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Dan Goodman's journal - April 23rd, 2008
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12:19 pm
[Link] | Happy Birthday, naomikritzer!!
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12:20 pm
[Link] |
Pre-Interstellar Historical Fiction: Getting the Details Right
The kinder, simpler times of the 22nd Century and the two preceding centuries appeal to writers for many good reasons. Also for many bad ones. Among the bad is the belief that Atomic Age historicals are easy to write. You know all about that period, except for pesky little details.
Do you really need to worry about details? Perhaps not. If you get them wrong, only two kinds of people will notice -- editors and readers/viewers/sensers. In other words, the people you want to sell to.
Yes, checking details is work. More work than you think, because there were large changes during that three-century period.
In 1910, your hero would produce text by typing on a manual typewriter. ("Manual" doesn't mean what you might think; it means the typewriter had no source of power except the user's muscles. None.) In 2010, she would type at her computer. In 2110, she would keyboard her wordie.
( Read more... )
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06:58 pm
[Link] | Tuesday April 22, 2008 Comment at SF Signal: "...my opinion is that if one is reviewing books, one must have a near flawness understanding of English grammar." Spelling and punctuation sic.
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006568.html#more
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"By the late 1990s, I had largely decided that either the idea that people can find a community of others where they feel comfortable and at home was entirely a myth, or at minimum, that I was not something that I'd ever find. Then, in 2004, I started going to otherkin events – first to a meet-up in a nearby restaurant, and then going to Walking the Thresholds in Pennsylvania. In these events, I felt at home in a way that I still find difficult to describe or explain. After the first few minutes in any such event, my shyness almost completely vanishes and I feel as comfortable and relaxed as I do in a group of people who I all know well. In addition, I have met more than half a dozen people who I regard as very close friends (despite the unfortunate fact that most of them live much too far away). Since that time, I've gone to otherkin gathers of various sorts in various settings and the comfort remains a constant. It has nothing to do with the presence of certain specific people or the size of the group. It's simply true that in a space where everyone identified as otherkin, I feel at home."
http://heron61.livejournal.com/548040.html
[From Wikipedia: "Otherkin are a subculture of people, primarily internet-based, who identify in some way as other than human. Otherkin often believe themselves to be mythological or legendary creatures, explaining their beliefs through reincarnation, having a nonhuman soul, ancestry, or symbolic metaphor."]
There are groups in which I feel comfortable and at home. But there isn't any subculture in which I feel either comfortable or at home in all groups. And no group in which I feel comfortable with everyone.
Current Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
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