Rambo’s Good Advice
Yup, here’s some great advice for those of you submitting your stories to magazines. It should be noted that all the points Ms. (or Mrs.?) Rambo mentions should be pretty much obvious. You know, simple things like don’t misspell the editor’s name… Check it out! It’s good advice! (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Advice About Audio Interviews
(For writers, from a listener).I listen to a lot of audio interviews with authors. From The Agony Column to Adventures in Scifi Publishing to The Dragon Page (among many others), there is a plethora of great interviews out there. But there are also interviews that, while interest, are truly boring. The problem isn’t so much what is being said, but how it’s being said or how the author presents him or herself. And when you fail to interest the listener, you fail to get them to buy your books (or other work). So, having said that, and having spend the last few months digging through hundreds of podcast interviews, here are a few points of advice on how to prepare yourself for an audio interview: Speak w/ enthusiasmSounds obvious, doesn’t it? Well, a lot of writers don’t have this down. You have to make it clear how excited you are about your work. If you don’t seem excited about your work, or just excited in generally, then what’s to make us (the listeners) at all interested in you? I know there are many writers who are rather quiet, and perhaps some of them are shy. Get over it. Generally podcast interviewers are really laid back. They want to have fun doing the interview. So, if you present yourself as someone who is interesting and fun, they’ll be more receptive to you, and as a result, probably ask you more entertaining questions. Be preparedOkay, this might be a no-brainer, but it does become obvious that some writers out there aren’t prepared. Review your work, past and present, and know what you’re talking about. If you have a new book coming out, or one that just came out, and you’re asked about it, you need to know what the heck your book is about. Even if it is hard to pin down to a genre, you should be able to describe it without stuttering or babbling your way through. You, of all people, should know your work better than anyone else (even your editor, since said editor has a lot of other works to be familiar with from other authors). So, when you know you have an interview coming up, sit down and figure out how you are going to describe your work. If you’re really nervous, ask the interviewers if they can give you some questions ahead of time so you have an idea how things are going to work. No, that’s not asking for a lot. Remember, they want to talk to you, because it’s fun for them and good exposure for you. Tell good jokesA great way to break the ice is to tell a joke. In fact, it doesn’t have to be a good joke, in the sense of something hilarious, but maybe a clever anecdote, particularly about how you got published. Everyone has a funny story, clever anecdote, etc. So, if you have a funny story, tell it, and be funny and excited (sarcasm is good for you). If you have a horrible story about the publishing world and you want to tell it, I suggest making it cynical. Don’t just tell it straight out (unless it’s of particular interest in the now, such as some things that happened to Peter S. Beagle). Otherwise, use sarcasm and cynicism to your advantage. You don’t even have to be good at either. Listeners don’t expect you to be a Hollywood actor. Speak upToo many authors speak too quietly. This is sometimes linked to the first part of this list. Unless you’re of an advanced age, try not to speak really quiet. It makes you sound timid. You’re a published author! Speak at a good volume and clearly. We shouldn’t have to turn our sound all the way up to hear you, which is a big problem because the hosts of the show aren’t likely to turn down their vocals. Iron out the kinksIf you’re planning to do an interview over the net, try to make sure your computer can handle it. It’s best to test it out with a friend or something. Trust me, it’s really annoying when an author sounds like a robot in an interview. More often than not, it can be fixed. So, does anyone else have any interesting advice for writers doing audio interviews? Let’s hear your thoughts!
