So much of writing is a wordage game that it always kills me to cut in the first draft. Dammit, Jim! I’m a writer, not a … word-destroyer person… Anyway, so that hurt, but what ended up happening is that though I cut out an 11000-word sequence, I had always been dubious about it, and as soon as it was pasted into the cut file (always always always keep a cut file) it was like Read more…
When a person rereads Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky as an adult in the 21st century, a couple of things stand out. First, there’s the Old Man motif — the wise old mentor who plays as stand-in for Heinlein himself. It’s done well or badly in all of Heinlein’s books (excruciatingly so in Stranger in a Strange Land). In Tunnel, it’s perfectly fine. Secondly, I kinda wish that YA could still be like this. Maybe Read more…
The Austin Lyric Opera‘s production of Pagliacci was a beautiful and heartbreaking performance and reminds me once again how lucky Austin is to be a small city with big-city artistic drive. I am an opera neophyte and freely admit it, so if someone has a more informed criticism of the performances I am sure they will be more useful than mine, but you know what — I still think the singers were extraordinary. Danielle Pastin Read more…