Tell a dream, lose a reader
Today’s article is by intern and author Hilary Smith. It’s a fact of life that writers love dreams (especially during National Novel Writing Month, or any other time a lot of words need to appear fast), and readers hate them.
Hilary writes three excellent reasons why dreams tend to be rubbish. One thing she forgets to mention: never ever ever use the “It was all a dream!” ending in any of your stories, especially at the climax. It’s cheating, and stupid, and everyone who reads the story will hate you forever. Also, if you think it’s a clever twist ending – you are wrong. It’s not clever, it’s not a twist, and it’s not an ending.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin
I’ll be reviewing Ursula LeGuin’s whole Earthsea trilogy* over the next few weeks. This is the first book.
When I was eighteen, I invented a wonderful world based on the Indonesian archipelago. It contained literally thousands of islands, and hundreds of diverse cultures. When I first read the Earthsea books several years later, I discovered that not only had my archipelago idea already been done, it had been done by a masterful writer who was already a classic. Fie upon you, LeGuin! You preemptively stole my idea and had the gall to do it better than me.
So: the world is excellent, and the writing is beautiful. The rest of this review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
Poor Man’s Zoo
Yesterday I took Louisette to a pet shop to be fascinated by fish. Shiny, shiny colours and moving parts. What more could she want*?
*other than the ability to put them in her mouth, of course. . .
COMING SOON (and if you live in Canberra you can come too):
Eurovision party this Sunday (you can’t come to mine, but you can host your own). I’ll be playing Eurovision drinking games with lollies.
Free performance of circus band (not actually a circus band, but if that description sounds good to you you’ll probably like them) FLAP! at The Front Cafe Gallery in North Lyneham (yes, near Tillies) Wednesday 30th at 8:30pm.
“The Avengers” showing at the ANU film club Thursday 31st. It’ll cost you $15, but that’s a weekly membership so you get to watch other movies too.
Food Glorious Food
After about a month of intense anticipation, CJ and I sat down last Saturday (the first Saturday after Louisette passed the current recommended minimum age of four months) to give our little girl her first taste of food. Mmm. . . rice cereal mixed with watered-down formula. . .
I’d taken too long to get ready and she was grumpily sleepy before we began:
But she went for it! Hence my crazy eyes, and her “What just happened?” face:
We could have kept going but I didn’t want to overfeed her and cause problems for her tummy or kidneys. I’m so delighted she didn’t reflexively spit it out! Instead you can see her turning her head towards the spoon for another go. A world of messy delight stretches out ahead of us. . .
Since Saturday we’ve discovered that her preferred method of feeding is to be sucking on her hand at the same time. I knew feeding would get messy fast, but Louisette has truly done her bit in making it messier faster.
She’s been crying after feeds (both bottle and food), which is obviously quite disturbing, but it’s possible that all she really wants is more solids faster (I talked to a nurse about it, and most of the crying-during-feeding scenarios are already somewhat familiar – burping, wind, reflux, hunger, stress. . .). A desire for more solids certainly seemed evident during last night’s rice cereal feed. Now that I think I know the answer, I shall attempt to start breaking her hand-sucking-during-meals habit. And to let her eat more in a sitting.
This morning she’ll try her second food ever: zuccini mush. I’ll have CJ take a video, but I’m not posting it today. I have a Very Cunning Plan That You Will Love in the works, and filming her spewing bright green goo is just one of many parts of said plan.
PS: Long before Louisette was born, I planned to lay something on our dining table so I could lie her down and be at her level without crawling around on the floor. It worked very nicely when CJ and I had friends over last Monday – but the macabre overtones weren’t lost on any of us.
Mmm. . . delicious baby, buffet style.
PS:
Walkies
A friend and I and our daughters took a walk by Lake Burley Griffin on a perfect autumn day.
Canberra in Autumn
It’s not hard to see why Autumn is my mum’s favourite Canberra season:
What’s your favourite season where you are?
PS Hello to my Ukraine readers: I have no idea where you came from, but you’re welcome here.
Gorgeous Mini Steam Train with Sea Creatures
The title pretty much tells you all you could possibly need to know 🙂
http://www.4largescale.com/chris/c10.htm
Grab them fast
This article is all about your first paragraph. You really should read it all – it’s brilliant, and the lady is speaking from the harrowing experience of having just read over 1500 first paragraphs – most of which were rubbish (she said so, but more politely).
Here’s a sentence I particularly liked:
If you do start with the “typical”, you have about three sentences to introduce something unique/unexpected that’ll keep a reader reading.
And here is something really special – the opening scenes that happen far, far too often. I know I personally have used two and a half of these in my novels alone. That is not a good sign.
People waking up
“Who Goes Here?” by Bob Shaw
This book makes me laugh. Also giggle, chuckle, and guffaw.
The rest of this review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
First Water Play Time
Way back when I was using all my powers of manipulation to acquire the baby gear I wanted without actually buying any of it, I convinced a friend (it wasn’t hard!) to buy a set of plastic shells designed to be both a sandpit and a paddle pool for very young children. At the time I thought it would only be useful when Louisette was well and truly walking, and starting to get restless for an outside play area.
More recently, I went to a Kidsafe talk and one of the main things they recommended was swimming lessons – “As soon as possible. Definitely before one year. They won’t learn to swim, but they’ll learn water awareness.” Drowning is the leading cause of death in children under five. . . so not only am I meant to get Louisette playing in the water ASAP, it may save her life.
Louisette has only recently gotten over a screaming hatred of baths, so I was careful to make the experience as gentle and as non-bath-like as possible. All went well, and Louisette didn’t show a single sign of distress at any time:
I’ll be bringing the shell inside regularly for more play time – probably today for starters!