SF/F Links: March/April Roundup
A little delayed, but finally I have some links for you all. There are loads more, so I think I’m going to have to go with a weekly schedule so it doesn’t pile up like it is doing now. In any case, here are the links: io9 Things you can do to help create artificial intelligences! You’d be surprised what simple things there are that can help in that field. Stuff you might already do regularly. Post-apocalyptic scenes made out of food! I had a link similar to this from Listverse a long while back. This is in the same vein and amazing. Anyone wanting some advice on map-making should start looking at vector maps of things on other planets and moons in our solar system. Seriously, go to this vector map of a methane sea on Titan and see how cool extraterrestrial maps are! Six earth cities that will give us ideas on how to colonize Mars. This is pretty cool actually. Rather interesting when you look at it from a realistic perspective. The Navy announces a five-year plan to build laser blasters. We’ve gotta keep up with those Chinese guys somehow right? Yeah. Good idea, but I wonder who is paying for it. Got a bum kidney? Well apparently there is a new way to get rid of them: give birth to it. Yeah, I don’t quite understand it either, but give it a look. New medical practices are revolutionizing how we do things these days. Nano-wire shirt that generates electricity while you move, but burns out if you sweat on it. Good idea, needs rethinking. A new biomedical gel that can fix your severed spine. Works on mice, should work on us. Paralysis might not be a problem of the future! Listverse Top 10 Ways to Fly Under the Radar. Yup, for all you ex-cons out there, or anyone writing about ex-cons. 10 Great Inventions That Should Be Invented! Interstellar travel here we come! Universe Today Quantum communications might be viable in the near future if we get on top of it like this article suggests. Astrium, from good old Europe, is ramping up plans to mass produce space planes. Yup, good stuff indeed. Cassini picks up hints of organic chemicals shooting off from Saturn’s Enceladus! Cool stuff indeed! 13.73 Billion Years. That’s the current measurement of how old the Universe is. Find out about it here. Hawaiin hippy files lawsuit against the Large Hadron Collider. Go away and stop fooling with complex science that you don’t understand! New research suggests that galaxies with quasars in the middle are not so good for planet formation. Yup, not good at all. I found this online somewhere (if I got it from you, please let me know). This is a look at the differences of opinion between the U.S. and England. It’s amazing how different we are. They are, by and large, far more progressive than we are. This image of these concept designs of future robotic police forces are amazing. Check out the gallery too. Simply stunning image. Michio Kaku on things we’ll probably never see. Sadly, he’s likely right. Ten sci-fi movie survival tips. Screaming is good, though. Scifi reading list with the subject “not quite human”. Lots of goodies in there. (Courtesy of SF Signal, I think) New Scientist Scientists have found the answer to the origins of two mysterious meteorites found in Antarctica. Find out here! Find ISS in this picture and you win nothing, because I have nothing to give. This is amazing though: a picture of the International Space Station over the Sun! Chrononautic Log has a video of a bizarre insect-like robot. Check it out. L. E. Modesitt, Jr. talks about SF’s ability to predict the future. Good stuff as usual. One of the coolest things that has ever been desired by Kung Fu fans since Bruce Lee died is now about to happen: Jackie Chan and Jet Li are getting together to make a movie! Yes, look at the trailer now! MentalFloss has 5 reasons why we’ll miss Arthur C. Clarke. *sniff* (By the way, some of these aren’t related to literature, just so you know) Mike Brotherton has a hard SF writer’s bookshelf. Good stuff, check it out if you are even marginally interested in writing SF. Dave Walton’s page of writing advice. There is a whole lot of stuff here. Seriously. A LOT. Like two books worth. Space.com has this cool article about alien sociology. So, are the aliens going to come and kill us? Hmm? Cyber-cops are getting organized. Watch out hackers! CERN, the most complicated thing humans have built thus far! The Thinking Blog profiles it. Want to know how bad the economy really is? Look at these poor folks. Yeah, Mr. Bush, this is what you’ve done to this country. Congrats.
