The malcontents from Clarion South Apartment 336 (Ben, Steph, Su Lynn and myself) are proud to announce the arrival of the world’s first 4D blog. (Viewing goggles optional.  Imax version subject to demand).

The Long Write
http://thelongwrite.com/

* More insightful than the Collected Twitter Posts of Jar Jar Binks.

* More controversial than the implementation of decimal time.

* More entertaining than reading a history of object-oriented management strategies written in binary.

* Filled with more Fail than AmazonFail, RaceFail and the Fail Whale combined.

* Now with 20% more monkeys.

For your reading enjoyment we present the wise words and thoughtful thoughts of the unstoppable Sean Williams.

http://thelongwrite.com/2010/02/03/sean-williams-interview-2/

http://thelongwrite.com/2010/02/03/sean-williams-interview-2/

A couple of fun articles on the Guardian about how scary books and movies for children should be.

Maurice Sendak tells parents worried by Wild Things to 'go to hell'

Do you know what today's kids need? Thumb amputation, that's what

A look at how statistics can sometimes be misleading.

http://anilmenon.com/blog/2009/10/simpsons-paradox-in-the-slush-pile.html

The World SF News Blog has an interesting interview with Ashok Banker, an Indian author who has a lot of controversial things to say about the state of science fiction publishing.

http://worldsf.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/exclusive-interview-with-ashok-banker/

I finished a proposal (outline and sample chapters) for a book about weird things from Japan.  So will be sending that off to agents.

I sold Love’s Apprentice, a micro fiction story to Thaumatrope. 

Have been doing some planning for a YA fantasy novel.

Started work on a new short story.   My first post-Clarion South short story.

Had been planning to revise one of my Clarion stories (The Fourth Monkey) but haven’t made much progress with that.  Basically starting it from scratch again.

Have also been doing a lot of reading recently.

I read Jeff Vandermeer’s Booklife, which is one of the most useful books on writing I’ve ever read.

Been reading some YA fantasy novel.  Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines (which has a really cool premise), Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret (beautiful book), James Owens’ Here, There Be Dragons (interesting premise, but the characters weren’t that engaging) and China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun.   I love Mieville’s other books and while there are some cool things in here, it felt way too long for me.

Also read some more behavioral economics books (why do people do strange things) – Tim Harford’s The Logic of Life and Dan Ariely’s Predictibly Irrational.  Both fascinating.

I read Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.   This is the first of the Dexter books.  I’m a big fan of the TV series and the book was really enjoyable as well.  I think the ending of the first series of the TV show was better than the book’s ending.

Plus some Japanese history books.  Now I know all about warrior monks.