Nicola Griffith, the writing life
Peter D. Tillman
setting and pacing and narrative structure and imagery and, above all,
story work in harmony and true proportion is fucking hard."
"There's absolutely nothing like the sheer joy of diving into a piece of
fiction and just making shit up, feeling the words come purling from the
keyboard and the characters start moving around and talking and meeting
each other. It's incredible."
www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml
Very, very nice interview, from one of our sharpest (and best-looking)
writers. Don't miss.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
My sort-of review of her terrible, wonderful BLUE PLACE:
http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/griffith_blue.html
Nicola Browne
best-looking)
> writers. Don't miss.
>
So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
Nicky
--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
Julian Flood
"Nicola Browne"
> So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
You are a reader? OK, you don't count. Good-looking is PR. Selling books is
about PR.
That Stross -- Tarzan with with long blond locks, chilling blue eyes. No
wonder he's doing well. And Pratchett, runner up to Governor Shwarts
swaarats, swertzen... you know. as Mr Universe some years ago.
QED
JF
I did a writing course once with the OT. (Has she... admitted, proclaimed,
told?) Can't think of the right word.And Lisa Tuttle. And a chappie called
Banks.
steve miller
<nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
>
>Nicky
Excellent question. I suppose looks might be important for a writer if
they give an assist on getting TV interviews or whatever... but for
the reader? Why would I rather read a red-haired aithor or brunette?
Steve
Visiting Conduit and TriNoc*Con in 2004
Balance of Trade out now from embiid.com
Scout's Progress -Prism Award Winner- from Ace
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>"> Very, very nice interview, from one of our sharpest (and
>best-looking)
>> writers. Don't miss.
>>
>
>So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
Well, if your tastes run in that direction, it would be a bonus. :-)
vlatko
--
http://www.niribanimeso.org/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> JF
> I did a writing course once with the OT. (Has she... admitted, proclaimed,
> told?) Can't think of the right word.And Lisa Tuttle. And a chappie called
> Banks.
You _did_? Please please tell. Details!
--
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan - ada...@despammed.com - this is a valid address
homepage: http://www.fantascienza.net/sfpeople/elethiomel
English blog: http://annafdd.blogspot.com/
Blog in italiano: http://fulminiesaette.blogspot.com
Peter D. Tillman
"Nicola Browne" <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
<www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
> > Very, very nice interview, from one of our sharpest (and
> > best-looking) writers. Don't miss.
> >
>
> So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
>
Well, maybe you don't, but I have a lifelong weakness for blond
Englishwomen... <g>
And, with that Nicola, no danger of reciprocation <GG>
Anyway, if you've never tried her stuff, you should. Really. She also
keeps a mean website: http://www.nicolagriffith.com/index2.html
Cheers -- Pete Tillman, hopeless NG fanboy
Charlie Allery
"Peter D. Tillman" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
news:tillman-87D874...@news.fu-berlin.de...
Yup, I'd back both The Blue Place and Stay as being excellent novels. That
Aud is pretty awesome.
Charlie
Charlie Allery
"steve miller" <che...@starswarmnews.com> wrote in message
news:rk58pvgtjvnht8cge...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 20 Oct 2003 14:01:01 +0000 (UTC), "Nicola Browne"
> <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> >So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
> >
> >Nicky
>
> Excellent question. I suppose looks might be important for a writer if
> they give an assist on getting TV interviews or whatever... but for
> the reader? Why would I rather read a red-haired aithor or brunette?
>
Coz us redheads are an endangered species ... oh, okay, except here in the
UK where the gene is well above average in expression. :-)
Charlie
Nicola Browne
> > > So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
> >
>
> Well, maybe you don't, but I have a lifelong weakness for blond
> Englishwomen... <g>
>
> And, with that Nicola, no danger of reciprocation <GG>
This Nicola ( British and decidedly un blonde ) gets hacked off
when it seems that appearance, like youth, matters increasingly even
in the book business when it really shouldn't. I never wonder what the
writer of a book looks like, do you? (I don't wonder about the writer
at all unless its someone I've met.)I am interested in the books though.
Alma Hromic Deckert
uh, so should i dye my hair back to red again? it's kind of bengal
tiger stripey ashbrownauburnsilver mix right now, and i've kind of got
used to it - but if people like to read redheads.... <G>
A. (i suppose i can always let them have an old photo. i have lots of
me while i was still redhaired and gorgeous...<sigh>)
Mary K. Kuhner
Nicola Browne <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>This Nicola ( British and decidedly un blonde ) gets hacked off
>when it seems that appearance, like youth, matters increasingly even
>in the book business when it really shouldn't. I never wonder what the
>writer of a book looks like, do you? (I don't wonder about the writer
>at all unless its someone I've met.)I am interested in the books though.
I don't wonder what they look like, but I did get a weird and
enjoyable shock when I met the author of the comic book _Mage_
(Matt Wagner? Sorry, memory is the first thing to go.)
He walked into the comic shop for the signing and there was this
immediate, shop-wide startle and soft laughter; because, you see, we
hadn't realized his hero was drawn from life. He was wearing his
hero's favorite t-shirt, too, just to make the point.
But in general, I agree, it really doesn't matter. I enjoy the
startle ("So *that's* Mary Gentle? I was expecting someone...meaner-
looking....") but it really has no bearing on the book.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
(who has, as Irina would say, hair-colored hair and few distinguishing
traits)
Stephen Bargdill
> I never wonder what the writer of a book looks like, do you? (I don't wonder >about the writer at all unless its someone I've met.)I am interested in the books though.
>
> Nicky
You know, oddly enough, I do wonder what the author looks like, though
I don't necessarily care what s/he looks like.
It's like listening to a lot of talk radio. You get this idea in your
head of what the DJ looks like. Then, you actually see a picture of
the DJ, and nine times out of ten, you're disappointed. The DJ didn't
look anything at all like you imagined him/her to be.
For example Art Bell of Coast to Coast AM...thought he was this tall
man with black hair and dark eyes. The first picture of him I saw
(before he lost the weight) he was short, round, had cinamon hair, a
mustache (a mustache? what were you thinking Art?) and thick coke
bottle glasses.
When I read the Green Rider by Kristen Britain, I actually imagined
her to look like the heroine of the book, and here, instead, was
another short person with a very short hair cut.
I do want to say thought that with reading books or listening to talk
radio, the look of the artist still doesn't determine how much I like
the radio program or the book. I guess I'm curious and just want to
know.
Matt Austern
I usually turn to the back cover to find out what the author looks
like, so at least I have some nonzero amount of curiosity! But at
least I'm not quite pathological enough to hire a detective to find
a copy of Thomas Pynchon's picture.
Don Tuite
>
>I usually turn to the back cover to find out what the author looks
>like, so at least I have some nonzero amount of curiosity! But at
>least I'm not quite pathological enough to hire a detective to find
>a copy of Thomas Pynchon's picture.
