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Have we really made so little progress?!

Have we really made so little progress?!

I was watching Rosemary Rosemary Extract Rosemary Essential Oils Rosemary Essential Oils Rosemary Extract Rosemary Essential Oils Rosemary Essential Oils Rosemary Extract Rosemary Essential Oils Rosemary Extract Rosemary Essential Oils Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary Extract Rosemary…

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Finally!

Finally! It's bloody fixed!!

Well after something on the order of 2 years The Guide, and the blogs are working correctly again.

Apparently something in the WordPress core files had corrupted in a way that wasn’t triggering any error messages, just basically making it utterly ignore various aspects of the .htaccess file where the blogs.dir was concerned. It’s embarrassing, really, how easy it was to fix. I mean, it was a…

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The Author Is Not The Character

The Author Is Not The Character

I saw something today asserting that you could tell J. K. Rowling’s real political beliefs by something Harry Potter does several times in the series.  This is utter motherfucking nonsense.

Yes, you can sometimes glean an author’s politics from their works, but not from the actions of one character, even if that character is the viewpoint character!  You see — and I know this confuses the fuck…

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The Yearly List of "What I've Been Reading"

The Yearly List of “What I’ve Been Reading”

I noticed it’d been a bit over a year since I did a post about what I’ve been reading, and that one was about a year after the last one, so, what the hell.  I’ll make it a tradition.

So, the list (links are to Goodreads, because it’s what I’ve gotten up to make sure I don’t forget anything.  From there you should be able to find a place to buy them if you want them.):

Red:  A History of the…

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The Dumbest Author Blog Post Ideas I've Found

The Dumbest Author Blog Post Ideas I’ve Found

I was looking for the list I was working through and mostly mocking last year as I’d misplaced where I’d copied down the ones I wanted to do.  I couldn’t find it, but I did find some spectacularly dumb ideas. And, yes, all of these were from lists allegedly targeting authors.   “Hijack the news . . . avoiding horrible stuff of course.”  I guess this could actually be effective, but it seems a…

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Questions To Ask Before Writing A Novel And A Realization

These are compiled from various sources and occasionally rephrased some. And the questions will, of course, be followed by my commentary.  And the answers for one of my current works-in-progress, something that presently has the wonderful working title of Ren/Vik.  I am so good at titles!  What is the protagonist’s biggest regret?  (This is supposed to have something to do with the “heart of the…

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Time For Another Edition of "Things I Said While Revising"

Time For Another Edition of “Things I Said While Revising”

This time there are two cats with me! But still no other humans. ‘”If’ . . . ‘since’ . . . ‘so long as’!” “‘Bloody’ is what I’m hearing there.” “That is a horrible sentence.” “That wasn’t so bad.” “Ah!  Don’t do that!”  (This was at myself after, while trying to italicize something, I accidentally deleted everything and typed an “i”.  Thank the gods for Undo!)  (No, I don’t know how I managed…

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The Patreon Bullshit

(And probably other stuff because it will be a miracle if I ever make a blogpost that doesn’t wander all over the place.) So, for those who don’t know Patreon is a site that basically lets you pay people various amounts of money on a recurring basis in return for various rewards . . . or sometimes just for the knowledge that you’re helping a creator you like keep the lights on while they make…

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Disrespecting Fans By Not Publishing Crap . . . And Other Stuff

It looks like entitled whiny “fans” have stopped saying (for the most part) that authors “owe” them books on a certain timeframe. Alas, this does not mean that they’ve stopped being entitled whiny “fans”.  Far from it.  Instead their new tactic seems to be to whine that the author is “disrespecting their fans” . . . even when the author has said the book is delayed because he had to cut a large…

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I've Done It!

I’ve Done It!

The Crown of Eldrete is, so far as I can tell, now removed from all ebook markets.  The print edition still exists because it’s more tricky than just clicking a button or two to remove a print edition from Amazon/Createspace, but since as far as I can tell Mom is the only person who ever bought any print copies, I don’t give a damn.  If you really want to order a copy of a book that is no longer…

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What I've Read Since The Last Time I Did A Post Like This

What I’ve Read Since The Last Time I Did A Post Like This

For a few years I was making grand plans to get stuff I’d wanted to read for ages and not gotten around to read.  The end result of these plans was that I pretty much wasn’t reading anything, because I’d be trying to read those books when I didn’t really feel like it, and I wouldn’t let myself start reading something else until I’d finished those or given up on them because I’d decided they were…

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Well, at least I have a backup . . . sort of

Well, at least I have a backup . . . sort of

In late March, Time Machine quit working properly.  It was an easy thing to fix, something I’ve fixed at least twice before . . . basically my computer couldn’t write to the Time Machine drive and it would’ve taken about five to fifteen minutes to fix. But, you see, it would’ve involved rebooting, and I discovered it while I was in the middle of something.  Then I kept forgetting about it until I…

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Amusing Comments To Myself In First Drafts

Amusing Comments To Myself In First Drafts

If something is going seriously wrong in a rough draft, my process is to type a comment to myself in all caps and then try that bit again.  Usually the comment is just “NO” or “NOT QUITE RIGHT” or something equally boring. Or “FUCKING HELL” with varying numbers of exclamation marks.  Sometimes though, they get amusing.  Here are some of my favorites: GONNA TRY THIS FROM REN’S POV INSTEAD OF…

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I Have Learned To Write

I Have Learned To Write

(WARNING:  AUTHOR IS FEELING EVEN MORE SNARKY THAN USUAL.) So, after years and years of perusing writing blogs and forums, I have finally learned how to write. First, I must keep an inspiration board filled with images that I think might, someday, inspire me to write something or to create a character or whatever.  I also need to have a special notebook that I carry with me at all times to write…

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Character Interview: Jake

On that list of blogposts — and recommended all over the damned place for all kinds of reasons — is character interviews.  So, because I’m enough over this cold from hell to manage snarky quips, but not enough to manage actual fiction or blog writing, I’m going to interview Jake. Please do tell me if this manages to make you interested in the book.  I can sort of see how that might work, but I…

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Yet More Ranting About Shitty Writing Advice

Yet More Ranting About Shitty Writing Advice

I’m sorry for doing more on this theme so soon, but I clicked a link I shouldn’t have clicked, and now I’ve got to vent here or I’m going to go off on an author for a blogpost they made years ago, and that’s majorly not cool.  (I was expecting it to be snark-worthy, not infuriating, when I clicked it.) So, I finally found out what’s behind that “what’s the lie your character believes about…

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Unhelpful Story Planning Stuff

Unhelpful Story Planning Stuff

I’m so tired of advice on how to plan stories that assumes you’re writing one of three types of stories:  a paint-by-numbers Hero’s Journey, an equally formulaic romance, or the sort of deep, literary thing that’s more about the character’s inner journey than whatever the story looks like it’s about. I’ve got nothing against any of these story types, by the way.  I don’t read formulaic versions…