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The discovery of gravitational waves, announced on 11 February 2016 by scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), has made headline news around the world. One UK broadsheet devoted its entire front page to a image of a simulation of two orbiting black holes on which they superimposed the headline "The theory of relativity proved".
Well, some very interesting stats indeed. Apart from my Avengers posting in Chinese, no single post has beaten the views record set for David "The British Manara" Gordon's interview. That posting has had 14,611 views.
But my posting about Image Publisher Eric Stephenson was one of the most viewed and what exceeded views of that posting? The post on the creators who deserve recognition and promotion -that set a new daily view record (excluding the Chinese Avengers item 306.97 though I keep failing to include the most popular posting on The Green Skies with views (JUST on CBO) of 42,606.
And it seems people are talking about yesterdays postings. But I am not going to start a pillory Eric Stephenson and Image Comics campaign to get more views. That is not what CBO or I am about. Yes, I have read comics since I was 4 or 5 years old. I've worked in publishing and the comics industry since the 1970s. I'm passionate about all types of comics but unlike 99% of fans I know that it is a business. A business but not an insulting rip off.
Publishers need comic readers. Comic shops need customers and the distributor (a monopoly, as I keep saying, is supposedly illegal in Europe let alone the UK) needs shops and the comic fans. A distributor is not there to dictate what a shop or comic fans should read. The sooner the shop owners shape up or go out of business the better. That might wake the monopoly distributor (if there are any brains there) realise what they have been doing wrong.
"If Marvel and DC collapse and the industry implodes we can pull in the Independents and black and white comics to save our arses!"
No. It isn't the 1980s. Print on Demand and self publishing is something the distributor (Diamond) seems to ignore because it isn't the Marvel or DC cash cow. Most Indie comics are not sold in shops now. Does Diamond think that a small publisher is going to say "Sure. I do all the work and put in all the effort but I'll pay for postage to get "X" number of books to you so you can then take a huge cover price cut on sales so that I make nothing but it will help save YOUR business!"
Feck off.
Come the inevitable collapse of the "comics industry" then shops will go. Good. And the distributor is not going to bluff it out in 2016, 2017 or 2018. Most Indie comic producers have never been comic fans or collectors so good luck with "You get nothing back but it saves us!"
Image wants to do something then it needs to sit down and make decisions because I doubt it would survive a comics collapse and that collapse is well overdue.
I remember my German grandfather explaining how in the 1930s people took Deutsch Marks in huge bags or even in hand carts just to buy a loaf of bread. Money was that worthless.
We've had a few years of old comics being sold by weight -THAT was warning number 1 that was being ignored. Warning number 2 was when shop owners tried throwing free copies at comics in peoples faces or offering "Six for $1.50" !
Now we have many people who cannot sell or do anything but hand in boxes of HUNDREDS of comics (from 2000-2016) to charity shops which then have to sell them in bundles or dirt cheap. Jez tells me his charity shop has had to bring in a policy of "no more comic donations" because they have "quite a few" boxes stored away that do not sell. That is warning number 3.
The future looks bleak. Lowering prices won't help.
I once asked an editor if she regretted passing on the opportunity to become the publisher of the Harry Potter series.
The editor said, “In the publishing world, you live or die by your opinion. In spite of Harry Potter’s success, it still wouldn’t have been the right book for me to publish.”
In Your Opinion, What is Good Writing?
The first place you need to draw a line in the sand is one the question of quality. The quality of the story, the plotting, the characterization, the storytelling and so on is crucial to the success of a writing and publishing project. You need to listen tot he “still, small voice” that tells you this story needs another revision or that story measures up to the highest standard.
A sense of great stories is important to develop and most agree that a wide knowledge of the genre in which you write. If you want to write a picture book, you should read 100 picture books published within the last five years. If you want to write a YA novel, you should be familiar with the popular writers of the day. Of course, you can’t read 4000 novels in a year, so you’ll have to pick and choose. But notice what you like, enjoy, discard after a few chapters and so on. Develop a sense of what you like or don’t like. In short develop an appreciation of great writing. Give yourself something solid on which to base your opinion. Because you’ll live or die by it.
When I see really bad self-published children’s books, it’s most often from a person who doesn’t read children’s books. They just had a “great idea” and with no research or background in children’s literature, push through an awful book. I’ve actually had people tell me, “I’m not a writer. I just wanted to do this book.” That person’s project will die an early death because they didn’t educate their opinion.
In Your Opinion, Is this the BEST Writing You Can Do?
After writing a great story or novel, have you taken the time to let it cool off, to get feedback from trusted readers, and to take time to revise it to the best of your ability? Have you held anything back, or did you spend it all?
Author Annie Dillard, in her great essays, Write Till You Drop, wrote: One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.
After Michelangelo died, someone found in his studio a piece of paper on which he had written a note to his apprentice, in the handwriting of his old age: ”Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and do not waste time.”
In your opinion, have to done your best? Then, send it out.
If not, fix it. But write, authors, write.
Answering Objection
BUT, you say. . .
My boy/girl friend didn’t like it.
My Significant Other didn’t like it.
My kid didn’t like it.
My agent didn’t like it.
My editor didn’t like it.
This genre isn’t selling right now.
No one buys books by authors from XXX.
I don’t have a HUGE social media following.
Blah, blah, blah.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Do YOU like what you wrote?
You live or die by your opinion.
If it’s not the best you can write, then fix it. Revise. Do whatever it takes to make it live up to your opinion.
If YOU like it, then send it out, and keep sending it out, until you find an editor who agrees with you.
Period.
