Happy Birthday, blythe025!

The search for the winner of this year's Meager Puddle of Limelight Award for Best Short Story Title continues with heat eight (the last of the preliminary heats).

There are nine heats in all. The winners (or joint winners) from heats one - eight go straight through. The second place finishers battle it out in heat nine to see which title joins the others in the final round.

What's at stake?
Bragging rights for the winner? An interview and/or guest post here on An Englishman in New Jersey, as well as signed copy of my book, Fur-Face, and a couple of I are a writer! pens, as shown in the pic below.You'll need an LJ account to vote, but they're free).

Poll #1842793 2012 MEAGER PUDDLE OF LIMELIGHT AWARD FOR BEST SHORT STORY TITLE: HEAT 8 OF 9
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: None, participants: 8

From the following list, please select any short story titles which you think should progress to the final round

Links to the other Heats and the final:
Heat one
Heat two
Heat three
Heat four
Heat five
Heat six
Heat seven
Heat eight
Heat nine
Final Round

Voting in Heats 1 through 8 will close on Sunday, June 3rd 2012 at 6:00pm (US/Eastern). Heat nine will take place soon after.

Good luck to all who take part! Vene, vidi, puddli!

Happy Birthday, careswen and queenoftheskies!

We just watched the latest (I think) episode of Legend of Korra, “The Aftermath.” I’m continuing to really enjoy this show for a number of reasons.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Pacing: One of the things that bugged me was the love triangle between Korra, Mako, and Asami. It felt, not necessarily cliche, but easy. It’s an oft-repeated trope, one that could push characters into more cardboard, stereotypical roles and — if other shows are any example — drag out for far too long.

Instead, Asami’s character quickly developed more depth and conflict. The plot moved along, changing her role in the story. The conflict between Korra and Asami progressed through conflict into understanding and sympathy. I loved the quiet moment at the end where Korra tells Mako, “She’s going to need you.”

I’ve seen that pacing elsewhere, and I appreciate that the show doesn’t seem to get bogged down. There’s always a sense of movement.

Lin Beifong continues to be awesome. In many ways, I think she’s my favorite character. Partly because she’s an older woman kicking all sorts of ass. Partly because she, more than anyone else I’ve seen, seems to take full advantage of her bending abilities. The firebenders throw fire. Earthbenders throw rocks. Beifong, on the other hand, manipulates metal cables like Spider-Man, grows blades from her armor to punch through mechs, and seems to push the “What else can I do with this?” angle.

Complexity: The scene with Tahno’s character really jumped out at me. This is a character who’s introduced as a full-on asshole. He’s arrogant, he cheats, and you really wanted Korra to kick his butt in the tournament. Instead, the White Falls Wolfbats won … and thus became the targets of an Equalist attack.

In the next episode, you see Tahno without his powers, and he’s utterly broken. Korra feels for him. She knows what he lost and how close she came to losing her own bending. It was a fairly short scene, but that’s all it took.

The relationship between Tenzin and Lin Beifong is another interesting example. Their history, the contrast of their apparent discomfort with how well they work together in a crisis … I have no idea where that’s going, but I like the dynamic, and at this point I’m trusting the show not to go somewhere overly cliche with it.

While there are certainly characters who seem flat-out Evil, at least at first, I appreciate that things generally aren’t presented in a simplistic black-and-white way. Neither people nor power are simple, and this show respects that fact.

The Animation: This is a very pretty show, particularly in the way it portrays movement and the grace of the different benders. I get done watching, and other cartoons suddenly seem clunkier.

Trusting the Viewers: I was trying to figure out how to phrase this last bit, and “trust” is the closest I can come. I’ve never seen a single episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, but it hasn’t stopped me from enjoying Korra. It doesn’t surprise me that they wanted a show that could welcome new viewers as well as old, but it struck me that there just isn’t a lot of exposition or hand-holding, period. There’s no talking down, no assuming that things will be too complicated or difficult to understand. Elements are explained as they become relevant to the story.

I know there are things I’m missing from Avatar, but I can catch up on my own, and I like that they don’t slow down the story to spoon-feed information.

In Conclusion: Okay, I get it. I’m officially a fan, and I have added Avatar: TLA to my list of things to catch up on (when I find the time).

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

John is one of our overseas members, a former Minnesotan now residing in the United Kingdom. He is still active on the group message boards, offering his thoughts and opinions on a variety of matters important to writers.

“Unbelieving Jaxx” is one of the longer pieces in the anthology, a twisting, turning tale of an alternate world of steam tech and powerful magic written very much in the style of Victorian speculative literature. I am quite pleased to present it here.

“Unbelieving Jaxx” originally appeared serialized in Steampunk Tales issues #6, #7, and #8


Sky-Tinted Waters is available from Sam's Dot Publishing.

This is from  xjenavivex - who asked such wonderful questions!

The meme:

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile." 

• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity (though I am leaving for Wiscon shortly, so this will happen after I get back!)
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions

1. What is your favorite mythological creature and why?

Firebird!!! It is a mythical bird of Slavic folklore (zhar-ptitsa, which would better be translated as heat-bird, but isn't for some reason). I love fire, I love birds, so obviously the firebird is the best creature ever. Of course, I also grew up with this folklore. One may aspire to catch the firebird, to find her feather, or perhaps simply to become Firebird. The scene in my default userpic is from Bilibin's famous folkloric illustration. The picture that adorns the Birdverse page on my website features Milashevsky's illustration to the Little Humpback Horse, a fairytale in verse, in which the hero and his magic horse sidekick must capture the Firebird.

The goddess of Birdverse is a Bird that appears to each person as a different bird according to their culture and character. She is a firebird for me obviously, though not for others.