SF/F Links: March Roundup Part One
This is a little later than usual, but so be it. There will be a roundup at the start of April, most likely, rather than two roundups for March, although I’ll still call it a March Roundup. I got behind due to finals. In any case, here are a load of links that might be of interest to you all (more to come): Universe Today Galileo returns to the Vatican. Yup, they’re putting up a statue for him. About damn time. On the subject of Galileo, New Scientist had a controversial question about whether or not scientists should exhume his body to do DNA tests to figure out if the person buried with him, presumably his daughter, is actually his daughter. Quite honestly I really don’t care. This is the same as arguing that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays. Who cares? Venus’ south pole has some weird weather patterns and it’s sort of stumped scientists. Imagine when you pull the plug out of a drain and watch the water go down. Yeah, something like that. Apparently scientists are thinking about putting an “Ark” on the Moon. What does that mean? Basically a giant computer run complex that holds seeds and genetic info and what not in case we all blow ourselves to pieces. Not necessarily news, but scientists believe that all the little bits that formed together and created life might have been brought here by meteorites. This is apparently due to having found meteorites with rich concentrations of amino acids, which are rather important after all. I wrote about germs becoming three times more likely to spread disease a while back, but Universe Today has an article on it which is quite interesting here. There’s a lot more talk about what this means for long space missions too. We might be able to find small, terrestrial planets around Alpha Centauri, which is every SF fan’s wet dream. All we need is five years a a moderately sized telescope. I’m in. More reasons why Pluto is so much better than Venus and Mercury, who are still planets (I feel sorry for Pluto…this is nothing short of racism): Pluto has two more moons, Nix and Hydra. Eat that Venus! Kessler Syndrome: the idea that space travel will become impossible without hitting something. Yeah, this is a problem we may be facing pretty soon. We need a giant garbage machine to go up there and eat up all that stuff and turn the material into convenient little metallic bobble-heads. That would be cool. Write, Pam, Write! has an awesome list of seven writing tips. Check it out! Strange Horizons has part one of an awesome article on the realities of space warfare! (Courtesy of SF Signal) The Devil Frog! That’s right, scientists have uncovered information about a giant frog that lived a long time ago when dinosaurs still roamed. Sixteen inches doesn’t sound like a very large frog, but that’s pretty freaking huge in the frog world! There’s a bit more about it here. Star Wars Toys that will never be made. Hilarity ensues. (Courtesy of SF Signal, I think) A supersaturated view of the moon. That translates to a really freaking cool looking rendition! Don’t know where I found this, but how about a list of nine of the most baffling theme parks around the world? Yeah, coolness! 25 ways to break your procrastination habit. Yeah, I need to pay attention. 10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Milky Way Galaxy. Too bad one of them isn’t “cause it’s freaking awesome”. (Courtesy of SF Signal) The only reason Bungie, the company that made the Halo games, is any good. One of the Mars Orbiters discovered an ancient Mars lake that might have been inhabitable once. (No, there wasn’t any water) New Scientist has an article that suggests that hardy bacteria could survive in Lunar soil (not in the vacuum though). That’s pretty cool. Listverse Top 10 Badass Swords. Poke! Top 10 Most Overlooked Mysteries in History. This one is youtyreally freaking cool! By the way, I want to see this Voynich manuscript! io9 A wristband your boss can use to track your emotions. Yeah, cause we need people to have MORE control of our lives. Sand Dollars (you know, those really interesting shelled critters with the cool shells?) apparently clone themselves when in danger, which is fascinating to think about. Imagine if you could clone yourself on command. These are hilarious. Pictures of scifi things that look like things in real life! 8 Unstoppable Rules For Writing Killer Short Stories! Yes! There’s been a breakthrough in how digits are grown, meaning that we might be able to “naturally” grow replacement digits. Now that’s cool right? We once figured that sleep patterns were primarily controlled by changes in light, well new studies suggest that TVs can also have an effect. I’m screwed, since a computer screen isn’t that much different. Crap. Would you inject your breasts with nanoparticles if they could be used to detect cancer? If I had breasts I would, but since I don’t…regardless, nanotech is the wave of the future. This is interesting: plants develop new reproductive systems in cities. They go from being dispersing systems (the seeds fly to some other spot) to nondispersing (they just lend next to the parent) because it’s more efficient. That’s neat! Evolution for the win AGAIN! Eat it creationists! 20 SF Novels That Will Change Your Life. Self explanatory right? Nanocrystals that absorb carbon dioxide. Cool? Yes, I think so. Robots are going to fight our wars for us. There’s some good and some bad about this. I might have to rant later. Scientists have found krill living as deep as 9,800 feet in the ocean below Antarctica. That’s good news for those of us hoping to find little aliens on Europa and what not. Rule 34: No exceptions. Yes, this picture is hilarious! Futurismic Immune system in a jar. That’s the title I’m going with. So, a virologist basically says
