Lazy lazy Saturday (except for the ironing, the dishwashing and the cleaning, ouch).

I managed to find a copy of the Year’s Best Science Fiction in one of Paris’s English bookshops; and boy, did it feel weird seeing my name in the table of contents. It’s now on my desk, to remind me I need to write more ambitious short stories (not that “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn” really falls into the ambitious category, but several of the stories in there do).

Flipping through the HMs, I noted several names I noticed: in particular, the Villa Diodati crew is taking over the world: Sara Genge has two (”The Gong” in Weird Tales, “Prayers for an Egg” in Asimov’s), Steve Gaskell one (“Micro Expressions” in Cosmos Online), Jeff Spock one (”Everything that Matters” in Interzone), Benjamin Rosembaum one (”True Names” in Fast Forward 2, cowritten with Cory Doctorow), and Benevolent Dictator Ruth Nestvold a whooping four (”Troy and the Aliens” in Abyss and Apex, “An Act of Conviction” in Helix, “Mars: A Traveller’s Guide” in F&SF, and “The Rivers of Eden” in Futurismic, co-written with Jay Lake).
Lots of other familiar names as well: TL. Morganfield (“Night Bird Soaring”, the same one that’s nominated for the Sidewise Awards), Ken Scholes, Mary Robinette Kowal, Vaughan Stanger, Tony Pi, Gord Sellar…

Woohoo!

As usual, trying to do four or five things at the same time: specifically, edit a new Xuya short “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, plan a new one (aka Aztecs in space), fill in a form, and return crits. Everything’s going well for the moment, though it’s only a matter of time until some balls drop…

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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Because I sure do.

However, being an writer that only deals in Tv and Movie fanfiction, I have found it hard to get into the 'zone' of a new, fresh novel. But I have many ideas that are floating around in my weird mind :)

Would anybody like to do a story with me? Plan it together, write it together and perhaps even publish it together....

When I say write it together, like maybe we could write a chapter in turn on our own, and the other person beta's it (reads over it, changes things etc...) to create a novel that has been made together...

Here are a few ideas that are in my imagination (not concrete...can be changed...)

• Story must be complex and creative...multiple characters each hiding a dark secret (I have an idea for a character which I will HAVE to put into the story...more detail on that if you are intrested...)
• Lots of sharp dialogue to draw in the audience
• Set in either Calfornia or Kansas, Texas, but characters may be born or have moved from somewhere else entirely...
• Action sequences (lots of them, as we want it to be complex...but also very fun and entertaining to read)

Somewheres remotely close to Moncton and Dieppe?

I'd love to have a photography partner. There's not much else to this post, that's what I want.
Of course I would like to see your work.
A good balance of awkwardness is slightly necessary.

COMMENT. :)

P.S. If you're uncertain about commenting, you can check out some of my work here:     www.worldseries.deviantart.com

Writing Chapter 3 went fairly smoothly, but when I got to Chapter 5 I realized that I’d made a geography error in Chapter 4. To fix that involved going back and laying in some small details in the first two chapters and rewriting the last two pages of Chapter 3 in order to lead in correctly to Chapter 4.

I’ll be able to keep the emotional throughline of Chapter 4, but have to move it to a different location.  Now, I could wait and just make a note that I’m going to fix that, but it’s almost as easy to do the shift now.  Sometimes I do that, just make a note [move this to rose garden] and keep writing as if it’s already there.

In this case, the change of location is also going to change the reactions of some of the characters so I’d rather fix it now becuase the potential for it to cause other changes is large enough that I’ll save effort by doing it now.

I’ve got this puppetry workshop I do in elementary schools where we adapt “The Three Little Pigs” Each group of kids gets to do their own production and make changes to the basic story. The one big rule of adaptation is, “If you change one thing, it changes everything else.”

True in puppet shows. True in SF worldbuilding. True in moving scenic locations.

Here’s a snippet of Chapter 3

Jane nodded, as she followed his train of thought. “The twist of the glamour creates, in essence, two layers of fabric that keep the interior from being either a mirror or a dark sphere. And you think a jacquard would enhance the effect?”

