Links across the Pond

Matt’s on his way over to the States yet again, but mailed me a full round-up to post tonight. Naturally I’d already collected a few links I’d like to share too, so this one’s a bit of a joint effort. Extra Brownie points if you can spot who wrote which para.

Neil Gaiman is working on a script for Doctor Who. If you didn’t know that already, then I’ve just given you a chill, right? So how about a deleted scene? In related news, there’s a Douglas Adams pilot in the works. Roll on Yuletide!

Some comedians are so wedded to irony that I find it hard to make a connection. Sarah Silverman is a case in point. I laugh, but I can’t find a core to her humour, everything turns on the laugh. On the other hand, she doesn’t spare herself from her own cruel wit. The Guardian published an extract from The Bedwetter, her recent book this week, alongside a lukewarm review. [Lukewarm? Eew…]

Over the coming weeks John Mullan will be analysing Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn. This week’s topic: restraint. I enjoyed the book well enough, but it was perhaps a little too restrained for my tastes. But then my idea of restraint boils down to not shooting a character in the back of the head in the first three scenes.

Is Western science fiction a cultural one way street, exporting ideas but reluctant to accept them? Jason Sanford covered an Asimov article by Aliette de Bodard that suggests this is the case. The article in question answers an unfortunate-sounding piece by Norman Spinrad published earlier this year which apparently argued that only the West produces decent SF.

East or West, it seems that hard science fiction is getting stranger. Have you ever stopped to consider, though? Maybe we’re all getting more normal. Spooky, huh?

The Guardian reported that the Franzen love-in prompted a twitter spat between the New York Times literary section and various best-selling commercial authors (principally Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner). Enjoyable, but as Jennifer Weiner mentions, they do have decent royalty cheques into which to cry.

At the Kill Zone Joe Moore was zapping cliches like there’s no tomorrow.

At Papercuts Jennifer B McDonald posted a review of Jennifer Egan’s wildly original author website, while over at Writer’s Digest Jane Friedman interviewed off-the-wall publisher Dan Holloway about his projects, year zero writers and the eight cuts gallery press. Speaking of anarchic literature, Judith Chernaik explained in a letter to the Guardian why Poems on the Underground never got off the ground in Strathclyde: Edwin Morgan scared the authorities with his piranhas. I kid you not.

Since we’re talking piranhas, know that I’ve been making notes for a post about fear. Specifically, about my occasional inability to get started, and how I compensate with displacement activity. Like, say, researching links for a weekly round-up. And what should I come across? A post by Annie Evett at Write Anything about.. fear. Spooky again.

Darcy Pattison wrote about fear too, but from a different angle. She looked at ways to make your protagonist leap from the page larger than life from the get-go. For some reason this makes me think only of female characters… Pippi Longstocking, Sally Bowles, Aunt Augusta… Mother… [??]

Jealousy is back. Truly it never went away, what with my raging sense of entitlement, but I find a post about it in the writing blogs about once a month and it’s nice to know I’m not alone in this vice. It was Jessica Digiacinto’s turn to wrestle with the green demon this week.

Alexandra Sokoloff wrote about rewriting. That’s pretty timely, since I’ve been letting myself off the hook with first drafts for a while. Begone, inner editor! I’ll fix it in the edit. The edit that never comes.</p>

Published author Sara Maas counseled against quitting the day job. She’s right of course, most writers won’t make it on their fiction alone, but I think there’s another argument to be made here. Maybe you shouldn’t quit your day job, but you could consider changing its nature or swapping for another. Then again, you might not have the option. Jeff Cohen tells it like it is when writing is the only source of income left to you.

At Magical Words, Faith Hunter offered genre novel-writing advice to a neophyte author. I could have done with that a couple of weeks ago when I built a novel out of links in this column. Maggie Stiefvator’s seven tips on getting started with novel writing would have been handy too.</p>

Young Lincoln Law didn’t need those tips. Aged 13, he wrote his fantasy trilogy in a heartbeat, went through a string of rejections, then bypassed both agent and publisher to self-publish his babies. Older and wiser now, he explained ruefully on Let the Words Flow just why that wasn’t a good idea.

Speaking of quick novels, I’m all for NaNoWriMo, but a novel in three days? Please. Just shoot me now.

Stephen Sai Folmsbee re-imagined a post-graduate student’s arrival as a buddy cop movie. “I told you when I first got here: I don’t work with a partner. Partners just get in my way.” [Ha!]

Jordan Rosenfeld at Fresh Milk is looking for submissions for Milk and Ink, an online literary journal due for launch in the New Year. But if you don’t lactate, you probably shouldn’t apply.

I once rented a desk in the same office as Jemima Kiss, who now writes for the Guardian. That’s almost entirely off-topic, except she wrote about a start up named Quillian this week. Apparently their aim is to take the writer’s group concept online, and extend it to cover help with querying and submission. That’s one space I’ll be watching. Oh, and guys, if you read this, and you want a coder, I’m on LinkedIn – just saying.