software I’m taking for a spin right now is Scrivener, which is a tool to help you organize your writing. Basically it’s a glorified text editor, but it adds a way for you to organize your writing (e.g. fiction) hierarchically by scene or snippet, and attaches metadata to each, so you can add summaries or notes or researched information to each section without altering the content of the section itself.
From the parent folder of each section, you can see a “corkboard” view of the summaries of each section, drag and drop to reorder sections, and generate an outline. And when you’re all ready to send the whole shebang off to a proofreader or editor or friend, it’ll export the contents as a Word file or in various other formats.
Writing, simplified. I love this thing so much after a few days that I am definitely going to buy it. Awesome. (Via argh ink)
of MarsEdit, a blog publishing application, a spin. In brief, it makes writing blog posts like writing emails, it’s supposed to make publishing to multiple blogs easier, and integrates nifty features like editing in your favorite text editor, like TextMate. Which is pretty cool for me, because I am lazy and love keyboard shortcuts, which TM has aplenty (like automatically closing HTML tags).
This post was written in MarsEdit. Let’s see if it works for me. (Via What do I know)
Skip Beat! (5 stars) is one of the best manga I’ve read in a while. While I am not a big fan of the art (not because of lack of technical skill; I just don’t like the way the artist draws the faces—they’re too angular), the story and characters are a cut above everything else in the genre, garnering this series its high rating. In fact, of all the series I love, I’d say this one is second only to hana-dan in skillful characterization, even though I’ve only read 4 volumes of it.
It’s unique from the beginning, and continues that way as the story progresses. It begins with a betrayal, but resists the pity-party that would be easy to fall into. In fact, one of the reasons I like it so much is that it features a heroine of tremendous personal strength—again much like hana-dan—not something you find too often in shoujo manga (which is not to say that all shoujo heroines are weak).
Very, very good. Read it.
Again, one of my very favorites, an automatic buy. While not as technically accomplished as Kay or West (e.g., she tends to put too much exposition in dialogue), she is brilliant at writing engaging, gorgeously plotted stories with some of the best characterization you’ll ever read. Really. She makes poetry of human frailty, is unflinching in her treatment of a whole character as few are.
Speaking technically, Robin Hobb is a master of the first-person POV, something that’s hard to get right without drowning the reader in the emotions of the narrating character, all the while creating the emotional intimacy that’s the strong point of first-person.
She’s written 11 books to date, starting with a trilogy of trilogies, which each stand alone but are parts of a larger whole:
- The Farseer:
- The Liveship Traders:
- The Tawny Man:
I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved these books. They are, simply, a life experience. Don’t miss them. The other 2 of the 11 are the first two books in her new trilogy:
I’ve read Shaman’s Crossing, and am right now rereading it in preparation for Forest Mage. The latter of which, I am happy to report, I got a signed copy of when Robin Hobb did a booksigning practically next door late last year.
Here is Robin Hobb’s website, which is extremely difficult to navigate, and, as it is mostly static HTML, probably a pain in the ass to update, which in turn is probably why it’s not updated frequently. Yeesh. What is it about author websites? She also writes as Megan Lindholm.
Cast in Shadow and Cast in Courtlight by Michelle Sagara – both 5 stars
I didn’t intend to start reading Cast in Shadow until I had finished reading the rest of Michelle Sagara’s (aka Michelle West) backlog. Then I didn’t intend to finish it in a day and a half. Then I didn’t intend to order, receive, start the second in the series, or indeed finish that in a day. I didn’t intend a lot of things. But they happened.
And the reason is that I got sucked in. Which I should have known would happen. These two books, the latest Michelle West has written (and the first two in a new trilogy), are as sublimely written and intense as her previous Sun Sword series, but immediately accessible in a way that those books are not. They’re a mixture of murder mystery, cop novel and high fantasy, a skillful blend of lyricism and grittiness. And also so good that it’s hard to read anything else and not be disappointed.
Even when that anything else is a novel I’ve already read and enjoyed. But that’s another blog post.
this recent story on CNN, about teenagers murdering a homeless man and likening it to a violent video game. Which, as has been the trend in mass media for the past few years, the media jumped all over. And of course, the folks over at Penny Arcade got kind of annoyed by this, and wrote a blog post deriding instead the parents of the murderers, and what they did wrong.
So far, this sounds like just another of the news cycles on the disturbing trend of youth violence in recent years, right? But here’s where it’s different. The stepmother of one of these teenagers happens to be a loyal PA reader, and wrote in with a disturbing story about life with this kid, and how nothing a parent could have done would have prevented his eventual slide into murder. Read the whole thing.
Fuyumi Soryo’s new title, ES (5 stars) is looking like it will surpass her previous masterpiece, Mars. With a bleak, sci-fi-like storyline (I have no idea why this is classified as shoujo manga), and an even higher production value than her previous work, ES looks very promising. The art here seems to borrow some of the dark beauty of American comics, and its nightmare visions fit seamlessly into the disturbing view of the world presented in the story. Very highly recommended.
Currently only 3 volumes are out, and the release schedule is an agonizing 3 months between volumes, but the wait is worth it.
of shoujo manga-ka. Her manga is very dark and disturbing—unique in a field where the darker side of life is usually given a light treatment—and it has a terrifically high production value; I think she’s one of the best artists in the field. Mars (5 stars), her hugely popular series of a few years ago, is ample explanation why. It’s got an intriguing plot, tight storyboarding, and simply stunning art. Her drawings show a deep appreciation and understanding of the beauty of the human form, and her stories about the dark side of a seemingly normal situation are fascinating.
I finished this one early last year, and it’s left a lasting impression. Fuyumi Soryo will be on my automatic-buy list for a long time.
well-loved series, Hanazakari no Kimi-tachi he, or hana-kimi for short, is a great favorite of mine (4 stars). I love it mainly for the art, which I think is just beautiful, and the great characters (I can’t decide whether I like Nakatsu or Umeda better). Plot-wise, it’s another straight-up shoujo—you wouldn’t believe how many manga there are where a girl dresses up as a boy in an all-boy’s school or vice versa, and mayhem ensues—but the story tends to wander and be very episodic, which can at times be annoying. I’ve read 16 volumes out of I don’t know how many, and though I was losing interest in the last few volumes because of the aforementioned rambling, I am enjoying it a bit more with the latest volume, because it gets back to the roots of the story. Highly recommended.