The Wordsmith's Forge

 Here's a good blog post about asexual and aromantic aspects of identity.

Here's a thoughtful article about Joss Whedon making The Avengers  movie.  Link courtesy of my_partner_doug.  We went to see that movie recently.  I enjoyed the explosions and the dialog.  That's a rare combination.

I saw this quote online: "Culture is your operating system."

... and I thought, no, not for me.  I'm running the underlying source code.  I always come into a culture knowing who I really am.  Then I look at it to see if any of the stuff it has might be useful, and if so, I copy that.  I have some pretty serious firewalls against cultural malware.  What I do is kind of hack together a front that will mimic the surrounding culture(s).  It's kind of like those browsers with a stealth mode that tells websites you're using a different browser.

No wonder normal people have no idea how to deal with me.  They're trying to click icons while I'm thinking about best to reprogram reality.

There's a romantic friendship big bang getting ready to start, bromancestory.  All fandoms are welcome, as are original stories/settings/characters.  The rules post gives a good description of what this is all about. In brief:


This should appeal to my friends who are tired of all the stories that hinge on sex.

The crowdfunder in me is wondering if anyone has ever tried one of these things with original fic and money involved. Maybe not yet.  But it's a thought.  People are getting well into the habit of writing bunches like this, and with the rise of beta-readers, used to editing stuff outside of conventional markets.  Some of what gets produced is quite good.  This has potential.  For writers/artists it would be kind of like aiming for a theme anthology.  But for interested patrons, ah, you'd have a great big pile  of thematically related goodies to drool over.  It's a little different from the Creative Jam, but in a similar part of the gnoosphere.

 One author's perspective on why and how.

 Color update of "Teddy's Terrific Travels."

 Here is a very savvy explanation of why it's wrong and harmful to make discriminatory laws.

 Interview with Ellen Datlow on her editing process for theme anthologies.

The Art Theater in Champaign-Urbana is switching to co-op ownership.  Member shares cost $65.  This is the place that runs the cool indie films like Sita Sings the Blues.

I'm getting my assignments for the 2014 Llewellyn annuals.  Those of you interested in my magical/spiritual writing can watch for these to appear in late summer of 2013.  The stuff I wrote last summer for the 2013 annuals should become available in July or August of this year (though I missed the Spell-a-Day Almanac  that time).  So here is most of the linup for my summer writing surge:


2014 Sabbats Almanac
Discussion opened but not making assignments yet

2014 Magical Almanac
Assignments under discussion

2014 Witches' Calendar 
Assignment confirmed: month article "May -- Connecting with Nature"
Contract pending

2014 Witches' Datebook
Assignments confirmed: witchy tips and 8 sabbat mini-articles
Contract pending

2014 Witches' Companion
Assignments confirmed: articles "Lies My Magic Teacher Told Me" and "Her Vessels: Cauldrons, Chalices, and Bowls"
Contract pending

2014 Herbal Almanac
Assignments confirmed: articles "Herbs as Preservatives" and "Invaders in the Garden"
Contract pending

2014 Witches' Spell-a-Day Almanac
Assignment confirmed: 25 minispells
Contract in hand

I've just finished a major revision of the Economics section of my Crowdfunding resources. The sections have been moved to subpages of their own; all of them have been expanded at least a little. Websites for Crowdfunding Projects has expanded greatly, with many more sites listed, and much more detail for those platforms whose website lists plentiful information. So if you're into crowdfunding as a creator or donor, please check it out.

Big Pulp  is doing a campaign on IndieGoGo to fund their print edition.  Help support a speculative fiction market that pays its writers.  They're going to publish one of my poems soon.

This article offers some ideas for creating alien life forms.  There are many good points to consider.  

I put it like this ...

1) Life is much more creative than most humans realize.  It can and will make use of almost anything eventually.  Do not limit yourself.

2) Life does nothing without a reason.  You will do better to design an environment and then imagine what might live there, than to make up a creature from scratch and try to figure out where it lives.  So whatever your aliens look like, make sure there's justification for that.  But don't get stuck on what things look like or work like here on Earth, because there are many other options.