Category: Writing

Me and Food and Stuff

The lovely and talented Fran Wilde interviewed me about food and particle physics except without the particle physics.  I talk about Vlad as a cook, about the way we use food in The Incrementalists (with Skyler White, Sept. 2013 from Tor), and other things.  Not particle physics.  I made that up.  Just drop it already.  Sheesh.  If I’d known it would be such a big deal, I’d have talked about particle physics, except I don’t know anything about it.

Oh, right, there’s a recipe too; for traditional Hungarian fra diavolo sauce (see what I did there?  That was funny because traditional fra diavolo is Italian, but I called it Hungarian.  That was the joke.  It had nothing to do with particle physics).

The interview can be found here:

A good introduction to particle physics can be found here.

 

Viable Paradise

This was my second year teaching at the writer’s workshop Viable Paradise on Martha’s Vineyard, MA.  I have no idea how to talk about it.  I mean, there’s only so many times you can say, “Holy crap, wow!” before it gets old.  But, holy crap, wow.

I can’t mention the students by name, because I’ll leave someone out, and that would be wrong.  But, like last year, they were all as geeked about writing process as me.  Amazing, amazing week.

Thanks to my roomie, Stevie Chuck, who did several wonderful things (including talking Jenphalian into showing up) capped by swapping rooms at Just The Right Time.  Patrick gave a talk about publishing history and its current state that I thought was going to be dull and academic until suddenly it came into a focus with a snap of, “this is why your career is where it is.”  And music; fun, fun music.  Teresa on exposition was her brilliant self, and then she cured my scurvy.  Forever.  Jim and Dr. Doyle, who do the parts of this that I could never do, were wonderful throughout.  Bear spoke of plotting and a bit more came into focus; I’ll be trying some of it out in my current book.  Scott was delightful, and his explanation of plot tomatoes cleared that up wonderfully.  Sherwood?  It astonishes me how small she is, for having that much knowledge; you’d think she’d need to be bigger to contain it all.

And the staff.  Mac makes things work, Bart makes things happen, Chris is the one who is always there when something needs doing.  I’m tempted to leave Pippen out, to continue the joke, but I can’t on account of how much work she does (and the fact that she’s utterly adorbz).

But, really, the students made it all magical.  There was a moment during a critique session when one of them applied (perfectly) a subtle and nuanced approach learned in a critique the previous day.  You could feel the learning taking place.  That’s the sort of shit I live for.  Well, that and writing.  They kind of go together.

Off to Milehicon in Denver this weekend; I wonder if I’ll have come down by then?

 

Combining trad publishing, shared world, CC

As time goes on, I’m more and more of a fan of creative commons.  I especially like the creative commons share-alike, which (as I understand it) says: Feel free to use this as you will.  Feel free to write something based on it, and get paid for doing so–provided whatever you write is also released under the same arrangement.

I think that’s nifty.  It encourages cooperation among writers, which I think has the potential to create Lots Of Cool Stuff.

Obviously, this fits in beautifully with the shared world idea.  Some of us had started a project doing exactly that a few years ago, but it fell apart because of personal problems among some of the creators.

Now, here is where it gets tricky: Is there any way to combine CC share-alike, shared world, AND traditional publishing with the usual copyright?  At first glance, it would seem impossible.  But I know so little about any of this that I’m not yet prepared to give up on the idea.

You see, there’s this book, due out from Tor in September of 2013.  To me, it cries out to be the setting of a shared world.  But for various reasons, the book itself needs to be published by the traditional model.  Does that kill the idea?

Do you any of you know enough about copyright and such to have an opinion on the matter?  I’d love to hear from you.

ETA:   The license in question can be found here. Thanks to Peter Hentges.