Request for Blogical Inspiration

Posted on by scott

I’m headed off to Comic Con in San Diego (schedule below), and will be seeing some (all too few!) of you there. So here’s me sitting down between packing and enplaning, thinking I should get in one more blog post, because it’s been a while, and yet . . .

I can’t think of what to say. Seriously, there’ve been a bunch of cool news items about toxoplasma, some awards news, etc., but I have not felt motivated to blog them. Maybe it’s being in the middle of the hottest summer in recorded history, or maybe it’s being in the middle of writing Goliath. But whatever it is, I’m weirdly bereft of ideas.

So let’s use this comments space as a teachable moment, or a motivatable moment, perhaps. In other words, tell me what you want me to blog! Seriously, what kind of the posts on this blog do you most enjoy, re-read, link to, or at least chortle at? Parasites? Travel pics? Fan art? Writing advice? Bungee jumping? I aim to please.

All right, here’s what I’m doing at Comic Con:

Thursday, July 22. 4:00-5:00
Room 25ABC
Twisting Genres— Fantastic fiction authors talk about pushing the envelope on genre, not confining it to one definition. Participants include China Miéville (Kraken), Justin Cronin (The Passage), Naomi Novik (Tongues of Serpents), Daryl Gregory (The Devil’s Alphabet), Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Cold Black Hearts), Robert Masello (Blood And Ice), Keith Thompson (The Leviathan trilogy), and Scott Westerfeld (The Leviathan trilogy). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy.

And by popular demand: There will be a signing with all of us afterwards, sponsored by the wonderful Mysterious Galaxy (a bookstore, not an actual galaxy). This is first time that Keith and I have signed together in the United States, and unlike boring me with my scrawly-ass signature, he can draw stuff for you.

Okay, I have a plane to catch. Ciao for now.

73 thoughts on “Request for Blogical Inspiration”

  1. Ooooo post about parasites!!!! I really liked Peeps!!!! I love telling my friends the gross things that we share are world with!!!!

  2. I would love to see more fan art. I like seeing how other people view all of your books! 😀

  4. Have a safe trip!

    Personally, I love your writing advice, especially on plot and pacing. Those are two things that I really admire about your writing.

    And, you know, your knack of making things sound pretty… (:

  5. Well, personally I like to hear about Fan Art because I love seeing what people can make. I like making thing and like to learn from other people and their styles of things.

    Also I really love writing advice because what’s better than learning how to write from you favorite author? Actually just recently I’ve been asking a lot of my writing friends about my writing and how I could make it better.

    But one thing I really really really want to know about is the Uglies movie, but I understand that you can’t really post about it all the time because there might not be news about it. Afterall there are a lot of movies higher up the list than Uglies. 🙁 I just hope they wait long enough so I can direct it, but that’s probably not going to happen. *sigh*

  6. I’d love to see more of your upcoming books. I’m insanely excited for Behemoth, so it would be cool to hear more about that. Fanart is cool too, I agree with Bailee-wa that seeing how others see characters is fun. I wish I could see you in San Diego! I want to go so much this year, but I unfortunately live all the way across the country. D:

  7. I l i k e f a n a r t ( w h o d o e s n ‘ t ? ) a n d w r i t i n g a d v i c e i s n i c e , b u t m y r e a l i n t e r e s t i s b u n g e e j u m p i n g ! l o t s a n d l o t s of b u n g e e j u m p i n g ! ( a n d s p a g b o l ! )

  8. I prefer writing advice, especially because I would love to write a story. I hope you have a nice trip, btw! I love writing advice and (since I’m a member of the forum) I rp a ton, it really helps me make my posts for the rps a lot better.
    Love hearing from you (even if it is in blog form),
    Emma

  9. OH! all of them sound good! I loved the Paris grave yard travel pic blog though. But Parasites! and bungee jumping! writing advice and fan art are always welcome though. how did Comic Con go?

  11. I’d like to hear more about the Uglies movie. I haven’t heard much about it. Is it really gonna be made? Or are they still “thinking about it”?

  14. It’d be cool to hear more behind-the-scenes stuff about your books, like how you came up with some of the ideas and what you think of your characters (how you relate to them, etc).

