Category Archives: Bloggery/Internetty Stuff

OMG! Elizabeth Knox read my blog!

Okay, I admit it. I am a daggy, daggy fan. I discovered Elizabeth Knox last year courtesy of Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner who gave me a copy of Vintner’s Luck, which made my head explode with pleasure. It had everything I want from a book: it was an historical featuring exquisite writing with lots of non-realist elements and it was wry-funny and smarter than Shane Warne on a cricket green. Just thinking about that book makes me happy. I haven’t been as excited about a new writer since I discovered Angela Carter and that was many, many, many years ago.

So imagine my over-the-top ecstatic joy when Elizabeth Knox wrote a comment on my blog! The one and the only. After recovering—OMG! Elizabeth Knox wrote a comment on my blog!—I began to write a response. Then I realised that her comment was buried under a post from the olden days. The whole world needs to know that Elizabeth Knox read my blog! Thus I have elevated it to this post. Elizabeth is responding to my saying that I loved her most recent book, Dreamhunter, but that it ends somewhat abruptly and there’s no indication anywhere on the book that it’s the first of two and what’s that about?

Hi Justine,

Thanks for the praise — it really puts lead in my pencil.

My Australian publishers thinking was this: dreamhunter would appeal to young adult and adult readers, fantasy and literary fiction readers, so a cover that gave no conclusive signals about genre would ensure it reached its widest audience. They explained all this to me. They decided, too, that Book One of Two or Book One of the Dreamhunter Duet (as it says on the UK edition) would give the game away. We talked about mentioning the One of Two thing on the back or in the blurb, then, well, my first copy turned up with nothing at all on it to indicate it was the first of two books. Needless to say I was a little alarmed.

But it isn’t the job of authors to make marketing decisions. I know that if I had to be responsible for those decisions I’d go bonkers

As for the cliff-hanger ending, it has nothing to do with marketing. Dreamhunter and Dreamquake are like one book cut in half. There’s a simple explanation for this. I set out to write the book intending it to be a work for young adults, in several parts. I got to the end of book one, Dreamhunter, and was still completely unsure whether or not I’d managed to produce a YA book, rather than something that was neither fish, fowl, nor good red meat. Part way through I had showed it to a fantasy editor at Randomhouse in the us, who assured me that, whatever it was, it wasn’t really fantasy. I gave it to my agent in London, who only knew that she liked it, not whether it was a YA book. I’m a reader of YA books. I know how they should read, and Dreamhunter worried me.

Anyway, Faber bought it, and an editor there gave me terrific advice about rewrites with the object of turning my dubious what-the-hell ms into a book for teen readers. It was only once I’d finished the rewrites that I had the confidence and experience to go on to finish the story (and to decide that it was two books, not three). The cliff-hanger ending wasn’t a problem for Julia, or to my editors in Australia. My US editor, Frances Foster at FSG, was uneasy about the precipitous tone but thought for a long time that a clear indication that the book was part one of two, and that two would be out only a year later, would take care of that. However, when she started line-editing (and read Katherine England’s review in the Australian magazine, Magpies) her worries came back and, since fsg are publishing a whole year after the UK and NZ/Australia, we had the option of transferring some of the beginning of Dreamquake to the end of FSG’s Dreamhunter—about five thousand words. The us edition does have a clearer sense of ending, and of the direction of the book. But I did need an editor to help me see the necessity for this.

No writer should ever underestimate the necessity of editors.

I heartily agree. My writing is so much better than it was before I was published and that’s solely because of the amazing editing I’ve had. Thank you Liesa Abrams and Eloise Flood!

What kind of advice did your Faber editor give you to make the tone more YA?

I agree that Dreamhunter doesn’t have the typical YA voice. (Don’t ask me to explain what I mean by that. I know it when I read it.) Like Margo Lanagan‘s Black Juice it could easily have been published as an adult novel. And like Margo’s book it works as literary and genre fiction. But that’s part of what I love about both books. It’s lovely to hear about editors being enthusiastic about those qualities.

You write in pencil?

I hope both books sell like hotcakes.

Silences

It’s been quiet around here for several reasons. Mostly Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. Despite reading John M. Ford’s excellent advice, I’ve been following all the news and like everyone else getting angry and upset. I really hope the disaster will lead to everything being done that needs to be done: rebuilding the wetlands, rebuilding New Orleans as a place for all her now former residents, and making sure that the response to any future hurricanes or anything else will never be so slow ever again.