Days are getting noticeably longer here in Edinburgh and the weather is improving as well. So, for Valentine's Day, Stan and I decided to do something we haven't been able to for a while - we took a lovely walk to Leith. Train tracks have been turned into meandering walking paths all over the city and the one nearest our flat is a beautiful way to get to get there. The closer you get to the port city, the more water you see, until finally, you are walking directly alongside the Water of Leith. It's so peaceful and filled with swans and interesting ducks like this one.
Leith is filled with good restaurants - mostly seafood places - including two Michelin starred restaurants, The Kitchin and Martin Wishart. But we were in the mood for something a little more casual. Luckily, we got there right as restaurants were opening (12:30). Any later and we wouldn't have gotten in without a reservation. Happily, we ended up in The Shore. We were actually pointed that way by a man festively dressed in an entirely red suit for Valentine's Day - hat included. You can see him in this photo behind happy Stan.
The bar was extremely cozy and we couldn't help but fall into conversation with the folks at the table next to us. Turns out Dave is an artist as well. They were all so nice, we're already emailing and hope to meet up again soon. So many of our friendships here begin with, "Well, we were in a pub..." :) There was also a great jazz duet - just a standup bass and piano. They were excellent.
Doggies were constantly around our feet, which makes us silly happy.
We stayed for hours enjoying wonderful food (way beyond our pub food expectations), good wine, new friends, and great music. Although, I must admit we were a bit too tired to make the walk home (and it had grown colder), so we caught a warm bus and held hands all the way home. Not a bad way to celebrate Valentine's Day! Cheers!
In early November 2015, the Belgian and Dutch press announced that a small land swap was in the making between Belgium and the Netherlands. Agreement has been reached at the local level that Belgium would cede a small peninsula in the river Maas [Meuse] of about 14 hectares – the size of 28 soccer fields – to the Netherlands. In return, Belgium would get a smaller piece of Dutch territory where it had already built a water lock.
Keeping track of my writing accomplishments in 2015 really made a big difference for me, organization-wise. I was able to see what I was getting done, where I was lagging and could plan my work each month so I could be most effective.
Honestly, I don’t know why the heck I waited so long to do this.
I bought a planner from Field Notes for 2016 and got right down to it for this year. Here’s what happened last month:
1. One Wild Bird at a Time, Vitamin N and Rise of the Rocket Girls all reviewed for Booklist.
2. The Girl Who Could Not Dream reviewed for Locus Magazine.
3. Article on Combi-aircraft history in Alaska and a review of Alaska’s Skyboys both submitted to Alaska Dispatch News. I also had a pitch accepted for a long article on Alaska’s first licensed female pilot, to submit in February.
4. A lot of editing work on the 2nd edition of Beers of the North: A Field Guide to Alaska & the Yukon which will be released later this spring from Shorefast Editions in Juneau.
5. A ton (TON) of emails sent out for research on my work-in-progress. I received some information from the Alpine Club in London, Beloit College, the Canadian Alpine Journal, and a couple hundred pages was received from Princeton (among many other emails). This month I’m sorting everything and figuring out what else I need to look for. You can get buried in this sort of thing on a big project if you aren’t careful. I’m trying to be as organized as possible so I don’t lose track of what I need and what I have.
6. Sent a pitch letter on an Alaska aviation article to Air & Space Magazine, Outside & Men’s Journal. I received a rejection from Outside and have heard nothing from the other 2. Some work on the pitch letter was accomplished in February.
7. Completed chapter 2 of the WIP and submitted to my agent. Then I received the documents from Princeton which gave me some unexpected information that could be incorporated into that chapter. I ended up having a long conversation with my agent about the book in general. (Including the new info.) My next goal is to have the slightly changed (it’s not a huge thing) chapter 2 as well as the first & third chapters to her by the end of next month. Chapter 1 is basically done (just need to double check there is no adding to that one) but the 3rd chapter is unwritten. I know what I’m doing there though and I also want to tackle the introduction which doesn’t work as written now.
The big thing my agent & I talked about was authorial voice. My voice is not there yet on this book; I’m still struggling to draw the reader in strongly enough and I lack some consistency in how the book reads. Every writer will know what I mean when I say the words suffer in places from being too flat on the page. This doesn’t scare me with this book though; I know where I’m going and I know I’m going to get there. (I’m never this confident in my writing; it’s almost terrifying.)
Every time I write, it gets better. I want to have the first 3 chapters done by the end of March because I don’t want this book to get stuck. The story has waited long enough and I want to do the work to get it on its way.
Last year Yale University Press, in their wonderful Margellos World Republic of Letters-series, brought out a translation of Máirtín Ó Cadhain's 1949 Irish novel, Cré na Cille, in Alan Titley's translation, as The Dirty Dust.
This year they're publishing the same book, in Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson's translation, as Graveyard Clay; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
It's fairly rare for a previously untranslated work to be offered in two different translations in such quick succession -- and especially by the same publisher.
(Yale University Press did offer Witold Gombrowicz's Trans-Atlantyk in Carolyn French and Nina Karsov's translation, and then again, more recently, 'An Alternate Translation' by Danuta Borchardt (see their publicity page), but waited quite a few more years between versions that time around.)
I just got my copy of Graveyard Clay and am curious as to how it compares.
In his Introductory Note, Liam Mac Con Iomaire notes that there have been other (unpublished) translations, too, including Joan Trodden Keefe's ("available for circulation in university libraries on microfiche but has not been in general circulation").
