So many reasons to like this:
but I think I like it most for the closure. Scott McCloud would be proud!
Blog
The remedy for speech I don’t like…
…is more speech, or more money?
Both, apparently.
Sometimes being a member of the ACLU puts me in an uncomfortable position. Its enthusiastic support of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is one of those times.
Ira Glasser, former executive director, offers an explanation of why we should like this. Intellectually, I get it. But I still don’t like it. The Onion does its usual excellent job of highlighting why.
Robert B. Parker, 1932-2010
Author Robert B. Parker died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and it makes me sad. I’ve enjoyed his books for over 20 years, and particularly recommend the first dozen of his novels about Spenser — the private detective, not the poet. His discipline (write 5 pages a day, no more and no less) and his craft (even after multiple readings of, say Valediction, I’m still amazed at how he could move from introspection to violent action and back) and his ability with dialogue are inspiring. Hard to match, though; I know he would have found a better way to write that last sentence, and could have done it without the parentheticals.
I don’t know why I never wrote him a fan letter, but I didn’t. Probably because I still can’t think of anything to say but thank you, and now all I can do is say it in public. So, thank you. And thanks to wanting to learn more about him, I ran across Wired for Books, where I will now spend more time than I ought to spare listening to author interviews. I counted more than 85 that I want to hear right now.
But I’ll try to emulate Parker’s disciplined approach to making books and be sure I get my pages written before I start listening. When I do, I’ll start with him.
Robot 6 and T-Minus
Tim O’Shea interviewed me for the swell Robot 6 sector of Comic Book Resources, and you can find it here. I tried not to say the same things about the same things, as a rival philosopher once accused Socrates of doing. But I’m no Socrates, so maybe I did. At the end you’ll find out more about what I should be writing instead of this blog post, though…
The Imitation Game
That’s the name of the serialized story I’m doing for Tor.com, and I’m taking a break from writing it to note that the sequence that I thought would be impossible in the first act came together in one night* last week, so this next bit, which I think will be easy, will probably be difficult. I’ve come to expect that I’m wrong about stories I’m writing a lot more often than I’m right.
But in tonight’s batch of pages Turing enters Bletchley Park, and everybody is glad to see him there, myself included.
[*a night that ended late, and with a smile, and with a splitting headache]
Thanks, teen librarians!
T-Minus was just selected as one of YALSA’s 2010 Great Graphic Novel for Teens. Lovely!
