Still working my way through “The King in Yellow,” a short story (or maybe a novella, I haven’t been counting words) in The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler.

An inside view of how one of the Jessicas (not sure if it’s Faust or Alvarez) at BookEnds LLC edits her clients’ work.

Elizabeth Spann Craig‘s analysis of why it is a good tactic to move right on to a new writing project after finishing your last one.

If I were going to have a “best read” and a “most fun read” the latter honor would go to “10 Wonderful Fake Books By TV Characters” at Flavorwire.

BEST READ OF THE DAY: Jeff Cohen at Hey There’s A Dead Guy discussing dialogue tags, specifically the crazy rule about only using the tag ”said.”  Best line: “Reading ‘said’ all the time, even when it’s being done by a master … is like being hit lightly over the head with a hammer every few seconds.”

[Non-literary afterthought: Today, I also read about the curious spike in earthquakes in Oklahoma and Arkansas, the White House's statement on extraterrestrial intelligence, the massive solar flare heralding next year's sunspot climax, and the naming of three new elements.]

Today I’ve been polishing up a novella for submission, tweaking language here and there, adding a few touches for flavor and to give the narrator a bit more dimension.

(Also on my daily agenda: running my iTunes “Least Played” playlist so I can appreciate songs neglected by random shuffle, burning through the last of my hookah tobacco, enjoying a few nice hard ciders, and running The Lord Of The Rings special edition DVDs n the background on my XBox, silenced with the Spanish subtitles on.  I’m weird.)

So, I come to a chapter in which my protagonist, a hardboiled detective hired to locate the missing angel of Despair, makes a bold assertion about his audience, specifically that most readers are women.  Normally, I would just let this pass as part of his “unreliable narrator” charm.  Or obnoxiousness, depending on how you take it.

But, On The Head Of A Pin is about, among many other things, the relationship of the heterosexual male psyche with the broad range of female archetypes. All of the angels are female (or at least they appear to him that way) as is his client.  It’s essentially a “Man In A Woman’s World” story.

In light of this, I decided to do a little research.  Here’s what I came up with: Read more »

“The King in Yellow,” a short story in The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler.

Erin Mitchell‘s discussion at Hey There’s A Dead Guy about what it really means when someone Likes your Facebook author page.  At the same site, Robin Agnew asks “Do Men and Women Write Differently?”  (If you’re not satisfied with her answer, try dumping some of your own writing into the Gender Genie and see what it has to say!)

Still thinking about Les Edgerton‘s “mystical place” anecdote, and looking for it in the stuff I’ve written and stuff I’ve read.  Such places abound in fantasy fiction, but could the river Mattie Ross crosses to follow Rooster and LeBoeuf into Indian country be considered a mystical place?  What about the oil fields in The Big Sleep where you-know-what is hidden?