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Reading the Neuspepa with Rosemary
This weekend, Rosemary Kirstein drove from Connecticut to Massachusetts in the rain, and I served her fajitas. After eating—it was delicious—we walked in the downpour with Seri, the corgi, whose aversion of rain was overpowered by her love of walks. I became wet from thigh to toes, and Seri became wet all over. Rosemary, who…
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The Fun Part
Writing is emotionally fraught, especially when that difficulty lacks joy, as tends to be the case during a first draft. First drafting involves a lot of wandering in the desert wilderness, not only struggling to find my way from beginning to end, but also struggling to convince myself that the effort is worthwhile. I’m a…
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A Little Rain Must Fall
Record-setting rain and a leaky roof, among other things.
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A Moderately Grueling Economics Exercise
Sheesh, not more thinking! I want to get back to writing!
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Courage from the Outside In
In the dream, I was making love to a woman, and at a crucial point my anatomy changed and I became a man. (A few months later, I dreamed that I lost my husband on the train and Deb took his seat. Needless to say, I soon divorced.)
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Inventing a Dialect
Fantasy writers must invent worlds that are alien to, yet intelligible to, their readers. We can make the language strange by various means… But if we make the language too weird, it will be too difficult to read. We could make the language unapologetically current, but unless it’s a contemporary fantasy it will seem anachronistic…
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Let It Be: Solving One Damned Problem After Another
I’ll hand off the problem to the dark part of my brain, and try not to think about it at all. (I can’t really describe this process–it’s an act of will, of letting go of the task and letting it be another person’s problem; except the other person is the other me, a hard-working and…
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Writing Sickness
We caught a virus, which, although quite mild, turned me into a zombie for a few days, with a bonus bout of mild depression. I wanted to write, didn’t feel like writing, suspected I’d be unable to write, and wondered if I’d ever write again.
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Fleet Time
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws! A meditation on time’s fleeting nature.
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Characterization: On being nobody, seeking faces, tragic flaws, and a giant phallus
In the play-within-the-play an actor wore a giant, stylized, highly-decorated phallus, and I felt like I was going to die of stupefaction right there in the audience.
Laurie J. Marks 