Link Treats

It’s been kind of quiet over here, hasn’t it? Well, the dayjob’s been keeping me busy, as has the new story I’m working on. But now, I’m in the midst of a long weekend from work, and the story is almost ready to send to my betas. One more alpha read and it should be there.

So, that’s hopeful. Today’s batch of links is a mixed bag of goodies. I hope you’ll find something interesting here.

Writing up that Staircase
Minerva Zimmerman, one of the contributors to Winter Well: Speculative Novellas About Older Women, takes a look at the writer’s journey. I like the metaphor.

10 Literary Authors You Didn’t Know Wrote Science Fiction
Jason Diamond at Flavorwire tries to fool us with a list of literary authors who wrote science fiction. Interesting list. I never thought of Woolf’s Orlando as science fiction, but okay,

Top 10 worst sex scenes in modern literature
As a member of Livejournal’s weepingcock community, I’ve read way worse sex scenes than most of these, but these actually got published! I’m torn between the lepidopterist and Zorro (both of which made an appearance over at wc) being my “favorites.” What are yours?

How to prove to a global warming denier that climate change is real, in 14 seconds
At this point, I don’t know if you can convince a climate change denier that it’s real. Deniers gonna deny. Still, it’s pretty damned obvious to those who actually want to use their brains.

A Poem By Patricia Lockwood
Ms. Lockwood’s poem, The Rape Joke, over at the Awl. Powerful stuff. Trigger warning.

Link Treats

This batch of links isn’t quite as heavy, at least in my mind. I hope you find something of interest.

Lessons sports teach you: Perfection is the enemy of excellence
Sam B. at Fit, Feminist, and (almost) Fifty shares her thoughts on the problems of perfectionism.

Trayvon Martin, The East, and the Consequences of Inaction
My inner seven-year-old is a lot like the Belle Jar’s. It’s part of why I’m so cranky all the time.

OMG, like there are totally things called Valley Bees!
I’m so sure, Bug Girl!

Angry Young Woman
A poem from Wordlander. It’s awesome.

To Succeed, Fail Boldly
The Weekly Sift offers some words of hope.

Weekly Linkroll

It’s been a heck of a week here in New England. I teared up a little listening the Red Sox game yesterday when Neil Diamond made an impromptu appearance to sing along with himself in the seventh inning. A little odd, since the two Neils weren’t always in synch, but quite touching.

One good thing, though? The Winter of the Novel is finished! I handed off a printed manuscript to my alpha this week. Now, on to the next story.

Time for some links. I decided that all the links this week are going to be positive in some way. I think we all need that. (back to my usual cranky self next time)

Jacek Yerka – dreams and imagination
Wordlander on an artist I didn’t know of until reading her post. Beautiful!

Relax. You’re Already Ok. Also: Pimp Suits
Meg Worden over at Feed Me Darling on being enough.

If Diets Don’t Work, Then What?
Fit, Feminist, and (almost) Fifty gives a pretty good answer. FF&(a)F is quickly becoming one of my favorite blogs.

High Schooler Protests ‘Slut-Shaming’ Abstinence Assembly Despite Alleged Threats From Her Principal
High school senior Katelyn Campbell stands up to her bully of a principal over an abstinence-only assembly full of lies. He threatened to call the college who accepted her to tell them about her “bad character.” The college’s response is awesome.

Anonymous’s Mirror Facebook Page Mocking the Westboro Baptist Church with Love and Tinfoil Kittehs
Making me love Anonymous even more.

New Zealand Passes Marriage Equality, Bringing Country Count To 14
Zack Ford over at Think Progress on New Zealand passing marriage equality. Both videos are definitely worth watching. I love the MP in the second one.

Shakespeare for Hamsters
Hannah Meiklejohn’s hamster likes poetry, so it seems. And pumpkin seeds.

Astronauts’ Favorite Space Food: Shrimp Cocktail
Who knew? Megan Garber at The Atlantic gives us the scoop.

The Blue Binder

So, some of you may remember the yellow binder post from a few months ago? If you do, thanks for reading and for sticking around. For those of you who don’t remember or haven’t read that post, first, thanks for finding me! Glad to have you checking in on my little part of the blogosphere. (Same to all of you, actually.)

Second, just as a catch-up since it’s been a while, I’ve been talking about my development as a writer off and on since I started blogging earlier this year, and the most recent posts have been nostalgic as I’ve looked at my older writing and shared my thoughts about it. This’ll be another post like that.

Bugs Bunny Could Have Defeated Them, Too…

Last week I was writing about my old writing collections–two binders, one from high school and younger, and one from mostly college–but I didn’t go into much detail. Like I did say in that post, though, the older binder has a title: Short Stories, Biographies, Plays and Other Great Works of Art by Les Beat. That title’s written in different marker-colors on a torn sheet of college-ruled paper taped to the binder cover.

See?

So, what’s in that older yellow binder?

A Mnemonic Collection

Stuff I wrote in high school (even as far back as junior high) and college that has survived 27 years or more of moving around the U.S. lives in a pine chest that R built when he was getting started as a professional woodworker (circa 1991). The chest sits in our bedroom closet, crammed full of things I’ve never wanted to throw away. So many things, in fact, that what started out to be a post about my early writing has turned into more of a memory inventory (translated: one of the reasons 2 people need as big a house as we do; pack rats r us).

My Favorite Metaphor for the Day

is this one: your vision a dim flashlight that you have to shake all the way to the outhouse

That’s all I have to say, really. It’s from an Ani DiFranco piece called “Parameters.” The whole piece is beautiful and chilling and definitely worth a listen, but the image of that dim flashlight is sticking with me. You can listen to whole thing here (she chats a bit at the beginning and the crowd’s kind of rowdy, but they settle down):

Art as healing. Metaphors that work. Simply, yes.