The write of way

This evening, I went here, to hear author Peter Straub talk about the craft and process of writing fiction. The talk, which was a lot of fun and full of lots of interesting “tricks of the trade” and stylistic “rules” (like, for instance, how your prose should never rhyme), was free to subscribers to One Story — which, thanks to Heather, I happen to be. And to think, I had never even heard of the Center for Fiction before, much less realized how close — a ten-minute walk — it is to my office.

That was about it for the rest of my day, which was spent back at work but with not much else to report.

I was deeply shocked and sad to learn that Elisabeth Sladen, Doctor Who‘s Sarah Jane Smith, had passed away. She wasn’t a formative part of my childhood — if anything, I was more familiar with her recent work on the series and still-on-the-air spin-off — but she did always seem like one of the best companions the show ever had. She died much too young and will be missed.

And that was Tuesday.

Sunday

So today I worked on the Sunday crossword, watched the first two episodes of AMC’s new show The Killing and saw Hanna with friends after our weekly writing group. I liked both the TV show and the movie, and the writing I did too — although with that, I’m not going to post it, since I think, with just a little bit of work, I could maybe turn it into a sell-able flash piece. I also finished listening to the audiobook of Tina Fey’s new memoir Bossypants. I also liked that.

It was pretty much just a Sunday of okay, likable stuff. Nothing wrong with that.

Tuesday various

Tuesday various

  • Peter Jackson adding more female roles to The Hobbit? On the one hand, I’m all for this. More strong female characters all around, yes, thank you. On the other hand, there’s a part of me that wants to shout, “But it’s not in the book!” On the other other hand, I find myself surprisingly unenthusiastic about the whole thing. Maybe I’ve just had my fill of Peter Jackson Tolkein movies.
  • Speaking of Tolkein, though, apparently the Eye of Sauron is at the center of spiral galaxy NGC 4151. Who knew? [via]
  • How I Passed My U.S. Citizenship Test By Keeping the Right Answers to Myself. [via]
  • In this post, Mark Evanier relayed something that several people had told him via e-mail — namely that “Map-makers sometimes include phony names and places on maps in order to identify when someone plagiarizes their work.” I’d never heard of this practice, but apparently it’s quite common.
  • And finally, people will tell you — professional writers and editors will tell you — don’t respond to negative reviews. It’s a losing game, even if you think you’re right. Even if you are right. But one thing’s for certain: you should never, ever, ever respond to a negative review like this. [via]