As to Titley's, he writes:
Initial enthusiasm regarding access to the narrative may ultimately be tempered by a more guarded analysis of the translation's "free-wheeling" nature in general and a markedly creative interpretation of the text's "rich and savage demotic base" in particular.
Hmmmm.
I'm looking forward to comparing the translations.
I'm also curious whether the appearance of Graveyard Clay will affect how The Dirty Dust is judged in this year's Best Translated Book Award.
(As a re-translation, Graveyard Clay will not be eligible for the award next year -- but The Dirty Dust is this time around.
Will the judges compare it to the Graveyard Clay-version (and possibly find it wanting) ?
I would have thought it a longlist shoo-in before the appearance of Graveyard Clay; now, maybe not so much .....)
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The task of engineering exciting excerpts is actually easy for a writer. You've already written it. Now you just have to find it. An excerpt is typically 500 words, and for a short story about 200-250 words. The advice I have is general—pick an excerpt from the first third of your book. Told you it was easy! Although very rarely does that mean that you need to copy and paste the first five hundred words of your story and call it a day. For a short story? Yes—that's exactly what you do. But not a novel.
Why, you ask? Well, that's inherent in the differences between long and short fiction. A successful short story begins with a strong hook. In order to sell a short story, you have to pull the reader in from the very first sentence. With a novel, the creation of the story comes along with a more deliberate pace. With a novel, you want to select a scene that sets up the story and above all makes the reader want to read MORE.
In other words—a cliff hanger.
Say you're writing a young adult romance novel. A good choice for any YA romance novel excerpt is a scene between the heroine and the hero. A first meeting, perhaps. A confrontation. The moment when the heroine first realizes that there's something different about this guy.
Say you're writing a middle grade fantasy novel. Pick a scene that jump starts the action. A fight. The moment when the hero realizes that he or she has a purpose to fulfill. The moment when everything changes.
Once you've decided on a scene, the real skill comes into play. You need to pick the moment of that scene where the reader absolutely has to know what happens next. And if the reader wants to know, what does he or she have to do? Buy the book. Which is, of course, the point.
So that's the kind of scene you want to choose for your excerpt. And here's another little hint, too—if you DON'T have a moment like this in your book, then you have some work to do. Every good story should have a moment like this—several in fact. That's how you want to end a chapter, a POV section. That's a real cliffhanger—the excerpt, the paragraph, the SENTENCE that forces the reader to turn the page. The moment that the reader thinks, "Well, one more chapter won't hurt. I'll just read a little while longer." That moment is the holy grail for every story in existence. This is how writers should approach every excerpt they choose.
And one last thing—wait to pick your excerpt until an editor has gone through it with you and cleaned it up. The absolute worst thing that can happen here is for spelling and grammar errors to make it through to publication. Your excerpt, like your blurbis part of your sales strategy. You can't sell a car if the engine doesn't work, right? Well, technique—grammar, spelling, structure—is the writer's engine. It doesn't matter how great your story is, it's not going to run unless those techniques are there and sharp.
If you’re an author, how do you go about choosing excerpts? If you’re a reader, what makes you purchase a book based on its excerpt? Would love to hear your comments! Cheers and thank you for reading my post!
0 Comments on Engineering Exciting Excerpts… as of 2/22/2016 6:06:00 AM
Although his is a prolific and much loved author, I had not read any of Dan Gutman's books until my son and I started reading The Genius Files together in 2014. We were both immediately hooked by Gutman's sense of humor and I was especially impressed with the amount of fascinating factual information he packed into his books. Taking a cross country trip from California to Washington D.C. in a motorhome with their parents, twins Coke and Pepsi (of course there is a funny, interesting story behind their names) see some of the stranger (real) sites in the U.S., like the Pez Museum, the world's largest ball of twin and the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. With his new series, Flashback Four, Gutman brings the same sense of humor and way with the fact to this story of four twelve-year-olds from Boston who get the chance to travel through time, with great cover art by Scott Brundage. For years I have wondered why no one has taken the formula of the Magic Tree House books and applied it to middle grade novels, which is what I think Gutman is brilliantly doing here.
Gutman begins Flashback Four: The Lincoln Project with and introduction that gives readers a peek at the climax of the book. It's Thursday, November 19, 1863 and Abraham Lincoln is delivering the Gettysburg Address. In the crowd, a boy holds a small device in his hand, "silvery and metallic, it's small enough to fit in one hand, but powerful enough to change every history book ever written." Chapter one introduces the four main characters, David, Luke, Isabel and Julia, each of whom receive a mysterious yellow envelope that contains an invitation to a meeting with the CEO of the Pasture Company and four crisp five dollar bills. Assembled in the office of Chris Zandergoth, the four are a bit surprised when the CEO turns out to be a woman. Gutman writes, "Although we've come a long way in the last fifty years, here in the twenty-first century, most of us still assume that any rich, powerful person is a man." And the assumption is an accurate one: as of this writing, there are only 23 women who are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, making up a whopping 4.6%. But, that's pretty heavy for a kid's book. And hopefully Gutman and his very cool character Chris Zandergoth, a prodigy who dropped out of Stanford to start Findamate, helping people find their "love match" by hacking into the computers of the NSA, will inspire young readers to break through the glass ceiling.
