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By: Colleen Mondor,
on 10/6/2006
Blog:
Chasing Ray
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The Bloomsbury catalog just showed up today. Here's what caught my eye (note that Bloomsbury also includes the Walker & Co. imprint):
Jesse Owens: Fastest Man Alive by Carole Boston Weatherford, illus by Eric Velasquez. I think we take Jesse Owens for granted. I think we have all heard the story at some point about his great achievements at the 1936 Olympics and we just take for granted that he did what he did and don't really think about it. I'm hoping this book will make readers reconsider the Jim Crow laws he grew up under and how impressive his commitment was to winning, no matter what.
The Cemetery Keepers of Gettysburg by Linda Oatman High, ills by Laura Francesca Filippucci. Apparently after the Battle of Gettysburg the pregnant wife of the absent Evergreen Cemetery keeper (he was away fighting for the Union), their 7 year old son and her elderly father dug over 100 graves for fallen soldiers - staying true to their vocation of caring for the dead. This just blows me away and is another one of those examples of historic moments that we really should know more about. (I'd love to know how the author found out about this.)
The Phantom Isles by Stephen Alter. When Ming, Orion and Courtney read an incantation from a library book they conjure up the ghosts of an entire nation who were captured from their Indian Ocean island (where the living and dead co-existed) and are now confined to the pages of "a few dozen library books in a New England town." I have no idea how Alter is going to pull this off, but one of the heroes is a librarian and it completely speaks to the bibliofile within me. (Sorry no link to this one yet.)
Notes From the Teenage Underground by Simmone Howell. This one has been on my radar since the Spring when it was originally scheduled. Seventeen-year old Gem works at a video store and after a field trip is inspired to make an underground movie with her friends. It's supposed to cement their friendship but problems ensue and "it will take great movies, bad haiku, and a pantheon of great voices from Dostoyevsky to Thoreau to Andy Warhol - to help Gem find the meaning of love, friendship and being true to herself." Good grief - how do pass that up?
The Falconer's Knot by Mary Hoffman. Hoffman is the author of the popular Stravangaza series and this new book is billed as Name of the Rose for teens. (How fab!) Set in Renaissance Italy it involves sixteen-year old Silvano who is sent to a Franciscan Friary for his own protection after he is wrongly accused of a crime. He meets Chiara, at the nearby Abbey (where she has been sent because apparently she is unmarriageable) and as mutual attraction starts to take hold dead bodies begin to turn up. Romance, mystery and Renaissance hijinks follow - sounds smart and different.
If Minds Had Toes</em> by Lucy Eyre. This is actually an adult title but it's included as one that would appeal to teens. Fifteen-year old Ben is bored with his job but everything changes when Lila shows up one night with an invitation to The World of Ideas. This is "the philosopher's quarter of the afterlife and Lila has been hanging out there with philosophers for the past thirty years." Ben is soon part of a bet between Socrates and Wittgenstein revolving around Lila's ability to prove to him that his life can be changed for the better through philosophy.
This book wins the award as one of the most unique I have heard about in a long long time. I couldn't resist it, or the idea that an unexamined life is not worth living. We all go through years with blinders on worrying about losing five pounds more than anything else. Here's a shot at really thinking, and I'm hopeful that it will a delight to read.
Ron Cree's
Desert Blood 10PM/9C is one heckuva fast-paced mystery-adventure sure to get your blood boiling. Find out what happens when Gus and his adoptive dad Nick (who also happens to be a hunky TV star) start getting death threats. Does Nick have a secret to hide...a secret that could tear them apart?
Since I posted yesterday about lessons that I've learned from children's books, there have been a couple of other posts on this topic that I wanted to bring to your attention.
- Wendy has two posts on the topic at Blog from the Windowsill. First, she posts a wonderful quote from The Greenstone Grail by Amanda Hemingway about the "big tasks" that children in books have accomplished, and thus inspired the child in The Greenstone Grail. In her second post she shares how she "found in children's books the values that were blatantly lacking in (her) everyday world" during a "poor and urban" childhood. It's definitely food for thought.
