Overspreading the writing blogosphere the past few weeks–posts of Ten “Rules” for Writing Fiction. It started with The Guardian, a British newspaper, publishing tip lists from authors such as Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood. Since then, others have chimed in, including SF/F novelist Daniel Abraham.

I’ve read lots of writing “rules” over the years, ones I agree with and ones I don’t. It is interesting to see what successful writers believe about the (or their) process. But the main thing I get out of such lists is different. The tips I’ve already heard, I gloss over. But every now and then there’s one that makes me think, even if it covers a concept I already know.

Black Gate editor Howard Andrew Jones had one such in his list: “Know what all the characters in the scene want before they come on stage.”

I’m big on character motivation, so I’m always thinking of what the characters want. But I like how Jones’s tip frames that very succinctly, and also includes any possible antagonist or secondary characters as well. All characters, whether PCs or NPCs, want something, and they all should act and interact as though they do. If they don’t, they won’t feel real on the page.

So even if all these tip lists are things you’ve seen before, they can still be useful if they make you think.

Yeah, I totally forgot to pack that cable-plug thing that would allow me to download the pictures off my camera. So no pictures until I get my first paycheck (and take the bus to a city), or I figure out how to post the ones I've taken so far with my cellphone. Maybe that'll be next weekend's project.

Yesterday I was a little bundle of energy; today I am a puddle of lethargy. That bucket of fried chicken didn't help.

We did get to check out the market the town has every five days. Probably about a dozen stalls, mostly fruit and vegetables, but also stuff like clothes, shoes, spam, dried fish, and live fish killed while you wait. We bought spam and veggies and enough bean sprouts to feed an army.

Here are the last three books I read: Nova by Samuel R. Delaney, Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini, and Learning How to Learn by Idries Shah. I have to admit that reading Nova in a foreign city where I don't speak the language felt kind of cool. But that's probably 'cause I'm a dork... Of course now I have to find something else to read. All told we probably have 75 books in the house, about two dozen of which are written in Korean and about another dozen are ones I've already read. That leaves 35+ new books and since I'm averaging close to two a week that's not enough to get me through the year.

Obviously this means I have to learn Korean.

Here are a bunch of links:

Beautiful Bookbinding - I like the bat-snake-skull one of course.

Interesting interview with Franz Rottensteiner about European SF.

Secrets of making your very own Inuit thimble.

More stuff like that can be found here at Primitive Ways. I have to admit that I am fascinated by neolithic hygiene.

And here's a panegyric to the concept of libraries:
"Even more useful than the books or activities, though, is the principle behind libraries, that we and our neighbours can pool our resources and hold things in common that all of us occasionally need. Most of the Western World, however, adopted this principle for books and then stopped, never extending it to other obvious areas of life."

Hi all -- updating via phone from SFO and about to hop on a plane, but this is time sensitive so I'm squeezing in a post.

I got an alert yesterday that John Klima at Electric Velocipede has been kind enough to nominate "Darkest Amber" for the Hugo award for best short story. The least I can do is spread the word -- EV had a lot of great fiction this year and it's an honor to make the cut in that mag. If you are eligible to nominate for the Hugo's, I'd love if you'd take a look at the story.

http://blog.electricvelocipede.com/2010/03/2010-hugo-nominations.html

More next week, when recent to-be-described madness has settled down...