Author: Andi Marquette

Andi Marquette once wanted to be a seafaring pirate. But she realized that could be a problem, growing up in the Rocky Mountain West and Southwest. So she became an editor, anthropologist, and historian instead. But that, too, didn't satisfy her weird cravings for stories and strange realms. Now, she's a writer ensconced in Colorado and when she wants to go pirate-ing, she just makes something up.

Music to soothe the savage beast

Hey-dee how-dee.

I’m here to pimp a couple of my fave websites that stream music. I listen to music pretty much constantly, especially when I’m writing, and each project I work on requires a different kind of soundtrack, though I’ve found that trance music is providing a soundtrack for virtually anything I’m working on, much to my delight in some ways.

With that in mind, one of the best-kept secrets, I think, is Digitally Imported (electronica and everything like it). I’ve been listening to this site for at least three years now. I upgraded to the paid premium (about $5 a month and it’s well worth it), and turn that pup on and away it goes pretty much all day.

Another is Pandora, and I know some of you already listen to that and have created your own radio stations. One of the down sides — and I haven’t upgraded to a paying customer over there — is that the playlist on any particular station repeats after a while. Another pain in the butt is that in order to create a varied playlist, you have to constantly click that you “like” a particular song so Pandora remembers it and plays stuff like it. If you don’t click “like” for a while, Pandora will basically stop, because “it’s not sure you’re still listening.”

Another site I’ll use is 365Live, which offers virtually every genre under the sun. The site’s a little difficult to navigate, and because it basically just serves as kind of a clearinghouse, you have to click the station link to see if your player is compatible. But there are some truly great stations there, including world music, which is another of my faves.

AOL Music is offering free world music, speaking of. I haven’t really explored this site, but some of the genres are super cool.

And if you’re feeling totally new-agey or yoga-ish, Sky.fm has a New Age music stream. Super mellow.

One more tip–if you find a station you just love to death and you listen to it quite a bit, think about upgrading if it offers that option. No commercials, better sound, and you’re contributing to great music.

Happy listening!

by Categories: Cool tunes, Inspiration, MusicTags: , , , , , ,

Writing tip! A, B, Cs of plot development!

Hey, all–

Found this groovy writing tips site that includes this:

The ABCs (and Ds and Es) of Plot Development.

Here’s an excerpt:

Plot develops out of conflict, either external, such as a person or an event that precipitates a series of actions the main character undertakes, or internal, driven by the protagonist’s wants and/or needs. How that character, and others, makes choices and otherwise responds to stimuli determines the course of events.

The traditional structure of a plot is linear, in which the protagonist’s actions are charted in a more or less straight line, although many stories shift from that person’s point of view to that of one or more other characters as the tale progresses. Others involve one or more flashbacks, introducing new elements to the overarching plot.

Here’s the quick n’ dirty:
A = Action
B = Background
C= Conflict
D = Development
E = End

Go on and check it out.

Happy writing, happy reading!

by Categories: Inspiration, Things that make you think, Writing tipsTags: ,

Groovy Movie Tips: it’s a conspiracy!

Hi, kids–

Sometimes I post about movies that I see that I think are interesting for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they’re older movies that have come up again for whatever reasons and I pass that info along. Today is such an occasion.

A bit of background — I’ve been thinking recently about conspiracy theories and how they can be fun, yes, but they can also prove immensely damaging to individual, community, and even national psyches. I’m not suggesting there aren’t sometimes forces at work behind the scenes, or that government is always on the up-and-up. Certainly, there are plenty of cases to be made that demonstrate otherwise, so conspiracy theories have been around throughout recorded history.

However, conspiracy theorizing can put you in an echo chamber of more and more conspiracies, until everything you see and hear is part of some kind of conspiracy, and you’re unable to discern what is correct information and what’s not. The interwebs have allowed, I think, a massive increase in the spread of conspiracy theories, which is one of the downsides of it. It becomes difficult to tell what sites are disseminating truly useful and fact-based information and what sites are drawing exclusively from conspiracy theories. And it allows anybody with a keyboard to set him- or herself up as expert of something, whether it’s the FEMA camps that will soon hold us all prisoner; the black helicopters; fluoride in the water; birth certificates; bin Laden’s not really dead; vaccinations are a form of mind control; national ID systems will allow the government to put a microchip in your head; they’re all out to get you; and on and on like that.