2. What is your favorite folk tale and which specific variation?

It's really hard to choose just one.
But if I have to, then "Finist the Bright Falcon" is a Russian folktale about a woman (sometimes named as Vasilissa the Extremely Wise, a heroine of Russian folktales), who is visited by Finist, a shapechanger (his name is etymologically connected to Phoenix; I suspect he is the male variant of the firebird). When Vasilissa's family chases Finist away, she sets out on a heroic quest to retrieve her lost beloved. She essentially goes on a male heroic quest, though it has female elements, such as female kinship networks: the heroine is helped by a magical donor, Baba Yaga, who calls her daughter or granddaughter. The Baba Yaga claims no such connection to the male questing hero, who must trick her or else prove his knowledge/worthiness to get Baba Yaga to help him. In some variants of Finist, Vasilissa is helped by a family of Baba Yagas, three sisters who give her magical objects and advice. After many adventures in which her wit and character are tested, the heroine is successful in her quest.  

It is pretty obvious why I have always loved this folktale. I was quite lucky to grow up with this folklore, where some heroines are domestic and others go out into the world and have adventures.

Here is Vasilissa near Baba Yaga's house, as depicted by Bilibin:



3. Do you always know what form a story wants to take when you begin it? (Here I am also wondering if you view poems as stories and do they feel different that longer forms from the beginning?)

Hm, this is difficult. I always have to know the last scene or the last image of a story, or I will not finish. Knowing the last scene from the get-go gives me the strength to keep going, and also makes me work out what sequence of events leads to this scene. I make it sound like it is something very cerebral, but it is an intuitive process mostly based on my feel for the specific characters and their trajectories. Poems (as well as some flash pieces) are different.  They come from a feel or an image, and often they come with a first line that just unravels into second, third, etc. I often feel that the poem is "waiting" just behind my eyes, behind some gate - waiting for me to make a space for it. Sometimes poetry writing is an ecstatic experience; the Cycle was like that. The poem possessed me. I just had to lend it my heart and my fingers. 

4. Will you share a cool mom moment with me? (It could be you as the mom, daughter, or granddaughter - recent or some time ago.)

Sure. This happened in November 2011, during our last horse riding lesson of the Fall. 

We arrived a few minutes early, and the teacher was in the riding area with another child. Meanwhile, Mati's regular horse, Webster, was waiting tethered in an open-air stall. He ran into the stall - I think he wanted to hug the horse - but I told him he needed to wait. He stood in front of the horse and looked it straight in the eyes for the longest time, with a rapt expression on his face; Webster also appeared interested in Mati. The other kid came out of the riding area - about eleven or twelve years old, and pretty clearly with classical autism. I don't think I've ever seen her before. I greeted her with a hello and a wave. She didn't say hello back, which is just fine. "My name is Peggy," she said clearly and slowly, not exactly looking at me. I had up to that point thought that she was a boy. She then said, "What's her name?"
"His name is Mati," I said. "He's a boy." (Mati has long curly hair).
"A boy?" she said. "How old is she?"
"He's five," I said. "Mati, say hello."
Mati looked in her general direction and said, very reluctantly, "Hello. Peggy."
Then he ran into the riding area, where he tried to put on the "helmut". Peggy ran off to her mother, who was waiting in their car, and I heard her shout, "He can speak! Mommy, he can speak!"

5. What do you do when you need to clear your head?
I go for a walk. Sometimes I just go out in the front yard at night and stand in front of (and under) the oaks and lift my arms like the oaks do.

Cover art for my novelette "Faster Gun,"  (Working title: "John Henry Holliday is Sick of the These Time-Traveling Assholes") forthcoming on Tor.com this summer.

The artist is Richard Anderson.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NathanBransford/~3/vcQDWY9b-Zs/traditional-vs-self-publishing-is-false.html

Us vs. them is fun. It gets people's blood boiling. It instills fear. It's thrilling to be on a team, especially when you feel like your team is winning.

These days it seems like traditional and self-publishing are increasingly pitted against each other on blogs and forums, as if one side or the other is the bastion of all that is good and pure in the world and the other side is the bastion of all that is horrible and evil.

This is insane.

There is no "us" vs. "them." Traditional vs. self-publishing is a false dichotomy. It's an illusion created by people who either have let their frustrations get the best of them or are trying to sell you something. We're all writers trying to figure out the best way to get our books to readers. We're all on the same team.

No, the traditional publishing industry is not a hive of retrograde monsters out to steal and eat your newborn children. No, self-publishing is not a gang of unwashed crap artists trying to poison the literary well forever.

Publishing is a spectrum of choice, from traditional publishers who pay you, will handle most things for you and assume all risk in exchange for certain rights to your book, to self-publishing where you handle everything yourself, pay your own way, and adopt your own risk. And there's a whole lot more choice in between those two poles.

What's the right way? There is no right way.

Some authors want to let the publishers handle things for them. Some authors want to go for print glory because that's where the bulk of readers are right now (yes, still). Some authors want the freedom of control of self-publishing. Some authors want to experiment with pricing.

And guess what: Some authors do both, and they always have. Even before e-publishing, many prominent authors got their start self-publishing. And many authors who used to be traditionally published moved to self-publishing. Some authors use hybrid models that combine elements of traditional and self-publishing.

There is no hundred foot wall between self-publishing and traditional publishing. Choosing one does not preclude the other, even if you feel like you're currently on the outs with traditional publishing. Or did you miss the recent seven figure book deal for the self-published nutritionist?

Sure. It's fun to join up sides and start flinging mud. It's exciting to think that your team alone has the holy grail.

But I see a lot of authors out there getting taken for a ride by both sides. People are preying on writers' fears and frustrations.

The only way you'll be able to decide what's best for you is if you ignore the pied pipers, set aside your emotions, and think only about what's the right for your book.

Art: La Riña - Francisco de Goya