Back in motion!

I mentioned previously that I hoped life could resume something like normality in early March. I’m extremely grateful that so far, that does seem to be the case. It’s going to take me a little time to get everything moving again, since so many different projects all stalled from lack of attention–and not only writing projects. But I’m feeling optimistic! So optimistic that I’ve begun to release the first chapter of the new Moonblood adventure, Return, as of this past Friday. That may not have been the wisest plan while the adventure itself is still incomplete, but at this point,…

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Writing Diversity

I’m very big on diversity in writing, particularly when it comes to fantasy and science-fiction. Our dominant, mass-media-driven culture is keen on portraying “normal” (=”good and right”) in very restrictive terms. (I’ve talked about this elsewhere.) With humanity still struggling with our tragic history of hatred and bigotry and many of us trying our best to get past that (unfortunately, far too many seem quite content to wallow in it), value judgements disguised as entertainment only undermine the slow climb towards equality. That said… “political correctness” kills creativity. Before you lynch me or stop reading, please understand. I’m not advocating…

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Anthropomorphization

anthropomorphize: 1. To endow with human qualities. 2. To attribute human characteristics to something that is non-human. (from wiktionary) I live with cats who are a fundamental daily part of my life. I know I’m guilty of anthropomorphizing them sometimes, although I make a serious effort to understand them on their own terms, and it’s more often teasing than for real. I’m the admin of a lolcats (and other lolanimals) site, which is heavy on the sincere animal lovers, but a deliberate part of the game involves reading human facial expressions, body language, motivation, thought processes, and/or other interpretation into…

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Ideas: Self-Permission

As I said in my previous post, taking a look at where my ideas come from turned out to be a more complex subject than I anticipated, and ran into this one, which I think counts as a subject in its own right. Also as I said there, please be patient with material that looks like it’s wandering off-topic; it isn’t. When I was nineteen, and came out as not heterosexual (I lacked the terminology at the time; the word I use now is “pansexual”), my writing went through a massive transformation. Instead of trying desperately to keep it “clean”…

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Ideas: Where Do They Come From?

It’s now a cliche, to ask a writer, “Where do you get your ideas?” It’s been a long time since anyone bothered to ask me that, and most of those were not out of any particular admiration – generally more along the lines of, “Where on earth do you come up with this wierdness, anyway?”. I decided I’m going to answer it anyhow, because it’s an essential part of the whole process. After all, you don’t get far writing unless you can think of something to write about. I’m reluctant to comment on where anyone else gets their ideas, but…

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