Wow, the blogosphere and internet have been full of news and blogs that offer weird, wonderful, and soul-touching bits and pieces that captured this SF writer’s attention. I hope you are as fascinated with these robots, mermaids, & dogs as I am.
Would you move to Mars? Scientists think this might be possible in the near future.
How about if you had NASA’s R2 to help?
Marcy Kennedy (an awesome WANA1011 classmate) also spoke of Mermaids in this touching tribute to her friend: Who is Your Unicorn?
You already know I am a marshmallow when it comes to dogs. Dogs and heroes – I’m toasted :). These two links demonstrate that our canine friends can suffer right alongside us.
He had me at Hero. 🙂 Hero, the dog.
Combat service dogs diagnosed with PTSD.
Demonstrating that writing ideas can come from anywhere is the following story about an endangered Salamander. Just the name of this creature brings to mind fantasy and horror: First Ozark Hellbender Raised in Captivity. If that isn’t a story title, I don’t know what is!
K. M. Weiland exhorts writers to mimic the masters and gives us clear guidelines on the difference between mimicry and plagiarism. Four Reasons to Mimic Masters.
Finally, I am not the only writer offering tips on revision this week (see my Re-Visioning Your Story Writing Wednesday post) Larry Fix offered tips on rewriting your nanowrimo story. Make December Your Nanowrimo Revision Month.
Generally what is here is good and useful, but I disagree on one point. Larry states that “Depending on the nature of the difference between your original idea and the one you finished with, you may or may not be able to salvage it.” I disagree. First, whether it’s fixable or not, depends upon how much work you are willing to do. You can always mine a totally failed story, figure out why it failed and use the salvageable parts to start over. You learn from revising. Most importantly, you learn about your writing process, your strengths, and your weakness when you revise your story.
Well, that’s all for this week. I’d love to hear from you. What inspirations and fascinations have you found on the web or in life this week? Did you enjoy these stories about robots, mermaids, and dogs?