And then it hits me.
This is where I’m going: Off to Hawaii to research the coolest stuff ever. Back in a few days.
View ArticleIgnorant Mail, and Linkspam
::sigh:: I get emails from readers from time to time, and 99% of these emails are positive and welcome. (Thank you!) But every so often I get one that’s… soooo very not. It isn’t exactly “hate mail”....
View ArticleSexual Violence in THE SHADOWED SUN
This one’s going to be a toughie, for me and some of you reading. Please take heed of the subject line, and avoid if you need to. As You (probably) Know Internets, in my day job life I’m a career...
View ArticleBut, but, but — WHY does magic have to make sense?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. -Agatha Heterodyne (Girl Genius) by way of...
View ArticleAn alternate appendix
Stealing Martha Wells’ idea; I’m going to be posting the occasional deleted scene from my various works over the next few weeks. And since people have asked, I’m starting with the one I read at Comic...
View ArticleIdentity should always be part of the gameplay
This is sort of a tangential response to John Scalzi’s “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting. Good article; you should read it… and the comments. Yeah, I know, I usually say don’t read...
View ArticleFlipping the scrip: Can we? Should we?
So since last week’s debacle, a lot of people have asked me whether it’s even possible to write a discrimination reversal that isn’t chock full o’ bigotry. Not really sure why they’re asking me; it’s...
View ArticleFantastic Profanity
So today I’d like to talk about fantastic profanity — by which I mean not “really good” profanity, but “made up for fantasy and science fiction” profanity. Therefore this post will contain quite a bit...
View ArticleFrom the Mailbag: The Unbearable Baggage of Orcing
Awhile back I got an email from a reader which asked, “When are you going to write some real fantasy, y’know, with orcs?” This is a paraphrase, because I didn’t get the reader’s permission to quote (I...
View ArticleYou CAN win the Kobayashi Maru.
Gonna keep this brief, ’cause it’s 1:30 am as I’m writing this, and ’cause tomorrow I’m taking a 6-hour flight to Cali to attend the Nebulas and hopefully either win, or cheer while someone I really...
View ArticleConfirmation bias, epic fantasy, and you
Ya’ll, MedievalPoC is (hopefully) going to be at WisCon. By a funny chance, I will be, too! (Imagine that.) I am totes going to fangirl all over them. Posts like this are why: Seeing this post reminds...
View ArticleWhat I’ve been up to lately
So, it’s been awhile, blogosphere; my apologies. I would’ve updated sooner, but I had some technical difficulties (now fixed thanks to a move to a new web host) and a series of cascading deadlines that...
View ArticleAuthor strength training: Reading reviews
So, I saw Kameron Hurley (who’s got a new book out that I really need to get to ASAP) lamenting this morning on Twitter about something familiar: It's funny how I spent 15 years just trying to get a...
View ArticleWhy I Talk So Damn Much About Non-Writing Stuff
A reader at NYCC asked me — not in an accusatory way if you’re wondering — why I spend so much time on social media talking about world events, social justice issues, health care, etc. I’m an SFF...
View ArticleYou can tell a lot about a fantasy novel by its glossary
Was just working on the glossary for The Fifth Season. Glossaries are both fun and frustrating for me — fun because a glossary is worldbuilding at its most stark, and frustrating because it’s part of...
View ArticleYour groundbreaking is not my groundbreaking
Note: I will be mentioning a few spoilers in this post. Look away now if you’re not ready for that yet! So, a few nights ago I started Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third game in a franchise I’ve liked...
View ArticleLaunch Day!
Hi folks. Well, it’s official — as of today, the omnibus edition of the Inheritance Trilogy, and “The Awakened Kingdom” novella, both go on sale. The omnibus is available at all major retailers, print...
View Article“To anthology editors”, a corollary
Nalo Hopkinson has an awesome and helpful piece up today on her website on how anthology editors can go about creating cohesive, thematically powerful collections that don’t just contain the same old...
View ArticleA world in which race matters
I’ve been thinking about this article for the last day or so. I posted a link to it on my Twitter feed yesterday, and saw a few reactions to it that seemed… confused. Part of the problem is that the...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Characters
Awhile back I mentioned offhand in another post that readers seem to be harder on my female characters than my male characters. This was in the context of analyzing one-star reader reviews culled from...
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