Posts Tagged with writing

Submitting your writing, explained in Princess Bride GIFs

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Film poster for The Princess Bride - Copyright...
Film poster for The Princess Bride – Copyright 1987, 20th Century Fox (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s easy to become disheartened when submitting your writing. We’ve all been there. Even after all the heavy lifting of writing a story or novel, revising it, getting feedback, even working with an editor, you send it out into the world with high hopes. Sadly, there is no guarantee of success, exception maybe perseverance, but even then you know not every story will find a home.

Take heart! Even great stories can take a while to find traction. Take The Princess Bride, now cherished as a classic film. Upon its theatrical release in 1987, it barely made a ripple, and was considered a flop. (For the inside story on what it was like to work on the movie, I highly recommend Cary Elwes’ book, As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride.) But thanks to home video and word of mouth, eventually the movie found its audience, and then some, becoming a cult classic.

I happen to think that in submitting your writing, as in many aspects of life, The Princess Bride has much to teach us.

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Unique cannot take a modifier 

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UniqueUnique means “one-of-a-kind.”

Something cannot be the most one-of-a-kind or very one-of-a-kind, as in the incorrect phrase “very unique.”

Something is either unique or it’s not.

You cannot modify an absolute.

 

 

Originally created by Mary-Agnes Welch, David Jón Fuller, and Julie Carl.

Look on my links, ye mighty, and rejoice

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Here’s my links roundup for this week. (Previous links posts here and here) Hop on for a neural network creating ridiculous musical genres, a reframing of a rejection letter, an unusual Turkish library, and a look at medieval warfare.

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Some interesting links to posts you may like

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I haven’t done much in the way of blog posts that consist largely of links. I suppose I came close with Fake Metal Bands That Should Have Existed. However, the maestro of such posts is Natalie Luhrs, and if you’re not already following her blog, get thee hence and see what you’re missing. Then come back here!  I have compiled a bit of reading that caught my eye and made me think this week. You may enjoy these, too.

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Writing and career help, from my dog

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Spoiler: my dog is not a writer. However, he needs walks regularly and that, I’ve found, helps my writing.

Dash is a black Lab cross, which means as far as the Humane Society could tell he looks like a Lab but that’s clearly not all that’s in his parentage.  He’s just over two years old now. If I wanted to walk my legs off taking him around the neighbourhood, he would be very happy — and still not be tired when we got home.

So: we go on regular walks, weather permitting, as well as the dog parks. That’s the good, healthy thing about walking the dog in the dead of winter: you go outside even if you’d rather not. Fresh air and all that. Also, nobody in their right mind is out walking at night when it’s -20 to -30 C (plus windchill! Bonus!), unless they also have a dog. You dress for it and off you go.

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More Wrestling With Gods: 18 Days of Tesseracts interview

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Corey Redekop has undertaken the Herculean feat (like that Greco-Roman mythic metaphor there? I’m so subtle) of interviewing the contributors to Tesseracts 18: Wrestling With Gods as part of the 18 Days of Tesseracts event, on now. I have the honour of being interview number seven.  Here’s a taste of the thought-provoking questions he had, and my best attempts at provoked-thought answers. You can see the entire series as it unfolds at Corey’s site.

What is it about so-called “genre” writing that makes it such an effective avenue for theological discussions?

I think genre stories can tap into what we now call myth. Modern audiences maybe need that little lever to get us out of literalist thinking—as if any fiction, genre or otherwise, is absolutely realistic. I don’t think people treated stories in such a fragmented way in the past; we didn’t have to distinguish between the historical or factual or fantastic to get enjoyment and value out of a story. But since religion and faith necessarily deal with questions of meaning, as I think the really old stories do, and aren’t bounded by what we conceive of as the natural world, I think speculative fiction is aptly suited to tackle similar questions.

Who’s your favourite god?

My favourite is Thor, but I think the best stories in the Norse tales we still have access to are about Loki. If you take them as a whole, you see how problematic but also necessary the Trickster figure is. Loki is at times helpful, indispensable, foolish, spiteful or disastrous. We’re much poorer for all the Norse myths that went unrecorded and were lost.

If you were a god for one day, what would you do?

I’d visit the bottom of the ocean and wrestle with krakens.

You can read the entire interview here.

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