More? Keep readin’…

Continue reading →

by Categories: Movies, Things that make you thinkTags: , , , , ,

My current whole NM series available as eBooks!

Yee-ha!

At last, at last! The second and third books in my New Mexico series are available as eBooks! That would be State of Denial and The Ties that Bind. You can get ’em currently at Rainbow eBooks, an awesome venue that carries lots of LGBT titles in digital format, and soon they’ll be available at Bella Books and as Kindle and Nook. I’ll keep you posted on that. Here on my site, just click on “Books” and the title you want and I have links there for all kinds of purchase options.

Or head on over to Rainbow direct from this page. Click here.

Sweet!

Happy reading, whatever your choices!

by Categories: Announcements, Books, The AwesomeTags: , ,

Zombie-licious tidbit: housing!

Hi, kids! Happy Saturday! So my ever-alert sibling sent me the most awesome link yesterday. It’s the zombie-proof house. OMG.

Here is the link, from All That Is Interesting. (shout-out to ATII!)

And here are a couple of photos, to give you a sense of it all:

When it’s locked down:

source

Not very appealing, is it? I mean, in terms of zombie-proof-ness, that’s pretty decent. But wouldn’t you love to have a fab living space, too? Well, ta-da!


source

There’s also a drawbridge between building one and building two (building two houses a swimming pool).

I did a little research, and thanks to ATII, the designers of this “safe house” (probably not intended, necessarily, to fend off zombies but rather warfare or some such) are the firm KWK Promes. This house is located outside Warsaw, Poland. Here’s another link that gives you a ton of info about the house, along with more photos, thumbnail photos, and the plans of the house.

Seriously awes-matic, friends. The house is like a plant. It opens up in the morning and closes up at dusk. CRAZY! I couldn’t find a price for this pup, but at 6100 square feet with all those amenities and fortifications? I’m sure we’re talking serious moolah.

The only drawback to a place like this in a zombie apocalypse is if you don’t have access to food/supply lines. Because sure, the zombies will be gathered outside your giant concrete wall, but who cares? You can pick ’em off at your leisure, I guess (there’s a disgusting, macabre image for you) while your kids are frolicking in the yard or the spouse is taking a few laps in the pool. But again, if you don’t have access to supply lines and no way to get to ’em, the house proves to be a prison as well as a castle.

However, I find myself strangely drawn to this thing. Seriously decorative protection.

There you go! Happy surviving and happy weekend!

by Categories: Cool articles, Cool blogs, Coolness, The Awesome, Zombie Apocalypse Survival Tips, ZombiesTags: , , , ,

Pondering

Hi, all–

Happy belated Cinco de Mayo! Anyway, I’ve been thinking about history (which is okay — I’m a historian, so I’m not practicing history without a license hee hee). And I’m thus going to direct you to my blogpost over at Women and Words today, which will show you the direction my ponderings took. It has to do with Pride season, just as a heads up.

Happy Friday!

by Categories: Inspiration, Things that make you thinkTags: , ,

Cool reading

So there I was, skipping around the interwebs, and I came across this in The Atlantic: “Nearly 100 Fantastic Pieces of Journalism.” That is, a list of nearly a hundred articles The Atlantic listed as TEH AWESOME in journalism. You’ll find the link to the list at the end of the blog. In the meantime…

The articles are grouped by topics. For example, the first topic is “The Art of Storytelling” and in that you’ll find articles like Mariah Blake’s “Dirty Medicine,” from the Washington Monthly, which profiles the dysfunctional health and medical industry and how health care reform hasn’t changed a thing. Another is Malcolm Gladwell’s “Pandora’s Briefcase,” which appeared in The New Yorker. It’s a story about one of the most successful acts of espionage in WWII.

Or, if that’s not your thing, try something in the Crime and Punishment section, like Sean Gardiner’s “A Solitary Jailhouse Lawyer Argues His Way Out of Prison,” in The Wall Street Journal, which details how a high school dropout educated himself in a law library, confronted witnesses who testified against him, and proved the corruption of the prosecutor who wrongfully convicted him. Or how about “The Ballad of Colton Harris-Moore,” by Bob Friel in Outside Magazine, which traces the actions of a teen fugitive in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, and how he made a mockery of law enforcement.

