A few days ago, Eli James of Novelr posted to his site, wondering if webfiction (as an industry) will ever turn a profit. His answer? A resounding maybe. The long and short of it is that we don’t really know enough yet to say, but it’s still an amazing way to put your writing out there and connect with an audience.
At the end of the article, Eli quotes Richard Nash: “small industry sitting atop a huge hobby.” This is the line that stuck out at me. Is that true? Are most writers just hobbyists with just a few nests of “true” writers up in the peaks? The idea struck me at once so true and so sour that I stopped reading and sat there on the couch, chewing my lip.
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Io9 has embarked on a series to break down, analyze and educate about science fiction. Really? A Gawker network ezine? I’m not sure how well they’ll educate, but I will read and see how it goes.
Most recently, they posted a breakdown of critical sci-fi semi-science, including artificial intelligence, singularities and the Theory of General Relativity. Come on, you’re oversimplifying… Wait, no. Yeah, okay. I consider myself passingly educated on matters of science and I promptly ignore most of it to write a story. I understand just enough of relativity to know I needed A) null-inertia fields or else ships in Reforged would never get across the galaxy and B) that I will eventually need to answer to all of my readers on the lack of time dilation.
Here’s a hint: There is a flux in time during FTL travel, but it’s tiny. 2.88 seconds.
I distracted myself. Do science fiction writers really have such a set toolkit of semi- and pseudo-science? I worry that we are… I’m actually reading io9′s article attentively and thinking Hey, I was just trying to figure out to handle that. It makes me feel more than a bit boxed in. Well, the only people who make a profession of staying in invisible boxes are mimes. I’m way too chatty for that. There must be some branch or theory of science that hasn’t been pinned up in a sci-fi story like a butterfly on a card. Lemme get my net…
- E.D. Lindquist
PS. I know I’m the last person to link this, but it still rocks: Medieval copyright protection.
Posted in Blog
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Tagged musings, SoD, writing
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There’s a sort of short fiction I’ve always been curious about, an extreme short story called flash fiction. There isn’t a set definition yet, but it’s usually between 100 and 1000 words. I’m holding myself to a 200 word limit for these fiction snippets.
A lot of times, my ideas never make it into novel form. They’re incomplete, too abstract or just don’t fit into the novel or short story format. I thought I’d try my hand at cramming them into the tiny flash fiction box and see how they come out.
This first one, In the Theater, is sort of a cheat. It’s a fragment of a dream I had a few nights back, when I was really struggling with trying to pick up momentum with Sword of Dreams. I felt so badly creatively blocked that I think I was giving myself a subconscious kick. (I’m fine now, though.)
This is an experiment… I don’t know if I can even do it, really. Part of the reason I write novels is that I don’t know how to shut up. My stories take forever to get to the point. I’m hoping that writing flash fiction will be good practice in tightening up my storytelling ability. You don’t have to read any of them, of course. They will not contain any integral information for any of our short stories or novels. I don’t know if I’ll tie any of the flash fiction to anything else, really. I’ll try to write at least one flash a week. We’ll see how it goes.
- E.D. Lindquist
Posted in Blog
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Tagged LLS news, writing
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Holy crap. Why did no one tell me about this?
This, of course, is Novelr, a website/blog dedicated specifically to webfiction. Not “normal” (or would that be “norml” in ‘net parlance?) publishing with occasional posts about webserials. I’m in heaven!
Sort of. I wish I’d known about Novelr before building Loose Leaf. It might have changed how I did things. I’m very, very happy with the site now, but only after many iterations, trying to use webcomic plugins and templates and going through about four complete redesigns. I’ve had to redate and reorganize all of Anvil of Tears about six times now. Never gets less annoying.
I’ve got a long backlog of reading to go through, but I’ve already got some interesting posts to share, all just from first section of their Novelr Primer:
- Reinventing the Novel, by Pamela Redmond Satran: Why would a New York Times bestseller move to the internet to publish? And let me tell you, she’s good at it! I’m loving How Not to Act Old. I highly recommend it, if only for the header pic.
- On Editing, by L. Lee Lowe: A short post in favor of self-editing. We’re really fixating on webfiction and the lack of editors, aren’t we? Sometimes I think I’m the only writer in the world who likes having editors. I incredibly grateful to you ladies! And my co-authoring/editing machine of a husband.
- Before You Begin Writing Online Fiction, by Gavin Williams: I’m pretty sure that most of you won’t click on this one. You probably don’t care. You’re reading webfiction and likely not writing it. (If you are, send me a link!) Just in case, though, I added the link.
It’s the long and short of writing and formatting and editing for the Internet, with one notable exclusion. It’s not exclusive to webfiction or anything, but is still vitally important: You are responsible for everything you say. Don’t post it if you don’t want it to come back to bite you in the ass. Sure, you can delete the post, but people will remember, Google will cache it and there exists a lovely, terrible little feature called screenshots. Write responsibly.
I’m sure there will be more links, discussion and rants in the near future. Until then, happy reading!
- E.D. Lindquist
PS. While I don’t really have an opinion on Justin Beiber, this is still awesome: Beiber slowed down 800% makes for interesting listening. 35 minutes of it!
A bit of very sweet news and something of a breakthrough for video game designers:
Our charge from the faculty made it clear that we should apply a broad definition to “readings,” and I believe my special purpose on the committee was to help identify films, music, art, and other ‘non-textual’ sources to challenge our students to think hard about the questions raised in the course.
And so, as you might expect, a little light went off in my head. What about a game? Why not? Which one? Will they bite on this? Who knows? Let’s try.
My very first thought was Portal. Accessible, smart, cross-platform, relatively short, full of big ideas worth exploring. I played it again to be sure my impressions still held. No problem there. If anything, I admire the game more now than when it first appeared. A beautiful design.
- Michael Abott (Portal on the booklist, The Brainy Gamer)
So Wabash College will have Portal on the curriculum! What do you think? Can video games be literature? Are they? Aron and I are playing through Resident Evil 4 again (Wii version) to help me get my write on for Sword of Dreams. Leon Kennedy was part of the inspiration for Logan Coldhand. Not for his dialog… RE4 is definitely not literature. Fun, but that’s it. Running around, shooting guys and making their heads explode. Oh, yeah!
Eternal Darkness wasn’t literature, but it sure managed to replicate the feel of a good Lovecraft story. I’m drawing more blanks on this than I’d hoped. I guess we’re not really much in the way of video gamers. I’d love to get a more informed opinion on this. What do you say, gamers? Got any good arguments or examples?
- E.D. Lindquist
Short stories and flash fiction are uploaded as they're completed.