Then all my tedious deadlines. The proofs of Magic Lessons and the paperback version of Magic or Madness need checking, and, of course, the third and final book in the trilogy needs writing, given that it’s due 30 December and I haven’t started yet. I was six months early with the first book. I really hope my editors remember that.

That’s why next Tuesday we’re off to San Miguel de Allende in Mexico for a month. Where we hope to get lots and lots of writing done in a house that is free of the distractions of the internet and television.

In the meantime I’ve gotten to see Cassie type the last words of her very first novel. Very impressive given that some of us were doing more gossiping than writing that day. Okay, that would’ve been me gossiping with myself. Scott and Holly were typing almost as furiously as Cassie. I wish they were both coming to Mexico too. Surely their diligence will rub off on me eventually . . .

Thinking about something else, anything else

Margo Lanagan reminds us all to be careful of the words we use. Just so! For me ’twas a timely reminder as I am perusing the proofreader’s pass of Magic Lessons and making more changes (mostly deleting “just”. Aaargh!)

Jim McDonald made me laugh with his lessons learned from British folk ballads. I’ve been a tad obsessed with ’em since I was a wee lass.

Gwenda points to this incredible exhibition of spirit photography currently on in NYC. Given our deadlines and imminent trip out of town, the odds of my seeing it are not good. Hell, we don’t seem to be able to get it together to see our friends here . . . Must not sign up for more than one book a year!

Clarification (Updated)

A while back I wrote an essay, “Too Young to Publish”, which has been much linked to and discussed around the traps. Very gratifying that people have found it useful and thought provoking, cause, you know, that’s why I write these things. A few people, however, seem to have read me as saying that if you’re young you can’t be talented and shouldn’t be published.

Not no way never.

I’m glad Sonya Hartnett, S. E. Hinton and this really great fantasy writer whose name I’ve completely forgotten (update: Joyce Ballou Gregorian) who died very young (update: She was 21 when her first book pub’d and 44 when she died) after only two or three fab books (whose titles likewise are escaping me—update: The Broken Citadel 1975, Castledown 1977 and The Great Wheel 1987) published when they did. They were well and truly good enough.

The essay was addressed to the impatient, overly-convinced-of-her-own-genius, fifteen-year-old me. Even though I wouldn’t have listened and would have told the current me to bugger off. I was inspired to write it by teenage writers who wrote asking me about the age thing, and one of them kinda reminded me of me at that age (only less obnoxious).

Everything I said applies to a beginning writer of any age. No matter how old you are when you start writing, making being published your first priority and being driven into a deep, dark depression when you’re not is a waste of time. Improving your craft, learning to be a writer, a really good writer, is the thing. There are writers in their sixties who still don’t get this and writers in their teens who are all over it.

Discouraging the Bad Writers

There’s a lively conversation going on over at Making Light set off by this amusing piece, “Everyone does not have a novel inside them“, by Tim Clare in the Guardian. Clare rails against the myth that publishing is an evil cartel bent on keeping new voices out and longs for a way to discourage all the crap writers who dream of instant fame and fortune from even thinking about getting published.

In amongst (ha, Margo, I say, ha!) the conversation at Making Light some yet-to-be-published writers worry that they are the ones aimed at and make noises in the direction of quitting, or not bothering to try to get into print, which leads Patrick Nielsen Hayden to write this:

Indeed, the moral of this conversation, like all such conversations, is that no matter what you do to discourage bad writers, a significant number of the good ones will take what you say to heart and slink away in shame.

Amen to that. It will never cease to amaze me how many truly wonderful unpublished writers end up being discouraged by this kind of conversation, and don’t realise it’s not aimed at them. And then, as Cat reminded me, there are those writers who were once truly awful and then got a lot, lot, lot better (nope, I won’t be pointing out any examples).

Which is to say, yup, it’s a shame so much crap is published, but tonnes of fab stuff is too, and in this age of the interwebby thingie it’s become easier and easier to find the stuff what you will like. And like that.

Australian Writing—sucky or not? (Updated)

I dunno, but sometimes I reckon us Australians are just a wee bit too insecure about our doings. There’s been much debate around the traps about whether oz genre stuff now is as good as it used to be, or world beating, or in a crisis, or something. Sonya Hartnett (bless her) reckons it’s all crap (except her). I reckon she’s bloody good and so are other Oz writers (sticking to children’s/YA writers). But I also reckon they’d be fine writers were they born somewhere else (providing they got the same opportunities). Obviously, they wouldn’t be the same writers, but they’d still be excellent.

