General News

[lydamorehouse]

 Shawn and I have a notebook full of allegorical names for a farcical mystery we are never going to write. These are names like Scott Free and Helena Handbasket. I wonder if General News is in the list? I should check. It's been a while since we added a new name.

But, on to the actual general news (as opposed to the allegorical one.) I don't think I have a huge amount to catch you up on this week, but it's been a while so I thought I'd catch you up on the goings-on arounds these parts.

Tuesday ended up being a skip week for the podcast. While my co-host tested negative for COVID, he did come down with something nasty enough to keep him off the air. What was ironic about that, is that I had Shawn reschedule her pre-op appointment because it had conflicted. Then, suddenly, neither of us had anything to do at that time. (Well, I mean, Shawn went to work, but it was a very, "Damn it, we coulda..." sort of thing.) It has been, I think you'll see, a week like this.

Wednesday, I was scheduled to record with Cheryl Morgan--my editor and publisher over at Wizard's Tower--for her podcast. That went really well, but it was funny the extent to which I'd forgotten a lot of the plot of Resurrection Code. 

Yesterday, I had both an in-person Wyrdsmiths (my writing critique group) and I hung out with my friend jiawen for a couple of hours, which was nice. We talked about everything from WisCON to the recent presidential debates, volcanos, and our various lives and such. Good times. 

Then I went for a very short walk and now I'm hot and tired. Dang exercise, making me sweaty!

Comments

[pameladean]

You remind me that when Elise and I talk gardening, she often says that she wants to read about the romance between Daisy Fleabane and Harry Bellflower. There actually is no hairy bellflower in this country: a friend told me that creeping bellflower was called hairy bellflower, but that must be very local indeed. Anyway, I think that collecting of character names is a great project.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

I would fully read a romance between people with flower names!!

[dreamshark]

I always laugh at name puns. I particularly like the naughty ones because I have a juvenile sense of humor, but (like limericks) name puns don't have to be dirty to be funny. I think I'd like to see the whole list.

[lydamorehouse]

You got it! I posted it today!

[dkta]

“Scott Free” sounds straight out of Ace Attorney. I’m almost surprised it isn’t! The only pun name that’s sprung to mind, that i can recall at this late hour, is Marianna Cross—a play on the Ghost song, Mary On A Cross. Certainly a bit more niche than what you have going!

[lydamorehouse]

OMG, Scott Free does sound like it could be in Ace Attorney!! I posted the rest of the names today.

[rafiwinters]

Yeah, dang exercise, how dare it make you feel like you've been... exercising?! (I'm hoping to get back to some exercise soon after a long bout of covid and other things before that.)

Can I ask you how you found or got connected to a writing critique group? I'm getting the feeling I ought to try and do that again. I had one bad experience ages ago and have been very shy of it since then. But I feel like it would help me.

[lydamorehouse]

You are not going to like the answer to how I found my writers groups. I created them--both of them.

So, the story of Wyrdsmiths, which I founded with my friend Harry back in 1991 (or thereabouts), is that he and I took a class on writing science fiction and fantasy where, as part of the class, we did peer critique. That group was really great, so we got permission from the instructor (this was a Loft class, which is basically community education, not a college or university class) to take up 5 minutes at the end of the last class and invite people to a meeting at a local Pizza Hut to continue the work of critiquing. We have been an on-going writers' group ever since. We all started as nobodies with no writing credits to our name and now there more traditionally published books between us than... well, a lot.

But, so I am the wrong person to ask, because also once you've published it's easy to ask people if they want to join a group with you. :-(

I'm not sure how you start a critique group now-a-days. I did see a sign up for a science fiction/fantasy critique group at my local coffee shop, so it's possible that might work. You stick up signs and hope you get good people? I don't know. I wish I had better advice.

[rafiwinters]

Thanks for telling me how you did this. I can always start by Googling for "writers groups near me." I'm curious to see what that would bring up. Anyway, thanks! :)