frank Wu, Anne KG Murphy and Brian Gray are fundraising for this year's fund, and they've solicited many writers -- Charlie Stross, Nalo Hopkinson, David Brin, Elizabeth Bear, Julie Czerneda and Mary Robinette Kowal and me! -- to donate "tuckerizations" in forthcoming works for a charity auction. Tuckerizing is the inclusion of a real person's name in a fictional piece (previous tuckerizations from charity auctions in my novels include General Graeme Sutherland in Little Brother, Suzanne Church in Makers, and Connor Prikkel in the forthcoming For the Win; my god-daughter Ada has also been tuckerized in my story "I, Robot" and in Makers).
TAFF is also auctioning off a first edition of "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (!), and John Hersey's "Hiroshima."
It's a great cause, and great prizes that make killer gifts (how cool would it be for a kid to grow up with her name on a character in a wonderful novel?)
TAFF updatery!
(Thanks, Frank!)
 
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boingboing_net | |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/3FUtd2u4-fI/some-whales-double-t.html How do giant whales get so big eating such little krill? By using their baleen like a parachute and sucking in their body-weight in water in one go, then straining it out:
Since then, Potvin has brought his expertise on parachute physics to these parachuting whales. He and the other scientists have developed a sophisticated new model that tracks the incoming water more carefully. It's a lot of water, the scientists have found: in one lunge, a fin whale can momentarily double its weight.
If a whale simply let the water come rushing in, there would be a tremendous collision-more than a whale could handle. Instead, the scientists argue, the whales actively cradle their titanic gulp. As the water rushes in, the whales contract muscles in their lower jaw. The water slows down and then reverses direction, so that it's moving with the whale. (It just so happens that fin whales do have sheets of muscle and pressure-sensing nerve endings in their lower jaw. Before now, nobody quite knew before what they were for.) Once the water is moving forward inside the whale it can then close its mouth and give an extra squeeze to filter the water through its baleen.
The Origin of Big
( via Kottke)
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afmetalsmith | |
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J went to heroic lengths yesterday and now Fabio* is UP! and in working condition! Well, mostly. The calibration for the rollers is not yet accurate; the rollers now meet when the dial says they're still about 0.25mm apart. I'm not quite sure how to fix that yet, but there are so many ways to adjust it that I'm sure it's possible. Stay tuned... Still: he is gorgeous, and very powerful, and very sturdy in his installation, and I am just itching to actually USE him. Maybe tomorrow! We have not yet gotten the extra stand pakaged up and ready to return- J is planning on doing that next week. Also, we have not yet received a working lock for the cabinet we're keeping, or heard anything about how Durston is planning to compensate us for all the hassle. Again, stay tuned...
I have named my new, splendid rolling mill "Fabio", since i've been joking for years about it being a "studly" rolling mill, and so the name just seemed right. :) Current Mood:  happy
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jmeadows | |
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No slush stats today! But Query Project is still going strong. I've made a couple small changes to the "how to submit" section, mostly just removing agency things, but it's probably time for a good revision on that. Anything you think I need to address eventually? My comments are in [brackets] . As always, I haven't read these yet. These are my reactions as I read them. -- #29 (Pretty sure I've read this one.) Dear Jodi, Shayla Carver, undercover agent and master assassin, has killed many times. That's what assassins do. Nothing to lose sleep over. [I was good until this sentence. It's not bad, it's just redundant. I think if we haven't got the idea by now, we're not going to and another sentence isn't going to help. ;)] But this mission is different; she's never killed a whole planet before. [Super idea. I feel like this sentence should be snappier, though. Maybe it's the first phrase I don't like.] She's seen it happen though, many years ago, when her own home burned on the orders of a young Emperor. The young Shayla watched, helpless but incensed, and vowed revenge. How many youngsters [This word seems out of place here. Also note the word repetition. Two "young"s in the last paragraph, and "youngster" here.] dream the impossible? And how many think of the consequences? Shayla did more than dream. She started on a long road, a road which she's followed without question, a road which has finally brought her to the Emperor's palace and within reach of her goal. [Not big on the repetition here. The road image isn't strong or unique enough to deserve it. ] Shayla has planned everything meticulously, except that she hasn't allowed for coming face to face with some of the two billion inhabitants she's about to slaughter. Ordinary people. Not the stereotyped strutting Imperials of her imagination, and not so readily dismissed as legitimate targets or collateral damage. And then there's the Emperor himself. An ordinary man with troubles and dreams of his own. Not the kind of man Shayla can picture giving such an order. Now she's starting to lose sleep. [On one hand, I think this is really strongly showing your writing style, which is awesome. On the other hand, while the stylistic repetitions might be okay in the story, it's making the query a bit wordy.] As she enslaves the destructive might of the Emperor's own fleet and launches the final stage of her plan, Shayla can no longer ignore the enormity of what she's doing. On the brink of success, she must choose: To complete her lifelong goal to rid humanity of a corrupt regime, or to heed her own misgivings and trust the man, her sworn enemy, that she's spent so many years pursuing. [There are some super awesome conflicts in this, and you've done a nice job of showing your writing style. I worry that the strong ideas are getting lost under the words, though.] "Ghosts of Innocence" is a science fiction novel complete at 95,000 words. I am also working on a sequel, "The Ashes of Home". Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Ian Bott -- #30 (I think I've read this one too. Whoa.) Dear Jodi: The details of how it came to be are lost to history, [*flail* It. Please give a proper noun. I want to be grounded right away.] but in the third century, a female shaman or sorceress was the first ruler of a substantially unified Japan. [Is this the "it"? The fact of a female shaman ruling Japan? Okay, that does make my request for a proper noun more difficult.] The YA novel for which I am seeking representation, Making the Sorceress Queen, is my attempt to imagine who she was and how she came to power. [Cool. Slip in a little subtle conflict? "things she overcame to achieve her power" or something?] The tale is told the voice of the queen's younger brother, Po, [I can see this either working really well, or steal the focus from the queen. Either way, I suspect it's very difficult to do.] who aids in his sister Io in her transformation from country orphan to regional monarch. The siblings flee their home in northern Honshū when their father, a provincial ruler, is assassinated. [I assume they're fleeing because of the assassination and they have reason to believe they're next...] They take with them Po's extraordinary dog, Honschi, and their father's warhorse, Chara, at a time when horses are a rarity in Japan. After some years in hiding, they arrive in Kyūshū, where Io [Is this the future queen? This is the first time we've seen her name.] begins the delicate political dance of playing local rulers off against one another in order to further her own goals. She is a magnificent warrior and a brilliant tactician, and knows how to inspire devotion and fear to help complete her conquest. In her rare vulnerable moments, she is also a young woman deeply scarred by the loss of her parents. Po is one of the few people she can trust, and perhaps the only one who may be able to help her find a measure of peace to go with her power. [I think this one has some good stuff in it, and it's not a subject we've read about a million times. But I also feel it's missing stakes and conflicts. What happens if Io doesn't become queen? What's keeping her from achieving this goal?] Making the Sorceress Queen is complete at 64,000 words, 200 pages, and sixteen chapters. [We don't need anything after the wordcount. Page count and chapter count means very little.] The novel blends elements that will be familiar to readers of historical fiction, fantasy, and that adolescent classic, the boy-and-dog story. For myself, I was once a fifth-grade teacher, and am presently a graduate student in English literature. I have studied fiction writing with Jim Shepard and Nicholas Delbanco. My short fiction for adults has appeared in The Connecticut Review and is forthcoming in Rosebud. I am also a martial artist, an equestrian, and the owner of the Japanese Akita dog who served as the model for Honschi. Thank you very much for your time and consideration of this manuscript. Sincerely, Carolyn J. Dekker -- How to submit: ( Clicky )Tags: query project
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larbalestier | |
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http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/11/28/nano-tip-no-28-take-care-of-yourself/ http://justinelarbalestier.com/?p=6958 It’s my second last NaNoWriMo post! Wow, that went fast. You’ve all been at it for 28 days now.1 Which leads me to suspect that some of you may be feeling quite sore about now.
Writing, like any job that involves spending hours in front of a computer, has a high injury rate. Almost every pro writer I know has some kind of neck/back/wrist problem. Carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive strain injury are very common.
At the end of almost every first draft deadline, when I’ve been writing every day for weeks and weeks on end, and my writing days have stretched out from four hours to twelve or longer, my upper back and/or neck packs it in. I then have to get emergency work so that I can, you know, move my neck.
Once I recognised this pattern,2 I made a whole bunch of changes to stop it happening again. If you’re serious about writing, the time to start with good habits is now, before you become a crippled wreck unable to sign books for your fans.
Here are the changes I made:
- I changed my work set up. No more writing slumped on the couch. All ergonomic all the time for me!
- I started exercising more. I now work out at the gym with a trainer3 a minimum of three times a week. I also try to fit in a long walk at the end of each writing day. And lindy hop when possible.
- I increased the number of breaks I took. I tried one of those programmes that beeps at you every thirty minutes but it kept beeping just as I was nailing a scene or right when I’d finally gotten into the flow of things that I came to loathe the bloody smiling beepy monster and harboured fantasies of ripping its throat out. So I switched to drinking even more water which ensures frequent loo breaks.
- I take a few minutes to stretch my back, neck, wrists and arms every time I get up from the computer.
- I get a weekly massage. It sounds indulgent but truly it’s maintenance. If I’m being massaged weekly as the deadline approaches my body doesn’t pack it in, which works out cheaper than getting all that work when my body is broken.
I have not been perfect at implementing my system. While on tour this year there were no massages, no exercise and I spent a lot of time slumped over my computer in hotels and airports, which led to a recurrence of my neck/upper back injury, which led to emergency cupping:
Not pretty, is it?
You’ve been warned!
Good luck with your last few days.
And don’t forget to check out Scott’s tips. His last one is tomorrow.
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Previous
sad
tired
relieved
working
, 2001