Hmm, dunno what I’m trying to say here. Go read a really good book, like, Peeps for example, which was written by an honorary Aussie (he’s a permanent resident and does a truly excellent Adam Gilchrist impersonation) . . . it being Peeps week and all.

Update: David Moles makes mock of me and my people.

Safe Reading

This made me giggle. Safe reading positions for reading a very, very, very heavy book: Hunger’s Bride, by Paul Anderson. Via Tinglealley. Caaf gives the book’s weight in weird USian measurements. I’m guessing a couple of kilos. Whatever it is, looks tough on the old wristies.

Now I want to write a really, really heavy book. Wonder how my editors will feel if I turn in the ms. of Magic or Madness iii and it’s, say, 200,000 words long? The first two were around 65,000, so clearly it’s time for a wristbreaker . . .

Off to London

Done packing. Car gets here in 30 mins. Then it’s into the big jetplane and across the skies till we get to London where my sister lives. Can’t wait.

Except that it’s cold there. Sob. And even colder in Glasgow. Double sob. Just as it was getting to be a proper summer here we go somewhere damp and cold. What were we thinking?

Not sure what my internet access will be. Dunno if I’ll post. But I’ve become a blogging addict so if I can I will.

Enjoy yourselves while I’m gone.

More on Acknowledgments and a Poll

Gwenda links to Emily G berating people for their intensely irritating acknowledgments page and gives a fabulous list of don’ts. Now, I’m on the record as being all for acks, and I didn’t entirely agree with some of her complaints, but I sure was struck by this suggestion: I propose a straightforward film-style list of credits on the last page.

Interesting idea. So now I’m thinking of doing it for my next book, Magic Lessons. Here’s what it would look like:

———-

Publisher & editor: Eloise Flood

Editor & prodder: Liesa Abrams

Fellow pedant & seeker of perfection: Andy Ball

Answerer of annoying questions and all round helpful person: Margaret Wright

Designer of the beautiful interiors: Chris Grassi

Copyeditor of the Gods: Polly Watson

First Readers: John Bern, Gwenda Bond, Pamela Freeman, Carrie Frye, Margo Lanagan, Jan Larbalestier, Karen Meisner, Sally O’Brien, Ron Serdiuk, Micole Sudberg, and Lili Wilkinson.

Jilkminggan and Ngukurr memory refreshers: John Bern, Jan Larbalestier, and Kate Senior

Fashion consultant: Janet Irving

Provider of space in which to write: Allen Haroothunian (Sydney) and Drink Me cafe (New York)

Supportive family: John Bern, Niki Bern, Jan Larbalestier, and Scott Westerfeld

———-

What do you reckon? Is that preferable to this:

———-

I’m very lucky to have such smart, incisive, hardworking editors as Liesa Abrams and Eloise Flood. Thank you. Thanks also to Andy Ball, Chris Grassi, Polly Watson, and Margaret Wright.

My first readers are eagle-eyed and amazing. Thank you, John Bern, Gwenda Bond, Pamela Freeman, Carrie Frye, Margo Lanagan, Jan Larbalestier, Karen Meisner, Sally O’Brien, Ron Serdiuk, Micole Sudberg, and Lili Wilkinson.

Thanks to John Bern, Jan Larbalestier, and Kate Senior for refreshing my memories of Jilkminggan and Ngukurr.

Janet Irving answered all my questions about fashion and fabrics. (If I still managed to get it wrong, blame me.)

Allen Haroothunian let me use his home in Camperdown (Sydney) to finish the first draft and the first round of rewrites. Much appreciated. Large chunks of the first draft were also written at Drink Me café (New York).

Lastly, to John Bern, Niki Bern, Jan Larbalestier, and Scott Westerfeld: you four make everything easier and more fun. Here’s to more good food and wine together.

———-

Which is less annoying? Record your vote in the comments.

Most Excellent Breaking News (updated)

Margo Lanagan, brilliant author of Black Juice and many other fine books now has a blog! Woo hoo! And a bloody superb one it is too! This news has made my day.

She’s even linking to some of her bad reviews and posing excellent questions such as: “Since when is ‘polished and clever’ the definition of good writing?” Since never, says I.

