by Katherine Villyard | Sep 28, 2005 | geekiness, procrastination
Apparently, what one does when one doesn’t know what happens next in a story is upgrade Movable Type to version 3.2. (Mmm, yummy new antispam features!) And, of course, resist the urge to say, “But I don’t want that to happen, that’s...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 26, 2005 | procrastination
Maybe I should tweak the website. Or install more Movable Type plugins. Or make a page on this site to show people how cute my cats are. Or install more Movable Type plugins! Or all of the above! *heavy sigh* Or...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 25, 2005 | reading
I’m not sure what led me to go to the Southern Gothic panel at Dragoncon. I suspect it was the panel description: What is it about the American South that haunts the literary psyche? Some of horror’s Southern voices will talk about what it is like to live...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 24, 2005 | short fiction
I started a second story for Scalzi’s cliché challenge. I’m a lot more enthusiastic about this one, since I get to write aliens, woohoo! Of course, the fact that I have characters and a milieu and a general situation does not mean that I have a...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 22, 2005 | selling fiction
I’ve decided that you give up on a story when it’s about Jebi Knight Mary Sue, leading the oppressed rebel army of big business against the forces of evil market restrictions, led by the terrifying Darth Nader. Short of that, you give up on a story when...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 21, 2005 | selling fiction
I have a question, for those of you wiser than I. When do you give up on a story? Never? When you run out of markets? When you decide it sucks? I’m considering pulling a story from circulation. I just… feel it’s flawed. I wrote it over a year ago and...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 18, 2005 | geekiness, life, the universe, and everything, novels, short fiction
I’m trying to exercise more, mainly so I feel like less of a slug. Lots of people (Orson Scott Card, etc.) recommend exercise for authors on the grounds that it’s hard to force lively prose out of a sluggish, tired body, and it’s true. I may have to...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 17, 2005 | geekiness, selling fiction, short fiction
Thanks to the comments of Jen, Margo, and Lisa, the nightmare story is now in circulation under the name “Book of Shadows.” W00t! I went to go record the information on my Treo–yes, yes, I track these things in mysql and php–and lo, my poor...
by Katherine Villyard | Sep 14, 2005 | scripts, short fiction
Based on the latest crit for the nightmare story, the way my system of magic works was completely unclear. Every single question my reader had was about how the magic worked. And here I was worried that I was being all sledgehammery! Apparently, I needn’t have...