Not necessary. The celebrated yearbook photo is on the wall at
Wessex Books, around the corner from Kepler's in Palo Alto.
Don
Matt Austern
Yep, I've seen it. (Except that it's in Menlo Park, not Palo Alto.)
But I bet that's not what he looks like now.
Julie Pascal
"Matt Austern" <aus...@well.com> wrote in message
news:m2znfv5...@Matt-Austerns-Computer.local...
Which brings to mind the question of how many authors use
*young* pictures on the jacket. <grin> I'm tempted to rush
out and get some nice photos done so that when I finally need
them I can use the pictures of when I was younger. If only
I'd had some nice portraits done 10 years ago!
--Julie
H. E. Taylor
"I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
-NG
<http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
<curious>
-het
--
"To dream in the City of Sorrows is to dream of a better future."
-old Minbari proverb
PV FAQ: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/pv_faq.html
H.E. Taylor http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/
r.r...@thevine.net
I will admit to being totally shocked at seeing a picture of Tad
Williams on one of the Otherland books. Not at all what I expected
someone with his writing style to look like, especially since I think
his best work was the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.
Rebecca
Julie Pascal
"H. E. Taylor" <h...@despam.autobahn.mb.ca> wrote in message
news:3F94E5...@despam.autobahn.mb.ca...
> Greetings,
>
> "I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
> the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these
days."
> -NG
> <http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
>
> Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
>
> <curious>
Depends upon why she doesn't read it.
--Julie
francis muir
"Don Tuite" <don_...@REMOVETHIShotlink.com> wrote:
It would take an 8 on Richter's Scale to move
Kepler's from Menlo Park to Palo Alto.
francis muir
> I usually turn to the back cover to find out what the author looks
> like, so at least I have some nonzero amount of curiosity! But at
> least I'm not quite pathological enough to hire a detective to find
> a copy of Thomas Pynchon's picture.
Matt Austern. Now there's a name from the RABbinic yestersnow.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Yup, I'd back both The Blue Place and Stay as being excellent novels. That
> Aud is pretty awesome.
>
> Charlie
The Blue Place was in, snif, the last and lost box from the USA. Snif
snif. Together with others irrepracebles like my photos from Clarion
and, Dorothy (bwwaaaa!) your books. :-(
I still hope for it turn up, but the hope gets more forlorn every day...
Nancy Lebovitz
H. E. Taylor <h...@despam.autobahn.mb.ca> wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>"I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
>the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
>-NG
><http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
>
>Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
>
><curious>
>-het
It doesn't sound good, but you could probably learn a lot just by
studying _The Fortunate Fall_.o
On the other hand, maybe she just meant that she'd given up the most
stereotyped stuff.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
Now, with bumper stickers
Using your turn signal is not "giving information to the enemy"
Don Tuite
Awk!
Don
Julian Flood
"Anna Feruglio Dal Dan" <
> You _did_? Please please tell. Details!
A weekend course organised by Lincolnshire Arts, Writing Science Fiction.
I'd heard of none of them (I never remember authors' names, just plots),
but was eventually reminded of a book by Lisa
Tuttle that had people using high-tech hang gliders. I said how much I'd
enjoyed the bit where a flyer flicks his wings to lock them in place -- one
of those details that does so much description in a few words -- and she
obviously couldn't remember it, a difficulty of collaboration, no
doubt. I found her crit of the
painstakingly typed-out extract from novel#1 to be less than useful. 'I get
so tired of seeing men with surnames and women with first' or wtte. She's
one of the reasons I get so beaned off with gender posts here: she was
reading the first chapter of the most significant SF novel written in the
late twentieth century and all she saw was minor sexual politics. In one of
her hours we also did grammar... A touch trudging, her bit, but that was the
menu and she'd obviously drawn the short straw. She chewed it doggedly.
Banksie was full of vigour, ideas and fun. Not much use to drink with, he
was more interested in chatting with the other instructors, but he was so
lively I thought his work might be worthwhile and read Espedair Street, an
excellent book that put me off writing for years: not exactly the result
you want from a writing course. (But then I read The Wasp Factory, another
one I forget, then C*nsid*r Phl*b** and started writing like a good 'un,
reassured.) The leather jacket was cool.
Griffith: 'a shorn Venus' as one sparky student($) wrote in a descriptive
piece we did as an exercise, very controlled in a way that reminded me of
minor government functionaries and some others of my acquaintance, an urge
to set the agenda and exclude certain patterns of thought, which bothered
one of the studes who kept picking at her while the rest of us looked on
with irritation: we wanted to learn writing techs, not quibble about mundane
things. I found her interesting as a human being, but later found
her fiction a little too predictable.
Take this latter judgement with a
large pinch of salt, first because of the point I made above about gender
war intrusion into important topics and secondly because she ticked me off
for being a naughty student -- she'd been talking about extruded sf and
mentioned 'putty spaceships'. I wrote 'show us yer putty spaceship' in my
notebook, sniggered, and the girl next to me<waves, hello there>, who was
cribbing my notes, had a fit of the giggles. 'Would you like to share...'
etc etc. (actually it didn't really affect my judgement: I wanted this
detail in to give a flavour of the classroom atmosphere and I couldn't think
of another way to introduce it.)
I asked about... err... blush... orientation because I _do_ know a
writer who owes her first big break to being a member of what I think of,
rather indelicately, as -- ladies look away now -- the Muffia. The success
of the writer I mentioned, not NG, the other one, is because of her talent
and appetite for work, but that first break, that elusive first contact, was
for
something else, for merely being a member of a club which I am unable to
join. There are, however, work-arounds: I am trying a local
maths society, which has an editor aboard, and the RC church, which also,
no doubt, has some.(&)
I have no idea about NG's first sales and how they happened, but what I've
seen by her is certainly very competently(^) written.
Fen Farm was so much better: there it was much more friendly, much less /de
haut en bas/. I think that with local government funding they were
constrained in how they ran the thing at Hornchurch. The best bit was
drinking and talking with other studes, to see all the weird and wonderful
people who share the urge to write.
It may be apparent by now that this entire post is to introduce that
dreadful joke. A bit long, sorry.
JF (who wonders if it is an original thought or something he read
somewhere).
$ I was livelier in those days.
^ hah!
& For those who find me too unobvious(&& ) -- the Mathia and the Massia.