My only complaint is that so far she’s not enabling comments, thus depriving us all of the pleasure of welcoming her to blogland; and her of the pleasure of editing our comments (scroll down).

Update: as noted by Marrije in the comments, Margo has now enabled us all to get in amongst it with her and comment to our heart’s content. Yay!

Desperately Seeking Inspiration

I’m endlessly fascinated by the search terms that lead people to my website. Today these desperate words typed into google led them to some not-exactly-directly-related pearls of wisdom: inspire me to write my thesis.

Ouch.

I remember those days. I finished my PhD thesis in 1996, having started researching it in 1991 (and taken a year off due to some bone breakage), but it sure felt like it took a lot, lot, lot longer than that. At the time writing my thesis seemed by turns nightmarish, unendurable, hallucinegenic, boring, fun, hideous, never-ending and plain out-and-out pointless. I endlessly procrastinated until, faced with the prospect of no more scholarship, I buckled down and wrote day after day, night after night, barely sleeping, or eating, or doing anything else, until I was a sobbing insane mess and the thesis was finished.

Eventually it became The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, a book I’m still ambivalent about because it’s not the book I wish it was. To me it will always be my PhD thesis: the monster that almost broke my brain.

Hmmm, that’s not very inspiring is it? Here’s why you should write your thesis:

  • Until I finished mine I had never managed to finish anything long. I had started many novels, but never finished one. Finishing my 120,000 word thesis taught me not only that I could crap on at length, but that I could produce a (mostly) coherent, whole text. That’s a mighty fine feeling and a bloody useful skill. I’ve since finished four different novels. Now when I start a novel I’m no longer afraid I won’t be able to finish it, just that it will suck.
  • The research skills I learned have come in mighty handy over and over again. Yours will too.
  • Finishing my PhD thesis meant that I was eligible to apply for a post-doctoral fellowship. I was lucky enough to get an Australian Research Council one, which ended up changing my life. Once you’ve got your PhD you too can apply for post-docs as well as academic jobs. No comment on how much fun writing all those applications is (I applied for six and got one and was ecstatic with my strikerate).
  • Having a PhD under your belt can be helpful in landing other jobs. A PhD proves that you can stick to and finish a major project, that you can organise yourself, that you know your way around a library (or whatever facilities you used for your research—don’t want to leave out science types), and that you know how to make a very small amount of money go a very long way.

On the other hand, I know plenty of people who haven’t got a PhD who are quite capable of finishing long prose pieces, have great research skills, a job, and know how to make a tiny budget stretch . . .

How the Future Isn’t

Mely has a lovely post detailing the future she’s sad we haven’t wound up with yet. Hint, it’s not the oft-touted Gernsback one. I’m with her on almost everything except immortality, which Scott has convinced me is a profoundly bad idea. Just imagine if certain world leaders never ever died.

I’d also really love a working transmat beam, because while I’m always saying I love travelling, I really, really, really, don’t. What I love is being somewhere else. If I could skip the whole many, many hours in a plane or whatever on the way to the somewhere else, I’d be dead happy.

Also I’d be very happy with food in patch or tablet form. I hate it when I just need food as fuel and there’s no time to enjoy it. I’d much rather down a pill and keep doing whatever I was doing and then, when there’s time settle in for that three hour sumptious feast accompanied by the very best wines, or a just-made-in-front of you taco from a market stall, or the bestest juiciest mango of all time. Also imagine how much easier pills or patches are to transport versus, say, grain. An end to world poverty, anyone?

And how about books in electronic form that are easy to read and don’t suck?

And, and, and . . .

Bibs and Bobs

Working hard thus am not so bloggery as usual. Other than the novel I’m writing here’s what’s up in Justineland:

Daphne Lee has posted the unedited (and illustrated) version of her interview with me where I persist in getting the name of Samantha from Bewitched‘s grandmother wrong (got all that?). Daphne reports that Magic or Madness sold out in Kuala Lumpur the week the interview appeared in The Star. How stupendous is that?

Last night the New York Liberty beat the Houston Comets in overtime in Houston. Scott and me, we was screaming at the television like you wouldn’t believe. So happy! And as usual when the Liberty win everybody played their part. They are so teamy and ball-sharey and good. And now they’re better than 500 for the season. Being a Liberty fan is all about the ups and the downs. Thankfully they’re a bit more uppy at the moment. Next live game is Friday. Can’t wait! Season tickets make me happy.