- Alkelda over at Saints and Spinners shares some stories about the first four books that she remembers learning from: A Bargain for Francis, The Runaway Bunny, The Terrible Tiger, and Over in the Meadow.
- And, in the comments from my original post are some additional thoughts on this topic from MotherReader and Jennifer from Snapshot. There are also some contributions in the comments from Kelly's original post on this at Big A little a.
Those of us who love children's books simply can't resist this topic, that's all there is to it. What have you learned from children's books?
Photographer Danny Goldfield set out to photograph one child from every country on the planet. The only catch was that they all had to live in New York City. Goldfield's finished product proves that the Statue of Liberty is still in the right place:
Hello!
I'm now offering writer portraits that people can use on their web pages, like the one I did of myself above.
Here's how it works:
The writer will send me a photo(preferably digital, but I can scan in photos if needed), which I would paint and adjust to their liking. Then I would blend in images from their stories around them, and fit the color scheme to their web page. I will send you two images-- one sized at 72 dpi, which is best for web browsers, and one at 300 dpi, which is best for printouts-- you can easily take it to Kinkos and print up promotional materials in whaever form you like! .
The first fifteen people to request a portrait will be able to get this for $50 plus a copy of (one of their) book(s),or letting me read their latest manuscript, for those who are not yet published!
That's the, um, grand opening deal.
I will post here immediately when I've hit 15 portraits, so you'll know,
because after the first 15, I have to raise the price to...
*cringes*
$150/portrait.
At least for this year.
(OK, Dan? Just this year!)
Because otherwise, my husband will pull a Rumplestilskin, stomp his feet through the floor and disappear.
(but there is NO WAY I'm charging what he suggested!)
If you want to have a spot in the gallery, that's an additional $50.
And that will *stay* $50 no matter what, because once I've done the portrait and got the site up, adding another person to it is no biggie.
What is this gallery, you say?
I plan to have a website up and running soon. One wing of my website will be dedicated to portraits of Famous and Soon to Be Famous Writers!
You can send me a blurb about your work, as well as links to contact info, titles, amazon.com partner code and links, or whatever,to help promote your stuff. If you send the amazon code, then you'll make a commission every time someone clicks thru to buy your book from my site!
Around Christmas, I plan to advertise the gallery opening on all the various writerly hangouts in the hopes of drawing traffic to those same images. What would be really cool would be if I could get one of those hangouts to actually sponsor the event on its space, since it will showcase the work of some of its members! We'll have to take that as it comes...
For those who say-- yanno,I'd really love to do that, but I haven't published anything yet! And besides which,I don't have a website!
--You're a writer, and you're full of stories, whether or not the rest of us have had a chance to read them. Maybe a blurb in the gallery will be just the push your work needs to get noticed? You can put contact info, tidbits about your stories-- whatever you think will draw people in-- under your picture.
There's no need to send the gallery $50 until the site is ready to go up-- I'll post again when it is.
I look forward to talking with each of you about your stories(and *reading* them!!)
kellyrfineman,
kbacellia,
robinellen,
susanwrites,
jengt,
kpluta and
mountainmist--
You're already on the first 15 list
if you want to be, since you expressed interest. (same goes for the others who commented this morning--I just wasn't as sure you were interested as the names above!)
Just email me to confirm your spot!
Liz
E. Lockhart's continuation of the Ruby Oliver story can be found in
The Boy Book (the first book was
The Boyfriend List). Ruby is just as neurotic as ever...with perhaps more to lose in this fun and funny sequel.
This is also our
featured October giveaway, so be sure to enter to win a copy. You'll be happy you did.
Dear Miss Snark,
I am just parting the ways, amicably, from an agent who turned out not to be the right one for placing my ms. There's a loose end, though, and I want to make sure it doesn't come back to haunt.
The agent sent the ms to an editor at a major house, who never responded to her subsequent queries; after about nine months my now-ex agent formally pulled the ms. So far as she knows, though, the editor still has the ms, presumably gathering dust in a closet somewhere. Although it seems awfully unlikely, what happens if the ms surfaces on the editor's desk - and the editor likes it?
