I should report on the World Con but everybody’s done it already, and since I’m officially the World’s Worst Blogger, I won’t bother. (Say, was it a rhyme?) I’ll just say that everybody was really nice, Hannah, Amber and Lisa were great roomies, and that I hope to come to BosCon next year, if only to see the first Brass Monkey awarded.

There’s been some discussion going on interstitial art and the speculative in spec fiction. Which makes me again think of what is it what I want to write. My shorts (and flashes especially) sound very different to my novels. They sound better, too--or at least more like I like them to sound. More lyrical. Stylish, if you will. Novels are different--but they need to be different. They demand a different tone from me. Wonder why. Are they more idea-focused? Is that it? And is it bad?

One of the issues in my latest WiP is the conflict between the demands of hard-sf world building and the tone of the story. I’ve got critters telling me I have to explain how this world works or they won’t buy into the story. But I don’t want to explain. It’s not what I’m about. Sure, the worldbuilding is there; I’ve done my job. But I don’t want to spend pages explaining technical details. So I risk being to vague to hard sf readers. And anyway, the whole thing has a very mainstream sensibility--though it’s set in a future world without which the story would fall apart, to it’s sf all right. The thing is--I don’t care. I don’t care if it’s sf, how much sf, etc. There’s enough worldbuilding there to support the story, I’m sure. And it’s the story that matters to me. And frankly, it’s a thriller. SF thriller, OK, but more a thriller than sf. Or is it?

Did I mention being the World’s Worst Blogger? Oh, well. Rambling off. Bed time.