The last two days of the Tour have been heart-stoppingly good. I don’t ever want it to end.

Many of my Oz sf friends are in Melbourne having a really good time. I am not even slightly jealous. Honest.

Write now. Many words.

Saga of a Typewriter

I’ve been a fan of the lovely Ms Tingle Alley for some time now, but I think this is definitely one of her most gorgeous posts eva! And I speak as someone who can’t stand typewriters, though I do have a dim memory of my parents having a gorgeous red Olivetti one, and my longing to play with it, but that was before computers and word processing programs, without which I can’t even begin to imagine writing. And writing by long hand?! The utter utter horror of it!

Something New

I’ve been writing musings here since 25 May 2003. Two years. I’ve written about my childhood, my career, basketball, cricket, and anything else I felt like.

I’ve noticed over the last year that shorter pieces that are more blog-like than musing-like have been increasing in frequency, and also that I say very little about the books I read, or the films and TV I watch, or the shows and exhibitions I see. So I’ve decided to start an actual, real, proper blog where I’ll write about some of that, with proper blogging software and comments and everything. You’ll find it here.

I plan to update it on something like a daily basis. In the same way that musings are added here on somewhat of a weekly basis. And, yes, I plan to keep on musing. Thanks for reading me over the past two years. Hope you enjoy the blog too.

New York City, 25 May 2005

Yes, I’m blogging. Real blogging . . .

So apparently it’s de rigeur for the first entry of a brand new blog to feature the cover of the blogger’s latest book. I mean, if the blogger in question happens to be a writer with a brand new cover to display to the masses, which this particular blogger does. To wit the cover for the second book in the Magic or Madness trilogy:

Colour me very happy indeed. Aside from anything else, that photo of the tree there? I took it! It’s a moreton bay fig. In fact it’s the fig tree just past the front gates of Camperdown Cemetery in Sydney, which cemetery makes an appearance in both Magic or Madness and Magic Lessons. The photo on the back cover was also taken in the cemetery by Scott. And the fabulous mjcdesign turned those images into a cover of genius. Thank you, Marc J Cohen.

Hope you all like. Hope you also enjoy this my brand spanking new blog. Welcome!

As some of you know I’ve already had a blog of sorts for the last two years. Some people have dubbed it my not-blog blog. Given the classificatory problems of my musings, I decided to be done with it and start an actual blog blog. Here’s how you’ll be able to distinguish it from my musings:

the entries will be completely free of capital letters. That’s right, this is solidly e e cummingsland. even in the comments. and ha ha! nothing you can do about it. I may even do away with full stops and commas (irritating things anyways).

there’ll be discusssion of books, cricket, movies, elvis, basketball, tv and such. opinions will be expressed, but rarely substantiated. there will be no lit crit. i was once an academic and my days of lit critting and footnotes are far behind me (anyways i was always more of an historian). this is a blog damn it! my blog! if I say so then it is so!

There’ll be comments, but disagreement will not be brooked, unless, you know, it’s funny, or well written, or in some other way cool and interesting. Hmm, come to think of it the same rules apply to agreement.

Enjoy! I plan to.

This is a Blog

This is a blog. What I said earlier, about this not being a blog, forget it. Almost as soon as I posted that much-lamented musing, my friend Ray wrote me to point out that I’d "made the same kind of mistake that Langford documents in his ‘As Others See Us’ sections [of Ansible]. ("It’s not really science fiction. It’s the world 30 years from now, in which for 18 years no human child has been born, for unknown reasons…’)."

Guilty as charged. The logic runs like this: science fiction/blogs are not good therefore this cannot be science fiction/a blog. What a load of rubbish. I’m embarrassed that I fell for that line of thinking while I tied myself in knots trying to prove that I had not fallen for it. (Plus—talk about writing tickets on myself!)

So, this is a blog.

That musing is the only one I regret. But at least one good thing came of it: an old uni friend of mine, Petey Sefton, was inspired to write this. Sadly, no-one has written that software for me yet. Bastards! On your bikes!

New York City, 8 October 2004

This is not a blog

This is Not a Blog

Nor is it a pipe.

I ran into an aquaintance recently who told me how much they enjoy my blog—except for one thing: I don’t update it anywhere near frequently enough.
I thanked them for the compliment—every writer longs to be told they’re being read—and then set them straight on the blog thing, which may not have been such a good idea because who adores a pedant? I don’t know if they’ll continue to read these humble musings. Nevertheless . . .