When I land another agent, I'll certainly tell her the prior submission history, such as it is, but I want to make sure there's no awkward consequences from an ms that got lost in the shuffle ...
Well the editor is going to call your old agent cause that's what the contact info says. Tell your new agent about this loose end. If it ends up in a deal (VERY unlikely as you realize) it will get worked out. Agent agreements specify how long agents are entitled to commissions on work they pitch if you part ways. I think mine says six months but it might be twelve. I've never had to look at it very closely. Mostly if a client parts ways with me, I send them a letter saying they are released completely even if there are open projects.
But do tell your new agent. She'll want to know.
Greetings Oh Sharp-witted Daughter of Harsh Gods,
Watching you at work on a most-excellent friend of mine, I was forced to notice the short-comings of my own beloved creations -- I don't write books with large numbers of corpses or explosions -- and I was left wondering... Apart from writing a book more amenable to the query process, which is the better strategy...
a) creating a query that highlights the grabbiest parts of the book but will be sent with sample pages that are somewhat slower paced (creeping tension rather than immediate corpses) or
b) writing a query that reflects the more thoughtful nature of the book and so doesn't lead to a disconnect between salespitch and sample?
(or c) something else) I await the enlightenment only your spiky-stilletoed self can provide,
Thank you :)
Ms Tortoise
I know this will come as a horrifying shock, but I've been known to take on and actually sell work that doesn't have a corpse or a flame thrower on the first page.
Those works came to me with compelling writing. They gave me incentive to read on. It's a lot harder than it sounds as you know.
One of the now-cliche pieces of advice on how to write compelling paragraphs about your book is to read the flap copy of books you like. Then you practice writing it for books you've read and compare it to what the flap copy says. Then you write one for your own book.
You might consider the End-of-the-Year CoM. If you can hook me without blood, bullets, and burning bouffants I'll be quite pleased to read your pages.
Blood, bullets, and burning bouffants aren't meant to be taken literally. It's a metaphor for grab my attention and keep me riveted.
I just returned from a vacation that was unsuccessful in terms of reading. I was reading three books at the same time, so, of course, after a week I'm only halfway through all three of them. This explains why I didn't bother buying Cape Cod by Henry David Thoreau. I really needed to be reading a fourth book this past week, and I'm not a major Thoreau fan, so it seemed unlikely I'd be reading Cape Cod anytime soon.
I think I'll ask for it for Christmas, though.
I also read three picture books over vacation. I wasn't particularly taken with any of them. Two were nonfiction and seemed very...instructive in an...instructive...sort of way.
In honor of finally finding a library copy of
Hop on Pop in my cluttered home (15 days overdue), I thought I'd share my favorite part of this early-reader classic:
Mr. BROWN
Mrs. BROWN
Mr. Brown upside down.
Pup up.
Brown down.
Pup is down.
Where is Brown?
WHERE IS BROWN?
THERE IS BROWN!
Mr. Brown is out of town.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roundup forthcoming!
I've been working on these two illos for the last two days. The first is a rough for page 10 of my dummy, (pages 1 and 2 consist of the title page and credit's page). The second illo is one of my character sketches. I decided to spend a little time playing around with color pencils...playing being the key word.
I took a trip to visit my Mom in the hospital two weeks ago. Its her sixth time in the hospital since June. I know, I've mentioned this before, but here I am again trying to work the feelings rushing through my heart. Its strange all we keep in, all the years of dysfunction and pain we've pushed away. Sooner, or later though, we discover that no matter how hard we've tried, there's no escape.
So, we step forward and face our fears, our silenced tears calmly in the face of adversity. We continue to hold things in, till we return to our homes once more. Then, we close the windows, and try to disconnect ourselves, till we can manage assorted increments of pain.
I've spent the last two weeks rewriting parts of a graphic novel I've been working on for the last two years. In truth there are three books thus far, book one has had more rewrites and revisions than I care to remember. Somehow, it seemed just the right place to be after my visit with Mom. In addition to writing, I've been walking in my woods again, not just once a day, more like three, or four. I've gone through another set of guitar strings too...sometimes nature and music are the only medicines your heart response to.
