Report Day Links

Today is report day, i.e. the students get their report cards, which also means a long weekend, because school doesn’t start up again until next Wednesday. And since today was the last day before the reports and the last session of this semester, I treated the girls of my afternoon class (there are only girls in that class for some reason) to cake and drinks at the bakery next to the school.

Plus, we actually had a couple of centimeters of snow overnight, which is almost a first in this wet and mild winter. If the snow sticks around, I’ll take a few photos tomorrow. What is more, my internet access has been spotty these past few days – probably something to do with those workmen digging up the sidewalk a bit further down the street. It does seem to have stabilized now – unless they start digging again tomorrow.

And now for some links:

At the Pegasus Pulp blog, I’ve got a post about testdriving a Kindle and comparing different e-readers plus a couple of interesting e-book and publishing links.

At the Clarion blog, Lynda Williams has a great post about writing violent scenes and where the line is between appropriate and gratuitous.

Lynn Viehl at Paperback Writer has an interesting post about using Scrabble to spark story ideas and writing inspiration. Paperback Writer is great for writing craft and innovative inspiration posts anyway. I also like these recent posts on the Scarab method of outlining and on finding inspiration in archaeology magazines and answer cards, a type of tarot deck.

It’s the clash of the kings. George R.R. Martin interviews Bernard Cornwell at Omnivoracious.

Fox News discovers that the newly relaunched DC Comics are rather dark and violent now and contain sex and even – gasp – homosexuality and promptly runs a “Why won’t someone think of the children?” article complete with bonus quotes about how those comics supposedly harm children (there are still children who read comics?) by a child psychologist. I guess I’m not the only one who’s reminded of Frederick J. Wertham’s infamous Seduction of the Innocent, the Guardian picked up the parallels as well.

Chick Lit and women’s fiction writer Jenny Colgan had written a Doctor Who novel, since it turns out she’s a massive fan. So much for chick lit and SF don’t mix or only hacks write tie-in fiction.

Finally, here’s a real blast from the past: Two lengthy articles about how to write romance novels and men writing romance under pen names, originally published in 1996 in the Boston Phoenix. Note the quotes by Suzanne Brockmann, future genre superstar. Found via Read, React, Review.