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Sources of Inspiration: Creative Coping with Criticism

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There are two ways I’ve found I can creatively respond to criticism, particularly painful criticism.  One is if I feel there’s any truth in the critic’s words, I think about it, see if it’s something I can fix. I keep an eye open for that something in my future works. I see if I can pounce on the flaw, rewrite it, transform it into something better, thus using the criticism to make my work better.  Two, I image the critic’s words, the shape their mouth makes while the angry words are coming out of it. I visualize how the words … Read more

On Beyond Cisgender, part Three: Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender

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                     QSF On Beyond Cisgender Part Three                                        By Jeff Baker             For a year or so now, I have been posting about authors who do not fit the “white, male, cisgender” paradigm most familiar from recommended reading lists in schools. Three books on the list this time, three books that I discovered by accident.             “Cosmos Latinos” (ed. by Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina Gavilan, published by Wesleyan University Press) is a large collection of fiction by Latin American authors from the turn of the last century to the present century. Most surprising to some readers unfamiliar with … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Sorting Out the Clutter

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My imagination sometimes feels like a jumble of clutter in an attic. I’ve got so many ideas, so many stories in progress. Some of them get shoved into a back corner for too long, buried under other ideas. Sitting there, forgotten, they gather dust. How do I clean up these lost stories, make some progress on them?  Creating reminders helps, doing things which remind me that these stories are there, waiting for me. When I blog, I try to fill them with reminders of a particular character, a particular story. More and more, I’m using them to focus on my … Read more

Jeff Baker, Boogieman in Lavender: The Groovy Gay World of Victor Banis

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    The Groovy Gay World of Victor J. Banis                                          By Jeff Baker             It was the Swinging Sixties.             Spies were everywhere. Fictional ones, anyway. James Bond was all over the place. The Man (and the Girl) from U.N.C.L.E. were plying their trade. And there were spoofs; Maxwell Smart klutzed his way through five years of television misadventures. The British movie “Carry On Spying” pre-dated Smart by about a year.             And the coolest, grooviest, most flamboyant superspy of them all wore outrageous outfits, used super-gadgetry as well as his good looks, charm and a fair amount of sex … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Dire

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Dire wolf in the snow.

So, I learned something cool the other day. Which, to no one’s surprise, lead me down an even cooler rabbit hole of information. Facts and tidbits I’m stoked to have as I plot a pretty big (for me) series that involve extra-dimensional beings and evolution. In a war where magic and biological advantage is supreme, this is the stuff which awesome details are made of. Convergent evolution is a known thing in the word of biological science. Two, or more, species that look and act the same but are genetically different. What I didn’t know about was the massive reclassification … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Painting a Portrait of a Character With Words

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Something I marvel at in other writers is their ability to bring a character to life in a few words that artfully weave their way into the plot, drawing attention to that plot as well as the character without distracting the reader.  This is an art I’m told I’ve improved in. I can’t tell you how gratified I am whenever I get a compliment on my description. I’ve struggled long and hard to better it. I do have a tendency to become fixated upon eyes. Eyes are one of the first things I notice about a person when I see … Read more

There Was A Crooked Man, A Queer Tale By A Master Of Words – Boogieman In Lavender

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Once upon a time, in an era where LGBT relationships did not have even the acceptance they do today there was a grand master of words who envisioned something entirely different. Charles Leroy Nutt, a heterosexual writer who had published in science fiction and fantasy magazines and written for comic books, penned a “daring” story titled “The Crooked Man,” which first appeared in the August 1955 issue of Playboy and followed a man, “Jessie,” described as a “pervert” through a world of furtive hookups and clandestine sex (even if the sex could only be implied.) Charles Leroy Nutt’s other published … Read more

U=(N/T)M*G: Asymmetry

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Cute cartoon spider on a web.

Not gonna lie, spiders are both really curious to me and creepy as hell. Just my opinion and I’m not making a judgement on anyone who likes these little guys. They aren’t my jam, that’s all. However, they’re very interesting once I get past the makes-my-scalp-crawl part. So, here’s a content warning for anyone who doesn’t like spiders: the links have spiders. You’re warned. When the news piece that spawned this little post came across my feed, I scrolled down quick because spider! But then my brain kicked in and I remembered seeing space in the headline. What I found … Read more

Sources of Inspiration: Organization

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You may be laughing at this title. What does organization have to do with inspiration? A lot more than I thought. How I arrange things, whether or not I have a file open on my laptop, what that file is; all of these matters make a big difference is whether or not I work on particular project or not. Seeing the file prompts me, gets me going, reminds me to work on it. Where I place my notebook or file helps me remember it.  How I organize my thoughts as I work on a manuscript can help a great deal … Read more

Light in Dark December – Boogieman in Lavender

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“This is a strange Christmas Eve…” –Winston Churchill, from Christmas speech to Congress in U.S., December 1941. There have been grim times in this country before, but there has not been a Christmas like this one. The darkness has covered the commercial glitter. In person events are cancelled. Families are celebrating the holidays separately. LGBT people are not really strangers to this sort of thing. People on their own, chosen families, making do or having something really traditional, this is how many of us have lived our lives. I have been seriously fortunate, having accepting family and good friends. I’ve … Read more