(Almost) Required Essentials For Writers
These might seem like no-brainers, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t have or do something of these things. I’ve learned the hard way, which is probably not the best way. Regardless, there are things that writers really should have, whether it be a product or a feature turned on in a program, or whatever. So, the following list is a bunch of stuff you should be doing. Some of them do overlap, but they are options for you to think about: Extra ComputerIf you have two computers, keep a copy of all your writing on each one. This gives you that lovely buffer. MS Word Auto-saveTurn on your auto-save to every minute. For slower computers this can be a problem, but what happens when you’ve just written 500 words and your computer suddenly shuts off? Well, sometimes the recovery feature doesn’t get those words, and that auto-save won’t have them either because it wouldn’t have been on. I lost 350 words the other week. They were awesome words. I turned MS Word’s auto-save to one minute and haven’t lost anything since. A Flash Card/Stick/Disk/WhateverYou need one. Period. There is no argument here. Computers do break and explode. Get one. I got mine for $15 USD. That’s not that much money considering the time and the frustration you’ll save by having a little flash drive to stick your work on. They come in GB these days–1 GB to 4GB on average. If you’re not rich, get a 1 GB, or if you can find a smaller one look for a 256 MB. Even that little one would have problems holding all your writing.This is no joke. Trust me, I learned this the hard way by having my computer get killed by a virus due to XP having stupid problems with it (MsBlaster and Sasser). I almost lost everything. Use Google Docs, Personal FTP, etc.Google is awesome, if not a little insane. They have a great feature that allows you to keep spreadsheets and documents. It’s a great option if you have files you really want to save. If you don’t want it there, you can put up a password protected FTP, which is relatively simple to do, or use another online document service to keep files safe. This is great if you do your writing at work and would like to save it somewhere other than on the work computer or in an email. It’s great as a backup too. MS Word, Open Office, etc.Obvious right? It is. While MS Word isn’t the most perfect word processing program, it is probably the best. Its spell-check is decent, though not perfect, and its grammar aid can help you pick out the most noticeable of your issues (which saves you time). You can get great statistics about your writing, such a grade level, reading ease, etc.There are other programs too, though I’ve never used them. Regardless, if you use a computer it’s great to have a word processor. .txt is not a good format for writing, trust me. Electronic DictionaryIf you are like me and you travel and write or go in places where you can’t bring your computer without destroying it, then you should really consider getting a little electronic dictionary. I have one from Franklin. It’s small and functional. It’s beat up too, since I’ve taken it with me into the woods and sat on it a few times. But it works wonders. It’s great for getting a definition, finding a similar word, etc., and wonderful if you’re sitting around and can’t remember something. Dictionary SoftwareI use Word Web. There are many others out there. Word Web has a free version and a pro version. Both are excellent, though the pro version is a little better. However, as far as free dictionary/thesaurus software goes, Word Web is the best. Become Friends With Dictionary.comNo, I don’t mean that literally, but you should become acquainted with the site. While you should probably turn off your Internet when writing, Dictionary.com is great for finding stuff in ways that a free version of Word Web can’t. You want the etymology of a word, then go to Dictionary.com. End of story. Writersplanner or anything else to keep track of your submissionsI use Writersplanner and it works great for me. You should always keep some sort of spreadsheet or use some sort of software to keep track. There are few things that look worse than sending a story twice to a publisher/magazine. It’s amateur and looks bad. So keep track. There you go. So, do you have those?
