Inspiration/Musings – Page 58 – Further Annotations

The Bleak Futures of Octavia Butler

Posted on May 23, 2016May 28, 2016 by blablablaandgabbler

‘Throughout her fiction, Butler seems unable to conceptualize human beings as we currently are surviving. Whether it’s intervention from an extraterrestrial species or developing traits that allow us to evolve beyond our humanity, we have to become something unrecognizable in order to survive. Then the question becomes: if that is the requirement, did humans really survive? Or are we fated to self-immolate? When I read the news, I often feel that Butler was sharing a truth with this observation–but I don’t want it to be true. I want humans to be capable of collectively overcoming whatever impulse there is inside us that causes us to want to destroy one another.’

#TBT – Beardless Hipster Songs #3

Posted on May 19, 2016May 11, 2016 by blablablaandgabbler

[“BLA and GB Gabbler” (really just a pen name – singular) are the Editor and Narrator behind THE AUTOMATION, vol. 1 of the Circo del Herrero series. They are on facebook, twitter, tumblr, goodreads, and Vulcan’s shit list.]

B&N | Amazon |

On Little Gods

Posted on May 13, 2016May 14, 2016 by blablablaandgabbler

[It’s good to remember that those big gods would be nothing without little gods. They’d have no Olympus without them–just empty thrones. In some ways, I’d prefer Olympus to fall… Such a sad post about the loss of an author’s power–at the risk of the creation. Are you a “good little god” if what you create suffers under your own apathy to let it be abused?]

Victoria (V.E.) Schwab

I’ve been thinking a lot about control. As a writer, you sculpt a world from scratch, populate it with people, with stories, and control them all. From the geography to the folklore, the smallest details to the largest plots. It’s in your hands.

In that sense, as a writer, you become a ‘little god’.

But in publishing–that business side of the art, your control dissolves.

You don’t control whether the book sells.

You don’t control the marketing budget if he does.

You don’t control the publisher’s investment.

You don’t control your place in-house.

You don’t control the sales plan.

You don’t control the cover art.

You don’t control the jacket copy.

You don’t control how the book is portrayed, publicized, given, sold to the world.

You don’t control anything.

Or at least, it can feel that way.