February 2012
12 posts
“I’ve had librarians say to me, “People in my school don’t agree with...”
– David Levithan - Supporting Gay Teen Literature (via cake-light)
Of Another Fashion: It’s 1956 in San Francisco and... →
ofanotherfashion:
It’s 1956 in San Francisco and this is my grandmother, Encar Villanueva. She’s standing next my grandfather’s cadillac. Today, my grandmother or lola (in Tagalog) lives in a nursing home in San Francisco in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. But when this photo was taken, her personality was…
I love glimpses into the lives of women, because so often this is the history...
“We kissed, we held each other, we lay on top of each other in bed… and there...”
– John Barrowman on ‘Torchwood’ (via roseandthebeast: cocknbull)
“This genre is rooted in the epic — and the truth is that there are plenty of...”
– —N.K. Jemisin, “Dreaming Awake,” an essay on being a woman of color writing fantastic fiction (via matociquala
)
Range of Ghosts excerpt →
matociquala:
The web-pixies at Tor.com have posted an excerpt of Range of Ghosts, in which we meet a young semi-nomadic warrior named Temur, who is having an exceedingly bad day…
By “bad day,” I mean that it starts with vultures.
And goes downhill.
The cover copy says:
Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking away from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the...
January 2012
18 posts
2 tags
Dream of Red Mansions Vol 1
I’ve finished the first volume of Dream of Red Mansions. I have too much to say about it and can’t really expression how engrossing it is, except maybe to say that this is like a telenovela of its day, that being mid 18th century Qing China (wealthy family with imperial connections).
But as a writer an interesting thing I note is how fast it moves, how scenes are fairly short and very...
dirtyluxury:
If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.
Athletic Body Diversity →
womenfighters:
This makes me want to take my “How to Draw the Marvel Way!” book out to the barbecue and set it on fire.
I saw this a while ago and it is just as good the second time around.
Short Excerpt from Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3)
Spoilers if you haven’t read Cold Magic & Cold Fire. Otherwise, nothing you don’t already know.
When one of Kofi’s brothers appeared escorting Rory and Aunty’s granddaughter Lucretia, I sighed with relief that Rory had made it here safely. Then I saw that he was holding Luce’s hand in a most inappropriately intimate manner, their fingers intertwined like those of a...
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You...”
– C.S. Lewis
TUMBLR IN ONE QUOTE.
(via teadalek, quote-book)
(via alphonseeelric)
(via evanevieve) (via starskeeper) (via fluffygremlin) (via achaseroffaith)
(via alexandraerin) (via ktempest)
“Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will...”
– Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” (via arewomenhuman)
Exactly.
(via readnfight)
Just got done reading this for WS. This was one of my favorite quotes.
(via laurenmitchell)
5 tags
The Dream of Red Mansions & the Bechdel Test
My daughter is taking a class in Chinese Vernacular Literature (in translation) and she begged me to read The Dream of Red Mansions (aka The Story of the Stone aka The Dream of the Red Chamber) along with her (we’re reading the David Hawkes translation).
The novel is about “the changing fortunes of the illustrious Jia family” and was written by Cao Xueqin during the Qing Dynasty...
“As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this...”
– President Obama’s statement on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (via barackobama)
This weeks' random sentence from Cold Steel
“Kisses!” exclaimed Bee. “When was there kissing? Cat!”
November 2011
21 posts
An interview, alternate history, reading, &... →
Over at The Ranting Dragon site & forum, an interview with me just went up.
Among other things, I talk about some aspects of the world building of the Spiritwalker books;
Additionally, the…
If I had rebooted Star Trek →
I hear rumors they’ll be starting to film the second rebooted Star Trek film in January.
I watched the original Star Trek (the classic edition) as a child, mostly on afternoon repeats. Bones was my…
RT @vsatone: How come male superheroes never start out their careers as strippers and prostitutes?
Inspiration for a novel can come from the... →
Last Friday my sister told me that one of the reasons she liked the Spiritwalker books so much was that the banter reminded her of 30s screwball comedies.
I have to say that this was not a…
metteivieharrison: Too Strong for Too Long →
metteivieharrison:
About four years ago, I went to a therapist for “depression.” She listened to me talk about my life and my problems for about an hour and at the end, she told me something that I spent years trying to figure out. She said that I had been too strong for too long. At the time, I thought that this…
Spouse: “What makes this film really bad is that they’re pretending it’s better than it is.” #SeasonoftheWitch
Fiction as Inspiration: “It’s like getting a crush on a book.” http://t.co/v8L7OVU9
APEC comes to Hawaii →
We’re avoiding town (what those of us in the exurbs of Honolulu call Honolulu) because of the APEC conference which has so far involved much road closure and gridlock. There have been other signs of…
Because @amandacarlson asked for my Starbucks Hawaii experience today http://t.co/uD2bRODi
The One True Method →
As NaNoWriMo trundles on, with greater and lesser success for the many involved, and as other writers simply write, because that’s what they do, I reflect on the statement I would most like to…
Outtake Monday: from Cold Magic →
As an occasional series, I’m going to post outtakes from my novels. These will be paragraphs and snippets that did not make it into the final volume. I will try not to include major spoilers.
Here…
I like dark & gritty fantasy just fine, but I also want to read worlds in which people can DELIGHT in the landscape and each other.
Writing Character: Details →
Each character will have an individual way of reacting to and observing the world. These are the details you as the writer can use to reveal both your world and your character.
The details any…
Women and Fantasy →
Sherwood Smith has posted about the panel I was on at WFC San Diego (2011), “The Crystal Ceiling.” (an unfortunate title, if I must say so, and I must)
The Crystal Ceiling: Is there still a…
Songs That Go With Books →
In the wake of the release of Cold Fire, two different readers have (independently) written to me with songs they felt captured the emotion of the often tumultuous relationship between Cat and…
Clearly Cold Steel is going to be 2 books: The published novel, and the parallel unpublished other novel I threw out.
Cold Fire Word Cloud & NaNoWriMo Day 1 (2011) →
For the first day of NaNoWriMo I offer up the Cold Fire Word Cloud. Click through to see the Cold Fire Wordle
Today included some discussion of the problem of too much research and/or…
I need my really clever character to come up with a really clever plan. This would work best if I was clever and could think one up.
Spouse to the schnauzer: “Next year I’m going to dress you up in an Ewok costume.”