Career Moves (teaching, writing and otherwise)

Teaching

"Said No Teacher Ever"  -- humorous video although I actually have said one or two of these.

20 tips on 10-min improvements on the classroom

Classic science demo--gravity with  parallel to siphoning--explained with video

A teacher opines on what makes a good teacher

The collapse of teachers preparing students for college (one teacher's lament of testing procedures)

Writing

How to be happy as a writer

Sci-Fi author gets date... in alternate universe (joke post)

James Van Pelt on David Jauss on Charles Baxter's ideas on the epiphany

Gareth Powell interview

James Gunn interview

Stuck?  David Farland offers suggestions

He also describes how to get an agent and how to brainstorm ideas.

7 elements of military SF

Aimee Bender on the habit of writing (writer's contract)

Michael Blumlein's limited edition of collected short fiction

Infinity Plus gets a face lift.

Extending your career through ghost writers

Writing and Otherwise

Tony Tost on transitioning from poetry to television scripts

Cross-fertilization of being a scientist and a writer (J.M. Sidorova)

Photos of the "invisible world" as art

Joss Whedon on being prolific:

1. REWARD YOURSELF EARLY AND OFTEN (reward yourself for everything you accomplish)
2. FILL THE TANKS (read widely for inspiration)
3. ENLIST YOUR FRIENDS (mix social and work)
4. TOUGH LOVE (no excuses--go do it)

Writers on writing

Theodora Goss discusses Margaret Atwood's opening to Alias Grace.  What strikes me is how quickly the narrator captures the ladies and the mores of their culture--as well as sharp observations.

Cat Rambo and Luc Reid on writers' workshops

Michael Swanwick on knowing your audience.

Nicholas Sparks on writer's block

John Steinbeck's Writing Tips

Hal Duncan's Writing Tips (some seem real, others tongue in cheek--language caution)

James Van Pelt on being a serious writer

David Farland offers 16 hours of audio writing advice for $100 and you help support writers.

• Elsewhere, Farland on getting your goals right
• advice on advice
• on editing novels
• on your path to writing
• on character traits (I don't think this is prescriptive but things to think about)
• on details:

• "When your story starts, your reader does not know when it is set, or where it is set. So begin feeding them clues immediately."

• on if/when to go "indie" publishing
• on endings
• on the virtue of the incomplete sentence
• find your talent
• on writing whatever scene grips you

The Arts (links)

Tarkovsky Films Now Free Online

Salon.com says, "Sorry, the short story boom is bogus."

Response:  Laura Miller makes great points, but she doesn't produce proof that there isn't a boom.  Rather, she disagrees that the evidence is evidence for boom, but disagreeing with evidence does not negate the existence of a thing.  Perhaps there is a boom compared to story sales prior to e-reading.  Perhaps not.

Make art to accompany Neil Gaiman's stories.

Nebula nominees announced

On Building  a Book Blog

Boskone 50 "The Paper Menagerie:" Anatomy of a Winning Story

Top 10 SF movies of 21st Century?

10 Novels That Are Scarier Than Most Horror Movies

Walter Jon Williams on the suspension of disbelief

China Mieville's Top 50 books

Top Ten Innovative Alien Stories

Importance of Theodore Sturgeon's "Maturity" [Michael Swanwick & Jason Sanford; also of interest History of SF Flame Wars]

Donate to writing scholarship and receive ebook [Octavia E. Butler Scholarship]

Essay:  An Exercise in Doubt:

"Argumentation is a good skill to have, but the real argument should be with oneself. Especially when it comes to the development of young writers, it is crucial to nudge them past that self-righteous inveighing, that shrill, defensive one-track that is deadly for personal essays or memoirs, and encourage a more polyphonic, playful approach. That may be why a classic essay technique is to stage an inner debate by thinking against oneself."

James Van Pelt: Educator, Writer, Blogger

James Van Pelt blogs about education (English) and writing.

SF Signal recently interviewed him.

My close reading of his recent story for Asimov's.  (Josh English and Van Pelt discuss the same.)

Free stories available online.

His latest story collection.

“The Family Rocket” by James Van Pelt

Asimov's January/February 2013

If you liked the literary mind-bending of Karen Joy Fowler’s “What I Didn’t See,” Van Pelt’s story is likely to please.  It raises questions about the nature of narrative, science fiction, and humanity itself, so It would come as a surprise not to see this one pop up in a Year’s-Best anthology or two.  The following traces the outline of its near-genius.

While not overly tricky, this is a subtle one.  It begins, “The thing about stories is there’s the ones you want to tell, and there’s the one that happened.”  This review will give that away, at least according to this reader.

The narrator takes Rachael, his girlfriend, to his parents’ home to decide whether he will propose to her... if she can accept his crazy family--a family that took imaginary trips to Mars in a rocket that his father built.   Does Rachel marry him?  Is his crazy family redeemed?  You can call it a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure or Lady-or-the-Tiger, but there may be a way to add up the details.  The game is given away. 

STOP HERE IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE STORY.

The narrator wants his father redeemed: “I regretted yelling at [my father]. I loved going to Mars; I loved him taking me.”  Does it seem likely that the father would have perfected the art of DIY-rocketry at 80 what might have accomplished at younger age?  Does it seem likely the narrator would walk up on his father just as his father was launching?  Wouldn’t most fathers want to see their potential daughter-in-laws before showing off?  Besides, ending on such a note would make it the father’s story, not the narrator’s.  All of this makes the forgoing a gloss over events.  Why else tell multiple stories except as a comfort--just as the father had done when they were children:  make-believing they are traveling to Mars? 

Likewise, the narrator (potentially) glosses over what happened with Rachael.  When speaking of her asking him out, he states, “Those [stories] are the nice ones.  And, of course, there’s what actually happened.”  While that could be read ambiguously, the juxtaposition suggests otherwise.  Later:  “[W]e figure ways to disguise [the painful parts in real stories] in fiction....  [M]aybe I made myself less an asshole than I was.”

Moreover, when he states, “There’s no way for you to know, but I do, no matter how often I tell it,” it seems to suggest that all narratives with narrators know the truth even if they don’t tell it, that such masking with artifice does not match the truth, which is known at some level, no matter how we try to disguise it.

More quotes:

“We are poor, Earthbound, and crazy.”  That came out with more bitterness than I meant.
 “This is where my dad filled my head with...” What? Junk?  False hope?
 “You’re too serious,” she said.
 Rachael and I will be parents someday.  I hope I can do as well my own children as Papa did for me.

This last quote sounds like they do get married... except there’s “my own” instead of “our.”

Largely literary links

LA Times' David L. Ulin's perspective on reviews

SF Site Interview with writer/editor Eric James Stone (earlier review of his story collection)

91-year-old writer debuts first novel

Educator and author James Van Pelt on student essays and plagiarism

Charlie Jane Anders on her revision method

WWII bomb detonated in Germany

First-time novelist Eric Griffith on things he learned in the process