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Showing posts from July, 2014

All Creatures, Small and Tiny

Does violence define masculinity?

I'd say, yes, actually. That's with a whole bunch of caveats and recourse to definitions. Still, I think that most of what this guy says is both very right and very wrong.  First, he claims that men = violence is entirely cultural... that it's trained into boys from their youngest years.  Part of that is true, but it's also not true.  We know that higher testosterone is associated with higher aggression in both men and women and men tend to have more testosterone. Violence is actually essentially human. We don't train it into ourselves, we train it OUT.*

My Dad's Hot Rod

There are T-shirts over the seat covers. My dad has had this hot rod since he was a "rebel" in the 50's.  When I was a teenager he started to fix it up again, rebuild from the bottom up.

How long is a Novella?

I'm starting to consider that I might be a novella writer.  Short stories don't seem to fit.  My ideas for novels seem to just peter out, even when I know how I want the story to conclude, because there doesn't seem to be enough going on. But novellas Do Not Sell. I learned this impermeable Truth about the same time I cut my milk-teeth learning about writing and publishing in the early 1990s.  Novellas do not sell.  It's a Short Story or the Game of Thrones.  Choose wisely, young one. Novels, you see, are no longer 50,000 words (no matter what NaNoWriMo tells you), a novel begins at a nice meaty 80,000 words or It Will Not Sell.   It doesn't matter how many Golden Age space operas or Louis L'Amour novels you've loved nearly to the point of disintegration.  Novels start at 80,000 words.  I knew this with all my heart. And then, as Grue from "Despicable Me" would say, "Light bulb!" My expectations are stuck in the old paradigm, th

Art my kid did for me for a book that's not done yet!

Definitely need to get my butt in gear!   But at least my artist is hard working and prompt! I'm intending this for the back cover art.  The  front art has her asleep and the cherry blossoms are small buds.