Here are 5 reasons to make your writing incomprehensible—
The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.
—Homer Simpson
There are stacks of useful tips on the web about writing and creativity in general, but I find coming up with original ideas is still a struggle. This is a technique that sometimes works for me. Continue reading
Fantasy and science fiction are the dominant categories under the broad speculative fiction banner, but what’s the difference between them? I started wondering about that when I re-read Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which was a source for Jacinta’s Lovers.
The Rime is one of my favourite poems, but a couple of verses have always puzzled me—
FIRST VOICE
‘But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind ?’SECOND VOICE
‘The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.’
‘The Rising’ has appeared in the autumn 2014 issue of the Colored Lens, and is now freely available online. From the publishers—
By publishing short stories and serialized novellas every quarter in genres ranging from fantasy, to science fiction, to slipstream or magical realism, we hope to help our readers see the world just a bit differently.
The main source for the story was the movie A Hora da Estrela (The Hour of the Star) based on the novel of the same name by Clarice Lispector. The background for the sf component was the technique of geological surveying with a magnetohydrodynamic generator.
With some pieces, I find it difficult to identify sources or inspiration and with other pieces I find it easy, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing some sort of copying from a source. Continue reading
Klingon Alphabet
Interview with Karen Henderson from Kayelle Press has a little practical advice on apocalypses, apart from, fairly obviously, trying not to cause one. I’m taking preemptive ksl classes. There are also bits about writing and the Honimoon Hotel story.
Interview with Dan Allan at Aurealis about the Copernicus Street story. It can also be accessed here at Dark Matter. It covers speculative fiction and stuff. The Aurealis Facebook page has stacks of fascinating tidbits and is great if you need an excuse not to do any writing (or anything else).