Must go to the light…
Mighty hunter stalks the fluffball
Dude, turn out the light!
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog February 11 2011, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
Author
Must go to the light…
Mighty hunter stalks the fluffball
Dude, turn out the light!
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog February 11 2011, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
I don’t think the discussion is primarily about a huge problem anyone is having at all, so much as it about talking about cognitive tools for understanding a phenomena that is encountered in greater and greater degree the more broadly you are known of beyond the circle of people who simply know you.
For some people it certainly does become a problem. For some the idea of authorial construct is a handy tool that allows them to separate from their work. For some it’s simply a fascinating cognitive phenomena. It’s also important to note that it’s not only or even mainly about a person’s deliberate public persona.
In the case of authors, at least, people form opinions about who a writer is sometimes based entirely on what they’ve read in the writer’s books, and without any clues other than that and name.
This is one reason why several of my readers have been quite startled to find out that I’m a burly bald man and not the bookish woman they built in their heads by working with my gender-ambiguous name and the stuff of mine that they’ve read.
Shh, is sunny, I napping
Shh, is sunny, I napping
Shh, is sunny, I napping
All together now: Shh, is sunny, I napping (4 cats in the sun)
Bonus kitty is napping too, just not in sun
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog February 4 2011, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
Sometimes lazer eyez need kickstart
Not paranoid, the aliens really are out to get me.
Told ya I could see over my belly, now help me outta here!
Marge, pass me the remote, wouldja.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog January 28 2011, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.
I playz dead gud, even got the bloating thing nailed
I command you to bring me a…zzzzzzzz
BONUS CATS*
My proud lion pose, you take pixure, yes?
All shall love me and despair!
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog January 21 2011, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
Somewhere over the rainbow…
It’s not the camera, I really am blurry!
Wide-load cat, is wide.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog January 14 2011, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
A writer has many parents—people who shape who we are and what we become. We have the parents of our blood and bone, the ones who gave us our bodies, our actual mothers and fathers. We have parents of the mind—teachers and personal role models who helped us find our talents and hone our arts. We also have the parents of our souls—the voices we hear when we imagine what it is to write, the writers who make us who and what we are.
Too often those voices belong to those who have passed on before we ever truly arrive on the scene, people we can never thank properly because we know them only through their words…Shakespeare, Cervantes, Moliere, Wilde. Sometimes we only miss them by the narrowest of margins. I never met Roger Zelazny, though he probably shaped the writer I have become more than almost anyone else. Too rarely we get the chance to meet them or thank them in some other way.
Some years ago I set out to write thank you letters to as many of my surviving influences as I could, the pillars of my authorial universe. I wanted to let them know how much they had meant to me and shaped my voice. Among those, one of the most important was Terry Pratchett. My second novel, the never published Swine Prince, was pretty much my attempt to be Terry when I grew up, and his work has echoed through mine ever since.
I never got the chance to meet Terry Pratchett, and yet he is one of the people who made me. Simply knowing he was out there somewhere writing away has made the world a better place. And now he isn’t, and that hurts. I will miss his wit, his wisdom, his humanity, and his sheer cleverness. I will miss the writer who saw cruelty and injustice and skewered them with unerring accuracy and merciless verve. I will miss the voice that has comforted me so often in dark hours and times of stress. But most of all, I will miss one of the mighty supports of my world, the giant whose shoulders so much of my own work is built upon.
Another of my authorial pillars has fallen. Or, if you prefer, my world has one less elephant holding it up.
A study in gray
All shall love me and despair!
Can I climb you? Pleasepleaseplease!