Linkblogging!

[telophase]

trobadora is thinking about writing, and is asking about characters, especially in large groups - how do you keep them distinct?

I'm still working through the replies on matociquala's Writing the Other post (why do these big-reaction subjects only come up when I need t be focusing on coding?), but there's a lot of repercussion going on in and around my f-list right now, including several links to deepad's response here.

Haven't read through sartorias's essay Urban Fantasy and Grrlz yet; posting here to remind myself.


And thoughts of this came up when reading the comments - a 1997 artice from the Miami New Times about a whole folklore developed among homeless children in Miami.

To homeless children sleeping on the street, neon is as comforting as a night-light. Angels love colored light too. After nightfall in downtown Miami, they nibble on the NationsBank building -- always drenched in a green, pink, or golden glow. "They eat light so they can fly," eight-year-old Andre tells the children sitting on the patio of the Salvation Army's emergency shelter on NW 38th Street. Andre explains that the angels hide in the building while they study battle maps. "There's a lot of killing going on in Miami," he says. "You want to fight, want to learn how to live, you got to learn the secret stories." The small group listens intently to these tales told by homeless children in shelters.

Absolutely fascinating. And I wonder why I haven't seen anything based on or developed out of this article? (Unless it's in the urban fantasy that's populating the shelves right now that I'm avoiding because I burned out on it years ago...)

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I just found the Wikipedia article on children's folklore, which mentions that a Mercedes Lackey novel was based on it.

My immediate knee-jerk reaction was that it deserved something much better, but unfortunately I have no desire to write anything about urban street kids.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

It was also optioned for film, but never made. I found that out years ago when I called up to see if the rights were available. Great article.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Ah, Development Hell. So many fascinating things languishing there...

Trust me, your knee-jerk reaction was on the ball.

[seawolf10.livejournal.com]

Read it in high school, reread it again a few months back when I needed something to calm me down (so that I'd have a hope of getting to sleep) from the much more disturbing novel I'd read earlier in the day.

Lackey being Lackey, it was pretty crap.

Shame about her, really. Lackey's earliest, earliest urban fantasy work (Children of the Night, Burning Water) was all right. She wasn't great or anything, but she was a hell of a lot better than she's since degenerated to, and a damn sight less preachy. It was even reasonably dark, and used a lot of stuff from non-European myth. CotN had something from Japan, and Burning Water had Aztec myth as the central theme.