<looks guilty>
&& For those who find me the reverse <looks very guilty indeed>
francis muir
"Don Tuite" <don_...@REMOVETHIShotlink.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 00:28:04 -0700, francis muir
> <francis....@balliol.org> wrote:
>
>> On 10/20/03 9:19 PM, in article 1sc9pv8n7ectp20m8...@4ax.com,
>> "Don Tuite" <don_...@REMOVETHIShotlink.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 20 Oct 2003 21:08:16 -0700, Matt Austern <aus...@well.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I usually turn to the back cover to find out what the author looks
>>>> like, so at least I have some nonzero amount of curiosity! But at
>>>> least I'm not quite pathological enough to hire a detective to find
>>>> a copy of Thomas Pynchon's picture.
>>>
>>> Not necessary. The celebrated yearbook photo is on the wall at
>>> Wessex Books, around the corner from Kepler's in Palo Alto.
>>
>> It would take an 8 on Richter's Scale to move
>> Kepler's from Menlo Park to Palo Alto.
>
> Awk!
This move would be relative to, say, the prize-winning pumpkin
at Half Moon Bay. The problem is, Palo Alto would also move by
the same amount South which would not surprise those who believe
that Kali, and specifically the Egregious North, has been moving
South for some time.
David Friedman
wrote:
> I will admit to being totally shocked at seeing a picture of Tad
> Williams on one of the Otherland books. Not at all what I expected
> someone with his writing style to look like, especially since I think
> his best work was the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.
I was mildly surprised by a picture of Mary in one of her books. Either
the photograph lies or she is much prettier than her public persona
implies.
--
Remove NOSPAM to email
Also remove .invalid
www.daviddfriedman.com
Matt Ruff
> Greetings,
>
> "I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
> the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
> -NG
> <http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
> Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
Not especially.
-- M. Ruff
Eric Jarvis
> In article <3f94c5a3...@news.thevine.net>, r.r...@thevine.net
> wrote:
>
> > I will admit to being totally shocked at seeing a picture of Tad
> > Williams on one of the Otherland books. Not at all what I expected
> > someone with his writing style to look like, especially since I think
> > his best work was the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.
>
> I was mildly surprised by a picture of Mary in one of her books. Either
> the photograph lies or she is much prettier than her public persona
> implies.
>
I've only 1987 to go by...but I'd trust the photo. Though I don't see a
conflict with her public persona. OTOH several "pretty brunettes" number
amongst the most dangerous people I know.
One of the images etched in my mind for life is waiting for a game of
pinball while ("pretty brunette") C [1] was playing. Somebody placed a
pint on the pin table and, without losing concentration for a second, C
told the perpetrator "If that isn't gone in three seconds I'm going to
kick your bollocks out through your nose". In the gentlest, huskiest
Cardiff accent that ever existed. What is most scary is that she really
meant it and would have.
Of course "pretty blondes" are just as dangerous.
I don't pay a lot of attention to writer's photos. I'm not particularly a
visual person. My image of people tends to be based on character, sound
and smell just as much as what they look like. This come partly through
having been extremely short sighted for most of my life. What most people
really look like to me is a moving blur.
I have, however, read a lot of books AFTER meeting the writer. There
haven't been all that many surprises from that. I suppose Geoff Ryman
being the least like I expected.
[1] Name withheld in case people who know her are reading this. I don't
want my bollocks kicked out through my nose.
--
eric
www.ericjarvis.co.uk
all these years I've waited for the revolution
and all we end up getting is spin
Neil Barnes
news:bn2g3...@enews4.newsguy.com:
> Which brings to mind the question of how many authors use
> *young* pictures on the jacket. <grin> I'm tempted to rush
> out and get some nice photos done so that when I finally need
> them I can use the pictures of when I was younger. If only
> I'd had some nice portraits done 10 years ago!
Heh. The image of our very own Mary G in the back of my copy of
Grunts looks just a leeedle bit different from the pics on her web
page :)
Not that I'm suggesting anything here, oh no...
Neil
--
note - the email address in this message is valid but the
signal to noise ratio approaches -40dB. A more useful address
is a similar account at ntlworld-fullstop-com.
J. F. Cornwall
Perl!
Jilly
> I did a writing course once with the OT. (Has she... admitted, proclaimed,
> told?) Can't think of the right word.And Lisa Tuttle. And a chappie called
> Banks.
I did that particular course too. All I remember about Nicola
Griffiths is that she only used one pronoun in ordinary conversation -
it was never 'he' or 'she' but always the weird conglomerate
'he-she-it' - and she told us NEVER to use adjectives. Never. Not one.
Ever.*
Jilly
* She hadn't really been published then, so I guess this was intended
to reduce the competition.
Matt Austern
> Greetings,
>
> "I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
> the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
> -NG
> <http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
>
> Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
Not to me. Lots of writers don't read things that are very similar to
what they write. (Many poets don't read poetry.) And it's not as if
Nicola is pretending not to be an SF writer or trying to distance
herself from the SF community. She gave an interview on an online SF
magazine, after all, and I've met both her and Kelly through fandom.
francis muir
Cornwall" <JCor...@cox.net> wrote:
FORTRAN is still the only write once,
read many times language.
J. F. Cornwall
in better as a reply to Awk... :-)
Jim
Peter D. Tillman
"Julie Pascal" <ju...@pascal.org> wrote:
>
> Which brings to mind the question of how many authors use
> *young* pictures on the jacket. <grin> I'm tempted to rush
> out and get some nice photos done so that when I finally need
> them I can use the pictures of when I was younger. If only
> I'd had some nice portraits done 10 years ago!
>
Obrasfw: you may recall the 'two portraits' of famed/infamous
review-factory Harriet Klausner we turned up AWB? The one on her
website, kind of a babe. The one from a 'neutral' site: an old-maid
librarian.
ObSF: the many, many stories where one edits one's video
image/avatar/cyberspace imago -- and not for the worse <G>.
Has their been a story with a character who's deliberately made their
image unattractive, and not for disguise purposes?
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
--
He had to be stopped, for all women were his playthings, and all men his
pawns! --cover blurb, Olaf Stapledon, Odd John (Beacon ed).
Peter D. Tillman
"Nicola Browne" <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> "Peter D. Tillman" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote
>
> > > > So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
> >
> > Well, maybe you don't, but I have a lifelong weakness for blond
> > Englishwomen... <g>
> >
> > And, with that Nicola, no danger of reciprocation <GG>
>
> This Nicola ( British and decidedly un blonde ) gets hacked off
> when it seems that appearance, like youth, matters increasingly even
> in the book business when it really shouldn't. I never wonder what the
> writer of a book looks like, do you? (I don't wonder about the writer
> at all unless its someone I've met.)I am interested in the books though.
>
I made the comment because I met Nicola Griffith a couple years ago, and
was surprised at how much better-looking she is in person vs. in photos.
