Gary W. Olson

Dark Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction
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30 Days of Writing #2: Character count and gender preference?

Nov22
by Gary W. Olson on November 22, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Posted In: writing

2) How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?

There’s no way I’m going to try to count all my characters from everything I’ve written, of course. There are about eight or nine ‘major’ characters in my novel, Brutal Light, plus a handful of minor ones and the usual hordes of the unnamed and unnamable. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what this question is intended to reveal; to me, quantity alone is meaningless, whether it has to do with word count or character count or whatever else count.

‘Preference’ is a different matter. Being a guy, I suppose I find it ‘naturally’ easier to write from the perspective of a male character, but not to a degree where I feel an actual catagorical preference. If I know enough about a character to where she or he is more than just the sum of her or his ‘categories,’ it matters less to me what those categories actually are.

(Of course, it should be noted that whether or not I can successfully write a character who occupies categories other than my own is a different question, and a different debate altogether. Which is why I’m leaving it for a different day.)

└ Tags: 30 days of writing, brutal light, characters, writing
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30 Days of Writing #1: Favorite Writing Project / Universe?

Nov15
by Gary W. Olson on November 15, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Posted In: writing

1) Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.

My favorite universe is that of the Superguy shared-universe humorous superheroic fiction group. I poured a lot of work into the various series I wrote for it in the early-to-mid nineties, and made a lot of friends there along the way. Writing for it was an experience that affected me in too many ways to count, large and small. The most obvious of these, to me, is that it gave me a chance to write a lot for an audience that, while generally appreciative, did not stint on the criticism where warranted (and, let’s be honest, sometimes where not warranted–when I recall some of the things we argued about that we thought were so terribly important, I have to shake my head in disbelief). I would not be the writer I am without Superguy. It’s a part of me, and I’m still happy to write for it (though I write a lot less for it than I once did).

—

The ’30 Days of Writing Questions’ are a meme set of 30 questions I originally encountered on J. Koyanagi’s site, even though the meme apparently originated on LiveJournal. Even though it says ’30 days,’ I’ve decided to take a much slower (one day a week) approach to answering these. I’d rather promise weekly content and deliver than promise daily content and renege.

└ Tags: 30 days of writing, brutal light, superguy, writing
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feed syndicated to dreamwidth and livejournal

Nov11
by Gary W. Olson on November 11, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Posted In: meta

I’ve set up syndication for the RSS feed for A Taste of Strange on Dreamwidth, and syndicaton for the RSS feed for A Taste of Strange on LiveJournal. This is probably of most interest to readers with Dreamwidth and/or LiveJournal accounts, who can subscribe to the feed in either or both places and have these entries show up on their reading/friends pages.

└ Tags: meta
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still not a taco after all these years

Nov10
by Gary W. Olson on November 10, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Posted In: it burns! It burns!

Welcome, one and all, to A Taste of Strange, my latest and least non-great attempt at journaling, or blogging, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. My name is Gary, and I will be your confab for tonight.

I’m not going to cover what I’ve already written on my home page or my about me page. Suffice it to say I’m a guy who likes to write speculative fiction, and have launched this site and this blog in an attempt to publicize my works.

My goal is to update this at least once a week with my thoughts on aspects of writing, genre, conventions, media, and related subjects, my upcoming appearances (when I have some to declare), where my works will be showing up (when I have some to declare), and so on. I’m going to kick things off with the first of Thirty Questions for Writers, starting next week. (Note: this blog’s RSS feed is a great way to keep up with this without having to continually revisit the site.)

A Taste of Strange was the title of a Blogger-powered weblog I had from 2000 to 2002. Though I considered other titles, in the end I had to bring this one back. I like strange things, and find fascination in the strangest of places, and expect this will come through in future posts. I also like toast, but I doubt I will write about that.

Outside of this blog and this site, I have Hypnerotomachiapet, a Dreamwidth journal (which is also mirrored on a LiveJournal journal), which is about 3% content and 97% memes, quizzes, and news links. I am also on Twitter and Facebook, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into. I’ll likely x-post some (though not many) of my blog entries here to Dreamwidth/LiveJournal, but aside from that, the streams will not cross. Unless I need to blow up a giant marshmallow man.

Thank you for your time, and (hopefully) your continued readership. Cheers!

└ Tags: it burns! it burns!, meta
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Brutal Light

Brutal Light
Available from:
Amazon (Kindle)
Amazon (Paperback)
Cover art: Dawne Dominique.

CAM Charity Anthology Horror and Science Fiction 1

The C.A.M. Charity Anthology: Horror & Science Fiction #1
Available from:
Amazon (U.S.) (Kindle)
Cover art: Jack Hoyle.

Fairly Wicked Tales

Fairly Wicked Tales (ed. Stacey Turner)
Available from:
Amazon (U.S.) (Kindle/print)
Cover art: Shawn T. King.

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