Julia, Isabel, David and Luke learn all this about Zandergoth when they Google her while she is, strategically, in the bathroom. Returning, she tells the kids, "I figured that letting you kids do a little research would be a lot easier than telling you my own boring life story." She goes on to tell them that she has chosen them very carefully using her powerful software algorithms. This revelation is followed by my favorite scene in the book during which Gutman brilliantly uses his characters to directly address a somewhat cynical observation I had made. David somewhat sneeringly responds, "Two boys. Two girls. I guess you picked me because you needed a black kid?" Isabel chimes in with, "I suppose I'm the token Hispanic?" Luke caps it by saying, "What, no Asian? How do you expect to win Multicultural Humanitarian of the Year?" Miss Z laughs it off, telling the four that she matched them up for their, "compatibility, not your ethnicity." Diversity in kid's books is a front burner issue these days, especially with Matt de la Peña becoming the first Latino to win the Newbery Medal for his picture book Last Stop on Market Street. de la Peña has said that this book is representative of his new approach to featuring diverse characters in his books, where he strives to continue to feature diverse characters but "now I try to place them in stories that have nothing to do with diversity, not overtly anyway." Not only is that what Gutman is doing here, but he is also letting us know that he is doing it in a very funny way that I think is great.
Miss Z., who has a passion for photography, a love of history and a great collection of photos from important moments in time, has enlisted the four kids to travel back in time and take pictures of monumental moments using a very smart smartboard, known as the Board, that she and a team worked years to perfect. The first assignment for the Flasback Four, as they name themselves: travel back to the Gettysburg Address and take a picture of Lincoln as he delivers it. This is not as easy as it sounds since the speech lasted less than three minutes. And, understandably, David has some serious concerns as an African American, despite the fact that he will be traveling to the Free North, saying, "I saw that movie Twelve Years a Slave. That guy was in New York when he got kidnapped. I'm not about to get myself sold into slavery just to take a picture." Miss Z. reassures him and prepares the kids for their trip, giving them a list of expression from the era and, of course, clothes. She also gives them a Text Through Time device that looks a lot like a smartphone and allows the kids to communicate with Miss Z and a snazzy new Nikon camera. Everything should go swimmingly.
But it doesn't. Miss Z. makes a typo and sends the Flashback Four back in time a day early. Instead of spending a couple of hours in 1863 they now have to spend twenty-four. Then there is the problem of Julia, who seems to be a bit of a kleptomaniac who is obsessed with making money, even though her family is wealthy. She manages to sneak into the home of David Wills, the man responsible for creating a cemetery honoring Union soldiers who died in the Battle of Gettysburg, and the place where Lincoln spent the night before the address. Luke, David and Isabel stop her from stealing Lincoln's draft of the speech, but not before they encounter Tad Lincoln and his toy gun.
I learned quite a bit reading Flashback Four: The Lincoln Project, and not just boring stuff like dates and places. At one point, the kids end up in jail next to the town drunk who just happened to be one of the civilians who tried to bury the dead after the battle. He tells the kids of the gruesome facts of the battle, the amputations, and worse. Gutman includes a "Facts & Fictions" at the end of the book where he sheds more light on interesting aspects of the book and fesses up about some liberties he took. Does the Flashback Four get the picture? Do they make it back to Boston safely? And where are they headed next? I can't wait to find out!
Source: Review Copy
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Hi all! Today I’m here with my good buddy and fellow pub crawler, Stacey Lee, to talk about one of our favorite craft elements—setting.
Stephanie: I love the feel of experiencing new places through reading. I adore being submersed in a scene—tasting and smelling and touching along with a character. When a story is full of vivid settings and unique descriptions, I feel as if I’m taking a magical (or sometimes terrifying) vacation.
Unfortunately, setting descriptions are also the parts that I often find myself skimming, and I imagine I’m not alone. Describing something accurately is not the same as bringing a place to life.
So, since Stacey and I both like lists, we’ve put together a list of our favorite tips for—
Putting Soul Into Your Setting
Decide the feel of your book.
Stephanie: Setting affects tone. A thriller set in the Black Rock Desert during Burning Man will feel different than a thriller set in Sweden’s ICEHOTEL. Just like a sci-fi set on a massive spaceship full of highly sophisticated technology (like Star Trek’s Enterprise) will feel different than a sci-fi set on a small, transport vessel that’s been described as a “load of worthless parts” (like Firefly’s Serenity). Each of these settings will attract a different cast of characters as well—which will also impact the feel of your book.
I once wrote a space opera and during an early draft I made the error of setting much of the book on a stark white spaceship, which not only lent itself to horrible descriptions, it was not a place where I wanted to spend time.
So choose your settings with care. An interesting or unique setting will naturally lend itself to more captivating and distinctive descriptions.
Make sure your descriptions reflect your character’s unique lens.
Stacey: Include unique details (a ‘face like a wet sponge’ is more memorable than a ‘face with big pores’), viewed from the lens of your character. Each character comes with her own quirks and biases. A description filtered through the character’s lens does double duty of describing your setting, and revealing character.
Example:
Weak description:
A glass-covered rose seemed to hang above the desk in the library. Beauty watched the petals fall, one by one.
This example is weak because it lacks unique details, and is unfiltered.
Improved description:
A white rose edged in red hung, suspended, in a glass cage. It was like the head of paintbrush dipped in blood, and as the petals fell, Beauty remembered the cruelty of time, and how she only had minutes left before someone burst into the library.
If I’ve done my job, this description should evoke the particular tone I’ve chosen (fairytale setting (see point 1)), and be memorable.
Leave room for your reader’s imagination.
Stephanie: When I’m composing descriptions, I go overboard, I write out every detail so that I can clearly picture the scene. Then I cut, cut, cut leaving only the most important and interesting details. That way, none of the most important details get buried. And the reader doesn’t need all of my descriptions, only enough so that their imagination can fill in the rest.
