Why do writers write books? One reason is to figure out who our characters are, and who they need to become to be fully realized. Amy S. Foster explains the journey one of her characters makes, across a trilogy of books that ends with The Rift Coda. AMY S. FOSTER: Almost three ye … | Continue reading
I got my author copies of The Consuming Fire! So now I'm going to give one away! Specifically, the one behind Smudge there. Also, I will sign it and personalize it to the winner or whomever they choose. You want it? Here's what you have to do: I'm thinking of a city, in North Ame … | Continue reading
Think time travel is disorienting for the characters who use it? Think about the poor author who has to plot it! D.B. Jackson knows, and explains all the nitty-gritty details about it in this Big idea for Time's Children. D.B. JACKSON: Anyone who has written a time travel novel k … | Continue reading
Yes, the world is a flaming dumpster, but forget that for a tenth of a second and enjoy this picture of a talented acrobat performing on silks at a renaissance festival. It's nice to appreciate someone who is good at their work, and sharing that work with a crowd. What thing(s) d … | Continue reading
Today in The Big Idea, Julie E. Czerneda tackles the subjects of time, memory, intelligence, friendship.. and slime. They all have a role in her novel, Search Image. JULIE E. CZERNEDA: Twenty years ago, when my host, John Scalzi, started this amazing blog of his, my second novel … | Continue reading
The view is on a grid. I'm here in town for a trade show, so unfortunately will not be doing public events, sorry. But I'm always happy to be in Minneapolis. It's a lovely city, if twenty degree cooler than where I just left. How is your Thursday? | Continue reading
Living on an island means a different way of thinking about life -- and death. J. Lincoln Fenn explains why, and how it made a difference for her latest novel, The Nightmarchers. J. LINCOLN FENN: I was driving the long, flat road from Kihei to Kahului, sugarcane fields and the di … | Continue reading
https://youtu.be/bo_efYhYU2A From the movie A Star is Born, which comes out tomorrow. The song is surprisingly good -- which seems like I'm damning Lady Gaga (who co-wrote it) with slight praise. I'm not meaning to minimize her talents at all (they're pretty obvious at this point … | Continue reading
Are the old, and even quaint, ways the best? Marshall Ryan Maresca has thoughts on this, and how they affected the creation and development of The Way of the Shield. MARSHALL RYAN MARESCA: Somewhere archived away in a box in my house, there’s a piece of paper with scribbled notes … | Continue reading
I mean, the news is a trash fire pretty much every day these days. But today, there was also a rainbow by my house. So I went out and got a picture of it. Figured it would be a nice change of pace for everyone. Please enjoy, and I hope the rest of your day… | Continue reading
Comedy! The Internet! Incipient fascism! Charlie Jane Anders has got it all in her latest, Rock Manning Goes For Broke. She's her to explain it. There are footnotes! CHARLIE JANE ANDERS: What happens when Comedy goes TOO FAR (and then just keeps going)? Supposedly some famous dud … | Continue reading
Here's Sugar, in one of her favorite perches, above the sliding glass door in our living room. Sugar's been spending a lot of time outdoors recently, because Smudge annoys the crap out of her, so it's nice when she's inside and relaxing, instead of looking at Smudge like he's an … | Continue reading
They say write what you know, and thus twins Ashley and Leslie Saunders and have written The Rule of One, a novel about twins. But there's so much more to writing than writing what you know. Here's how the Saunders imagined in stereo. ASHLEY AND LESLIE SAUNDERS: What would make a … | Continue reading
This entire series is about time; it makes sense to end it with a piece directly on the subject. There are a number of ways for me to consider time, particularly since 1998, the year in which I started Whatever, and the point in which, for the purposes of this series, I start con … | Continue reading
She's goth! (She's not really goth. In fact this picture she's in our kitchen and if memory serves is looking down to see whatever damn fool thing Smudge is up to. But Photoshop is a hell of a thing.) Here's a less goth photo of Krissy. She was walking down our stairs and I calle … | Continue reading
