Women Writers

And so here we are, having survived the peril, facing down a Big Question and answering it forever and for all time, once and for all, never to be heard again for being systematically shattered to its very core. A fine few day's work, really. Let's talk of more difficult things next time. Suggestions?

The reason I feel so confident regarding writing women is because so many of my early influences were women writers. I would characterize my gateway drug to Speculative Fiction as a cocktail of 20% Anne McCaffrey, 10% Barbara Hambly, 10% Pamela Sargent, 5% Margaret Atwood, 5% C.S. Forester, 10% Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 10% Jules Verne and the remaining 30% "Star Wars".

I could see differences in style, certainly, but the viewpoint character's gender was just one factor, and not a controlling factor, the character's personality being developed more or less depending on the environment of the piece. Even the Margaret Atwood characters, yes. Also even that one especially sexist part of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's body of work. You know which part.

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This was pretty much my entire takeaway from that small portion of my political science degree that was the Pre-Law program: Always phrase your cross-examination such that a witness quick to answer Yes/No questions would self-incriminate, and a witness slow to answer the same question would give the appearance of calculating avoidance of self-incrimination. The correct strategy is to coach your witness to neither answer Yes nor No but to produce a quick, confident: "I've never beaten my wife!" (Or, if your jury is especially advanced, "mu".)

Still, she seems to be having a lot of fun, 'manly art' or nae.

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250 words? Yes
Book "Lived Too Long To Die"
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Reading - "A Free Man of Color" (Barbara Hambly)