Comments? -- Link.

Hello!

I'm looking for a casual colorist to color the covers of myself and my friend's web graphic novel project. The genre is sci-fi, so some interest in it would be a super big plus! Some future opportunities will come if everyone feels it's a good fit. So reply if you're interested. :)

For more info on our project please feel free to check out our DevART page: thenamelessproject.deviantart.com/

Hey,

Je recherche un/une partenaire d’écriture.
J’ai vécu une expérience de co-écriture il y a quelques années et j’avais adoré. J'aimerais vraiment revivre l'expérience. Mais cette fois-ci j'aimerais étendre le champ d’écriture hors des fanfictions (quoique ça ne me dérange pas non plus décrire des fanfictions).

Je peux écrire à peu près tous les genres sauf de la science-fiction qui n'est vraiment pas ma tasse de thé. Oh et je n'écris pas de poésie non plus.
Je n'ai pas l'habitude des histoire longues mais avec un/une partenaire je veux bien tenter le coup, surtout que je commence à m'y mettre aux histoires longues, puisqu'il y aurait deux têtes pour faire avancer l'intrigue.

Ce que je cherche dans un partenariat d’écriture est vraiment un échange à deux. Trouver une idée à deux, la faire avancer, écrire le tout à deux. Je cherche donc quelqu'un de motivé et disponible pour le projet, quelqu'un qui a envie d’écrire et évidemment quelqu'un qui pense pouvoir écrire avec moi.

Mes textes peuvent se retrouver par ici. J'en ai écrit plus mais ils sont loin d'avoir tous été publié sur mon lj... Quelques unes de mes fanfictions sont aussi disponible sur lj, par là.
J'ai commencé il y a quelques temps une websérie, Immortels, et la continuer à deux ne me dérange pas.

( résumé )

Si quelqu'un a envie de se lancer dans l'aventure de la co-écriture avec moi, qu’il/elle n’hésite pas à m’envoyer un message privé via lj.

Bonne journée,

allis

Little blossoms and little green tomatoes are growing on the Cherokee Purple, the Black Klim, the Green Zebra, and the Amish Paste tomato plants, and the Reisentraube has bunches of promising flowers. The peas are over and the broccoli went to flower while I was away (alack!) but the carrots and squash are just coming into their own, and the cucumbers are tiny and cute. Also, I just brewed my first cup of tea with the black peppermint and lemon balm, and the parsley and dill went into last night's bouillabaisse.

I have about four corn plants--that's all that made it. Better luck next year, but I will hand-pollinate them and see if I get anything.

Mmm. Bouillabaisse.

I need to put in more peas, and the second crop of carrots (I have multicolor carrots!), and the mesclun. Wheee!

Also, the pear trees are just covered. I hope the birds leave me a few.

(disclaimer: James Maxey nicely gave me a free ARC of Dragonseed so I could blog about it. Also, this will by necessity contain some spoilers about Dragonforge and Bitterwood.)

Dragonseed is the third book in the Dragon Age sequence, Maxey’s postapocalyptic world where dragons rule over mankind. It takes over from the events in Dragonforge: the humans are now the undisputed masters of Dragonforge, which they plan to use as a powerbase to wage war on the dragons. And they now have a great advantage: their master smith, Burke, has just learnt to make gunpowder, a weapon that could change the face of the war.
Meanwhile, the dragon hierarchy, thrown into chaos by the death of the king, now finds itself leaderless, but the cunning dragon Vulpine is not one to leave power ungrasped–and he will not let himself be encumbered by scruples over the fates of the human slaves.
In the midst of this turmoil, Jandra, the human raised by dragons, still seeks to bring both races to an understanding. However, she finds herself diminished by the theft of her genie, the device which allowed her to wield supernatural powers and gain respect as a witch–and she desperately needs to find it, even if it means going back to a very dangerous place…

Dragonseed sees the return of most of the cast of Dragonforge, and adds a few newcomers such as the escaped slave Shay, and Anza, Burke’s mute daughter (aka killing machine). As always, Maxey handles his cast of diverse characters with great skill, moving from the dark resignation of Bitterwood to Shay’s desperate will to survive, and to Jandra’s ambiguous lust for power.

