We’ve been doing the happy dance in our house these past weeks. Nicola has a great publisher in FSG and a terrific editor in Sean McDonald, and they have a singular, splendid writer in her. It is a good match.

I’ve read Hild. It is magnificent. It is supernova brilliant. It is the best book Nicola has written so far, and that’s saying a lot. It is powerful, lyrical and brutal, with fascinating characters in an unexpected, compelling story that will take you so many places. Oh my friends, you are in for such a treat.

I am so proud of Nicola I am about to explode. Do me a favor: go read her post about it and leave a well-wishing comment over there. It’s a big day for her. A joyful day. After all Nicola’s hard work, after all her faith and hope, after all her guts and grit, Hild has found a home.

By Paris Mavroidis.

 
Enjoy your day.

The State house votes next week, and unless the universe turns inside out, there are more than enough votes there to pass the bill. The Governor has said that she will sign it into law immediately.

Opponents of marriage equality have until sometime in June to gather enough petition votes to put a referendum on the November ballot. I expect that will happen. And then we’ll see what we’re all made of out here in the Pacific Northwest, where we pride ourselves so much on civility and the common good.

Here’s what Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark NJ, has to say about putting questions of equal rights to public referendum: “No minority should have their rights subject to the passions and the sentiments of the majority.”

Period.

Enjoy your day. Mine’s been pretty interesting so far.

Ah, I wish. Instead, I offer you this fantastic video with animation by Brendan Cook. I find it beautiful and compelling, and it would never have occurred to me in a million years to video the song this way. The variety and the power of human imagination amazes me every day. We see such different things inside us. And how wonderful to be able to share this way. Internet, I love you.

Gakked from Film School Rejects, where you can see a different short film every day.

Enjoy your day.

Edited to add: here’s a great post that lays out in detail all the ways in which this legislation is bad for the internet and bad for any individual who uses it. And here’s another that provides a terrific roundup of links where you can find out more. /end edit

I create and own intellectual property. So I don’t support piracy. But taking a sledgehammer to the internet is not the solution. Democracy is a constant balancing process between freedom and control, and SOPA/PIPA are only interested in control. We can do better than this.

I’ve signed the petition against SOPA/PIPA, and I hope you will too.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Enjoy your day. Enjoy something on an internet that is uncensored and freely available to you. Don’t steal, don’t plagiarize, don’t troll and don’t use pixels to hurt other people. And don’t make laws that suck the life out of an entire thing just to fix one part of it.

A 14-year-old girl decided to take her boycott national and posted a heavily scripted video on YouTube, complete with signs. I am not linking to that video because I have no wish to promote the content. And because she’s a kid, she has an opinion, she put it out there and it will forever be on The Google to haunt her through her entire life. She doesn’t need any more shit from me.

Nope, today I am here to bring you a passionate, graceful and thoroughly beautiful response from a young woman in college. Who is also expressing her opinion, and who is being an ally to trans Girl Scouts everywhere. It’s coherent, powerful and it has by god doubled the amount I plan to spend on cookies this year.

I was a Brownie and a Girl Scout back in the Stone Age when we had the full uniforms, including socks with the logos (I swear I am not making this up). I did not have this young woman’s experience of encouragement and support and community in my troop. I wish I had. I would give a lot to have been this clear, direct, articulate and fearless in my late teens and early twenties. And if the Girls Scouts have become the kind of organization that help to shape women like this one, then they are welcome to my cookie money.

If a girl with a sash and an order form knocks on your door and asks you to buy some Samoas, don’t ask her how she pees. Buy some cookies and tell her she’s doing a great job.

Enjoy your day. Peace out.

Incoherence alert: I don’t really know how to talk about wonder, which is a hell of a thing for a writer, but there you go. Sometimes things are bigger than words.

Today is not about wondering, not about the verb of it all. Today is about the noun, when wonder turns from questioning into an answer. Isn’t that the coolest thing, to get a blast-your-soul-open answer to a question you didn’t even know you had? Or to meet an old answer anew and find it has the same power to move you? That is the wonder of stories, for me. I read, and when it is good, whsshh, there I go into the story; and inside it I find a place which is also inside me. Perhaps it is a part of myself I have never before seen in the light. Or maybe it is an utterly familiar internal space, one of the places of dancing or thorns or nothing but sky. You know those places. We all have them. We explore them through our own experience, and through the stories we tell each other. Stories open doors inside us where we find ourselves.

So before the guy gets here with the mop, let me point you to the source of today’s holy shit, stories are amazing meditation on wonder. There’s a guy named Mark Oshiro who, among other things, reads and writes about it. And Mark is the Best Reader Evah in my opinion right now, because oh my god he is all about the wonder of it all. He blogs about each chapter of the book as he reads it, and he does his best to avoid being spoiled about the book before he reads. So he’s coming to it fresh with a critical mind and an exuberant heart. Mark Oshiro comes to reading ready for joy, sorrow, fear, hope and love. Ready to find the world in a book.

