This morning, a co-worker practiced giving a slide presentation. One of the group leaders' only suggestion was,

You should change "Can use GFF input" to "Is capable of utilizing GFF input".

There was some big snafu at the Las Pegasus convention. Don't ask me what happened; I don't know. There's an auction to raise money to pay hotel and travel fees and other expenses to bronies who were supposed to be comped by the convention but weren't.

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PrettyPartyPony posted her first story tonight, Whispering Stars. I don't know where chapters 2 and later are going, but you should read the first chapter if you like expansive head-canon philosophizing about Luna and Celestia. Lots of clever head-canon packed into a small space. Don't read it too quickly. It may take some re-reading to appreciate everything that's being said. It may help if you realize that in this story,

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Some years back, I was fussing to [Lester del Rey] about finding an idea for a story that hadn't been used before. I wanted something new and original. He gave me one of his patented smiles--the ones that always made him look like a cross between your kindly uncle and Jack Nicholson in The Shining--and told me in no uncertain terms that new ideas did not come along that often and that when they did, they came in disguise. It was better to take old, established ideas and just turn them

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Excerpts from four of the most-famous plays in English, all pure telling.

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Someday I hope to write a longer post on this, but today I need to type in this passage from Francine Prose's excellent Reading Like a Writer, which I recommend you get immediately if you're serious about writing and have already read a lot of basic books about writing. (Beware that its lessons are advanced and difficult to emulate, and gave me many bouts of hopelessness as I read it.)

The opening of "Dulse" by Alice Munro:

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If you removed every line containing the word "friendship" from the season 3 finale, you'd have a silent film. The show is no longer about friendship. It's about the word "friendship". The word "friendship" is magic; if you use it often enough, wonderful things will happen. Just recite it out loud, like an incantation.

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Writers on fimfiction are saying, "The dramatic arc needs more time! It will ruin the show's dynamics! It's too big a climax for season 3!"

Meanwhile, on deviantart.com, the artists are saying, "Yay! Now we can draw Twilight with wings!"

Scene and Structure is a good little book by Jack Bickham with several simple formulas that work to keep stories engaging. Jack Bickham wrote many action/adventure/suspense novels, although he's better-known for the columns and books he wrote for Writers' Digest, and for teaching writing at the U. of Oklahoma from 1973 to 1990.

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Cloudsdale Congress is in Alexandria, Virginia (USA) on March 9-10. Registration is $35. Questions for you:

1. Are you thinking of going? It's so close to me, I have to at least check it out on Saturday.

2. JMac wants to do one or two author's panels. What should be the topics for the panels? I'm thinking just "Writing fan-fiction 101" and "Writing fan-fiction 201".