Well, I guess it's closer now than it was in 1998, isn't it? Not that I knew that in 1998, by which I mean I couldn't have been 100% certain then I would reach 2018. Statistically speaking, it was likely in 1998 that I would live another 20 years, in that I had no major… | Continue reading
As we head into the last weekend of September, we have before us a very fine stack of new books and ARCs to consider. Which of these would you be happy to have with you as the leaves begin to turn? Tell us in the comments. | Continue reading
Well, I'm twenty years older now than I was in 1998, that's for sure. I haven't minded getting older in these last twenty years, I have to say. For one thing, bluntly, the last twenty years have been great for me, in terms of career and life and general happiness. If the worse th … | Continue reading
To start the day off on a high note, look what arrived today: It's the first author copy of The Consuming Fire, which is out in a week and a half. It looks fabulous. It feels fabulous. It is fabulous. And while we're on the topic, I got a sneak preview the other day of… | Continue reading
I touched on fame (such as mine is) briefly before in this series, but I was asked to expand on it a little. The topic I had scheduled today was pretty nebulous, so, sure! Let's swap this one in instead. I usually start any discussion of my fame by noting that I am not, in fact,… | Continue reading
Let's start with a cat picture, shall we? There. Whatever else happens with the day, you've still had a cat picture. And that's something! *** No, I won't be watching the Kavanaugh/Ford thing today. I have a very nice television and I don't want to break it by throwing a shoe at … | Continue reading
Oooooh, I've always been an ego-filled little doofus. I do think at this point the ego may be better justified. And also, I've worked to change where my ego is centered. 1998, I will note, was a very important year for my ego. That was the year it took its first major hit, when I … | Continue reading
My Internet is still mostly down, and I went through all of yesterday not knowing what was going on in the world. It was refreshing! Of course, some things still made it through. I understand our President was laughed at, at the UN. That's all I got. Maybe I'll skip today's news … | Continue reading
Writing has gotten simultaneously easier and harder over the last twenty years. Easier, because, bluntly, I'm better at it now than I was 20 years ago. Better at which parts? All of the parts. There are literally no technical aspects of writing (including the technical aspects of … | Continue reading
I am not saying I am a time traveler. For all most of you know, I am not. But if I were, and remember I am not saying I am, then I would be very interested in Ryan North's new book How To Invent Everything. Very, very interested. Theoretically. RYAN NORTH: I wanted to write… | Continue reading
I'll be posting a Big Idea and a Whatever 20/20 piece in a bit, although I may have to go down to the public library and use their connection to do it. Like a prole. | Continue reading
I'm at the airport super early, so let's check in on the state of the world, shall we? Oh. Oh. Well, that's no good, is it. *** At the moment I have nothing useful to add about what's going on with either Kavanaugh or Rosenstein situations, because in both cases no one else seems … | Continue reading
Over the last 20 years, and on a day-to-day basis, I don't think what I read has changed much. I read a lot of non-fiction, a fair amount of science fiction and fantasy as well as the mystery genre, and I read a whole lot online, specifically news and tech sites, plus the occasio … | Continue reading
Much of my creative life, and certainly almost all of my professional life for the past 20 years, has been greatly influenced and impacted by technology. It starts earlier than that, of course. In 1984, the first Macintosh computer came out, and it came with a simple word process … | Continue reading
Here's an interesting question to consider: Do I have the same taste -- the same cultural likes and dislikes in terms of things like style and entertainment -- here in 2018 that I had in 1998? After all, it's been twenty years. That's a long time in terms of culture, style and en … | Continue reading
As promised, here is the second half of a big haul of new books and ARCs at the Scalzi Compound this week. Some excellent choices here -- do you see anything in particular you like? Tell us in the comments! | Continue reading
I'm actually writing this in New York; I'm currently loitering at a hotel near Penn Station, in room that looks like the nicest dorm suite at NYU and can hear the street noise rising up to my windows. It's surprisingly nice white noise, although history reminds me that sometimes … | Continue reading
