sweasel.com

Yay, thanks for the plug and the kind words, you are a stoat among uh, other stoats. Or something.

Good luck with it, seriously. Publishing is a viper’s nest of nesting vipers and I’d love to see some of these ‘net publishers make an inroad.

I remember…oh, nearly twenty years ago, when publishing consultants tried to sell the company I worked for a print-on-demand model. Made sense then, and it still does. It’s just a long time coming.

Uncle B often cites someone — and damned if either of us can remember who said it — to the effect that all the things learned men predict do come true…just fifty years later than predicted.

But I’m still waiting for my ray gun and flying car! I just turned 50, so somebody lied.

Remember the Dick Tracy wristwatch?

Someone finally launched it this year. Apparently it sucks.

If it doesn’t have the cool lightning bolts when you use it, the watch is crap!

Speaking of novelly goodness, I just passed the 50,000 word mark on this year’s NaNoWriMo. 50,097 words and still going.
WOOOT!

Oh, and congratulations to Christopher!

DOUBLE WOOOT!

If there is a sequel to Snowberry’s Veil, I demand an introduction of Leathea character. It would bring in the possibilities previously undreamt of.

I did the Novel writing month thing too, got about 60k words done then Thanksgiving got in the way, so I’ve stalled a bit. I figure I have 3 chapters or so to go before the book is actually finished, so I won’t get that done by the end of November, but it will get done.

Thanks Cheese 🙂

I look forward to checking out Christopher’s book. I am certain that is is much better written than mine is. Mine sure isn’t -done-, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s more the literary equivalent of reeling across the finish line in a car that is trailing parts. And which is on fire. But, it did cross the line!

I did NaNoWriMo one year. I got six hundred words in before it truly dawned on me how much I suck.

Come on Weasel – sometimes suck can be spun into gold. Behold – The Eye of Argon! That’s good stuff right there.

I just learned of that gem today from Mrs. Peel’s place.

I once wrote a computer program that came up with fantasy character names. It’s harder than it sounds. Some syllables don’t make good beginnings of words; some don’t make good ends; some don’t make good middles. Number of syllables, gender. Oh, it was a sweet piece of work.

Dang, Enas beat me to the Eye of Argon example. Anytime you think you’ve written, well, rubbish…just have a gander at that. And laugh.

More seriously, we all have a little editor in our heads. They don’t like what we write, and never will. The beauty of the NaNoWriMo concept is that it duct-tapes the little editor to a chair with a ball gag in his stupid mouth. Just get the words down, and get it done

Am I a good writer? Dunno. But I’m a better writer now than I was at the start of November, and that’s something.

I made it several chapters into the Eye of Argon, but I’m heartbroken that I can’t find an example with the original illustrations.

Incidentally — he wrote that in 1970. It wasn’t THAT derivative. It was ten years after that before fantasy disappeared up its own asshole.

…continued…

I was 10 in 1970, and I discovered the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series on the drugstore bookshelves that year. I was delighted to be reading a line with “adult” in the title. Holy *shit* there were some fine books there.

McDonald. Dunsany. Morris. Beagle. Lovecraft.

Hope Mirrlees’ Lud in the Mist blew my mind.

And all with those spooky, kinda crappy kinda cool Gervasio Gallardo jacket illustrations.

Wow I can confidently say that I’m better than the Eye of Argon. Although I can say he did expand my vocabulary with all the excessive adjectives. That boy wore out his thesaurus, talk about the E. Gary Gygax school of writing.

Far as fantasy goes, I’m still waiting for them to make a half-decent film ’round the Dragonlance Chronicles. All they made of the Hickman / Weiss masterpiece re: the Brothers was a super-krappy He-man ish cartoon.

Busty Bridget! Another admirer of Lud-in-the-Mist! I read it about the same time period (only I was a sophomore in college) and it remains in my top 25 favorite novels list to this day. Beautifully crafted prose, well plotted, engaging fantasy. . .and sly, hilarious social commentary. What more could one ask?

It was a beautiful thing, Can’t hark. I was awfully young for it, but it impressed me all the more. Particularly since when I was even younger there was a chord I accidentally played on the guitar that gave me goose bumps. The more I played it, the weaker it got…and now I don’t even know what it was.

In my twenties (before online) I tried to find a copy to buy and failed. So I tracked one — and only one — down in the Providence library. Turns out, it was a first edition stored in the rare book collection. But they let me borrow it!

That’s when I discovered where they kept the rare books — there was a hidden floor in the downtown library between the second and third floors. Librarian took me up there to retrieve it. Very cool, and somehow appropriate for that particular book.

Well, my first copy was a coverless paperback (oh! the shame!). I didn’t know what that meant back then, and I don’t think they had the little warning on the copyright page. Of course, back then I didn’t routinely glance at the copyright page to see if it had anything interesting. . .But when I discovered buying used books on the internet, a copy of LITM was one of my early purchases. Used. So, I’m not actually sure I can claim any moral advance based on that.

Yes–the Providence library rare book room does sound like a good place for it. Couple of others, I can think of, too, but I won’t egoize.

Anyway–really lovely to meet another, um, Ludite?

I ordered your book from Amazon. My biggest dilemma was deciding if I should buy it NEW for $22 plus change or USED for $55.00.

Can’t wait to read it…