awards - hugo winners

Here are some of the Hugo Award winners, and the great thing is, we can read
many of them online.  Click to enjoy!

Best Novel:  Among Others by Jo Walton

Best Novella: “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson

Best Novelette: “Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders

Best Short Story: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu

Other short story nominees:
“The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” by E. Lily Yu
“The Homecoming” by Mike Resnick
“Movement” by Nancy Fulda
“Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book One: The Dead City: Prologue” by John Scalz

UK cover

from the screen - shadows and fog

KLEINMAN
I can't make the leap of faith necessary to believe in my own existence.

PROSTITUTE
If I thought that there was nothing except this, I'd kill myself.

STUDENT JACK
I've thought about it.  Believe me there have been many times when my brain
has said, "Why not?"  I mean there's no point to anything.  But somehow my
blood always said, "Live, live."  And I always listen to my blood.

- Shadows & Fog (1991), written by Woody Allen

on reading - daniel pennac

Reader's Bill of Rights

1. The right to not read
2. The right to skip pages
3. The right to not finish
4. The right to reread
5. The right to read anything
6. The right to escapism
7. The right to read anywhere
8. The right to browse
9. The right to read out loud
10. The right to not defend your tastes

- Daniel Pennac

By Joao Vaz de Carvalho

from unexpected places - strange houses

The old woman who lived in a shoe, James and the giant peach, the seven
large trees, each with a hole in its hollow trunk as large as a boy, which are
the entrances to the Lost Boys' underground home - these are just a few of
the strange houses in literature.

What about these?  What stories do they hold? (via HouseLogic)

Portugal

Alaska

the well written - diana gabaldon

Babies are soft. Anyone looking at them can see the tender, fragile skin and
know it for the rose-leaf softness that invites a finger's touch. But when you
live with them and love them, you feel the softness going inward, the
round-cheeked flesh wobbly as custard, the boneless splay of the tiny hands.
Their joints are melted rubber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the
passion of loving their existence, your lips sink down and seem never to find
bone. Holding them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at
any moment flow back into your body.

But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel within each child.
That thing that says "I am," and forms the core of personality.

In the second year, the bone hardens and the child stands upright, skull wide
and solid, a helmet protecting the softness within. And "I am" grows, too. 
Looking at them, you can almost see it, sturdy as heartwood, glowing through
the translucent flesh.

The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul within is fixed at seven...

In the next years, the hardening spreads from the center, as one finds and fixes
the facets of the soul, until "I am" is set, delicate and detailed as an insect in amber.

- Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber

By Mutsumi

on writing success - log lines

I've read before that the log line of your novel should be the first paragraph in
a query (QueryShark says to avoid them).  Some call it a hook, and mean it to
catch the agent's attention, not explain the entire story in one sentence.  Other
times I've read it's best to have in your pocket in case you need to give a verbal
pitch.  Either way, it's important to come up with one for your project.

All log lines should have:

An adjective about the hero.
An adjective about the bad guy.
A goal we can relate to.
A Killer title

Questions to help you into writing the log line:

1. What genre is the book?
2. Who is the main character?
3. What makes her unique?
4. What is the inciting incident?
5. What is your main character’s goal?
6. What is the major conflict your character will face?
7. What is the consequence if the main character fails?

Some famous log lines:

Seventeen year old Bella Swan falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen only
to find out he might want to kill her more than love her.
- TWILIGHT by Stephenie Meyer

Eleven year old famous wizard, Harry Potter, is sent to wizarding school to learn
magic, but ends up solving a mystery over life and death all with the most evil of
wizards, Lord Voldemort, trying to kill him.
- HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE by JK Rowling.

Sixteen year old Clary Fray discovers, after her mother's kidnapping, that she
belongs to a world of Shadow Hunters, a nephilum force protecting humans
from downworlders (vampires, werewolves, and faeries).
- CITY OF BONES by Cassandra Clare

An angel, Bethany, is sent to Earth on a mission, but falling in love wasn't part of
the plan.  - HALO by Alexandra Adornetto (Source)

Get brainstorming!

Semi-arbitrary illustration by Ema Trapsa

illustration - joana

Illustrator Joana's art reminds me of Catherynne M. Valente's fantasy and science
fiction.  Ex. Silently, Very Fast, one of her short science fiction works - with its
strange, but brilliant, imagery, metaphors, and character dynamics.

The light-motes trace arcs over the globe of my heart, reflecting softly on her belly,
green and gold. Her hair floats around her like seaweed, and I see in dim moonlight
that her hair has grown so long it fills the lake and snakes up into the distant
mountains beyond. Neva is the lake. One by one, the motes of my heart zigzag
around my meridians and pass into her belly, glowing inside her, fireflies in a jar.

- Valente, Silently, Very Fast