The Wordsmith's Forge

 I was fascinated by this early discussion on asexual characters in sex scenes.  It happens.  I write neuter characters fairly often, along with an extremely wide range of other sex/gender/orientation options.  Sometimes a mutually agreeable arrangement is possible.  Other times it turns into a horribly awkward disaster.  But if you're a writer, this is one of those things that absolutely must be handled with care, because it's a delicate topic at best and easy to botch.  Happily the discussion is aimed at producing a how-to post later.  Yay!

xjenavivex has posted a call for sponsors in crowdfunding (and on her LiveJournal too) of my poem "Igor's Creature."  This is a new approach for the Poetry Fishbowl because it's not starting with a donation, but with a description of the poem's appeal in hopes of attracting sponsors.  I've certainly boosted signal for things I couldn't afford to sponsor myself, in hopes that other folks would.  So, let's see if this works; I'm open to the experiment and would be delighted to see this poem published.

[EDIT 5/11/11] "Igor's Creature" is now in microfunding, thanks to $5 voted in from the general fund. Watch that space for new verses.

Here's another terrific post exploring types of love and marriage in fiction that go beyond the typical.  Some of these I was familiar with.  The troll batch was new to me.

I enjoyed this article about Judgement Day as described in "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."  (The franchise is a lot more entertaining if you know a dab of quantum mechanics and temporal theory, because the way the dialog describes it working doesn't exactly match the dynamics of the action across the movies.)