And right now he is reading — for the first time — The Lord of the Rings.

So do yourself a favor and go share the wonder of that. (Follow the links back to the Chapter One post and work your way forward).

I am enjoying it so much that I actually find myself saving the posts as rewards. I want to reach through the internet and give this guy a hug for loving stories so much that he gives himself to them and finds the wonder.

Because wonder is good, my friends. To be astonished into sorrow or joy. To go on a journey with people who aren’t real except they by god are, aren’t they? Isn’t that part of the magic, this ability we have to make them come alive inside us? Story is real, it is, it is, I don’t care what people say because I know. I have lived so many of them. I am stuffed full of Frodo and Sam, Morgon and Raederle, Gil and Rudy, Harry Crewe and Aerin, Candy Smith, Travis McGee, Jack Reacher, Johnny Smith and Danny Torrance and Stu Redman, Jack and Stephen, Hazel and Fiver, Alexander, Ged, Mia Havero, ‘Glory’ Conway, Lazarus Long, Aud and Lore and yowsa, just you wait for Hild…

Edited to add: And not just books: the novels of television and the novellas of film, whose people also inhabit me: Mal and Zoe and River, Buffy, Al Swearengen and Trixie, Stringer Bell and Bubbles, Ripley, Sarah Connor, Ree Dolly, Raylan Givens… Oh my goodness, it’s crowded in here. But somehow there is always room for more. (end edit)

And then there are all the stories of my own that tumble inside me like the surf. I am deep and restless these days with story, teeming with characters that only I have met, moments that only I have known, that are every bit as real to me even though they are only mine. So much of what story does to us is private, don’t you find? Almost inexplicable.

And there you go, I just took 650 words to not explain the inexplicable. Ah, well, incoherent for sure, but you know what? I will let it stand, and perhaps do better some other time. Or maybe just let the stories I love speak to me, and the ones I write speak for me. And I think it’s time to take a trip with Tolkien again.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you all who share my love of story. Enjoy your day. Go read something wonderful!

And don’t miss the chance to attend one of our one-day workshops, held monthly (except for the Summer Workshop period) in Seattle. An equally stellar lineup of writers will teach full-day sessions on a focused topic. We’ve had terrific feedback on these classes — they are a great opportunity to learn in an intimate, supportive setting without breaking the bank, and will give you skills you can begin applying immediately to your work.

Here’s the winter schedule:

January 15 – Louse Marley
Avoiding Rejection
Agents often only read the first ten pages of a novel before deciding if they want you as a client. Slush readers for magazines decide within a few paragraphs whether your short story is right for them. We’ll practice techniques to make your manuscript grab the attention of an agent or editor from the first paragraph on. Students will provide a one-page sample of their writing for the instructor.

Louise Marley is the author of fourteen novels of historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction. Her most recent novel, Mozart’s Blood, draws on her personal experience as an opera singer as well as her historical research.

There is still some space available in this workshop, but you must register by January 8! Get your writing year off to a great start by learning more ways to engage your reader from the first paragraph!

February 5 – Richard Paul Russo
Bringing the World to Life (Without Killing the Story!)
How do you provide enough information about the physical, social, political, and other aspects of the story’s environment to fully engage your readers without distracting from or slowing down the story? Accomplishing this is one of a writer’s biggest challenges. Through discussion and written exercises, we’ll explore different approaches to scene-setting and description that bring the world of the story richly to life without losing the readers’ interest or engagement. Students are encouraged to bring story or novel scene ideas to use as starting points for the exercises.

Richard Paul Russo is the author eight novels and numerous short stories. He is a two-time winner of the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, most recently for his novel Ship of Fools, which was also a New York Times Notable Book.

March 4 – Kat Richardson
Creating your Urban Fantasy World
This special-focus workshop will help you learn how to choose, establish, and write a setting (real, alternate, historical, or allegorical) appropriate for Urban Fantasy. You’ll learn how to block out and write action that utilizes whatever magic, occult, or paranormal system you’re establishing, and how to develop and write characters for Urban Fantasy by integrating their power(s) and skills–or lack of them–with their setting and interactions.

Kat Richardson is the bestselling author of the Greywalker paranormal detective novels. A keen fan of hardboiled fiction, Kat models her stories on the work of iconic detective writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, with added dashes of whimsy and horror, and the occasional ferret.

Registration is open now for these workshops, and will open soon for the April/May sessions (stay tuned for Exciting Announcements about those sessions coming soon!).

Enjoy your day.