1) I'll start this round-up with a shout-out for my proudest piece of work this week, and no, I don't mean the Avengers as Metal Bands (that's a close second). Over at SFFChronicles, I've constructed an index for the Resource Section, making it easier to find relevant links and resources for SFF writers' projects. Obviously biased here but I think it's a great resource and well worth a look for any writer, and it'll only get better as I pull out some of the many other links and good advice that's been posted on that forum over the years.
2) Another huge resource for writers that's getting put together right now is the Reddit Fantasy virtual MegaCon. I recently read a panel with a number of authors an agent talking about the journey to publication and since then, have decided I'll be going over the others and seeing what good stuff is there. Here's the index thread for everyone else interested
3) And now for yet more great SFF things to read, courtesy of the wonderful and weird people taking part in Wyrd & Wonder. I'll now take a moment to pretend I'm the first to do that. There's been a slew of great blog posts, with the round-ups by Imyril and Lisa the best place to look, but there's two articles in particular I really enjoyed. Acqua di More's skewering of the idea that easy to understand magic with hard rules is realistic is so neatly done it took me a couple of days to fully wrap my head around it. I wish there was a way to convert the rest of fandom to this view; I wish I'd got round to understanding it quicker. It also has footnotes. Speaking of views that I wish the of fantasy fandom held, Line's post about the nuances of the fantasy genre and how they're often overlooked is spot on in my view. More effort needs to be made by the people to keep the common view of fantasy separate from everything the genre can be.
4) In cool SFF related TV news, we've had some of the first pictures of Old Guard, a comic book adaption coming to Netflix featuring a team of immortal mercenaries, led by Charlize Theron and an axe. I've got high hopes here that will almost definitely be dashed. Also coming to screens at some point is an adaptation of Making Wolf, an African Noir by Rosewater author Tade Thompson. I'm pretty excited about that too, as my first thought after reading Womble's review of it was that would make good TV. Next thing I knew, Thompson was telling me I wasn't the only one thinking that.
5) Turns out five things was really stretching it today so I'd just like to riff a little of Acqua's point. Something I'm a big believer in is that when you're writing, you're not selling reality, you're selling verisimilitude. You're selling something that feels like reality as we know it. That reality is hugely more messy than it is commonly portrayed is something known by most people who've delved deeply into one aspect of it yet nevertheless, as a whole, we accept it being relatively simple, particularly when it comes to fiction. After all, there's only so many pages in a book, and we want a coherent story first and foremost. The story has to make sense and in that context, it can never be entirely realistic. I think a bit more acceptance of that from the fantasy community, and a bit less hunting levels of realism that most historical fiction only flirts with, would be a fine thing.
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