Navel Gazing – Page 16

Grumpy Old Villains

Written World: 50 Things I Love About Mainstream Superhero Comics

8) The core team of the JSA is essentially a bunch of cranky old men who probably get together with old supervillains to play poker.

This sort of fuels an expansion of this idea in my mind.

I wrote that story as part of my deconstruction of the supervillain archetype. But, I want to take it further. We all know the various and sundry reasons why any superhero keeps fighting the Neverending Battle. But why do villains keep going? Why keep get your ass handed to you on a regular basis? Why cope with the various life disruptions caused by jail time or faking one’s own death?

Because they’re EEE-VIL? That might be a plausible explanation if they won something really worthwhile on occassion. Being psycho might be a better explanation; certainly that’s the one given to us by a lot of villains lately.

Gotta think more about this one…

Fonts

Jonathan Lethem, Richard Posner, and others reveal their favorite fonts.

Jonathan Lethem, author, You Don’t Love Me Yet: A Novel
I dislike the temptation of making a raw draft look like it’s already typeset. Before computers, I wrote three novels on a typewriter, and there can never be anything but 12-point Courier (double-spaced) forever: I write on an eternal Selectric of the mind. I can even hear the rattle of the metal ball against the sheet of paper, I swear.

Ditto. What’s the point of anything else, at least when I’m generating a manuscript? Although the labels on the folders of my GTD reference files at the day job are all typeset in Trebuchet MS.

Women in Cape Books

Pretty, Fizzy Paradise: I Want More Crimson Avenger, Please!:

I also like how essentially non-gendered her concept is. Her origin story could easily be a man’s or a woman’s.

This brings up all sorts of questions in my mind about the tale I wrote which BYZARIUM published, especially about the secondary character. I wonder how many mistakes I made or didn’t make?

You Know That Flash Argument About Attention Span?

warrenellis.com » Burst Culture:

Bursts aren’t contentless, nor do they denote the end of Attention Span. If attention span was dead, JK Rowling wouldn’t be selling paperbacks thick enough to choke a pig, and Neal Stephenson wouldn’t be making a living off books the size of the first bedsit I lived in.

Fanfiction

Whatever: My Policy on Fanfic and Other Adaptations of My Work:

“First: I do retain and reserve all rights to my work. I’m not very squishy about that fact. Just so you know. If you play in my universe, you implicitly accept I have the right to come around, say ‘mine!’ and then stomp off with all your pretty toys. Yeah, I know. I’m a dick. What can I say.

Second: As long as you can deal with that first point, as far as I’m concerned, you may play in my universe(s) as long as the emphasis is on ‘play.’ This means that nothing you do in my universes may:

a) Generate any sort of economic benefit for you, in any form;
b) Generate any sort of economic benefit for any third party;
c) Cause me economic detriment of any sort.”

Not that I ever expect anyone to ever write fanfic about anything I create. Nor have I ever written any fanfic of any kind (unless you count a DOCTOR WHO story I wrote back in the 7th grade as an assignment).

Does Anybody Really Care? (About Time)

No one gives writing time…. Each and every one of us has to take it, forcibly if necessary, by wile, bribery, any method that works. You have to take the time, to weigh it against whatever else is happening, to give it up somewhere else, sacrifice time for other people, time for movies, time for television, fun, games, partying, sleep, or something. There is always some time every day to set aside and declare one’s own, but it requires a lot of self-discipline to seize it and keep it.

-Kate Wilhelm, STORYTELLER

Damn straight.