Cheers -- Pete Tillman
--
"There's absolutely nothing like the sheer joy of diving into a piece of
fiction and just making shit up, feeling the words come purling from the
keyboard and the characters start moving around and talking and meeting
each other. It's incredible." --Nicola Griffith,
www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml
Peter D. Tillman
tabb...@cathaven.co.uk (Jilly) wrote:
ObWebLife: Michael Swanwick, "Unca Mike's Advice for Aspiring Writers":
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/evrel/advansw.html
Mark Atwood
>
> ObSF: the many, many stories where one edits one's video
> image/avatar/cyberspace imago -- and not for the worse <G>.
> Has their been a story with a character who's deliberately made their
> image unattractive, and not for disguise purposes?
Not exactly what you mean, but there is a character in the online
strip "Nukee's", who is a hot stacked shapely blond babe, who
intentioninally dresses in big frumpy baggy black turtlenecks and
two-sizes too large straight cut blue jeans, and keeps her hair pinned
back. This is so she can hang out with her fellow Nuclear Engineering
grad students without being distracted by them being distracted by
her.
--
Mark Atwood | When you do things right,
m...@pobox.com | people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Patricia C. Wrede
"Peter D. Tillman" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
news:tillman-FCCAAD...@news.fu-berlin.de...
> In article <bn2g3...@enews4.newsguy.com>,
> "Julie Pascal" <ju...@pascal.org> wrote:
>
> >
> > Which brings to mind the question of how many authors use
> > *young* pictures on the jacket. <grin> I'm tempted to rush
> > out and get some nice photos done so that when I finally need
> > them I can use the pictures of when I was younger. If only
> > I'd had some nice portraits done 10 years ago!
Sometimes, that's not due to vanity, it's due to time. It's a right
nuisance to run around and get a good new author photo taken every couple of
years, and copies made for all your publishers and a few extra just in case,
and then packaging them up so they don't bend and sending them out to anyone
who needs it. And the publishers always want it yesterday, when they want
it -- they don't often give you time to go out and get one taken, let alone
put in the mail (about half of them still want actual photos, not digital;
the other half want digital, not prints). And if they have one on file,
they don't always ask if you want to update it, even if it's twenty years
old; they just go ahead and use it. And they *never* update the photo on
the back of a reprint.
Patricia C. Wrede
Dorothy J Heydt
Peter D. Tillman <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote:
>
>ObSF: the many, many stories where one edits one's video
>image/avatar/cyberspace imago -- and not for the worse <G>.
>Has their been a story with a character who's deliberately made their
>image unattractive, and not for disguise purposes?
Not SF, but there's a character in an Elizabeth Peters mystery
who wears loose baggy clothing, neutral-shade foundation to cover
her natural skin shade, an unattractive hair style, and glasses
to make herself unattractive. This is because her boss is a
lech.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Darkhawk (H. Nicoll)
> image unattractive, and not for disguise purposes?
Tepper's _Gibbon's Decline and Fall_ has such a character. (If I'm
remembering the title right.)
--
Heather Anne Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
They are one person, they are two alone
They are three together, they are for each other.
- "Helplessly Hoping", Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>
>"Matt Austern" <aus...@well.com> wrote in message
>news:m2znfv5...@Matt-Austerns-Computer.local...
>> Don Tuite <don_...@REMOVETHIShotlink.com> writes:
>>
>> > On 20 Oct 2003 21:08:16 -0700, Matt Austern <aus...@well.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > >I usually turn to the back cover to find out what the author looks
>> > >like, so at least I have some nonzero amount of curiosity! But at
>> > >least I'm not quite pathological enough to hire a detective to find
>> > >a copy of Thomas Pynchon's picture.
>> >
>> > Not necessary. The celebrated yearbook photo is on the wall at
>> > Wessex Books, around the corner from Kepler's in Palo Alto.
>>
>> Yep, I've seen it. (Except that it's in Menlo Park, not Palo Alto.)
>> But I bet that's not what he looks like now.
>
>Which brings to mind the question of how many authors use
>*young* pictures on the jacket. <grin> I'm tempted to rush
>out and get some nice photos done so that when I finally need
>them I can use the pictures of when I was younger. If only
>I'd had some nice portraits done 10 years ago!
Moon's new book came last week and I noticed that she has a new photo
on the cover, one that is pretty close to her actual age. The last
book I got by her (and others before) all have a much younger picture.
--
Marilee J. Layman
Handmade Bali Sterling Beads at Wholesale
http://www.basicbali.com
Marilee J. Layman
<til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote:
>ObSF: the many, many stories where one edits one's video
>image/avatar/cyberspace imago -- and not for the worse <G>.
>Has their been a story with a character who's deliberately made their
>image unattractive, and not for disguise purposes?
In real life, a number of women gain weight for this purpose. I'd
think it must turn up in SF somewhere.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
I find you a lucky, lucky bastard. I want an instructor lineup like
that!
Lori Selke
>
>"I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
>the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
>-NG
><http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
>Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
Actually, no. I know a number of professional SF writers who confess to
reading very little of the stuff these days -- party because they're
too busy writing instead.
Lori
--
se...@io.com, se...@mindspring.com, http://www.io.com/~selk
"It must be art for sure if somebody wants to destroy it."
-- Carol Emshwiller
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
wrote:
>Heh. The image of our very own Mary G in the back of my copy of
>Grunts looks just a leeedle bit different from the pics on her web
>page :)
Er, which one? grunts.org.uk or whatever? Cause marygentle.org was
under construction a couple of days ago and I have one of the cover
photos probably.
vlatko
--
http://www.niribanimeso.org/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>I'd heard of none of them (I never remember authors' names, just plots),
>but was eventually reminded of a book by Lisa
>Tuttle that had people using high-tech hang gliders.
ITYM the collaboration between Tuttle and George R. R. Martin,
_Windhaven_. Or was it _The Storms of Windhaven_?
Zeborah
> The Blue Place was in, snif, the last and lost box from the USA. Snif
> snif. Together with others irrepracebles like my photos from Clarion
> and, Dorothy (bwwaaaa!) your books. :-(
>
> I still hope for it turn up, but the hope gets more forlorn every day...
Some US postal worker has a fondness for sf books. I too had a box
lost, sent from NY state at the start of 2000. Still hasn't arrived.
Zeborah
--
Kangaroo Story wordcount: 40444 words
Eric Jarvis
> Julian Flood <j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I find you a lucky, lucky bastard. I want an instructor lineup like
> that!
>
We do all right on this newsgroup actually, and I bet we'll look back on
it in a few years time and add a fair few names to the "did I REALLY get
advice from <insert name here>" list.
Dorothy J Heydt
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan <ada...@spamcop.net> wrote:
>The Blue Place was in, snif, the last and lost box from the USA. Snif
>snif. Together with others irrepracebles like my photos from Clarion
>and, Dorothy (bwwaaaa!) your books. :-(
>
>I still hope for it turn up, but the hope gets more forlorn every day...
Oh, shucks. Well, give 'em a few more months and if they don't
surface I'll send you more. ;)
David Friedman
francis muir <francis....@balliol.org> wrote:
> >> Awk!