Perhaps something from Science, Religion, and Human Nature? Like Forrest Wilder’s “He Who Casts the First Stone,” about a militant Christian group in Amarillo, Texas that targets people and businesses with campaigns of constant harassment. You can find that in the Texas Observer. Or a story from The Atlantic about the first person diagnosed with autism, and what his long, happy life could tell us. That’s “Autism’s First Child,” by John Donvan and Karen Zucker.

And that’s just a teeny tiny bit of what you’ll find at this link right here. Each listed story has a link to that story, so browse, find something that appeals to you, and…

happy reading!

by Categories: Cool articles, Cool stuff to read, Things that might make you thinkTags: ,

When info goes bad…

Hey, amigas y amigos–

In this age of info immediacy, we’re used to just slamming stuff onto the web and going with it. We cut and paste, we disseminate, we make things go viral. But sometimes, the information we’re disseminating isn’t always correct.

I’m reminded of a game my elementary school classmates and I would play called “Telephone.” Usually, this was a game that a teacher implemented to demonstrate how information can be distorted and why it’s important to listen and pay attention. This was before household computers, folks. Before the interwebs.

So read on to find out why the hell I’m telling you this.

Continue reading →

by Categories: Publishing bizness, Random WTF stuff, Things that might make you think, Things you shouldn't doTags: , , 2 Comments

Want to catch more in your writing? Tips for that!

Hi, folks!

Editing tips can actually help you recognize not-so-great stuff in your writing so you can make it better. Dustin Wax says that learning to edit can help you write better.


source: Kathleen Grieve

QUOTE:
The best writers know differently, of course — their memoirs and biographies and writing manuals are filled with stories of books that needed to be cut in half to be readable, sentences that took weeks or months to get just right, and lifetimes spent tinkering with a single work that never strikes them as “just right”. To paraphrase a common saying among writers, there is no good writing, only good re-writing.

But if writing isn’t taught well enough or often enough these days, editing is hardly taught at all. This is too bad, since editing is where the real work of writing is at. More than just proofreading, good editing improves the clarity and forcefulness of a piece.

One of those tips, which I find particularly useful for writing better dialogue, is reading out loud. Wax also recommends reading in reverse. And CUT, don’t add. Another of my faves, get rid of adverbs.

More awesome tips at Wax’s blog at Lifehack.

Have fun!

Happy writing, happy reading.

by Categories: On editing, Writing tipsTags: , , ,

Sunday Readin’ Tip

Hi, kids. This weekend has been crazy bizzy and I haven’t been the lovely blog hostess that I tend to be (HA HA!).

I’m finally able to sit down and give you a reading tip.

As some of you know, I read a lot of nonfiction and different magazines. I came across this essay in High Country News, a bimonthly western-based news magazine, called “Ghosts, Walking” by author Craig Childs.

It’s a painfully beautiful essay about a walk across the Navajo Nation. Here’s a taste of Childs’ absolutely delicious prose:

We change the way we move, try to make ourselves invisible, traveling away from animal trails through a busted topography of fallen cliffs and deeper canyons. In the evening, I walk by myself along a canyon made of soaring rock and massive columns of fir. It is last light, and the forest looks pointillist, nothing solid enough to seem real. I reach a water hole, punch through the ice, fill my bottles. Loping back to camp with fresh supplies, shadows grow thick and I move faster. Everything has eyes.

Here’s the link to “Ghosts, Walking.”

The essay garnered some controversy.

This author was not happy that Childs trespassed across Navajo land. You’ll see that letter plus Childs’ response at the link.

Writers like Childs collapse boundaries between built world and wild, between human and nonhuman, and allow us to feel the sting of wind, hear the eerie hoot of an owl echo off canyon walls, and feel the weight of time and history. And he makes us think about land and how we define it. So get a taste of Childs with this essay, and then maybe try some of his book-length works. Reading him is a sensory experience.

Happy reading, happy writing, happy Sunday!

by Categories: Cool articles, Cool stuff to read, Inspiration, Things that make you thinkTags: , ,