Interesting essay by Ursula LeGuin from a recent LA Times Book Review. My favorite bit:

As for "write what you know," I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it's a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it's my duty to testify about them. I got my knowledge of them, as I got whatever knowledge I have of the hearts and minds of human beings, through imagination working on observation. Like any other novelist. All this rule needs is a good definition of "know."

LeGuin also remarks in passing on something that I've also heard John Crowley talk about: that an awful lot of beginning writers use present tense in the mistaken notion that past tense narrative is less immediate and more distancing. Statements like this often make me wonder whether these beginning writers actually read, since, if you've read a hundred good books, you've probably been exposed to something like ninety different ways of using past tense narration. Some of which must surely be as immediate as you could want.

I really didn't intend this journal to be all Wendy's thoughts about writing all the time. However, that's what's been on my mind lately. I've been feeling mildly under the weather for the past few days (fallout from a stomach virus that had me feeling really under the weather for a couple days prior to that), and so I've been spending a lot of time lounging around and reading essays about science fiction, and thinking about science fiction. So, thoughts about science fiction and writing are what you're likely to get out of me for a while.