> >>
> >> Don
> >
> > Perl!
>
> FORTRAN is still the only write once,
> read many times language.
And APL the only write only language?
Shelly
>"Nicola Browne" <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
>> I never wonder what the writer of a book looks like, do you? (I don't
>wonder >about the writer at all unless its someone I've met.)I am interested
>in the books though.
>>
>> Nicky
>You know, oddly enough, I do wonder what the author looks like, though
>I don't necessarily care what s/he looks like.
>It's like listening to a lot of talk radio. You get this idea in your
>head of what the DJ looks like. Then, you actually see a picture of
>the DJ, and nine times out of ten, you're disappointed. The DJ didn't
>look anything at all like you imagined him/her to be.
It's the same with any DJ. I've gotten to meet a couple of my favs here in
NYC--from the oldies station--and seen some others hosting oldies concerts--and
I've seen photos of yet others, and they so rarely fit the image I've formed of
them based on their voices.
Authors are a bit tougher for me to form an image. I guess I need the voice.
But I do get curious.
(snip)
>I do want to say thought that with reading books or listening to talk
>radio, the look of the artist still doesn't determine how much I like
>the radio program or the book. I guess I'm curious and just want to
>know.
That's exactly how I feel. I always check the back of a book to see if there's
an author photo. It doesn't matter what an author looks like, but I like
knowing.
Shelly
francis muir
ddfr-BEF84F.1...@sea-read.news.verio.net, "David Friedman"
<dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> wrote:
> In article <BBBAE290.14644%francis....@balliol.org>,
> francis muir <francis....@balliol.org> wrote:
>
>>>> Awk!
>>>>
>>>> Don
>>>
>>> Perl!
>>
>> FORTRAN is still the only write once,
>> read many times language.
>
> And APL the only write only language?
I remember a devotee who claimed that he could
write an FFT subroutine in one line of APL. It
took him about a week to write and as long for
his interpreter to produce machine code.
Julian Flood
"Anna Feruglio Dal Dan" <adaldan
> I find you a lucky, lucky bastard. I want an instructor lineup like
> that!
They taught me a lot, but so have all the others. Try TP. Gemmell. M Scott.
Sally Worboyes. That little chap with an earring. I don't think I've ever
done a writing lesson where I haven't learnt a lot.
JF
Windhaven, yes.
Julian Flood
David Friedman
Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 14:34:05 -0600, "Peter D. Tillman"
> <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote:
>
> >ObSF: the many, many stories where one edits one's video
> >image/avatar/cyberspace imago -- and not for the worse <G>.
> >Has their been a story with a character who's deliberately made their
> >image unattractive, and not for disguise purposes?
>
> In real life, a number of women gain weight for this purpose. I'd
> think it must turn up in SF somewhere.
I don't know about sf, but I'm pretty sure I've seen something in the
hardboiled detective line, possibly Mickey Spillane, with a woman who
wears thick glasses and has her hair up in a bun in order to conceal the
fact that she is strikingly attractive.
Marilee J. Layman
<vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:28:20 +0100, "Julian Flood"
><j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I'd heard of none of them (I never remember authors' names, just plots),
>>but was eventually reminded of a book by Lisa
>>Tuttle that had people using high-tech hang gliders.
>
>ITYM the collaboration between Tuttle and George R. R. Martin,
>_Windhaven_. Or was it _The Storms of Windhaven_?
Windhaven is the book (I have it, reread it occasionally), and "The
Storms of Windhaven" was the story published six years earlier in
Analog.
Jeff Inman
>
> "Julian Flood" <j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message news:<bn169t$oqk$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk>...
> > I did a writing course once with the OT. (Has she... admitted, proclaimed,
> > told?) Can't think of the right word.And Lisa Tuttle. And a chappie called
> > Banks.
>
> I did that particular course too. All I remember about Nicola
> Griffiths is that she only used one pronoun in ordinary conversation -
> it was never 'he' or 'she' but always the weird conglomerate
> 'he-she-it' - and she told us NEVER to use adjectives. Never. Not one.
> Ever.*
Adjectives are so ...
the Robot Vegetable
> In article <BBBAE290.14644%francis....@balliol.org>,
> francis muir <francis....@balliol.org> wrote:
>
>> >> Awk!
>> >>
>> >> Don
>> >
>> > Perl!
>>
>> FORTRAN is still the only write once,
>> read many times language.
>
> And APL the only write only language?
>
That would be mindfuck, I believe. Or malbroge? I can't find
the homepage(s) but it has no printable character in it's source.
Karl M Syring
I is "Malbolge", see Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language
I think, Befunge rules in this realm: Programming in 2D really rocks.
Karl M. Syring
Neil Barnes
news:akbbpvotbl852i8hc...@news.individual.net:
> On 21 Oct 2003 18:53:53 GMT, Neil Barnes
> <nailed_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Heh. The image of our very own Mary G in the back of my copy
>>of Grunts looks just a leeedle bit different from the pics on
>>her web page :)
>
> Er, which one? grunts.org.uk or whatever? Cause marygentle.org
> was under construction a couple of days ago and I have one of
> the cover photos probably.
http://www.grunts.org.uk/images/large/piggies3.jpg shows a short-
haired redhead; the book shows a 'big-haired' lady with a
pratchett hat :)
(er, they're both very nice pictures! Honest!)
Neil
--
note - the email address in this message is valid but the
signal to noise ratio approaches -40dB. A more useful address
is a similar account at ntlworld-fullstop-com.
David Friedman
shelly...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly) wrote:
> It's the same with any DJ. I've gotten to meet a couple of my favs here in
> NYC--from the oldies station--and seen some others hosting oldies
> concerts--and
> I've seen photos of yet others, and they so rarely fit the image I've formed
> of
> them based on their voices.
>
> Authors are a bit tougher for me to form an image. I guess I need the voice.
> But I do get curious.
Years ago, on the SCA newsgroup, someone started a game of describing
posters you had never met. It was interesting.
Dorothy J Heydt
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedmanNOSPAM.com.invalid> wrote:
>In article <20031021204303...@mb-m15.aol.com>,
> shelly...@aol.comShellyS (Shelly) wrote:
>
>> It's the same with any DJ. I've gotten to meet a couple of my favs here in
>> NYC--from the oldies station--and seen some others hosting oldies
>> concerts--and
>> I've seen photos of yet others, and they so rarely fit the image I've formed
>> of
>> them based on their voices.
>>
>> Authors are a bit tougher for me to form an image. I guess I need the voice.
>> But I do get curious.
>
>Years ago, on the SCA newsgroup, someone started a game of describing
>posters you had never met. It was interesting.