This is not a blog.

The blog is a form that doesn’t suit me. I’m not interested in having to have special software to write my musings. And I’m allergic to diaries. Not other people’s diaries, those can be fun. I read quite a few blogs and journals regularly: the blogs of my friends Chris, Gwenda, John, Lawrence and Nalo so I can keep up with their lives; bookslut and Moorish Girl for publishing news; pseudopodium (which was Bellona Times. I’m still sad Ray changed the name), Making Light and Melymbrosia cause they’re all such polymaths. I’m just allergic to my own diary.

I kept one from the time I was eleven till, um, considerably older than eleven. It was an account of what I did and saw and thought and it is the most boring thing I have ever written. Mindnumbingly so! Except for the embarassing bits, which are kind of compelling in the same way that a train wreck or hideous skin diseases can be compelling. Not something to be inflicted on anyone else ever.

It’s also one of the most poorly written monstrosities I’ve created and, trust me, I’ve written some really, really, shockingly unreadable crap in my time. I started writing stories and "poems" shortly after learning the alphabet. I didn’t produce anything approaching good until I was in my thirties. That’s almost three decades of dreck. And some of the diary was written scarily recently. There was no way I was ever going to inflict a Justine blog on the universe.

These musings began just over a year ago when I found out that The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction had been shortlisted for a Hugo Award. After recovering from my complete and utter shock (okay, I never quite recovered: I still wear my little gold Hugo pin to bed at night neatly pinned to my pyjamas), I visited the official site only to discover that I was the only nominee without a website. Why would anyone vote for my obscure university press book if they had no idea who I was or how to find said obscure book? The humiliation of garnering fewer votes than No Award stared me in the face.

I panicked, begged my friend Deb Biancotti to design me a site and started hurriedly throwing a bio and list of publications and everything else she suggested together. Within seconds Deb came up with the design you’re looking at right now. Isn’t it great?

But it wasn’t exactly gripping. Bios, lists of publications, excerpts from reviews only go so far. How was I going to give those Hugo voters the incentive to nudge me ahead of No Award? I visited lots and lots of writer websites and quickly noticed that sites with interesting essays about writing, publishing, and having once been a mormon were by far the most compelling (in a non-trainwreck way).

Deb added a section called Musings, Rants and Essays which I filled with stuff I’d already written on Buffy, researching science fiction, science fiction in New York City, Carol Emshwiller and Ursula Le Guin at WisCon, and romantic jetlag. Instant content, which then sat there for weeks and weeks and weeks. I thought about adding some of my more scholarly essays but, bleah, too boring. Then one night I went to a great reading at KGB and decided to write about it. I wrote, rewrote, read it to Scott, rewrote again and, hey presto! The musings in their current form were born.

Shortly afterwards I added a second one about having to wake up way too early. Suddenly everything looked musable. I’d be telling Scott a story from when I was a kid and be thinking, Hey, this could be a musing. Everything I did and everywhere I went gave me ideas: about the New York Liberty, handing out voter registration cards, why chewing gum is such a bad idea (still haven’t finished that one—too much to say), the differences between Sydney and New York City. It was endless.

However, I write for a living, and I don’t get paid to muse. Early on to keep things under control I decided to aim for a musing once a week and if I didn’t manage that, not to sweat it. I don’t, which keeps the musings fun and relaxing; something cool to do when the real paid writing isn’t flowing so well. I write musings when I feel like it and when I don’t, I don’t.

They take anything from an hour, to days, to weeks to write. A blog is all about momentary writing. My musings are slower and way less spontaneous. I have a folder full of dozens of unfinished ones, including a musing on being Australian that I started last June and may never finish (too hard).

Writing these mini- and not-so-mini essays has forced me to shape my thoughts on various topics and to learn a whole new non-fiction genre. A genre I very much enjoy writing, unlike, say, the kind of non-fiction I wrote in my previous life as an academic where every sentence had to have a vast array of duly quoted and footnoted supporting evidence as well as having to prepare for every possible counter argument. Uggh.

This is my fortieth musing written just over a year after the first one. So I’m not making my musing-a-week goal, but I’m not disgracing myself either. I promise this’ll be the only musing ever about writing musings.

New York City, 20 June 2004

PS At the Hugos last year my book garnered more votes than No Award (coming in fourth Battle got 137, No Award only managed 25). I owe it all to this website. Thank you, Deb.