Infodumps – those long passages of narrative summary that provide a huge wodge of background or plot development or characterization – have an undeservedly bad reputation among would-be writers. The allergy to infodumps is a bit of stylistic advice which is largely peddled to beginning writers, but
Read more →So I’m working along, facing my third deadline extension, way behind on everything, with lots of vital-or-at-least-urgent non-writing stuff going on. I FINALLY get past the exceedingly sticky argument scene I’ve been poking at for the last two months, and on into the next bit of wandering-around-the-settlements.
Read more →I had brunch this morning with my friend Rosemary, who is about as crazy as I am but on just a different enough axis that we stimulate each other to new heights of silliness, rather than bogging down because we’ve each had exactly the same idea and
Read more →So Book 2 of Frontier Magic (Title To Come) seems to be getting some momentum up at last. Possibly because I finally have a bit of shape for this volume, which looks just a bit novel-like. Part of the difficulty, it seems in retrospect, has been that
Read more →The new book (Frontier Magic, Book 2, Title To Come) is progressing slowly. Partly because of the perversity of the characters. First, one of my important-but-offstage-for-a-while characters decided to be stingy about writing letters. With some reason, I admit, but if I can’t get him started corresponding
Read more →I have a confession to make: I have never deliberately written a trilogy before in my life. Yes, I know, there are four Enchanted Forest books, and three Kate and Cecy books, and the Lyra series, and so on. But with all of those, I didn’t set
Read more →So the first round of publicity appearances is over; I have two weeks now before Wiscon and the side trip to deal with pressing family business. When you’re working on a book, two weeks is not as much time as it sounds. I’m hoping to use the
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