Quiz: Can you identify these classic sci-fi books by their covers? | Books | theguardian.com.
Monthly Archives: May 2014
Quiz: Can you identify these classic sci-fi books by their covers? | Books | theguardian.com
Filed under book covers
Photo finish Friday: “To the point”
The mustache disguise.
In order to escape a man named Stan, who said he only wanted to give her a glass unicorn because it reminded him of her, Stella the Unicorn started wearing a mustache disguise.
Stan said the glass unicorn was only a metaphor, nothing more.
Stella said it was a mixed metaphor, as well as a mixing of plays, which was something Stan didn’t understand.
More’s the pity, Stella thought, because Stan was kind of cute in that lumpish way human males were. But that wasn’t the point.
Stan, unlike her fake mustache, could grow him, but Stella knew it wouldn’t lead to anything lasting. It never did with humans.
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Dead like the stars”
The dead like the stars /
twinkle in memory’s gaze /
shine into the past.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
Writing tip Wednesday: “Focus”
“When you’re writing fiction or poetry… it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you’re doing… A young writer could do worse than follow the advice given in those lines.”
— Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver (1938–1988)
Filed under writing tip, Writing Tip Wednesday, writing tips
A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing: Fisking Lilith Saintcrow and the Hachette/Amazon Situation
A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Fisking Lilith Saintcrow and the Hachette/Amazon Situation.
Sample of blog entry:
Fisking Lilith Saintcrow and the Hachette/Amazon Situation
People often disagree with my posts, and some do it in the comments section.
This promotes healthy debate and discourse. As long as people stay civil with each other, they can post whatever they like, including insulting me. I’ve only had to kick a few people out over the years, after giving them multiple chances to cool off.
One of the wonderful things about the Internet is the ability for people to engage with different viewpoints and test each others’ arguments.
I don’t know Lilith Saintcrow. She’s a writer with Hachette, and has just blogged about this situation. She’s wrong, which is fine. Normally that wouldn’t irk me. But in her comments section, she’s disemvoweling people who disagree with her (it’s a cute form of censuring where all the vowels are removed from the comment).
So now I’m going to bring the debate here, to A Newbie’s Guide, by explaining in detail how wrong Lili Saintcrow is. Normally I don’t take my peers to task like this, but I really dislike the way Lili is handling dissenters on her blog. She’s deliberately obstructing what could have been a healthy debate.
No offense intended, Lili. I’m sure you’re a wonderful person and a wonderful writer. And I do understand how you are frustrated at this situation. Your sales are suffering, and it is beyond your control, so naturally you want to place blame and voice your discontent.
But I believe you aren’t looking at the big picture, and cutting off comments on your blog isn’t how you, or anyone following you, can use this situation as a learning experience.
Blog post in its completeness: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/05/fisking-lilith-saintcrow-and.html
Filed under Uncategorized
Monday morning writing joke: “What to ask for?”
First writer, pointing to his t-shirt: “See what it says?”
Second writer nods.
First writer: “It says, ‘will writer for food.'”
Second writer: “So whom are you going to write first?”
Whom will he try to write for food first? Will it work?
Filed under Monday morning writing joke
The American Scholar: Ten Best Sentences – Our Editors
The American Scholar: Ten Best Sentences – Our Editors.
Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
—James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
This private estate was far enough away from the explosion so that its bamboos, pines, laurel, and maples were still alive, and the green place invited refugees—partly because they believed that if the Americans came back, they would bomb only buildings; partly because the foliage seemed a center of coolness and life, and the estate’s exquisitely precise rock gardens, with their quiet pools and arching bridges, were very Japanese, normal, secure; and also partly (according to some who were there) because of an irresistible, atavistic urge to hide under leaves.
—John Hersey, Hiroshima
Find the rest at: http://theamericanscholar.org/ten-best-sentences/#.U4K1USiootV
Filed under Uncategorized
Photo finish Friday: “Love on the rocks”
Sometimes love is literally on the rocks. Or, at least spelled out on them.
With something like this you could “fall in love.”
Or, love is just a stone’s throw away.
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday
Haiku to you Thursday: “Heavens are home”
The heavens are home /
to night’s turns of phrase and stars: /
love, mass, and light squared.
Filed under Haiku to You Thursday, poetry by author
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