The world is, as always, fascinating. The post-apocalyptic setting makes it hover on the cusp between science and fantasy: though there are dragons, the magic makes sense, and is not simply used to get out of scrapes. And I was glad to see more of Atlantis, the city of posthumans, which made for an intriguing change when compared with the mostly-medieval setting of the rest of the books.

But what I loved about the previous books, and that I still love about this one, is Maxey’s willingness to handle hard questions about species survival, humanity’s worthiness and the value of faith and religion. Those were themes already explored in Bitterwood and Dragonforge, and I’m glad to see that they’re back, and that Maxey handles them gracefully, without sinking into too much preachiness. Every character has a different view on the matter–and, in the end, it’s only the fanatics such as Prophet Ragnar who might be proved wrong.

If I had one complaint to make, it’s the same one as I made for Dragonforge, ie that there was a little too much going on: with so many point-of-view characters and divergent goals, the novel sometimes felt a bit rushed. I got the feeling it could have been a little longer and still have carried his weight–or pruned to achieve the tight focus of Bitterwood.

Anyway, it was a good read and a welcome return to my favourite characters. Probably best read in sequence, as it’s pretty tightly linked to the previous ones: it will make sense on its own, but not be as rich and fulfilling.

Find it on Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk | Barnes & Noble

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

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erm...hey, I'm Sebz. Just wondering if anybody can start a site with me. A graphics and design site:

• more than one can apply for this.
• has experience with graphics designing, html, javascript, CSS, and the like
• (optional) vocaloid lover. as in.

This may be slightly off topic, so feel free to delete. My newest project is a PDF magazine called Offshoot, and I'm looking for artists and writers who are interested in submitting some work. The purpose of the magazine is simply to showcase art for art's sake, made for joy or personal expression. Offshoot seeks to recognize that art is an extension of life, and vice versa. I have mostly photography right now, so I'm looking mostly for drawing/painting/design and short story/non-fiction right now, but feel free to submit whatever you want! Here are the submission details:

Theme: pretty much themeless. Send me stuff that best represents you or your creative work. I just want to see what you do as a creative person, whether that's poems or comics or doodles or photos.
-up to 10 images (preferably 300dpi, 72dpi is okay) of photographs, drawings, design, paintings, etc. The bigger the image, the better.
-non-fiction or short stories, up to 2000 words; opinion pieces must still be timely a month or two from now.
-poetry, up to 10 poems per entrant
-Your submission e-mailed to offshootmag@gmail.com, along with your Name, State/Country, URL, and a sentence about yourself.

deadline: July 31, 2009

Thanks to any who decide to send me stuff! Accepted entries will be notified when the magazine is released (early/mid August) :]

Peter got in safely. He and Dad spent the morning practising for the saw festival. The only hitch was that Peter had been learning the wrong Ave Maria so he and Dad sat down to work out on the Bach version.

Afterwards we went out to lunch and then Peter and I trotted down to pick up some pirate regalia for him. He’s an adherant of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  He has a good hat and a pair of boots now. The boots should work with non-pirate gear, but the hat is definitely piratical.

The three of  us went to see “The Norman Conquest: Table Manners” tonight which I loved. Very funny and also smart.

Comments? -- Link.

My most recent literary venture is kind of an experiment: a story that will be posted in segments, kind of like a tv show. You can find it here: http://inkeystone.wordpress.com/ (and how about you go ahead and it to your google reader?? :P )

On the characters page, I'd like to include not only a breif description of each character, but also a picture. If you're someone who's willing to take a new picture of himself / herself every several weeks, I'm looking for you! In exchange, I'll include a link to your LJ/MySpace/Facebook/Deviant Art/Flickr/whatever site you want (preferably only one or two though)

Who I need:

Amy: 17 yrs old. Caucasian. Dishwater Blonde. Very short, very small built.
 