Oh, yes, one more thing...I read Terry Brooks new novel Armageddon's Children. Its dark, terrifying in a profound way. Great read, I can't wait for the sequel.
This should be pretty self explanatory.
I do this every Friday. See, we have summer hours year round--we work longer days M-T, then Fridays we can leave early, right? So every Friday, I put off eating lunch because "I'll be done in a minute."
Hah.
I finally left work about 3:45, ravenous. But there was one little thing I wanted to do before going home, and I knew the only thing I would want to eat in fast food (Taco Bell) required me to have cash. My bank is on the other side of my house, and the bookstore was on the work side, so I figured, why not be efficient, right?
So I go to B&N first. (Oh, and by the way, ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
egg_fu will love this: my eyes are crossing so much that when I read the destination sign on the bus across from me in the intersection, instead of reading Tukwila/Southcenter, I honestly read it as "Tukwila/Suncatcher."
Sigh. I'm such a bookstore-aholic. Most of the time I simply avoid bookstores because I know I'll want to spend lots and lots of money in them.
I did pretty well, though. Looked for the Practical Guide to Dragons, and strangely enough, in the third week since its release, for some reason this B&N still hadn't received it. Looked for the books I was supposed to look up, found them, didn't find out the information I wanted, but at least the job was done. I tried. Then I couldn't resist. I picked up volume 1 of the Spiderwick Chronicles. I have read Holly Black's teen books, but I've been putting off Spiderwick because I never seem to have the time. Yes, they're very short books, I know it's no excuse.
So, I decided to read the first few pages to see if I felt hooked enough to want to splurge today.
Was there ever really a question? Of course I got it.
I also picked up a very fun-sounding paperback I've heard about called the Salem Witch Tryouts. Being a former cheerleader/dance team member and a fantasy fan, these combine two of my favorite things! The first few pages sound good, so I'll give it a try.
So, I have hereby increased my to-be-read pile by two books. I think I'll spend the evening reading, not clearing out my Tivo as planned.
And my throat is sore. And my house stinks from an unknown source. And my cat's Littermaid broke, which is the most annoying of all (yes, perhaps the source of the stinkiness--I've gotten used to smelling the air not polluted by a dirty litterbox). I'm so glad it's the weekend.
I hope you all remembered Buy A Friend A Book Week even though I wasn't here to remind you. I actually bought two books to give away while I was on vacation.
Also, during the month of September, my webstats were all over the place. (Perhaps I'm competing with the new television season?) So imagine my surprise last night when we stumbled upon a computer station at our hotel, and I found that
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By: Alice,
on 10/6/2006
Blog:
It's All Good
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Here's an entertaining and even enlightening bit of history from the vaults,
a vocational film about becoming a librarian. This film was apparently made in 1947, and some of the points it makes are quite remarkable. It starts by saying that the two qualities a prospective librarian needs are liking books and liking people. (When did we drop that
second requirement?) And it shows librarians using microfilm, phono records, and 16mm films. (New librarians, ask your grandparents about these last two.) The film runs about 10 minutes and you'll need QuickTime Player and a sound card to view it.
The dreadful parts: every librarian (and for that matter, just about every person shown in the movie) is white, and the only administrator shown is a middle aged guy. And the little girl who is being read to by the children's librarian doesn't seem very happy with the service.
Thanks to my friend Joanna McNally for pointing me to this!
Bev Katz Rosenbaum's
I Was a Teenage Popsicle is a fun look at what the future might hold. Meet Floe Ryan, formerly vitrified (i.e. cryogenically "frozen") teen, and the world's first "popsicle" kid. Still 16 after being frozen for 10 years, she's now under the guardianship of her formerly younger sister (who's now 23). Her parents are due to be unfrozen next...but only if Floe can save the Cryogenics Center from legal attack. Can she balance all of that with finding true love and fitting in with the next generation of teens?
