Colin Harvey – author

I drew a certain amount of flak for last week’s post for suggesting that writing short stories was no better a preparation for writing novels than any other form of wordsmithery, such as journalism or scriptwriting.

Some of it was very useful in outlining this week’s post over at Suite101 following up on what some of the differences are. Unfortunately I ran out of available space,* so I’ve had to break it into installments.

* Suite has an official word limit of 300 words; it’s possible to go a little over, but not to post something the length of what this was turning into…

Last week I blogged about a couple of live cases involving members of the SF community and getting in and out of the US. In the last few days the situation has become clearer, although no happier for those involved. More about it at the usual venue.

This morning’s post over at Suite101 is on the subject of books-that-were-submitted-by-publishers-and-considered-by-the-judges lists…or long lists, as I prefer to call them.

This week’s regular –ie, SF– review is up at Suite101.

For my Creative Writing Workshop, I need to write some YA or children’s fiction (it’s that or performance poetry…and I think I’d prefer root canal surgery sans anaesthetic to standing in front of an audience reciting pp). 

Acutely aware that my knowledge of YA and kid-litt is almost forty years out of date, I followed Mimi’s advice and went down to Mr B’s in Bath, where I purchased a couple of titles.  I was also hugely reassured that lot of books that I read all those years ago are still available and even recommended.

One of the new titles that I bought was Joshua Doder’s A Dog Called Grk, which is quite simply wonderful.

So, if you’re curious as to why I’m reviewing children’s fiction, that’s the reason. (You may have put it down to increasing eccentricity, in which case you may not be too wrong, either <g>)

If you have a 9 – 12 child, go and buy it for them. If you don’t have children, but you like dogs, buy it anyway.  Actually, just buy it.

Today’s post at Suite101 is the -with hindsight– rather clunkily titled* ‘Making the change from short stories to novels’ which is actually more about putting to bed one of the recurring myths of SF, that writing short stories is a step on the ladder to writing novels. It was inspired by some excellent research by writer  Jim C Hines on the subject of first novel sales.  Research that’s well worth checking out.

* Sadly, however, by the time I’d read the title aloud and realized how clunky it was, it was too late to change it without scrapping the whole post.  And isn’t one of the joys of blogging supposed to be that it’s spontaneous? Clunky titles and all!

As I observed over at Suite101, there is a certain degree of smugness in the air at Newton Park. Everyone’s turned in their assignments and the Easter holidays are looming. But my poetry tutor had to go and burst the bubble yesterday with a sharp verbal pinprick that didn’t immediately register…more here.

The second of two posts about how some see those in the SF community, including a deeply, deeply disturbing comment from one policeman.

On the day Hugo-nominated Canadian SF writer Peter Watts goes on trial, and soon after another friend has had, erm, issues with the US Border Agency, I’ve written the first of two blog posts taking David Langford‘s section header from Interzone as my starting point.

One of the features of the Media Communications Studies is to challenge what is accepted, especially what is ‘common sense,’ since the things that are so classified are often the result of media messages repeated almost ad infinitum. So I now only have to hear ‘but it’s common sense’ or ‘everyone knows that…’ and my Inner Scientist rises up and says Yeah? Prove it!

So when I got into a bit of a discussion last week about the curse of mobile phones, I risked being hoisted on my own petard. Until I took up the challenge.