Take a look at your favorite book, and I bet you’ll notice that some of the most vivid descriptions aren’t the longest, but they probably inspire your imagination to take off.
The amount of time you spend describing a place should reflect how important that place is for your story.
Stacey: I once read a story that spent a good page describing a ‘bush riotous with blooms.’ Not only was it unfiltered and not interesting, it had nothing to do with the story. It left me feeling betrayed. Readers like to try to figure things out on their own, and they also like a good twist, but the twist should not come by way of tedious prose that goes nowhere. I still to this day have no idea why I spent so long reading about riotous bushes.
Use all five senses, but pay special attention to one or two.
Stephanie: Just like with going overboard on setting details, too many sensory details will cancel each other out. So while it’s good to have scenes that evoke all five senses, think about which sense you’d like to evoke the most, and pay extra special attention to those senses.
Cut the clichés but don’t overdo it.
Stacey: How much cliché is too much? Strive for less than one. You don’t have to be as militant as me, but remember that if you flex your writing muscle, your story becomes stronger. Having said that, you don’t have to go crazy in an effort to avoid the cliché. Do not write things like:
“The pizza enticed him, like a lover reaching out for a kiss with cheesy, greasy lips.”
Or
“As they danced the music turned darker, rougher, like the sound her bathroom pipes made just after flushing the toilet.”
Now for CONTEST TIME! Stacey and I had so much fun coming up with our overdone descriptions that we thought it’d be fun to have a contest. So, give us your most entertaining overdone descriptions in the comments and we’ll pick one winner, who we’ll send an awesome book prize pack to!
To get things started, here’s one more overdone description:
“She didn’t fall in love with him all at once, it happened gradually, like the way a man begins to lose his hair, strands falling slowly at first, until one day he looks in the mirror and realizes he’s lost it all.”
Last week I reported on what was new at Paris based company Mini Labo for Spring Summer 2016. Today I am looking at some of the products they license and design for their Japanese market. At the online store Belle Maison you can see Mini Labo bedding, cushions, curtains, and even fashions. Here are some of my dave picks which include three new key prints : 50's, bouquet and Herbier.
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Happy Monday! Monday Mishmash is a weekly meme dedicated to sharing what's on your mind. Feel free to grab the button and post your own Mishmash.
Here's what's on my mind today:
Into the Fire Paperbacks! OMG!!! I'm still freaking out (in a good way) over how gorgeous the Into the Fire Paperbacks are. They arrived on Friday. Here are some pictures of my pretty books!
Big Changes to My Newsletter I'm going to post about this on Wednesday, but BIG things are in store for my newsletter. Big for my subscribers that is. If you aren't subscribed, you're going to want to do that here. And check back on Wednesday to see exactly what I have in store for my loyal newsletter subscribers. Hint: You're going to like it. :)
Mystery of Majestic Cave Cover The second book in the Curse of the Granville Fortune series has a gorgeous cover. I'm not sharing it yet, but I just approved it at the end of last week. Stay tuned for the big unveiling. :) Oh, and book two is coming your way in early June.
What Is Up With Outlook's New Look? MSN decided to update my email. AGAIN. *Sigh* I'm not liking the new changes. The system is very wonky because I think they tried to make it do too much. Now it glitches all the time. I hope they work the kinks out soon.
Big Changes All Around My newsletter isn't the only thing that's going to change. I'm putting my foot down and getting really stern…with myself. You see over the past year, I somehow became an editor who also writes, and while I love editing, I'm not okay with this. I'm a writer. I WILL write first and edit second. No more of this, "My editing schedule is booked for the next five months so I won't be able to write until then." I'm writing EVERY day. My pace with edits will slow down, but I'm okay with that.
My Daughter's Birthday My daughter turns nine on Friday. I can't believe that. My little girl is getting so big!
Whislt checking out the latest Mini Labo Japanese range I thought I would have a browse around the Belle Maison website and see what other prints and patterns I could find amongst their interior goods. You can see these and more including designs from Leah Duncan and Pattern Bakery online here at Belle Maison.
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राष्ट्रभक्ति और प्रमाण पत्र हम भारत देश में रहते हैं और हमें अपने देश से प्यार है. हमारे पास यहां रहने के लिए सारे सबूत हैं. जन्म प्रमाण पत्र, शिक्षा का, निवास का ,आधार कार्ड, पासपोर्ट, राशन कार्ड, पैन कार्ड आदि पर देशभक्ति का प्रमाण पत्र नही है.. पर आजकल जिस तरह से हालात बन […]
Everyone is creative. Whether you realize it or not, each day you are being creative as you make choices. To name just a few: what wil you eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner? What will you wear today? How will you articulate the words in that email you’re sending out?
Still, you may feel your creativity can use a bit of a boost. Because you want to get into the habit of creating, but sometimes you get sloppy and before you know it, there are so many other things that need your attention, and you feel there is no more space for your creative habit.
Here are three tips:
1. Empty Your Mind
Quick blind contour drawings to empty my mind and focus on what I see only
There are so many things going on and so many thoughts racing through your head! They pile up throughout the day. You can make it stop by taking a little bit of time to workout, or meditate for example.
For me, drawing (even if it’s just a few minutes) is a great way to empty my mind: it feels like meditation, and it is a workout for my drawing muscles!
Do it every day – not just occasionally. You will benefit from this. Clearing your head will make you more creative during the day, and you will be able to focus a lot better.
2. Look At What You Have Created
Feeling uninspired? Well, take a look at your sketchbook pages, art journal pages, drawings and/or paintings. You may get some ideas AND you will see how much progress you made throughout time.
