A long, thoughtful essay by Samuel Delany on racism and SF, from being turned down by a magazine because nobody could identify with a black protagonist to why he gets invited to sit with Octavia Butler at cons more than William Gibson.
•Conde Nast has announced that if clients want advertorials, the chain’s own staff will write them. Which as noted at the link probably will not launch an era of quality journalism.
•Foz Meadows discusses books that use fantasy/SF concepts as merely a tool to explore emotional stories, but I honestly don’t see this as a particularly new thing, even within genre (the New Worlds of Fantasy anthologies had a lot of this). Still, it gave me a couple of titles to add to my reading list.
•Thom Yorke uses Bittorrent to handle distribution of a new album.
•Cory Doctorow looks at Amazon’s Audible and its clout in the audiobook market. New Republic argues Amazon amounts to a monopoly and needs to be reined in by government.
•John Scalzi discusses how he writes with an eye to the market. Interesting, though I don’t see it as a skill I’m likely to develop—I can barely begin to guess what’s going to be popular a year or two from now, let alone gear my mind to adapt to it. And I don’t mean that as a slap at Scalzi, I’d be quite happy to do the same if I could.
•Comics writer Gene Yang on why we need diverse characters—and that means why even whitebread people like me should push themselves to create some. It’s a really inspiring piece.
•I agree with Jim Hines that using a writer as racist as HP Lovecraft for the World Fantasy Award statuette is sub-optimal
•I find yoga wonderful for keeping me limber. This article recommends 12 stretches to relieve sitting at a desk all day. I’ll throw in a recommendation to be careful–depending on your body’s condition and age, some poses are more likely to do harm than good (there are several I no longer attempt because they hurt in the wrong way).
•Given my general fondness for time management, I think this look at how to structure NaNoWriMo might have some useful ideas. This article might be useful too. Lord knows with the puppies around, anything that improves efficiency would be welcome. Here’s another from Entrepreneur.
•A writer is fighting in court to prove royalties should not be treated as self-employment income (tax-wise this would be a very good deal for writers who earn them).
•A British hotel backed off fining a couple of guests for a negative online review (online reviews and criticism always feel like they should go in a writing post).
•I should probably try these methods of checking back on nonfiction pitches. In fact, I think I will.
•You made a mistake? You’ll survive, so don’t freak out.