Oh, I remember that. They thought you were seven feet tall (if
you were, you'd have to fight the other side of Dwarves vs. Giants)
and they thought I was young and beautiful, with an eye like
Jove's to threaten and command. O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
to BE, oursel's, as ithers see us!
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Anna Feruglio Dal Dan wrote:
> > Julian Flood <j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > I find you a lucky, lucky bastard. I want an instructor lineup like
> > that!
> >
>
> We do all right on this newsgroup actually, and I bet we'll look back on
> it in a few years time and add a fair few names to the "did I REALLY get
> advice from <insert name here>" list.
No well. Maybe Banksie sucks as an instructor, but I'm jealous anyway.
:-)
Anna the fangirl
Matt Austern
> In article <BBBAE290.14644%francis....@balliol.org>,
> francis muir <francis....@balliol.org> wrote:
>
> > >> Awk!
> > >>
> > >> Don
> > >
> > > Perl!
> >
> > FORTRAN is still the only write once,
> > read many times language.
>
> And APL the only write only language?
Only someone who has never used INTERCAL could ask that question.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> In article <3F94E5...@despam.autobahn.mb.ca>,
> H. E. Taylor <h...@despam.autobahn.mb.ca> wrote:
> >Greetings,
> >
> >"I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
> >the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
> >-NG
> ><http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
> >
> >Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
>
> Actually, no. I know a number of professional SF writers who confess to
> reading very little of the stuff these days -- party because they're
> too busy writing instead.
Me, for one. :-(
Mary Gentle
nailed_...@hotmail.com (Neil Barnes) wrote:
> Vlatko Juric-Kokic <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote in
> news:akbbpvotbl852i8hc...@news.individual.net:
>
> > On 21 Oct 2003 18:53:53 GMT, Neil Barnes
> > <nailed_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Heh. The image of our very own Mary G in the back of my copy
> >>of Grunts looks just a leeedle bit different from the pics on
> >>her web page :)
> >
> > Er, which one? grunts.org.uk or whatever? Cause marygentle.org
> > was under construction a couple of days ago and I have one of
> > the cover photos probably.
>
> http://www.grunts.org.uk/images/large/piggies3.jpg shows a short-
> haired redhead; the book shows a 'big-haired' lady with a
> pratchett hat :)
>
> (er, they're both very nice pictures! Honest!)
The curly-haired one is redheaded, too; it just tends not to show up in
black and white. <g>
My hair's now as long as in the first photo, but this time not curly.
Unless I get bored again during message-propagation, in which case I may
have gone back to short by the time you read this.
(Okay, it grows fast, and I get bored easily. :)
Mary
Mary Gentle
nailed_...@hotmail.com (Neil Barnes) wrote:
> "Julie Pascal" <ju...@pascal.org> wrote in
> news:bn2g3...@enews4.newsguy.com:
>
>
> > Which brings to mind the question of how many authors use
> > *young* pictures on the jacket. <grin> I'm tempted to rush
> > out and get some nice photos done so that when I finally need
> > them I can use the pictures of when I was younger. If only
> > I'd had some nice portraits done 10 years ago!
>
> Heh. The image of our very own Mary G in the back of my copy of
> Grunts looks just a leeedle bit different from the pics on her web
> page :)
>
> Not that I'm suggesting anything here, oh no...
I haven't got a web page...
(If it's the _pigs'_ web page, on the other hand, I'm the one without
trotters. :)
'Salright, you could put the photos for Golden Witchbreed, Rats &
Gargoyles, and Grunts together, and still not see the connection. The
only photo I ever /liked/ was in one of the sf/fantasy encyclopaedias; I
forget which one now.
I've grown my hair again since Grunts...
Mary
John F. Carr
Nicola Browne <nicky.m...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>"> Very, very nice interview, from one of our sharpest (and
>>best-looking) writers. Don't miss.
>>
>
>So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
You, as a reader, may not care. I, as a reader, do. I want to
know what the person writing the book I am reading or performing
the music on the CD I am listening to looks like. It's just a
policy I adopted and I don't need to convert people to my side
so I won't try to come up with an explanation. If I were perfectly
rational in all things I wouldn't be reading this stuff in the
first place. Judging by Locus and book covers, SF and fantasy
authors (and especially female authors, I think, though I haven't
attempted a statistical analysis) tend not to look like average people.
And if you haven't seen the author picture on the back of the
hardcover edition of _Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse_,
your life is not complete.
--
John Carr (j...@mit.edu)
Paul Repacholi
> One of the images etched in my mind for life is waiting for a game
> of pinball while ("pretty brunette") C [1] was playing. Somebody
> placed a pint on the pin table and, without losing concentration for
> a second, C told the perpetrator "If that isn't gone in three
> seconds I'm going to kick your bollocks out through your nose". In
> the gentlest, huskiest Cardiff accent that ever existed. What is
> most scary is that she really meant it and would have.
> Of course "pretty blondes" are just as dangerous.
The funny one I watched was a `pretty red-head'. Pay heed, they are
even more dangerous than you have been told...
This was in a modern version of the pin-ball parlour, and a pair of
local heros badgered her into joining in to a session on one of the
shooting games with a gun revolver on a cable type, so they could demo
how wonderfull they were. It all turned to mud though as she double
tapped her way quietly to a 98% odd score, with local heros getting
quieter and looking distinctly off their nose bag. She was very, very
good, and made it look oh so easy.
Even my youngest noticed and commented on it all.
--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.
Stuart Houghton
news:memo.2003102...@roxanne.morgan.ntlworld.com:
>
> I haven't got a web page...
>
So, what's happening with http://www.marygentle.org/ and http://www.
[PSEUDONYM].com/? Are they under construction until the great 1610 tree
cull or have you just not got around to putting anything up yet?
--
Stuart Houghton
http://rippingyarns.blogspot.com/
Julian Flood
"Anna Feruglio Dal Dan"
> No well. Maybe Banksie sucks as an instructor, but I'm jealous anyway.
No, I must have miswritten: he was very good at the sparking ideas bit,
which is the important part. Anyone* can put words on paper, it's what
they're about that matters. And he was funny. And enthusiastic.
JF
*aka even me
Joann Zimmerman
mjla...@erols.com says...
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 00:55:00 +0200, Vlatko Juric-Kokic
> <vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:28:20 +0100, "Julian Flood"
> ><j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >>I'd heard of none of them (I never remember authors' names, just plots),
> >>but was eventually reminded of a book by Lisa
> >>Tuttle that had people using high-tech hang gliders.
> >
> >ITYM the collaboration between Tuttle and George R. R. Martin,
> >_Windhaven_. Or was it _The Storms of Windhaven_?
>
> Windhaven is the book (I have it, reread it occasionally), and "The
> Storms of Windhaven" was the story published six years earlier in
> Analog.