It’ll definitely make you feel like picking up a pen and put something down on paper to keep developing your skills.
3. Keep Learning
We’re never done learning. This is true in life, but also when you’re an artist.
So, read books about creativity, find how-to videos on YouTube, attend a life drawing class, or learn online and sign up for an online drawing class.
I will shamelessly plug my own drawing class ‘Just Draw It’ here, because it starts March 7 and you don’t want to miss it.
“Just Draw It” is a small-group online art class.
During this 6-Week course, every week you and your classmates will learn a new technique through examples and instruction, step-by-step video-tutorials and photo-tutorials, assignments, and my personal feedback on the drawings you make in class.
It’s $99 and you will definitely catch the drawing bug! Click here to find out more and to sign up!
If you follow the three steps above every day, you will give yourself a fantastic gift: your daily creative habit!
BJP Cartoon BP / BJP BP यानि रक्तचाप बढा दिया इस J ने … अब देखिए ना J&k हो, Jaat आन्दोलन हो JNU हो, दिल्ली का Jal हो …. Jan आक्रोश तो बढता ही जा रहा है और BJP का BP बात बहुत पुरानी नही है जब भाजपा सरकार अच्छे दिन का वायदा करके भारी […]
a.k.a. The Eric and Ern Guide to Writing a.k.a. Conquering the Crap Mountain by Teri Terry
Part 3 in Making Things up: a blog series about the creative process.
So, you're a writer, and you've decided to take it seriously (part 1). You've got an idea, and you've got started (part 2).
How do you keep going when the going gets tough? Don't we all live for the days when inspiration hits and words flow? Actually, saying 'days'
is misleading. So would be hours. How about...minutes?
Let's face it: for me, anyhow, moments of pure joy and inspiration and muse love are rare. How do you keep going when the rest of the time it feels more like pulling your finger nails off slowly with pliers? On days when you'd rather hang from a tower in a cage like this unfortunate chap than face another blank page? We're supposed to love writing. We're doing it because we want to, right? So why does it feel this way sometimes? Maybe this is it: Does your internal critic rate your work according to a crap mountain?
If the best you can hope for is ‘getting closer, but still crap’ – and only a tiny percentage of your work can scale this dizzying height – why would you go on? I wouldn’t. I’d develop ever more creative modes of procrastination (duck polishing, anyone?), and look for chocolate. This is something I have to remind myself of over and over again:
The first draft of everything is shite.Hemingway
If Hemingway's first drafts were shite, I'm guessing it's OK if mine are, too. Do you remember this Eric & Ern moment of comedy gold history? Eric Morecambe’s line in answer to the complaints of Conductor Previn about his piano playing:
‘I’m playing all the right notes – but not necessarily in the right order.’
And that is what a first draft is all about. Getting the words out, in whatever form they may take. Whether your critics are external, like Ern's, or internal, like mine usually are, if you’re frozen by fear – fear of not being good enough, of what you’re writing on the page not measuring up to what is in your head, and what you are writing and what is in your head not measuring up to some perceived standard you want to attain or you feel others want or expect you to attain – well. Nothing you can put on paper will ever be good enough if you feel that way.
Even if your internal critic is more reasonable, you still need to shut them up to get on with things. I’d suggest a crap mountain Hill of Hoorays that is more like this:
When things seem beyond impossible, some days it is enough to get words on the page - making the words the goal in and of themselves. They can be as messy and convoluted and misspelled and disordered as the worst writing in the history of the world, but that’s ok. Because they’ve better than crap. You can rewrite them, delete them, rewrite them and delete them again and again, but that’s still ok. They’re still better than crap.
It’s a modest goal, but one that helps keep me go on the rough days.
A few specifics that I find also help:
1. Keep your story warm. Even when you're insanely busy, even if you only tinker with a few lines for a few minutes on crazy days, it helps. The longer it has been since you've dived in, the harder the diving gets. The colder the water and you just don't want to get in there, and if it has frozen over completely...well. That's a nightmare.
Brrrr...a total head cracker
Lovely! Warm! Your toes so *want* to dip in, and the rest to follow
2. Know where to stop. Say you've just finished a scene you're really happy with, and you're knackered and deserve some nice treats, maybe a glass of wine and half a bar of chocolate and some mindless TV, and that is quite enough for today...DON'T STOP THERE. Don't stop at the end of a scene, the end of a chapter. Even if you only make a few notes or write a paragraph, start the next bit. It makes starting the next day SO much easier. Even better is to stop when you're in the middle of whatever it is you love to write, so you're desperate to start again - with me, that's usually dialogue or action. If I'm half way through an action scene the next day begins like a dream. Likewise, if you're writing a series and you've just finished book 1 and sent it off to your editor and deserve the holiday of a lifetime, right now....DON'T let anyone sleep on your laptop just yet, no matter how cute. While it is all in your head, write just a little of book 2 - a few chapters, some notes. Otherwise by the time you get edits back on book 1 and deal with those, starting book 2 will become a Thing. Like Things that live under the bed or the stairs, and only come out in nightmares. Or so you hope... 3. Do other things with the story without actually writing it. OK, that might sound a bit wrong when you're trying to get going with your writing...but sometimes I find editing a bit I've already written or drawing some nice plot flow charts or filling in a bit of a plot summary is a good way of sneaking up on what I have to do. It gets my mind in the story, and then it is easier to get going. Plus it takes the pressure off thinking I have to start writing as soon as I open my laptop.
The bottom middle notebook is the one for my current WIP.
