Links and accomplishments, 8/2/15 to 8/8/15

Links

Most of these links are about writing. HOPE THAT’S COOL WITH YOU.

100 Random Storytelling Thoughts and Tips, Starting Now. Some quotes I liked:

You’re a stage magician. Practiced in the art of illusion… One of your greatest skills is misdirection. You seed the truth of the magic trick early on in the story. Then you convince the reader that the truth isn’t the truth at all — until the time comes to reveal.

Reminds me very much of Uncle Jim’s enigmatic lectures at VP, exhorting us to read books on stage magic.

Pretend while writing that your job isn’t to tell a story but it’s to manipulate and emotionally injure the audience. Because that actually kinda is your job. You monster.

How to Write Your Character’s Thoughts. Seems simple, right? But I’ve been trying to shake up how I do this, because for me italicizing thoughts is the lazy path to over-explaining. I’ve been experimenting with Hillerich’s methods, and… in the immortal words of the MST3K movie: “I’m feeling a sensation that’s entirely new to me. And frankly, I like it!”

How to Choose What to Write Next. A neat little trick, in which you rate story ideas based on their potential for joy, growth, and marketability.

The Future of Work is Here and It Sucks. Yes. So much yes. Also makes me glad I don’t work in marketing any more.

Videos of a 2013 class on writing SFF that Brandon Sanderson taught at BYU. My first reaction to these videos was, “I know all this stuff.” But I find myself coming back to them, and thinking of how I’ll use them for future work, so I venture my initial assessment was wrong.

Fantasy of Manners list on Goodreads. It took seeing that I had read eleven books on this list (and loved many of them) to realize that, gee, Lise, maybe fantasy of manners is a Thing, and furthermore maybe that’s actually what you’re writing.

Accomplishments

I got a lot of reading done this week, as you’ll see — but to be fair, it was mostly finishing a bunch of books I had in progress.

Writing
– Wrote 2,487 words on Lioness
– Prepped and sent chapters 6 and 7 of Lioness to my writing group
– Imported Lioness (and notes) into Scrivener
– Wrote one blog post, a review of Sheepfarmer’s Daughter

Reading
– Finished Elizabeth Moon’s Sheepfarmer’s Daughter
– Finished Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor (this book is amazing, and a review will follow once I get past fannish squee)
– Finished Holly West’s Mistress of Fortune
– Finished Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love

Other Media
– Watched Columbo S2E3, “The Most Crucial Game”
– Listened to Writing Excuses 10.31, “How Do I Control the Reader’s Sense of Progress?”
– Watched lectures 1 and 2 of Brandon Sanderson’s 2013 SFF writing class at BYU

Front-end dev
– Used a developer self-directed day to teach myself Flexbox, and wrote up a Flexbox developer challenge for my coworkers

(I don’t usually put day job stuff in here, but I might share the developer challenge on my blog later on)

Social
– Had book club get-together with Jess at Solea in Waltham

Author: Lise

Hi, I'm Lise Fracalossi, a web developer, writer, and time-lost noblethem. I live in Central Massachusetts with my husband, too many cats, and a collection of ridiculous hats that I rarely wear.