Podcasts For Writers: A Treasure Trove (Part One)
One of the most fascinating things about the Internet is that it has become a vast compendium of knowledge for just about everything imaginable. For writers it is both a magical device and a curse. On the one hand a writer can find anything he or she needs (of course, when I say writer I mean anyone who thinks of themselves as a writer), but on the other hand it can become a distraction. While Google is certainly the most accurate and valuable search engine ever created, it isn’t perfect and sometimes it can take a while to find things.And then, sometimes the Internet is a distraction that makes you happy. In come podcasts, one of the most interesting Internet creations I’ve come across aside from the slue of random flash games that seem to have absolutely no point other than to draw your attention for hours upon hours. There are a lot of podcasts out there, and like the Internet there are probably podcasts for just about everything. I listen to a lot of writing podcasts, or podcasts dealing with science fiction and fantasy as literary genres. Why? Because sometimes the best way to learn anything of value is to listen to someone who actually knows what the heck he or she is talking about. So, the following are podcasts I listen to, whether regularly or irregularly, that have been of use to me for just about anything to do with writing (some of the podcasts mentioned might not be in my links section on the right-hand sidebar yet): Adventures in Scifi Publishing (Shaun Farrel and Sam Wynns)This is the podcast that introduced me to the entire field (often called podiosphere). This is one of the most fascinating and useful podcasts not only because it is directed towards my fields of interest (it does address fantasy too, by the way), but also because every episode has an author interview or some other feature. The interviews are top-notch and thoroughly engaging. They have a little commentary and discussion, author interviews, and, as an added bonus, Tobias S. Buckell does a regular feature called “Ask a Writer”, which should be self-explanatory.They are currently in their second season after a brief break. The Secrets Podcast (Michael A. Stackpole)I think this podcast is officially on hiatus, however you should certainly look through the huge archives and start listening. Stackpole is an author of many books, including several novels for the Star Wars universe and works of his own creation (referring to world creation of course). He knows what he’s talking about and his writing advice is in-depth and truly helpful. While Stackpole is primarily a science fiction and fantasy author, his advice could easily apply to any other form of fiction. Balticon Podcasts (Paul Fischer)The official podcast of Balticon, a science fiction/fantasy convention in Baltimore, MD. I just started listening to this one and I am already enjoying it greatly. So far I’ve listened to two interviews with authors and both have been fascinating. I love hearing authors talk about their work and how they write. You can learn a great deal that way. I don’t have too much to say about this other than what has already been said, but it is good so far! The Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy (Tee Morris)I think this one is on hiatus as well. Last I checked Mr. Morris was in the process of writing three books, all of which had deadlines very close to one another. The Survival Guide is sort of a guide for fantasy, for podcasting, for writing, and everything between. I’ve learned a great deal from this podcast not only because Mr. Morris is a writer, but because he has a lot of insight into the field from a different perspective: he’s a small press writer. His books have been published with Dragon Moon Press, who I have done reviews for, and so his perspective on things is not the same as those who are with the larger presses. Download the archive of podcasts and give them a good listen! Jay Lake’s PodcastsJay Lake is a relatively new author in the field, but his name has exploded. His interviews are really rather interesting and if you follow the link you’ll find several panel discussions and interviews that he has done. I just finished listening to most of them and they are all quite good. He’s a joy to listen to and he is obviously very passionate about his writing, and has a lot to say about the subject. The Agony Column (Rick Kleffel)Interviews, interviews, and more interviews. Kleffel has such a huge archive of great interviews. I’ve been listening since I discovered Adventures in Scifi Publishing and Kleffel certainly knows what he is doing. Huge authors are in his list of mp3s! Tor and Forge Books PodcastTor is a major publisher of science fiction and fantasy. Their podcast is generally interviews or panel discussions with authors and the majority of them are rather good and valuable. John Scalzi has been on there a few times and it is worth a listen. I plan to do more posts on podcasts later as I listen to more of them and become better acquainted with the field. Still, the ones above are a good start and really useful. Check them out!