  15. I want you to blog about why you didnt’ do another “Uglies” series. And writing advice.

  16. You could blog about Astralian fruit. And writing advice and about how to become published because it is always helpful.

  17. Yay! Another post! I think writing advice, fan art, and Uglies movie updates would be cool!

    P.S. You’ve been my favorite author for almost 2 years. 🙂

  18. I love to read writing advice. I also love to read about your experiences in the world of publishing. It really breaks down new writers’ fear to read about the path published authors took to get to where they are now.

  19. i woud love to hear about the Uglies Movie, more Fan Art, and pictures while your there in San Diego! (for those of us who cant make it of course..!)

  20. Fan art, parasites… and anything about your books! That character name analyzation you did years ago was very interesting. To me, anyways.

    I DARE you to tell us a future fact about one of your books! You know, something that happens after the book ends.

    Darn, if only I were in San Diego…

  21. How about some more Behemoth pictures? Thats definitely one of the reasons I check your blog every day!

  23. I’m trying to write a novel currently and I loved your writing advice back in November. I took tons of notes. I would LOVE some more tips. They’ve already helped me so much.
    Also- the Uglies movie is something I want to find out more about. I cannot wait for it to come out.
    Paracites are cool too.
    Please do add more writing advice though. Thanks for being so great.
    🙂

  24. Parasites and Travel pics and Fan art and Writing advice and Bungee jumping, please.

    Especially the writing advice would be interesting from you.

  25. How about an entry (or entries) about your inspirations and things that you are interested in. Maybe surprise us with a hidden talent? How are the dance lessons going?

  26. What about a little bit of everything? Maybe some fan art, some writing advice, recommend books, or some interesting news about your awesome books? IDK….just thinking out loud here ^.^

  27. I’m fairly certain you could write about your choice in socks and we’d all still be here! In the absence of sock posts, I’d love to hear about your writing process and general writing advice, as well as news of your current exploits and daring deeds.

  28. I’d like to read:

    – more writinge advices,

    – more comments on covers (there are a lot of italian covers to show!),

    – some book reviews (I’d like to know your vision on the work of other authors. I know it could be… dangerous, but you can choose to review good books!)

  29. I would love more news about your books. I’ll also be more than happy with incredibly random things. I mean really random, like things that don’t even have to do with you. Maybe things like the winnning dog of a dog show. Anything random I would be glad to read.

  30. writing advice is always appreciated. and i second the idea of telling us something that happens after one of your books ends. i’m always interested to hear what authors have to say about what happens after a book ends. like, um, midnighters, perhaps?? i’d be real interested in hearing that!! also, just random things that happen in your life that you deem interesting. or even things that aren’t interesting. or things that are just plain random. like, a hot air balloon flew over my house today. (that wasn’t made up, a hot air balloon actually did fly over my house today. i got pictures.) so yeah, just anything so we hear from you more than once a month!! 😛 have fun at comic-con!!

  31. Hmmm… I loved getting that inside look on that Halloween short story, so… some of that kind of writing would be awesome!

    And… Maybe some back stories… Like things that you may know about your characters or the worlds they live in that doesn’t actually go in the books. Or more information about you, your characters, and your writing, sort of like Kailey-wa was saying.

    You could try to always include fun facts– like about you or about anything really. Maybe something at the end of each blog that you think will make us smile 🙂

    Oh, if you do plan on telling anything that has to do with a book– I have this thing about surprises, I love them– so… maybe put up a warning? Like what something is related to and that we might want to have read x, y, and z first?

    And no, no, no, you don’t need to go bungee jumping, silly! You need to go flying! I’m still going to insist that I think you would love flying! At least start with parasailing…?

  32. PS I also love seeing that little grey box in the discussion every once in a while that makes you a real part of the active conversation and lets me know you really are there…

  33. Oh hey! I didn’t realized you’d be at Comic-Con. Lukas and I are actually going to be at Robert Kirkman’s panel from 4-5 pm talking about WITCH DOCTOR, and then are going to be signing at the Image Comics booth afterwards. (If you missed the news, we signed with Kirkman’s new Image imprint Skybound Entertainment and we’ve got a comic that came out today at the con!)

    I’d love to meet you at some point tomorrow if you’re free! We could geek out about parasitology!