Chris: Amy's 15yr old step-brother. Thin-ish, vaguely athletic. Very mischeivious look about him. Mildly untidy look as well.

Kate: Amy's mom. 40ish. Pretty, but not quite a milf or anything.

Robert: Chris' father, Amy's step-father. Also 40ish. Very polished, put-together type, but also down-to-earth.

Stacy: 17 yrs old. Amy's best friend. Half-Chinese. Also very short.

Meagan: 17yrs old. Amy's other best friend. Several peircings in each ear. Bottle blonde, almost always with a bit of roots showing.

Ben: About 19. Stacy's boyfriend. Average Height. Average Build. Smoker. Kind of a loser, really. Race flexible.

Ricky: Amy's boyfriend-thing. Typical good-looking, popular guy type. Race flexible.

Danny.  19ish. Meagan's brother. Tall. Dark Hair. Thick, but not bushy, eyebrows.

I'm looking for 3 - 5 (preferably 5) good, medium to high (high is better :P ) quality pictures of each character.

Let me know if you're interested!

<3Mk

Massive cephalopod beachings in California. 

Masses of oceanic protoplasm in the Arctic. (Shoggoth killed by global warming?)

...R'lyeh is supposed to be in the Atlantic, right?

...right?

Greetings all!

I am a writer who is currently looking for someone to create a story of some kind with, whether it is in the form of a novel or a graphic novel or an experimental mixed-media type of thing, for fun.  I would love to collaborate with a writer or an artist, but feel free to comment if you feel that your particular talent is suited for storytelling. My personal philosophy is to write what I like to read, and I enjoy the works of Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Nicole Krauss, Ellen Kushner, J. K. Rowling (of course!), Jane Austen, Sarah Monette, Shakespeare, Robin McKinley, Susanna Clarke, Megan Whalen Turner, John Green, Alan Moore, and many others.  (I just read off some authors that are on my “favorites” shelf.) I also dabble casually in manga, though I can’t draw to save my life…  I write in a style that’s, in my opinion, a cross between fantasy and “literary” fiction and I especially like writing stories set in different worlds. My most recent finished story can be found here (http://fathomlesssky.livejournal.com/33877.html), though I also have examples of more conventional fantasy that are not currently posted online, if you want to get to know my writing more.

Because I want a true collaboration in terms of plot, characters, and finished product, I only have a vague idea of the type of project I want to do. For my part, I’d like a story that’s dark but funny, character-driven, with (hopefully) snappy dialogue and character interactions and an innovative fantasy twist. The fantasy can be optional though; I like slice-of-life as well. (See, isn’t that vague?) I would love to really work with you to create something that we’ll both really like.

Even though I am, in fact, a teenager (alas), I’m a very committed person and I definitely will not leave you hanging once we decide we’re working on a project together. I have a good work capacity, having won NaNoWriMo for a couple of years, unless I’m stuck in some kind of special engagement (which I’d tell you about anyways). I don’t have any big plans for the project aside from having some fun and working with someone else for a change, but I’ll give it my best shot if you’re willing to :)

Please comment here or in my journal or message me if you’re interesting in collaborating in a labor of love. I’d love it if you’d include a sample of your work to speed up the process a bit, but it’s fine if you’re not comfortable with that. Hope to hear from you!

Sincerely,
Sky

 Hello, anybody that plays the game second life want to team up and build things. I consider myself a skilled builder already, and enjoy the challenge of making something that appears difficult at first. My scripting skills on the other hand aren't as strong, so if you are a good scripter I welcome that too and would like to learn from you. Leave a comment with your username or find me on SL as Moon Calamity. 

http://ragelikeadog.livejournal.com/

I'm looking for an illustrator to draw scenes out of the main character's blog posts.

The project blog contains strong language, violence, and sexual themes (rated-R like,) posting 4 to 7 times a week. However, I only ask that the illustrator contributes once a week by drawing a scene from one of the week's posts.

