Sunday, March 29, 2009

bits

Been doing lots of random writing today. Working on bits and parts of stories, mostly in outline form, trying to summarize and rework old legends. Has been slow going, as I haven't wanted to put steps down unless they fit, so lots of pacing about and circling around and typing when the spirit moves me. Also much reading of the sources and sublimating that information.

Also been doing laundry and reading The Left Hand of Darkness. It's much better than I remember it. Not really slow like I felt it was before. I think maybe I was just still miffed about the Doctorow kerfluffle, and the rhetorical device she begins with (the narrator explains why they are writing the story), still a pet peeve of mine, is less obnoxious then I remember it being. It's funny, the book is most often sighted for it's treatment of gender, but the wintry setting and alien and pangalactic cultures seem to play a much larger role in my impression of the book than the biology of the "aliens." Also, Le Guin really does seem to have a thing for making her characters not white. Not bad, of course, but quite uncommon.

Living Robot

Apropos this post, this is fucking awesome.

Seek and ye shall find.