I realize that I don't point out videos the way some other bloggers do --gaming blogs or not-- but it's not that I don't watch YouTube videos. Yes, I watch my share of music and sports and gamer videos, but I delve into whatever piques my interest. You know, topics such as solar power, blacksmithing, cooking, and other stuff.* Right now, I've been going down the rabbit hole of pellet smoker grills**, but something I also have been keeping an eye on is written SF&F, because I'm a nerd who grew up reading Tolkien, Eddings, Moorcock, Asimov, James Blish, and Fred Saberhagen.
So when a video from Brandon Sanderson's YouTube channel popped up in my feed, I was curious:
I'd never actually heard Brandon Sanderson speak until now***, but yes, he is planning on recording his entire series of lectures in 2025 for the Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy class he teaches at BYU. Apparently he's done this before, but since the first entry in the series is only 14 days old or so, I'm catching this right at the beginning.
I found his lecture to be engaging and honestly a lot of fun, which bodes well for the rest of the lectures.
Me, I just want to know how he cranks out these mammoth novels as if it were effortless. I know it's not that easy --I do write, after all-- but I also know he's been doing this for quite a while now and so he's got a good cadence down. One thing he did mention in that first lecture about outliners versus discoverers**** was that he mentioned that discoverers have issues with over-editing, where you are constantly going back and editing what you've written. And, dammit, he has me pegged right there. I am a discoverer, and I have issues constantly going back and tweaking my written work before I've actually finished the damn thing.
(If you ever wondered if there's more fiction in the pipeline, yes, there is. And now you know my Achilles' Heel.)
Maybe I ought to create a Friday lecture post as a recurring item, pointing to an online lecture that I found interesting. I can't really take "Friday Fun Day", since that's the informal title Tim Cain uses for his Friday YouTube posts. So, watch this space to see if I do anything with it, and if you write or are interested in the craft of writing, go watch the video. It is definitely worth the hour's lecture.
*No, not so much on makeup (sorry), but I do watch videos about sewing and cosplay and historical/fantastical clothing. Hey, it's engineering with cloth and thread!
**I'm sure my Questing Buddy can give you an earful about how I've been pestering one of our friend group about his Pit Boss smoker since I've been thinking about having a proper smoker to use on the deck once I'm finished rebuilding it. Right now I have plenty of time to narrow models down, since it's not even late Winter yet and there's snow covering the deck at the moment.
***John Scalzi is from Ohio, and he periodically makes visits to our local independent bookstore for readings and signings, so I have heard him before. I've also heard Kim Harrison at the same bookstore quite by accident when I didn't know she was doing a signing; her Hallows books are set in a Fantastical version of Cincinnati. Yes, before you ask, she does have quite the following here locally, even though she's not a local herself. She's from Michigan, which amuses me to no end. Why, you may ask? Because of the rivalry between The Ohio State University and the University of Michigan.
I've also attended signings by Anne McCaffrey, Terry Brooks, and Robert Jordan, among others.
****In terms of writing style: do you have an outline you follow or you just wing it?
No comments:
Post a Comment