The Revenge of Shaken & Stirred

Gwenda Bond: YA author, writer of other things, and possible escapee from a screwball comedy. This is yet another place I put things online. Find out more at my home territory or stick a pin in the twitter map. My first novel is BLACKWOOD, a modern take on the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island (available now). Next up are THE WOKEN GODS (Sept. 2013) and GIRL ON A WIRE (summer 2014).

I will happily try to answer Asks. Just drop them via the Magic 8 Ball (aka Ask) at the top of the page. And shake.

long exposure picture of a lightning bolt hitting a tree

I hope this is real, because it reminds me of Big Trouble in Little China. (The magic looks like that, remember.)

(via miriamforster)

kat-howard:

“Listen, whatever it is you try

to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you

like the dreams of your body,

its spirit

longing to fly while the dead-weight bones

toss their dark mane and hurry

back into the fields of glittering fire

where everything, 

even the great whale,

throbs with song.”

Mary Oliver, from her poem “Humpbacks.”

So beautiful.

teralynnchilds:

Smart advice for a first draft.

myramcentire:

Pixar’s in house theory, one I will forever apply to drafting. 

I would just like to say I AM EXCELLENT AT THIS. Slow to be right, but very, very fast at being wrong.

When it comes to writing I’m a new-born baby every time — always come into it naked and shivery and without any bones. I never learn anything about it at all. I sometimes wonder whether one can possibly be meant to do the thing at which they are more blind and inept and blundering than at anything else in the world.

Willa Cather, letter to Sarah Orne Jewett, 1908

via The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, published in direct violation of her will (but… I don’t really care!)

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/03/willa-cather-letters/63420/

I sure hope so.

(Via mushfromnewsies)

edithshead:

Tina Turner, c. 1960s
photographer unknown

Tina Turner forever too.

megzam:

retrogasm:

WW

I relate to this because it looks like she’s done her job and she’s finally ready to take her damn bra off.

Wonder Woman forever.

Well, since my second novel is titled The Woken Gods, out later this year, and is about just that, I have thought a great deal about what appeals to me in stories about the mythic (and what doesn’t). There were two big things that inspired The Woken Gods: my love for Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World and my desire for more stories where gods were threatening or dangerous. I wanted to explore a more ambiguous morality, with gods that were not anything like oversized humans. I also have a real soft spot for stories that feature more than one pantheon; though, having undertaken one, I now understand why it’s more usual to see people pick Greek or Norse or Egyptian and stick with it.

I participated in a new Mind Meld posted today. Read more at the link — as well as lots of contributions from other wonderful peoples like Chuck Wendig, Mike Underwood, Adam Christopher and Tessa Gratton.

Over at the other place, I talk about what packaging is in light of the discussion around the fanfic news today.

“Such as people all but fleeing in horror when the word was mentioned. “Gnomes?” said one exhibitor on Monday, when the show opened in preview. “I can’t comment on gnomes.” ” Gnomes Pop Up at Chelsea Flower Show, to Horror of Many - NYTimes.com

Best story of the day? Maybe of the year. (Via Laura Miller.)

authormelissadelacruz:

Who out there is supporting “I read YA week”? Tell us what you’re reading right now! 
Because we read YA

Sara Zarr’s The Lucy Variations. Which is AMAZING. Of course.

authormelissadelacruz:

Who out there is supporting “I read YA week”? Tell us what you’re reading right now! 

Because we read YA

Sara Zarr’s The Lucy Variations. Which is AMAZING. Of course.

(via mundiemoms)