Dear Miss Snark,
I am just parting the ways, amicably, from an agent who turned out not to be the right one for placing my ms. There's a loose end, though, and I want to make sure it doesn't come back to haunt.
The agent sent the ms to an editor at a major house, who never responded to her subsequent queries; after about nine months my now-ex agent formally pulled the ms. So far as she knows, though, the editor still has the ms, presumably gathering dust in a closet somewhere. Although it seems awfully unlikely, what happens if the ms surfaces on the editor's desk - and the editor likes it?
When I land another agent, I'll certainly tell her the prior submission history, such as it is, but I want to make sure there's no awkward consequences from an ms that got lost in the shuffle ...
Well the editor is going to call your old agent cause that's what the contact info says. Tell your new agent about this loose end. If it ends up in a deal (VERY unlikely as you realize) it will get worked out. Agent agreements specify how long agents are entitled to commissions on work they pitch if you part ways. I think mine says six months but it might be twelve. I've never had to look at it very closely. Mostly if a client parts ways with me, I send them a letter saying they are released completely even if there are open projects.
But do tell your new agent. She'll want to know.
Greetings Oh Sharp-witted Daughter of Harsh Gods,
Watching you at work on a most-excellent friend of mine, I was forced to notice the short-comings of my own beloved creations -- I don't write books with large numbers of corpses or explosions -- and I was left wondering... Apart from writing a book more amenable to the query process, which is the better strategy...
a) creating a query that highlights the grabbiest parts of the book but will be sent with sample pages that are somewhat slower paced (creeping tension rather than immediate corpses) or
b) writing a query that reflects the more thoughtful nature of the book and so doesn't lead to a disconnect between salespitch and sample?
(or c) something else) I await the enlightenment only your spiky-stilletoed self can provide,
Thank you :)
Ms Tortoise
I know this will come as a horrifying shock, but I've been known to take on and actually sell work that doesn't have a corpse or a flame thrower on the first page.
Those works came to me with compelling writing. They gave me incentive to read on. It's a lot harder than it sounds as you know.
One of the now-cliche pieces of advice on how to write compelling paragraphs about your book is to read the flap copy of books you like. Then you practice writing it for books you've read and compare it to what the flap copy says. Then you write one for your own book.
You might consider the End-of-the-Year CoM. If you can hook me without blood, bullets, and burning bouffants I'll be quite pleased to read your pages.
Blood, bullets, and burning bouffants aren't meant to be taken literally. It's a metaphor for grab my attention and keep me riveted.
I took the 6:55 train to Albany so that I could get to NYC at 9:15. Sure, my meeting with my editor at FSG wasn't until 2pm, but I get down there so infrequently that I like to maximize my day.
My first mistake was bringing my laptop. I did get some work done on the train. It was good work. But gosh, carrying my 10 pound behemoth of a portable computer all over the city was not easy. NOTE TO SELF: Next time, leave laptop home!
So, as I said, I did some writing on the way down, which I did intermittently along with playing a little Free Cell, taking little catnaps, evesdropping on the two women nearby gossiping about who farts in meetings at their office, and starting to read "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green.
What I learned on the train ride: my laptop battery is dead. Plain dead. In the immortal words of T-bird from The Crow, "This is the really real world, and there ain't no comin' back. there ain't no comin' back!" That battery is dead as dead can be. Fortunately, Amtrak has conveniently placed outlets.
I got off the train with no particular plan, so I did what I love to do most in NYC: wander. I had five hours to spend before my meeting and a whole city lay before me.
My backpack started weighing me down after taking a circuitous 10-block trek and I decided I should find something to do where I could ease my burden. I looked up and saw the Empire State Building. It's funny, because I've lived near the city my whole life and I've never been to the top of that building. So, I dropped the $16 and got in line. Yes, it's not a typo...it's $16 to go 86 stories straight up.
Security is tight at the Empire State Building. X-ray machines, gonad metal-detecting wands, the whole thing. After my backpack went through the conveyor tunnel, they pulled me aside and asked me to show them my laptop. Then, the guy asked me to take it out and turn it on. Yikes!
