Tension in my stories is something I’m working on improving, and this is a good discussion of how it works and how to build, sustain, and release it.
Jan
04
Tag Archives: Mike Reeves-McMillan
Jan
04
Via Ryan Toxopeus.
Via Ryan Toxopeus.
Originally shared by Nicola Smith
Jan
04
You can depict your heroes standing up to oppression.
You can depict your heroes standing up to oppression.
You can show a despised group sympathetically.
Or you can just normalise the “other”.
Originally shared by Steve Turnbull
Making art to bring about change, probably more important now than it ever has been.
This article is specifically about film-making, but applies to all art, in my opinion.
Jan
04
My first thought was book covers.
My first thought was book covers.
Originally shared by Bojan Ploj
Text to picture
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ai-generates-images-based-on-text/
Jan
01
My annual roundup of the best books I read in 2016.
My annual roundup of the best books I read in 2016. A really good crop this time, with a higher than ever proportion of five-star books.
Dec
30
Well, it’s the last day of 2016 here, and I’m going to assume that I won’t receive any more rejections or…
Well, it’s the last day of 2016 here, and I’m going to assume that I won’t receive any more rejections or acceptances in the next 12 hours, and sum up my year’s progress in the field of short stories.
My goals this year were to write 15 stories, make 60 submissions, and (a late addition) have 15 stories on submission at one time.
Partway through the year, I achieved the 60 submissions and set a new goal of 75.
I actually wrote 10 stories (that I subsequently submitted), made 74 submissions – one short of my revised goal – and had a maximum of 13 stories on submission at one time.
I’m relaxed about the fact that I didn’t make the numbers; they’re a way to keep score and motivate myself, not some kind of mystical obligation. And I did, after all, exceed my initial submission goal, which was already up from the 52 submissions I made last year.
My number of form rejections, predictably, went up more or less proportionately with the number of submissions: 45, versus 29 last year. Personalised rejections also went up, by approximately the same percentage: 18, versus 13 last year. The number of acceptances actually halved, though, from 8 to 4. My explanation for this is that I was being more ambitious in the markets I submitted to this year.
Three out of those four sales were at professional rates, versus only one out of eight last year, and that’s reflected in the fact that my year’s income from short stories went up from $354.09 to $680.78. (I’m counting the $200 I got from providing two “treatments” to a futurist consultancy, since I wouldn’t have got that opportunity if I hadn’t already been a short story writer with professional sales.)
This means my lifetime income from short stories is now over $1000 (USD), based on 13 paying acceptances out of 174 submissions. That’s a hit rate a little better than 1 in 14, which actually isn’t bad for the industry.
Full details behind the link, if you’re interested, including markets, timings, and statistics.
http://csidemedia.com/shortstories/goals-aspirations-and-achievements/
Dec
30
This is an excellent example of a mundane murder by a conspiracy of terrified incompetents which became magnified…
This is an excellent example of a mundane murder by a conspiracy of terrified incompetents which became magnified into a legend by various interested parties – a legend which persists in the popular consciousness today, despite the facts having been known for many decades.
One of the things you can do if you have a generational jump in your series is to turn the earlier events, and characters, into legend. Sherri S. Tepper does it in Raising the Stones, and Brandon Sanderson does it between the first and second Mistborn trilogies. But it doesn’t need to take generations; the legend of Rasputin was well established within ten years of his death.
Originally shared by Jennifer Ouellette
The Murder of Rasputin: The 100th Anniversary of a Mystery That Won’t Die https://shar.es/1DJUYH
Dec
30
The name may not have been thought through all the way.
The name may not have been thought through all the way.
Originally shared by Gregor J. Rothfuss
teledildonics is coming
Dec
30
Nothing like a good ethical conundrum to form a foundation for a story.
Nothing like a good ethical conundrum to form a foundation for a story.
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
From biased AI to the moral dilemmas of self-driving cars.
Dec
29
The starting point for this article – and it’s an interesting place to start – is the Antikythera Mechanism.
The starting point for this article – and it’s an interesting place to start – is the Antikythera Mechanism. But what the article is mainly about is rediscovering lost threads of knowledge in archives and documents that we already possess, and connecting them – something that deep learning will increasingly help with. The article doesn’t mention quantum computing, but the kind of massive-scale modelling that quantum computers will be capable of could be ideal for this kind of project.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/12/the-search-for-lost-knowledge/506879/