I'm at the airport with two and a half hours before my flight boards. Enough time for a digest! *** So apparently the big attempt to defect from Kavanaugh's allegedly sexually assaulting past was for a key Republican operative to launch a conspiracy theory Twitter thread saying i … | Continue reading
I really started taking sunset pictures in 2005, the first year I had a dSLR camera. Here's one sunset picture for that year, and every year since. (Incidentally, tonight's sunset? In the header image.) | Continue reading
In Detox in Letters, author Cheryl Low thinks about magic, down the grimy, dusty details -- and also gauges the limits of what magic can do. CHERYL LOW: The Crowns & Ash series began as an exploration of magic. Or maybe just a love letter to it. All my life I have loved magical w … | Continue reading
Good morning! Let's see what's up. *** https://twitter.com/scalzi/status/1042171270136299520 I posted the tweet above the other day about the recent contretemps regarding whether Bert and Ernie are a gay couple, which was prompted by one of Sesame Street's former writers noting h … | Continue reading
Lots of new stuff, so this will be a two-stack week here at the Scalzi Compound. Here's the first stack of new books and ARCs for the week. Anything catching your eye? Let us know in the comments! | Continue reading
I'm not sure I had hobbies in 1998. I definitely didn't have the hobbies I have now, back then. Hobbies are, for the purposes of this entry, things you do that you enjoy for themselves, and not because you plan to make it a professional part of your life to any extent. I think it … | Continue reading
He's just yawning, mind you. But still. No Whatever Digest today mostly because my morning was tasked with getting teeth cleanings and otherwise taking care of offline business, and I have more things to take care of this afternoon. As an aside, some of you have mentioned to me t … | Continue reading
What is a hero? For Myke Cole, the answer to this question is not exactly the one that usually applies. It's a thing that helped to fuel the writing for his latest, The Queen of Crows. MYKE COLE: Five years ago, I wrote about a singular experience. I know we live in the age of… | Continue reading
The difference between 1998 and 2018 as regards health is that in 1998 I never really gave thought about my health, and now I think about it a lot. Why? Because I'm older and because (as noted earlier in this series) I weigh more than I used to, and because over 20 years I've had … | Continue reading
For his novel Worldshaper, author Edward Willett posits another type of authorship entirely... one with literally global implications. EDWARD WILLETT: Authors sometimes talk of their fictional worlds as though they lived in them. They’ll speak of characters taking on lives of the … | Continue reading
Let's see what the world has for us today, shall we? *** To begin on a high note, congratulations to my dear friend Mary Robinette Kowal, who has just announced a three-book, six-figure deal with Tor Books. The deal covers two more books in her "Lady Astronaut" series plus a stan … | Continue reading
When I started Whatever in 1998, I didn't have a kid. But I knew one was coming, since Krissy was pregnant. Her due date was December 17, but as it turns out, and in the first indication that this child was truly my child as well, the baby was kind of lazy and in no… | Continue reading
Let's start the day off with something pretty, shall we. Like these sunset clouds from last night: I'm often asked how much I Photoshop my sunset pictures, and the answer is, it depends on the day. With that said, this photo pretty much accurately recreates what the sky actually … | Continue reading
I've not been a fan of my hair these last twenty years. Honestly, my hair and I have never been on the best of terms. I come from a family that doesn't have great hair; it tends to be thin and wispy in the best of circumstances, and I, who started balding at around age… | Continue reading
In no particular order, a playlist of 20 songs from the last 20 years that have stuck with me. https://youtu.be/oIIxlgcuQRU https://youtu.be/bnFDxHo9uHs https://youtu.be/GINpKSkZawk https://youtu.be/Pgum6OT_VH8 https://youtu.be/eHU28UKKm6M https://youtu.be/2nm4xv3firw https://you … | Continue reading
Halfway through September now, and here is a very fine stack of new books and ARCs to note the occasion. See anything you'd like? Tell us in the comments! | Continue reading