BilmBlog500

So everyone else is reviewing A Dance with Dragons, the fact that I haven't actually read the book shouldn't stop me from doing the same... Or at least, in a limited basis, trying to explain how the first page of the latest GRRM opus shows him breaking the rules in order to follow him. There are enough sample chapter places all over the internet that I'll take the liberty of typing in page 1: The night was rank with the smell of man. The warg stopped beneath a tree and sniffed, his grey-brown fur dappled by shadow. A sigh of piney wind brought the man-scent to him, over fainter smells that spoke of fox and hare, seal and stag, even wolf. Those were man-smells too, the warg knew; the stink of old skins, dead and sour, near drowned beneath the stronger scents of smoke and blood and rot. Only many stripped the skins from other beasts, and wore their hides and hair. Wargs have no fear of man, as wolves do. Hate and hunger coiled in his belly, and he gave a low growl, call...

OK, I'm going to respond to some of the comments on my post of a few days ago where I referenced the Jim Hines survey, and its insights into how people got their starts... First, Maria: When you say "writing a few doesn't hurt," I have to disagree a little. Basically, writing short stories is an art form that overlaps with but is still separate and distinct from writing novels. There are some authors, lots of them in fact, who can do both. But there are authors like Michael Burstein who are much better at writing short fiction that novels. There are clients of mine like Charlaine Harris and Brandon Sanderson who didn't write short fiction until many years into their careers. Simon Green wrote some short fiction, then turned almost exclusively to novels for many years, and it's only in the past two or three years that he's started to come into his own as a short story writer. If a writer doesn't have the knack for writing short fiction and spend...