All Around the Internet

[swan_tower]

I’ve done a number of interviews and guest posts lately, so here’s a quick link dump:

Five Underused Mythological Creatures at Fantasy Cafe, in which I talk about weird things in bestiaries that show up all too rarely in novels.

Interview at Fantasy’s Ink; they ask me about my favorite characters and what I consider to be the most important element in a book.

Another interview, this one with Mike Underwood, who leverages the fact that we’ve known each other for more than ten years to ask me a lot of fabulous questions about gaming, Driftwood, and what martial arts master I would train with if I could.

“Time, Writing, and Tricks of the Trade”, a guest post at Bookworm Blues where I talk about the challenges of writing a sequel fifteen years after the first book.

“Kick(start)ing Myself into Scrivener”, a post at Book View Cafe on my first-ever attempt to write a novel in a program other than Wordperfect.

And finally, one that isn’t mine, but mentions me and makes for entertaining reading: Science in Fantasy Novels is More Accurate Than in Science Fiction.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

I love Scrivener - It's awesome for people like me who tend to think non-linearly when writing. All my previous attempts at writing novels ended up stalling because I'd hit a point where I couldn't figure out how to write what was going to happen next, even though I knew exactly what was going to happen at various points beyond that. I always felt like I needed to write the chapters in proper order, and the few times I let myself just add a quick summary of what needed to go on and then skip on to the next scene or chapter, I'd end up getting confused and forgetting where I needed to go back and fill things in. But with Scrivener I can jump around all over the place, and tag various chunks in different ways to indicate whether they still need work, so I no longer feel constrained to write things in the "right" order.

Not to mention having an easier time balancing multiple protagonists, by being able to also tag scenes based on whose point of view they're from - makes it very easy to glance over the outline and say "Oh hey, I've had a lot of scenes from character A & C's viewpoints lately, but not many from character B - I'd better start paying a bit more attention to her." And then there's things like keeping character and setting sketches so that I don't forget details or contradict myself, and research notes, and and and... All in all, I think Scrivener has a lot to do with why my previous novel attempts stalled after just a handful of chapters, while the current one is up to 120,000 words or thereabouts.