4. Pen and Paper. I'm really happy writing direct on my laptop most of the time, but sometimes having that physical feel of a pen in my hand, running across paper, really helps the words come. Of course, it is vitally important to regularly update your stationery supplies so you're ready for these emergencies. 5. Deadlines. Like 'em or loathe 'em, sometimes they help to focus the mind. Even if you don't have an agent or an editor waiting for you to get on with it, setting deadlines and targets can really help. Also try mini deadlines along the way - say, to hit a certain page number or word count by a certain date. This is especially helpful if the big overall Book Must Be Done By Date is too scary to contemplate. Only make sure they are reasonably achievable, or it's just another crap mountain.
Self control App - and large mug of tea - in action
6. Get Self Control. The app, I mean. There are lots of versions of internet blocking apps that let you get on with it without being led astray by interesting blogs, shopping for notebooks or hearing the latest on FaceTwit. This is my favourite one; it only blocks what you want it to block, so you can block your distractions but still be able to do bits of research if you need to. You set it for whatever time period you want. I usually do 45 minute blocks. That's about as long as I can go without FaceTwit. 6. Keep the Faith.
Keep the faith: the right words will be there, somewhere in the mess.You can put them in the right order when the editing begins.
7. And if all else fails...? I have a post-it note for these moments. A weird thing I've found out about writing as I've gone along is that what works when you are writing one story won't necessarily work when you are writing another one. Sometimes you just have to find your way as you go.
Now...for ANYONE WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHO ERIC AND ERN ARE *shocked voice* (and I mean you, Candy), here is a snippet! All worth watching, but the famous line is at about 2:25.
A few last words confessions:
Just in case you were thinking my Hill of Hoorays and helpful hints and deadline and faith keeping and Eric and Ern and all that have me all sorted out....well...
I did the right thing; I started book 2 before I edited book 1; I even like the started bit, and it even doesn't need to change after editing book 1. I've made lots of notes by hand and drawn things with arrows and made some tables. But oh my: it is so, so COLD, even looking sidewise at the file minimised at the bottom of the computer screen is giving me chills. I love the story, I want to write it, I can write it, I've got faith in all these things...but it's going to take an ice pick at least.
It is Weds 17 Feb right now and this blog post is going up on Monday 22 Feb. I've been trying to start for days, and getting nowhere.
So here is my mini deadline:I WILL break through the ice before then, and report back in the comments.
Now: where's the chocolate?
About the Author
Teri Terry is the author of the Slated trilogy, Mind Games, and Dangerous Games. She should be writing book 2 of the Dark Matter trilogy (coming in 2017) right now, but was hoping writing a blog post about keeping going would give her the kick to, you know, actually get on with it. Until then, here is one she prepared earlier: Book of Lies, out on 24th March.
p.s. sorry about the gratuitous kittens - I couldn't help myself.
0 Comments on Making things up: writing all the right words – but not necessarily in the right order as of 1/1/1900
Wickedly awesome, sometimes misunderstood…I’ve even found myself (at times) rooting for our villains. Some of my favorite Disney characters are, in fact, the villains. Which is why I’ve done a whole series dedicated to those dark and twisty baddies.
The annual technology series at our library has revamped itself several times over the past few years. Moving from a more self- directed course structure through Gretchen Caserotti’s 21 Things program, to a weekly dose of tech news, we have sought out a commitment free way to inform patrons.
Desiring to expand our audience, and noticing a large amount of senior patrons at our technology classes for parents, we collaborated with adult services to market the events for kids, teens, parents, and other adults in the community. All our patrons can now receive weekly tech emails bringing them up to speed on resources and trends such as wearable health tech and online privacy.
Finding opportunities for dialogue is always a goal of the program, and there continues to be an adult audience for evaluating and selecting apps, discussing online security, and device troubleshooting. What seems to draw in younger patrons is adding multiple classes on 3D printing and design as well as boosting up our coding offerings.
Technology programs at the library have also allowed us to connect multiple generations, and this past year’s Gabbin’ with Grandkids made a huge impact. Hosted by Krishna Grady and Mallory Arents, the class introduced grandparents to virtual communication via Skype and FaceTime, while also instructing them on how to properly read a picture book. The session was the perfect fusion of tech and literacy education that it was recently repeated to a new group of seniors.
This time around tech at the library has definitely become a family affair and much, much, more. As librarians this weekly knowledge sharing has continued to benefit the entire community and given us another outlet for sharing resources about new technologies.
Claire Moore is a member of the Digital Content Task Force. She is also Head of Children and Teen Services at Darien Library in Connecticut. You can reach Claire at [email protected].
Visit the Digital Media Resources page to find out more about navigating your way through the evolving digital landscape.
What do you want from a fairy tale? Magic? Romance? Derring-do? Despicable villainy? Academics and scholars have puzzled and puzzed until their puzzlers were sore over what it is about the European fairy tale genre that so enthralls us. Recently fairy tale lovers have seen the entertainment industry discover that fairy tales are still a primo source of capital. On the book side of things, I’ve seen a distinct uptick in retellings of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and more in the last five years. Classic fairy tales have it easy. It’s the newbies that have a hard time going. How do you get a foothold in a genre that’s been in existence for centuries? In The Magic Mirror by Susan Hill Long, the author decides to simplify. Merely take the elements that suit the story best (highway robbers, princesses, and just a smidgen of magic) and then weave in some surprisingly stellar writing. The result is fairy tale fare that reminds one of nothing so much as the best of Gail Carson Levine. Funny, friendly, witty and sly, this makes for perfect bedtime reading.