"My battery is dead," I told the guy.
He scrutinized me.
The pit boss of security guards was summoned and he inspected the laptop. "Can I see your ID?" he said to me suspiciously. My heart rate at least doubled when visions of strip searches flashed through my head. I pulled out my license and he nodded me past. Whew!
After jumping through an obstacle course of velvet ropes, going up two different elevators, getting my obligatory novelty photo snapped (which I am certain is also a profiling/mugshot technique), and jumping through all sorts of other hoops, I got to the top.
At the top, you see exactly what you would expect to see...far. I spent several minutes on each side of the building, locating from far away all of the things I've seen up close. It seemed people spent more time searching for the absence of two particular buildings rather than looking at what still exists. On the plaque that depicts the south facing skyline and identifies all the landmarks and buildings, the World Trade Center towers are eerily marked with a dotted line. Countless people snapped close-ups of those dotted lines.
There are exactly two benches at the top of the Empire State Building. Both of them are in the gift shop and neither faces outward. I sat on one of them and read chapters (two) and (three) of "Katherines."
Then, I left and continued on my way.
As I approached the NY Public Library, the two famous lions loomed before me. I'd like to say that I chose the seat I did for some other, more significant, reason, but it happened to be the only one that was blessed with a patch of sunlight. On this otherwise chilly day, being in the sun makes all the difference. It also happened to be directly under the right elbow of one of the stone lions, which I thought was cool.
I read chapter (four) of "Katherines."
Upon completing it, I realized the sun had retreated behind a building and I was feeling chilly. Then I realized I hadn't noticed the cold until I closed the book and that's when I realized I liked "Katherines." If I endure hunger or coldness or some other discomfort in order to read, there's a good chance I'm enjoying the book.
But I decided to seek warmth (at least for awhile).
One of my guilty pleasures when I go to the city is having a cigar. So when I stumbled upon Nat Sherman's Cigar Shop--the preferred cigar company of George Burns--I considered it providence.
I selected a small Nat Shermn Metropolitan ($7.10) and retired to the hunter green walled, leather appointed smoking lounge. After fixing my coffee, I sank into a huge caramel wingback and started chapter (five) of "Katherines."
It was then I received the phone call from my cover model's mother that they had arrived downtown. It was only 11:00. They were three hourse early. I inviteed them to lunch. I figured it's good to keep the cover model happy so he'll give that wry, sneaky smirk we need on the cover of my upcoming novel more easily.
So, I hoisted my oppresively massive laptop onto my shoulder, stubbed out my cigar, and finished chapter (five) on the subway headed downtown...
...more to come!
I adore Jim Dale and have truly enjoyed listening to the Harry Potter books because of his reading and voices. He's recently brought Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol, and Around the World in 80 Days to life as well.
But, the three books in the His Dark Materials series comprise the best audiobook series ever. I just relistened to The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass and I'm still reeling from my days in the car with Philip Pullman and cast. The Amber Spyglass, in particular, was a revelatory experience this time. All the threads came together, even the ones I found lengthy on first read and listen.
So, if you purchase an audio series for yourself or for a child (age 10 and up), I highly, highly recommend His Dark Materials. Philip Pullman narrates and a full cast reads the dialogue.
************************************************
I never thought I'd like audiobooks. But, I've found they have improved my quality of life dramatically. I previously found driving (I spend about eight hours/week on the road), cleaning, and running errands a chore. Now it's just more time to "read"!
I forgot it was Friday until I read
Gotta Book today, so I'm just stealing his idea and making a search results fib:
from
far
away,
ass picture,
statue of peeing kid.
As usual, I had to cheat - the first three lines were one search. Don't even ask me where "ass picture" came from... I don't wanna know.
By: Jenny Levine,
on 10/6/2006
Blog:
The Shifted Librarian
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From internal email today, I learned that I work for an organization whose birthday is today. Yes, ALA is 130 today!
"During the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, 103 librarians responded to a call for a 'Convention of Librarians' to be held October 4-6 at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. At the end of the meeting, according to Ed Holley in is essay 'ALA at 100,' 'the register was passed around for all to sign who wished to become charter members.'