  34. wish i could go to comic-con.
    on a completely unrelated note…
    @Scott, i was wondering if you were inspired by Digg.com when you wrote about kicking stories in Extras. Because i just created an account on Digg and thought that Digging and Kicking are very similar. you submit a story/video/topic, other people come across it on search, and then they Digg/Kick it, which brings the topic higher up on the popularity scale.
    sorry for my mediocre describing abilities
    btw, if anyones interested, my Digg username is rivaroxx

  36. Have a nice trip!

    I personally like the Fan Art blogs, along with the posts about things similar to your books, or weird coincidences. I seem to recall a post where you showed the photos you used for your covers being used elsewhere.

    And hey, don’t cut your signature short 😛 I still treasure the signature in Leviathan from the signing you did back in November.

  40. My best friend is going to be at comic con and I’m extremely jealous! Always when you’re in my area, I miss it and I would kill for you to sign my copy of Leviathan…and Uglies, for that matter….another time perhaps.

    It is comforting to know that an author such as yourself, that has written so many books, could have moments where you’re bereft of ideas. I’m currently writing my first novel. Advice for that would be fantastic 🙂

  41. Hearing about the Uglies movie and Behemoth would be amazing too. I really just love reading anything from your blog beacuse, well, it’s my absolout fave author’s blog….Heck, you could even post about your everyday life if you feel like it and there’s something interesting going on. Updates on maybe how Goliath is going, if you’re having writer’s block, ANYTHING.
    I just love love L-O-V-E reading your blog.

  42. JEALOUS. I wanna go now, but I can’t, because I don’t live anywhere near San Diego.

    I really like the fan-art and the random stuff that has to do with the books. Remember blogging about the contacts that got internet, and the manga-eye ones, and stuff like that? I like it. But anything is exciting, really!

  43. WHOA WHOA WHOA, who are you Bookworm????????? Why are you COPYING my name???????????????????????????????????????????(Sorry if that is kinda uncalled for, but I am very “Territorial”.)

  44. I like reading about “special features” on books that you’ve written. Like why you chose names for characters, and background info thats not in the books.

    For instance, I’m rereading The Secret Hour (for probably the 100th time) and I noticed a note that I wrote in the margin back when I was in high school (many years ago!) It says, “How the H*LL are Midnighters born?” Are they born INTO the secret hour? Before or after they’re cut away? And then what about Midnighter babies? What happens if right before midnight they started to cry, so somebody picked them up and then BLUE! Sounds awfully traumatic to a wee baby squirming around in someone’s frozen arms…

  45. I would be interested in reading a blog about your overall favourite sci-fi/fantasy book(s), be it just a list or an in-depth discussion. Also, a variation, is what things you look for in a book of these genres.

  46. I’d love to see some fanart, writing tips and bungy jumping would be good 😀 And perhaps some stories? Tales of random/funny/different occurences either in your life recently or growing up, or any time 🙂

  47. Liset: i’ve thought about that same thing. yeah i would like to know stuff like that. Like, Scott, maybe have us ask a whole bunch of questions that arent answered in the books or by you yet, and then you can answer them!

  49. As much as I love all the things you’ve mentioned, I really want to hear about your experience at Comic Con. What panels did you see? Was there anything that inspired you to write?
    And also- since it’s the hottest summer- what is the best way to beat the heat? Got any smoothie ideas you want to share?
    Hope you’re well.
    Ta

  50. I love any posts about the Uglies Series (especially about the suposed movie..?). I also love to see the fan art, and I find the writing tips very interesting. Bunjee jumping isn’t a bad idea either.. 😉

  51. I’d love you to post some writing advice. I recently re-read yours and Justine’s NaNoWriMo advice from last year, and it’s helping me a great deal with writing my novel.
    Especially the meta-documents and different uses of Scrivener, I never thought of it myself, and always wondered why my writing was such a mess when I got past the first 30 pages.

    Or maybe a post about inspiration? Where do you get ideas? What makes your fictional brain kick in a higher gear and spit out new and original ideas?

    Also, things that make your characters come alive. Like Liset said: background stories, names, personal traits. Do they just pop into your head or do you have a method to come up with that?