I'm in the middle of it[*] right now; it came out in paper reprint a few
months ago, and as I walked in the door to the Editor GOH interview at
ArmadilloCon a copy was pressed upon me. (Fortunately I hadn't already
bought one, or I would have been annoyed.)
[*] Not actively reading it just now because it got hijacked by
_Quicksilver_ for breakfast reading. And that'll take a while.
--
"I never understood people who don't have bookshelves."
--George Plimpton
Joann Zimmerman jz...@bellereti.com
Andrea Leistra
>"I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
>the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
>-NG
><http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
>
>Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
She's not writing SF/F these days, either (at least, her last two
books weren't, and the next one won't be) so that doesn't sound like
much to worry about.
--
Andrea Leistra
Justin Bacon
> Greetings,
>
> "I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
> the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
> -NG
> <http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
> Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
Given the context, no. I think she needs to have someone point her in
the direction of Iain Banks and Lois Bujold.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
Charlie Allery
> "Peter D. Tillman" <til...@aztec.asu.edu> wrote in message
> news:tillman-87D874...@news.fu-berlin.de
>
> > > > So why do I, as a reader, care what the author looks like?
> > >
> >
> > Englishwomen... <g>
> >
> > And, with that Nicola, no danger of reciprocation <GG>
>
> This Nicola ( British and decidedly un blonde ) gets hacked off
> when it seems that appearance, like youth, matters increasingly even
> in the book business when it really shouldn't. I never wonder what the
> writer of a book looks like, do you? (I don't wonder about the writer
> at all unless its someone I've met.)I am interested in the books though.
>
I'm with you on this. I want my words to speak for themselves. I'm
interested in how people (especially writers) got where they are, but only
if they're willing to share and only if I like the books they write anyway.
Mostly I want them to stay locked up in their little cubbyholes and write
more books for me to read!
Charlie (who has finally read the next 5 Malory Towers books, 30 years
after the 1st one, and is eagerly waiting for the last one from its 12 yr
old owner)
Jilly
> "Jilly" <tabb...@cathaven.co.uk>
> <Waves> I was the quiet one.
And I thought I was the quiet one! I remember you as quite talkative
and intersting, but I didn't get to hear your work, IIRC, as we were
split into three groups for that. I'm not good at reading my own stuff
aloud, so it was very traumatic limping through my story in front of
Iain Banks and six or seven strangers. When I finished there was a
silence so long that I wanted to die... I thought that everyone hated
the story and was trying to think of a tactful way to tell me it was
drivel... then Iain said that he liked it and made a few helpful
comments. It did get published later, but I'm the kiss of death for
magazines! They buy my stories, then they fold!
Jilly
Mary Gentle
stu_ajh-utter...@hotmail.com (Stuart Houghton) wrote:
> mary_...@cix.co.uk (Mary Gentle) wrote in
> news:memo.2003102...@roxanne.morgan.ntlworld.com:
>
> >
> > I haven't got a web page...
> >
>
> So, what's happening with http://www.marygentle.org/ and http://www.
> [PSEUDONYM].com/? Are they under construction until the great 1610
> tree cull or have you just not got around to putting anything up yet?
Um.
Er.
I really meant to get /something/ up to indicate that Ten Past Four is
available. (And it will be, very soon; the object itself turned up in the
post this morning, and has been sitting on the desk here all day.) '20
November', Amazon says. <beam> <purr purr>
I must Do Something. Thanks for the prod.
Mary
Mary Gentle
j...@mit.edu (John F. Carr) wrote:
[...]
> Judging by Locus and book covers, SF and fantasy
> authors (and especially female authors, I think, though I haven't
> attempted a statistical analysis) tend not to look like average people.
<cautiously>
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Mary
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
<jz...@bellereti.com> wrote:
>[*] Not actively reading it just now because it got hijacked by
>_Quicksilver_ for breakfast reading. And that'll take a while.
Onna tangent: I have _The History of Reading_ waiting for me to start
it reading. No, it's not about the town in England. :-) And I
*constantly* get hijacked by various things here on the computer.
vlatko
--
http://www.niribanimeso.org/eng/
http://www.michaelswanwick.com/
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr
Vlatko Juric-Kokic
Gentle) wrote:
>I haven't got a web page...
Well, you do, of a sort. See the first site down there in the sig. :-)
>I've grown my hair again since Grunts...
And you could send me a picture to put it up on the site.
Joann Zimmerman
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr says...
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:44:27 -0500, Joann Zimmerman
> <jz...@bellereti.com> wrote:
>
> >[*] Not actively reading it just now because it got hijacked by
> >_Quicksilver_ for breakfast reading. And that'll take a while.
>
> Onna tangent: I have _The History of Reading_ waiting for me to start
> it reading. No, it's not about the town in England. :-) And I
> *constantly* get hijacked by various things here on the computer.
Ever notice how books, fiction particularly, are a LIFO stack?
Catja Pafort
> Actually, no. I know a number of professional SF writers who confess to
> reading very little of the stuff these days -- party because they're
> too busy writing instead.
On the one hand, I can see the logical arguments of why one _should_
read - so that one does not lose the touch for what works, has great
prose to aspire to, and aquires a feeling for what is happening in the
world of your genre. (I don't believe that writing should be done in
ivory towers.)
On the other hand, I find myself a) short on time, and b) with an attack
novel that's still attacking, and more and more of the time that I used
to read in now gets eaten up by writing. I never thought I could write
instead of reading, but to a degree, it seems I can, and with a more
intense immersion in the world of _my_ book, my interest in other books
is fading. Plus, as I learn more about writing, it becomes harder to
find _good_ books to read.
Overall, I think the stimulation is more important than increasing the
wordcount, but I find that for the first time in my life, I have to make
an effort to read. :-((
Catja
m.baro
John F. Carr wrote:
> Judging by Locus and book covers, SF and fantasy
> authors (and especially female authors, I think, though I haven't
> attempted a statistical analysis) tend not to look like average people.
Because they're really aliens? :)
-Min
Richard Horton
Putting words on paper, words that sound good and flow and have rhythm
and elegance and voice, seems harder to me than ideas.
--
Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard...@sff.net
Home Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Also visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)
Dorothy J Heydt
Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>
>Putting words on paper, words that sound good and flow and have rhythm
>and elegance and voice, seems harder to me than ideas.
I'll second that. I can still get ideas, but the words-into-paper
mechanism is down.
Brian Pickrell
> Greetings,
>
> "I stopped rereading the boy SF in my late twenties; I stopped rereading
> the girl SF in my mid-thirties. I hardly ever read SF/F at all these days."
> -NG
> <http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030929/griffith_interview.shtml>
>
>
> Does that sound like a self imposed kiss-of-death to anyone else?
>
> -het
Possibly, but I can see her point. I've almost completely given up on
science fiction too and only read real literature these days.