Margaret (or Maggot, depending on who’s talking about her) should technically be grateful for her life. Though she sports a lame foot (an “accident of birth” she’s been told) and is an orphan, she has a roof over her head, food in her belly, and aside from avoiding Thomas, the local bully, not too much trouble in life. But of course she’s desperately lonely, and that’s a problem that’s hard to cure. When she makes the acquaintance of a man with a wooden leg, she receives in a trade a mirror capable of showing anyone their heart’s desire. But what she sees when she peers into it is a strange wild-eyed man she’s never laid eyes on before. When Minka, the woman who cares for Margaret, decides to marry her off, our heroine decides that leg or no leg she is not going to have her life decided for her. And in the course of her adventures she’ll little suspect there are royal mix-ups, a king with little in the way of fatherly feelings, a boy with a bagpipe, and a light-fingered squirrel in her very near future.
Is anyone going to challenge me when I say that comparing a book, any book, to The Princess Bride is never a good idea? The Princess Bride inspires a loving fandom that jealously guards its unique storytelling. Still, there are many familiar tropes in that book/film. A princess, a pirate, giants, swordplay, you name it. When writing a new fairy tale you Harry Potter it. You take those familiar elements and weave them into something new. So when Ms. Long wrote The Magic Mirror she did exactly the same thing. Additionally, by splitting her narrative into an increasingly large cast of characters, she gives it a distinctly Princess Bride-like feel. It has humor and fights and baddies in all the same ways. When Kirkus reviewed this book they said that it was predictable and unbelievable (because of the coincidences in the plot). I’d counter that there’s nothing any more predictable or unbelievable here than you’d find in any modern fairy tale, be it Ella Enchanted or Frozen, and just as much joy.
In this particular case it’s Long’s descriptions and characters that stay with a reader long after the book has been put down. Even the foulest villain has an emotional weak spot, and characters that are set up to seem like baddies at the beginning (like Minka) turn out to be pretty soft in the end. Plus you really root for these characters. Some authors think it necessary to drown their villains in a thick sauce of sadism so that when the heroes triumph it’s an even keener victory. But when writing books for 9-12 year olds there’s no need to pile on the bloodshed. In the right writers’ hands, as long as the antagonist is preventing the heroes from their happy ending, that’s all you really need to do to keep the plot moving at a sharp clip. I liked the people I met in this book, but the descriptions were probably my favorite aspect of the novel. Lines like, “Her voice climbed up the sentence like a ladder, and quavered at the top,” make me happy. Ditto wisdoms like “It’s all in the angle of the squint.” Or a description of a cathedral’s shadows where a character “shuffled away from the creeping dark so that she might escape God’s notice.”
I did experience a palpable sense of relief that it was written today, though. Since Margaret has a physical disability (a foot and leg injured long ago that were never set correctly) there is a brief suggestion at one point that there might be a magical remedy to her problem. I was reminded of a similar middle grade novel Handbook for Dragon Slayers which also starred a girl with an injured limb. In that book a cure for her disability is bandied about and ultimately rejected in an excellent manner. Indeed, the book went on to win a Schneider Family Book Award given annually to books that embody, “an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.” Reading The Magic Mirror I had the very clear sense that if this book had been written in the past an easy cure for Margaret’s leg would have been part of the story’s happy ending and that would be that. These days such endings are mildly insulting answers to what, in truth, are very real problems. Happily The Magic Mirror does not fall into such a trap (though sadly the heroine does have some unfortunate thoughts about a successful man with a hunch on his back that did not gel well with the book’s otherwise positive embrace of disability).
As it happens, I did find one particular aspect of the book problematic. This is Ms. Long’s second novel so while the bones of this story are strong there are aspects to the writing that will need a bit of strengthening in the future. Specifically, the exposition. Now the art of exposition is learned, not born. Filling the reader in on a hitherto unknown back-story is no easy task. At best, back-story is woven into the dialogue so naturally the reader is hardly aware that they’re learning about what’s come before. Clunky back-story, in contrast, places huge chunks of it en masse in the same general vicinity of the novel. Alas, near the end of The Magic Mirror the author has set herself up to reveal not just the back-story of our heroine, but of at least three to four other people as well. The result is ultimately somewhat confusing, with new characters popping up (a midwife, a thief’s wife) to fill in the details out of the blue. Without a character guide (which would, admittedly, give away some of the plot) there is little to help kids distinguish between Petra vs. Minka vs. Margaret.
For all that there is a magic mirror in the story the book is pretty devoid of magical activities. You won’t find dragons or wizards or much of anything out of this world here, with the sole exception of the mirror itself. It’s almost a pity that it’s in the title since you could probably hand this title to kids that only like realism (and they do indeed exist) and they’d get just as much out of it as the most ravenous fantasy fan. While it’s not a perfect novel, it is a ripping good yarn that keeps you enthralled from page one onward. Will you see where it’s going? Maybe. But you’ll enjoy the sights along the way. Fine fantastical stuff.
Well, some very interesting stats indeed. Apart from my Avengers posting in Chinese, no single post has beaten the views record set for David "The British Manara" Gordon's interview. That posting has had 14,611 views.
We stayed for hours enjoying wonderful food (way beyond our pub food expectations), good wine, new friends, and great music. Although, I must admit we were a bit too tired to make the walk home (and it had grown colder), so we caught a warm bus and held hands all the way home. Not a bad way to celebrate Valentine's Day! Cheers!
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Everyone is creative. Whether you realize it or not, each day you are being creative as you make choices. To name just a few: what wil you eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner? What will you wear today? How will you articulate the words in that email you’re sending out?
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