Dumb news, Good news, Weird news.

[bodlon]

It’s been an interesting week and a half. Lots of things on my plate, lots of changes. My word count tanked last week, but things seem to be much more on track since yesterday. Buzzy, lots to do, etc.

There’s an interesting article from The Guardian about a crime novelist being sued for using a prominent Parisian fabric shop in one of her books. The shop’s argument: that using it as the setting for a novel full of threats and murder is defamatory. The publisher and the author, Lalie Walker, obviously disagree pretty strenuously. As well they should.

A writer’s job is to engage life, and the world, and to take that experience and make stories out of it. Whether we do it in an imaginary setting (say, Middle Earth) or a real one (like Chicago), we’re still dealing in truths and simulacra. Sometimes that’s best done in outer space with a bunch of imaginary points of reference. Sometimes that’s best done out behind the Vatican while the Rolling Stones look on from a stretch Hummer driven by a shirtless Vladimir Putin.

While I’ve not read Lalie Walker’s book, but I think most people who are likely to read it are smart enough to know the difference between something shady Actually Happening and a story. Well, usually. The whole DaVinci Code thing gets a lot of play on the History Channel. As the article points out, though, the Church hasn’t exactly rushed out and sued Dan Brown…

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If you (unlike Lalie Walker) like writing science fiction (esp. if it includes proper science), go check out Crossed Genres’ Science In My Fiction contest. This is a delicious idea, and the prizes look pretty good as well.

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Random: over the last thousand years, the depiction of portion sizes in pictures of the last supper has increased substantially.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com