Or, When Orson Scott Card Read My First Chapter Ok, so this is the last Boot Camp post. Really this time. Card took us Boot Campers out to dinner Thursday night, and we started the evening off with some general getting-to-know you conversation. Someone asked me what I do. “I write,” I said. “No one…
Author: Jane Kalmes
Semper Fidelis
All right, this post will be my last love letter to Orson Scott Card and his Boot Camp, I promise. At least for a while. I’ve been thinking about the lessons I would take away from Boot Camp. And I think they come down to three big ideas I am walking away with: A book…
Orson Scott Card and Conventional Wisdom
As I mentioned in my last post, Orson Scott Card is a man of strongly held opinions. I wanted to take a moment to talk about some of those opinions, and how they shook me up. Because they are so very far from the conventional wisdom I have learned. Infodump vs. Expository Flow Don’t infodump…
Boot Camp: Workshop Revelations
I got home from Boot Camp late last night. I kind of can’t believe it’s over. It was such an amazing week. I did not a full night’s sleep the entire time I was there, but I would have happily stayed for another week of the same. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, we workshopped the…
Boot Camp: Tuesday and Wednesday
Ok, I know I said I would try really hard to post every night while I was at Boot Camp. Let’s just say that was a foolish assertion. Anyway, it’s sort of fitting that the posts for yesterday and today are blended into one another, because that is largely how I experienced the days themselves….
First Day of Camp
Whew, what a day! It’s half past midnight, and I have just now finished my assignments. OSC is a tremendous lecturer. I feel like a little girl with a crush. Not a normal crush, you know, but one of those teacher crushes, where you want to answer every question with, “Well, Orson Scott Card thinks…” …
Greetings From Boot Camp
It is official! I have arrived in lovely Buena Vista, Virginia, home to Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. My dorm room is huge, and I have it all to myself, complete with in-suite bathroom. Notice that its enormous breadth did not keep me from spreading out my belongings all over it. I was afraid…
Temporary Retirement
Only two days until I head off to Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp! This Thursday I was so busy I didn’t even think about liveblogging. It just went clean out of my mind. Next week I won’t be liveblogging either. As much fun as it would be to liveblog Boot Camp, it seems like…
My name is Jane
And I’m an addict. A video game addict. Plenty of my friends, including my beloved Mark, are game programmers, so I am somewhat reluctant to say this next thing I have to say. But I feel I must tell you, interwebs: video games are a blight on the human condition. See, here’s how I see…
Ramona Quimby, Age Fifty-Five
The new movie based on Beezus and Ramona is out this weekend. I don’t really know much about it, but I think I can predict it’ll be a big financial success. As near as I can figure, every little girl has read this book for the last fifty years. When I posted the following on…