My previous post on William H. Patterson, Jr.’s, Heinlein biography focused on what I learned about the writing business. But that wasn’t all I gained from the reading. In many ways, Heinlein’s life provided general rules to live by as a writer and a person. Take care of your mortality: physical health, mental health, diet…
I have been a fan of Heinlein’s for more than forty years. When he was alive, I watched constantly for his next publication, and I have read nearly everything he has written and a great deal of what has been written about his work. Learning only recently that there was an official biography about him…
foundations for a writing office I’ve been tweeting about the lovely little getaway house my husband and I have been building for the last three months. I am pleased it’s coming along, but what I really care about and am excited about is my office. Sure the house is going to have bedrooms, a living…
Put on a record. I was dropping in on my various social medias and stopped long enough to check my email and get caught up. I saw a newsletter post Molly Green had made a couple weeks back about being your own support, cheerleader, life fixer because we lose those that do that for us…
Live in a dome; artistic flare w/off-Earth life I love this idea: terraforming with a shell or dome to hold the atmosphere in and generate heat. That makes use of local planets like Mars, Venus, and various moons as liveable space very doable. Miriam Kramer’s article “Incredible Technology: How to Use a ‘Shell’ to Terraform…
Let’s face it, Ernest Hemingway does everything right, so I could focus on a variety of qualities in his writing and gain insight. But for the purpose of this post, I am giving my attention to his use of theme, so I am turning to the high school standard read The Old Man and the…
Time links past with present Harper Lee had quite a task creating the narrative voice of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Sure Scout was a six-year-old girl who ages about two years in the course of the book; what’s the challenge? Seems easy enough — in that short span of years there is not…
building character from within The variety of ways one can convey a character’s viewpoint are many and challenging. Dialogue, other character’s viewpoint, narrator, info dump and internal thought as a type of dialogue and first person speaker and then imbedded thinking stuck right inside the narration. I find such character reveals, when done well, a…