Julian Flood
'Anyone can put words on paper' is not a serious proposition, but a
prevalent one, a subgroup of the 'bum on seat' theory of book writing. I may
have mentioned the person who, having heard that I had sold a short story,
started a novel on the principle that if I can write then anyone can. So
it was a self-referential point, a little self-denigratory, a little
self-conscious, a little sad.
Some people can't write. Some people can but can't sell. Some people
shouldn't.
JF
<42.02k, eh? I must try harder.>
Julian Flood
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Some people can't write. Some people can but can't sell. Some people
> shouldn't.
Some people, I have found, can write, but not with facility. I was
surprised at how short and abrupt the emails of a good friend of mine
were because not only he's a superb storyteller, he's also a good
writer. It just costs him a lot of effort, much more than it does to me.
For me words just flow. I hadn't realized that it's not like that for
everybody.
Julian Flood
'Anyone can put words on paper' is not a serious proposition, but a
prevalent one, a subgroup of the 'bum on seat' theories of book writing.
I may have mentioned the person who, having heard that I had sold a
short story, started a novel on the principle that if I can write then
anyone can. So it was a self-referential point, a little self-denigratory,
a little self-conscious, a little sad.
Some people can't write. Some people can but can't sell. Some people
shouldn't.
JF
David Friedman
Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > Putting words on paper, words that sound good and flow and have rhythm
> > and elegance and voice, seems harder to me than ideas.
>
> I don't think the ideas, should the ideas be required to make sense, can
> properly be dissevered from the words.
I can think of at least one nonfiction writer in my field who has good
and interesting ideas but doesn't write very well. I had one student who
wrote a paper about his work in a deliberate parody of his style. My
favorite bit was the reference to a suboptimal light to heat ratio.
And there are fiction writers who are notable chiefly as idea people.
--
Remove NOSPAM to email
Also remove .invalid
www.daviddfriedman.com
Mary Gentle
vlatko.ju...@zg.hinet.hr (Vlatko Juric-Kokic) wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:24 +0100 (BST), mary_...@cix.co.uk (Mary
> Gentle) wrote:
>
> >I haven't got a web page...
>
> Well, you do, of a sort. See the first site down there in the sig. :-)
So there is. :)
> >I've grown my hair again since Grunts...
>
> And you could send me a picture to put it up on the site.
I could, if I had one!
I ought to get another one done, actually; there was the usual 'we want a
photo five minutes ago!' whine from the publishers, of the kind that
Patricia W mentioned, for 1610. And I didn't have one, so there isn't
one. When I get one done, I'll mail you.
I'm all for 'no author photos in books', me. I can't think of anyone who
looks like I think they /ought/ to look.
Mary
Zeborah
> In <cpGlb.10720$5j6....@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>,
> Richard Horton <rrho...@prodigy.net> onsendan:
> > On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 17:14:41 +0100, "Julian Flood"
> ><j...@floodsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> >>No, I must have miswritten: he was very good at the sparking ideas bit,
> >>which is the important part. Anyone* can put words on paper, it's what
> >>they're about that matters. And he was funny. And enthusiastic.
> >
> > Putting words on paper, words that sound good and flow and have rhythm
> > and elegance and voice, seems harder to me than ideas.
>
> I don't think the ideas, should the ideas be required to make sense, can
> properly be dissevered from the words.
I think there's a continuum of ideas: there's the "I think I'll write
about a deaf princess and a blind prince" kind, which one can get from a
dream or a thousand other ways, and I think those are utterly easy to
get.
But there's ideas needed to keep the flow going, and you need to make
some comment about the food they're eating while discussing the zoo
they're going to visit, and so you randomly mention that the princess
likes pickles. Those are harder, I think.
Well, that example wasn't; it was done during Nanowrimo during which the
strangest things came out of my fingers. But that sort of thing is what
I find hard when I'm writing normally.
(I'm not sure, of a sudden, whether I should do the WIP this Nanowrimo;
it's a mode that seems to conflict with the manic state imposed by the
Nanowrimo process, and I suspect it'll come out as goop. Well, I may
try anyway. If it does work it'll be good, and if it doesn't work I'll
probably at least have something to recycle.)
Zeborah
--
Kangaroo Story wordcount: 44444 words and first draft finished
Suzanne A Blom
Zeborah <zeb...@netaccess.co.nz> wrote in message
news:1g3afg8.1azsasghmrwkmN%zeb...@netaccess.co.nz..
> > I don't think the ideas, should the ideas be required to make sense, can
> > properly be dissevered from the words.
>
> I think there's a continuum of ideas: there's the "I think I'll write
> about a deaf princess and a blind prince" kind, which one can get from a
> dream or a thousand other ways, and I think those are utterly easy to
> get.
>
> But there's ideas needed to keep the flow going, and you need to make
> some comment about the food they're eating while discussing the zoo
> they're going to visit, and so you randomly mention that the princess
> likes pickles. Those are harder, I think.
>
> Well, that example wasn't; it was done during Nanowrimo during which the
> strangest things came out of my fingers. But that sort of thing is what
> I find hard when I'm writing normally.
>
> (I'm not sure, of a sudden, whether I should do the WIP this Nanowrimo;
> it's a mode that seems to conflict with the manic state imposed by the
> Nanowrimo process, and I suspect it'll come out as goop. Well, I may
> try anyway. If it does work it'll be good, and if it doesn't work I'll
> probably at least have something to recycle.)
>
> Zeborah
> --
> Kangaroo Story wordcount: 44444 words and first draft finished
Sly of you putting that in the sig: Congrats.
Shelly
And despite having had success with fan fic writing for 15 years, I worry that
I'm one of those people who shouldn't... write... professionally.
The thing about writing is that anyone with a good or decent knowledge of words
and grammar can give it a try and there's no way during the process, which is
largely solitary, to know if it's good enough. Even the comments of a handful
of people might not be enough to judge by.
I couldn't sit down and start playing the piano without lessons. I can't start
speaking another language, even after years of being taught a few in school. I
can't suddenly become a doctor or lawyer. But I could sit down and start
writing.
And there's nothing wrong, IMO, with trying, even if it ends up being just for
one's own amusement.
Shelly
Julian Flood
"Julian Flood" <
> 'Anyone can put words on paper' is not a serious proposition,
And certainly not one which needs repeating. Sorry. Bl**dy M****ft. Or
Freeserve.Or both. aka not my fault, guv.
JF
Matt Austern
> Matt Austern wrote:
>
> > I usually turn to the back cover to find out what the author looks
> > like, so at least I have some nonzero amount of curiosity! But at
> > least I'm not quite pathological enough to hire a detective to find
> > a copy of Thomas Pynchon's picture.
>
> Matt Austern. Now there's a name from the RABbinic yestersnow.
Still around! (And so is Janet.) Haven't hung out much in RAB for a
while, though.