Hard spring of discontent is over

Fritz. — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:34:54 +0000

The hard spring of discontent is over just in time for summer. I am writing again after a two month hiatus (if you don’t count a couple of days in early June) having completed about a thousand words a day this long 4th of July weekend. The reasons for my break from writing are multiple; including a rough spot at work (unlike some authors, I have difficulty transforming my negative emotions into the written word — I just tend to seize up instead), a rash of reading and listening to books on CD/MP3, and a (semi-)daunting task of re-writing a critical scene in “The Alchemist of Liberty”. During the down period I never lost the “wanting to want to write” feeling, so I knew it was just a matter of time. Like the reasons for not writing, the reasons for starting to write again were multiple, including listening to P. G. Wodehouse, which always has a beneficial effect on my mood, and an increasing pressure of new ideas.

This rewrite comes on the very cogent plotting advice of Howard, an editor who has been kind enough to look at AoL, as well as “The Shaper’s Daughter”, and has given me encouragement and much needed critical feedback. (Thanks Howard!) While I am quite pleased with the rewrite (so far) it has grown beyond the size of the original (*sigh*, but this seems to be SOP for me). I did try to reduce the number of characters involved in the scene, but this was only temporary and I wound up finding a handful of new characters. I did succeed in distributing the infodumps across the scene and making the action more in tune with the main characters.

Then there are the handful of ideas that I’ve had for new stories and/or worldbuilding in the Nexus that I came up with during this dark period. Feels good to be writing again, even if the mountain of words that I must spew forth has grown even larger.

2008 WorldCon attendance

Fritz. — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:42:32 +0000

Below the cut is a 2008 WorldCon attendance status page from my wiki.

1 Those who are planning on attending
2 Those who are not
3 Those who I have emailed but not heard from yet (email went out 6/12)
4 People who I would like to contact about their attendance plans (or just have their email in general)

Those who are planning on attending

Fritz & Merideth F.
Glenn G.
Mike D.
Walter H.

Those who are not

Alex P.
Charles & Joyce L.
Howard J.
Jenn J. & NBH
Merideth D.-W.
Steve & Tina B.
Theo & Elizabeth F.

Those who I have emailed but not heard from yet (email went out 6/12)

Dave H.
Hal & Uli O.
Marc W.
Michael C.
Peter F.
Phil P.
Rick Y.
Tamarra B.

People who I would like to contact about their attendance plans (or just have their email in general)

Eric P.
Liz M.
Sivan D.-W.

Categories: WorldCon | 2008 | Fandom

Direct wiki link.

About to buy Denver WorldCon memberships

Fritz. — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:56:11 +0000

I’m about to buy my Denver WorldCon memberships and am sending out probing email to the old “Brat Pack” (and few others) to see who might be planning on attending. Merideth (F., not D.-W.) will be driving out from Michigan with much listening to books on CD (like our journey to NASFIC last year). We will be taking our time and may stop in Omaha to see Merideth (D.-W., of course). On the way back I may try and make a swing through the Black Hills of SD, depending on timing and money.

Anybody from the old LASFS “Brat Pack” planning on attending? Drop me an eLine or comment.

SF Wikis

Fritz. — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:17:16 +0000

I started putting together a list of links to SF related wikis. You can find the list here. Oh, and if you know of any that I’ve missed, I’d like to hear about them.

Friday link dump

Fritz. — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:26:12 +0000

It has been a while since I last did a link dump, so this one is rather large (281 links) and obnoxios.

First, by tags, then below in one big list…

Tagged AI

Tagged Art

Tagged Book+Review

Tagged Criticism

Tagged Fandom

Tagged Fantasy

Tagged FermisParadox

Tagged FreeWare

Tagged Generator

Tagged Genre

Tagged OpenSource

Tagged Reading

Tagged SF

Tagged SpaceOpera

Doctor Who Wiki

Tagged Tech+Watch

Tagged TransHumanism

Tagged Video

Tagged WebComic

Dresden Codak - 5/2/08

Tagged WorldBuilding

papersky: Fast and Dirty Fantasy Names

Tagged Writing

Tagged Zeppelin

Monbiot.com » Travelling Light

Now, all the Links:

How do you deal with pacing?

Fritz. — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:07:35 +0000

The other day I received an email that a friend and fellow writer sent out to the AAAWG email list. It was about how one handles pacing in a novel. Initially I didn’t have a cogent answer, and I still don’t think I have a satisfactory answer, but I ended up by responding with this:

I’m afraid I don’t really know how to answer this question as I have approached it primarily by gut feel. Perhaps a more honest answer is that I have really ignored the question of pacing and just wrote the novel (or short story) with the assumption that it would work out as I went. One (implied) concession to pacing is that as I near the end of a major draft I read the story through as fast as I can (no edits) and see how it hangs together. I think one of the things I am trying to determine when I do these quick reads is to see if I have achieved a good pace. One of my stock questions to my beta-readers is about pacing and I rely on their less-biased feedback. You can also tell a lot about pacing by asking your beta-readers when they put your story down (or just give up) to do other things.
Anyways, that’s my pre-published opinion.

Anyone want to share their insight into pacing a novel?

Zelazny’s lost noir novel to be published by Hard Case Crime

Fritz. — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:09:41 +0000

How very cool! A noir novel by Roger Zelazny lost for thirty years to be published by Hard Case Crime. The Dead Man’s Brother is due out in Feb. of 2009. You can also check out an excerpt.

Speed Racer mini-review

Fritz. — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:09:25 +0000

Merideth, John, and I went to see Speed Racer last night. Here’s a my mini-review:

If you overlook the simplistic plot, trite clichés, and the not infrequent wooden acting, it was a visually spectacular. Eyeball laceratingly spectacular. Don’t go see Speed Racer if you can be induced to vomit just by watching bright colors in motion. Do go see Speed Racer if you want to see the closest thing to a live-action cartoon (yet).

fritz freiheit.com

Hard spring of discontent is over

2008 WorldCon attendance

Contents

Those who are planning on attending

Those who are not

Those who I have emailed but not heard from yet (email went out 6/12)

People who I would like to contact about their attendance plans (or just have their email in general)

About to buy Denver WorldCon memberships

Friday link dump

SF Wikis

Friday link dump

How do you deal with pacing?

Zelazny’s lost noir novel to be published by Hard Case Crime

Speed Racer mini-review