In attendance were 90 men and 13 women, among them Justin Winsor (Boston Public, Harvard), Willaim Frederick Poole (Chicago Public, Newberry), Charles Ammi Cutter (Boston Athenaeum), Melvil Dewey, and Richard Rogers Bowker.
The aim of the Association, in that resolution, was 'to enable librarians to do their present work more easily and at less expense.' "
Thanks to Karen Muller and Mary Ellen Davis for the info! I think it's pretty cool I work for an organization that is that old, although, sometimes you definitely feel 130-year old bureaucracy! On the plus side, two quotes from Mary Ghikas from my orientation day.
- "To fight the Justice Department, you have to keep your nose clean" (which is why we have to be careful about politicking on our websites).
- "We're older than the Internal Revenue Service."
The Day #5 Winner (
The Austere Academy) of the Lemony Snicket giveaway is...
Jocelyn Pearce!
The question: What do you think was the most unfortunate situation the siblings have ever gotten themselves into?
The answer:
I think the most unfortunate situation that the Baudelaires have ever gotten themselves into is the event that started it all off--they found themselves with no parents and their home burned to the ground. That's what started the chain of unfortunate event after unfortunate event!
Life can be trying. Work can really get to you if you let it. I'm not really sure which is more sad - thinking those things, or actually putting them down in print.
So tonight, in Academia Land, while filing and sorting images, I unearthed (no pun intended) some cave paintings. While going through one of my nearly antique, yet trust Multiplex cases, I laughed outloud.
The slide rack to file
By: R. L. LaFevers,
on 10/6/2006
Blog:
R. L. LaFevers
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I’m giving a short (as in three minutes) talk tomorrow and the topic is on how technology has most impacted your creative process.
Boy, let me count the ways! Because there are tons.
1. Putting me in touch with the vast community of other writers out there.
I have met some of my closest and dearest writing buddies through online writing forums and e-groups. We talk writing craft like lunatics, wrestling with plot, pov, pacing, character, conflict, pretty much any aspect of craft or the writing process you can name. And in the act of wallowing in all these different processes, my own becomes richer, I get to try new things, and even if they don’t work in the long run, they almost always jiggle something loose or spark an aha! moment, which makes them worth their weight in gold.
2. The World of Publishing at my fingertips
Never before has information on agents and editors and different publishing houses been so plentiful. If there’s an agent or editor you’re interested in, chances are you can find out much about him or her through the internet; who they represent or publish, what types of books they like, which conferences they’ll be attending. Some are very accessible and will often offer advice on how to make your work stand out or what common problems they see with first novels, offering you a chance to do some much needed polishing before submitting your work. Being closely in touch with the industry fuels my creativity in a big way, reminds me I’m part of this amazing process of getting books in front of readers.
3. Research
Okay, first I have to confess right up front that I’m a major research geek. But the truth is, there are books I couldn’t have written if not for the internet and the research I had access to. The most striking example of this is my May 2007 book, Theodosia Throckmorton and the Serpents of Chaos. This book takes place in Edwardian London, a place I certainly have never been. It also jaunts off to Egypt at the turn of the century, another place (and time) I have yet to visit. The beauty of the internet is that I found everything I needed to research this book, from maps of London around the turn of the century, to diagrams of the layout of pharaoh’s tombs in the Valley of the Kings, information on Egyptian gods and goddesses, archaeology, to the logistics of Edwardian life, such as transportation, lighting, and even the political climate. I was like a kid in a candy shop!
4. Connecting with my readers
The internet allows writers to connect with their readers like never before. From websites and email to blogs, writers have all sorts of way to communicate with their audience. I adore hearing from my readers, knowing what they thought about a book, even the parts that weren’t their favorite and I love having even more ways to connect with them. (But I don’t have to convince you guys, do I!)
Hah! It just occurred to me; the question was, What ways has technology impacted your creativity? Notice how I kind equated technology with the internet!
Pretty obvious which technology has had the greatest impact on me!
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