Blog Archives

1st April 2004: Skazlorls

I have, with John M. Ford’s gracious permission, managed to insert the following sentence into Lyflode “The sky was black with skazlorls” and then a little later “Did you see the skazlorls?” When that’s in print, the word will be

Posted in Lifelode

1st August 2003: Sex, yes, gender, no.

I’m a woman. Furthermore, I’m about as heterosexual as people get, and I’m a mother. Also, I have long hair, like cooking, I’m married and I don’t earn as much as my husband. I sometimes wear jewelry and I like

Posted in Lifelode, Sulien World

10th March 2003: Up on the white verandah

Darkhawk asked me why the religions in my novel would be always not quite coping. There’s a Bob Dylan song on the album Desire called “Black Diamond Bay” which begins: Up on the white verandah, she wears a necktie and a

Posted in Lifelode

25th March 2003: Wittering about writing

Oh, and incidentally, because this is going to sound demented. You know how there are some characters you keep writing? Who keep coming back in different forms, and want to be written about, like Bottom auditioning for all the parts

Posted in Lifelode, Writing

11th February 2003: Thoughts on Fantasy

Probably the worst piece of writing advice I have ever heard in my entire life, including time spent on rec.arts.sf.composition, was a professional writer advising people wishing to write fantasy to watch people roleplaying to get an idea of how

Posted in Lifelode, My Books, Writing

7th January 2002: Genre conventions

Sarah Monette was writing in her journal about Bujold and Sayers, and what A Civil Campaign doesn’t do that Gaudy Night does, and a conversation following on from that. There are genre conventions, there are subversions of genre conventions, and

Posted in Books, Lifelode, Writing