The artist must be able to craft anthropomorphic beings (animal people) and human beings. Beyond that, they will not be limited on style or medium, but they will be encouraged to stick to given descriptions and the scene the piece is supposed to be based on. A loose creative leash will be given, and I'm ALWAYS available to collaborate on a piece, or answer any questions/concerns.

For me, Caleb's Blog is a labor of love and redemption. In my honesty, I have nothing to give right now, but should the works go beyond the LJ blog, then the artist would be given appropriate credit and compensation from any contribution(s).

The project is just that - a project. Development is sure to come, and a strong partner to give visual life to the story could take the world higher. And I'm pretty darn easy to "work" with - if you don't mind me playing my own drum for a moment.

So, all you artists looking for something new and odd, read over a few of the posts and get back to me.

Contact Info - Some call me Peter, anything works
Email: peternole@yahoo.com
AIM: Third Snow (on from 1 p.m. to the wee hours, EST)
Or just comment here!

Thank you for your time.

And thanks to 2xcreative for giving us cloud chasers a chance.

Hello Community!
You can call me Lauren. I am an avid writer. i have finished 6 full length novels and 5 more are on the way eventually. I am also a graphic artist. Most of my work is of theatre because i am a die hard fan and i love to act as well. I am looking for publishing information. Whats the process etc. I am hoping to start that process before the summer is over and i am just so lost. Any advice would be lovely and also if you are interested any collaborating in anything i just talked about feel free to give me a holler!

OH also i am an awesome doodler. i make some awesome doodles that make your head spin! if you are interested in reading anything by me check out my livejournal and you can see three parts of a story i wrote. It is only the first three chapters.

Hey! I wish I knew that comms like this existed ages ago. I'm Mary Alice, but most people online call me Skazka.

I do a little writing, and some roleplaying. (And I draw, though since I'm deprived of a scanner or a tablet, I don't consider that one of my talents on offer. I even dabble in interactive fiction.) But as evidenced by the fact I roleplay, I work better when I have a partner to sound ideas off of, and to do the same for them, as well as to devise plots and characters. Having someone there on the other end might help me keep on track, I think, and I have no one offline I can turn to with this kind of thing and be sure I can trust them with it. I write a whole grab bag of things-- predominantly fanfic, historical fiction with an occasional helping of AU/steampunk, and slash. I do have trouble writing female viewpoint characters, but that's something I'm looking to remedy. Outside of roleplaying, I've never collaborated on anything before, so my apologies in advance for some general ineptitude. My past writing partners have kind of spoiled me a little.

(If this piques anybody's interest-- I'm a slash fan, and I really do like horror elements and the occasional introduction of violence and gore. I'm asexual, but have no objections to writing some smut. Despite how crazy dark some of my stuff can get, I do have a sense of humour, though, and it would be nice at some point to explore something lighter. I write a lot of short fiction and drabbles, but multi-chapter works are not my strong point, and I've never had a chance to try.)

Deviantart here -- http://dreamcadet.deviantart.com/
Website here (which is woefully under-updated and in a state of web design hell) -- http://www.freewebs.com/alice-anathema/
and, of course, you are invited to poke around on my LJ.

If you are at all interested, wonderful! Thank you for reading.

I never knew anyone who had a passion for words who had as much difficulty in saying things as I do. I very seldom say them in a manner I like. If I do it's because I don't know I'm trying. - Marianne Moore

Did you write down your words the way you wanted them to be written down on Friday?

Sound off!

Hi everyone

I'm not really sure if this is even worth posting, as it seems I have such a small talent to offer, but then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?

I've written little bits of stories before. I have some sort of talent for writing vivid, tangible scenes, but then I don't know where to take them. I don't have ideas for plots or characters - part of the problem is that the number of possibilities overwhelm me. Still, I'd probably be quite good at writing something a little bigger if I already had a framework on which to hang it.

So if anyone is writing stories and has mostly got them together, but they just seem sort of flat, then I'd like to be of assistance to you.





As an aside, I don't read fantasy so I don't think I'd be able to write it very well, but I could give it a go. Ordinary fiction was more what I was thinking about though.