    Have a nice trip! 🙂

  53. i love writing advice. big thing for me these days: finding the TIME and the MOTIVATION to sit down and write. i’ve got 2 young kids (15 months and 3 years old), so by the time they’re in bed, all i wanna do it veg out for a bit, then pass out. and forget writing while they’re awake, that just doesn’t work. at all. anyways, i’m 51k words into my book (that will likely end up being around 75k in the end), and i just can’t seem to make myself sit down and DO IT! i’m at the good part, the exciting part, and all i can think about is all the stuff i need to fix, rewrite, add to, take away from, and in general edit the crap out of. but when i think about actually DOING that stuff, i feel overwhelmed and decide to just go to bed. how do you get past that and make it happen?

  54. Writing advice!!!!!!!!!!
    I just started reading your blog like a couple months ago so I haven’t seen any of your writing advice. I totally heart your books so any writing advice from you would be Golden! One day I hope to have at least one book out there for the world to read.

  58. Fan art is always good. Oooh, I spotted writing advice, that would be awesome. And I’d love to hear all about ComicCon.

  61. It would be AMAZING if you could give us some book recommendations! I’ve haven’t read any really good books in a while, and I need help!

  62. Beth-la,
    Have you read His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman? Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card? The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien?

  63. I’ve read The Lord of the Rings, but I’ve never even heard of the other two. I’ll check them out. Thanks!

  64. Sure! His Dark Materials is actually a trilogy. It starts with The Golden Compass. I’ve been hard-pressed to find anything to match it since I was about ten years old…

    For some reason I’ve been thinking about The Glass Wright’s Apprentice lately… I read it a long time ago and I don’t remember how well written it was, but you never know… I was actually even considering re-reading it myself.

    Some of my favorite school books that I think are good reads are: The Giver; Fahrenheit 451; 1984 (kind of graphic); Alas, Babylon; To Kill a Mockingbird; and The Secret Life of Bees

  65. Oh! If you really like hard core sci-fi you should try The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (hilarious) and the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov (quite serious / intellectually mature)
    The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is also pretty good, but you probably won’t enjoy it if you’re under 15 or so…

  67. You’re the best author I’ve ever read! So I thoroughly enjoy writing advice! I also like when you tell us some “behind the scenes” stuff from your books. Such as why you picked a certain name for a character or where you got some of your ideas from.

  68. I am thirteen years old and just recently finished “Leviathan”, I personally loved the book and how it took bits and pieces of World War I and mixed them around with walking machines used by Clankers, and half beast – half machine creations used by the Darwinists. At first I was only reading about two chapters per day at school, then started really enjoying the book, and read about 18 chapters per day (which didn’t take long to finish). It is my #1 favorite book as of now, and I cannot wait for “Behemoth” to be released, I am going to order it immediately after it releases.
    -Nathan Duncan

  69. I remembered one more thing I would liek to see: A…. (what do you call it?) Well, I don’t know whta it is… but what would happen if the cahracters i all of your books met? I’d like to see soemthing about that. All of their world colliding or maybe the cahracters in Levithan traveling forward in time and seeing the Uglies books as their furture world or even dimensional travel. Something that puts characters from seperate series together. (Is there a blue time in Leviathan? What would happen if there was? Is it possibel for the people in Uglies to travel inter-dimensionally or back in time or something.?) I just want to see characters in the Uglies books, Leviathan(Behemoth too?), and Midnigters meet each other. That would be interesting. It would be very happy-making and really cool. I stil can’t remember what they call that though. It is going to bug me all day.

    And to Nathan: I was reading Leviathan at school at first too, but I had to eventually take it home to finish it because I didn’t get enough time to read it at school. It is pretty amazing. And if you want to order it sooner, I think you can pre-order it at Amazon right now, so maybe you’ll even get the exact day it comes out and you’ll have mor eof a guarantee of it not already being sold out because of how many fans Mr. Westerfeld has.

  70. New suggestion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With the characters meeting each other stuff, would characters in Midnighters and Uglies be Clanker type people or Darwinist type people? Would they like Walkers or Beasties? Which would Dess like? Which would Tally like? I think since you wrote Bogus To Bubbly there should be a guide type thing for the books about stuff for the other books. Instead of making a blog out of it all you could write another guide type thing.

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