How to use this Page

Merry Christmas from everyone at the Beat to all of you. Wishing you a peaceful, happy holiday and all the presents you asked for. If you seeking something to do between presents and turkey here are a few diversions, including a holiday greeting from Luke Cage and Danny Rand via Sanford Green. You know I […]

By Alice Northover

What do you read when struck down with a winter cold? Run back to the classics of Fitzgerald and Spielberg; learn from the ancients and panic about technology; and try not to look at things that make your eyes fall out.

In anticipation of the upcoming movie, the literary world is going Gatsby. First up, “Where Daisy Buchanan Lived.”

The University of Chicago received a package for Henry Walton Jones, Jr (Indiana Jones).

Portraits of literary greats.

Russian animated literature!

Cancer scientists take lessons from the ancient Greeks.

Music inspired by books. Next up band names inspired by books?

New technology + publishing = +1 on to do list.

Rachel Fershleiser of Tumblr on the Bookternet.

Bram Stoker and Walt Whitman were pen pals.

Articles for deletion on Wikipedia.

Beautiful bookbinding.

In defense of memes.

The antimonopolist history of the world’s most popular board game.

An online tutorial for medieval Latin.

Our most intriguing book review yet: “my big criticism with The Book of Marvels And Travels is that it’s not very good as a videogame. i found it extremely hard to manipulate the controls through the pulpy binding and the graphics are no good. i tried to visualise about what i was reading and then i started imagining a blue triangle moving through an endless purple void and when i woke up my pillow was gone.”

And finally Gatbsy!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.

The post Friday procrastination: winter cold edition appeared first on OUPblog.

choices (Photo credit: WhatiMom)

During the past few days on Claudsy’s Blog, discussions have risen about many issues. Definitions and roles began this journey of the week. A killer interview with Walt Wojtanik kicked over a massive rock to cause a landslide of hits and comments for both Walt and me.

I announced a guest blog that I’d done over in Pat McDermott’s kitchen, and took on questions about illiteracy in America yesterday. Sort of looks like I’ve been spinning the wheel of subject chances, doesn’t it?

The idea of subject chances sums it up very well. Claudsy’s Blog has always been a morphing kind of place. Like most people, I have whims. At present I’m redefining parts of blogs, types of writing projects, and future possibilities. I’m exploring both the writing world and myself.

My explorations have created a need to jump hurdles of my own making. Trained as a sociologist, with degrees in psychology, etc., my vision of the world tends to be a bit more esoteric than some people’s. I can’t look at something and see only one aspect. Too many factors go into the overall impact of each subject’s aspects.

Character building, for instance, by my current definition, refers to characters created for my stories. Developing a teenager for a short story or novel, as one example, requires knowing how a child is likely to live in a specific region, with specific types of parents, living with specific limitations, boundaries, etc. Every good writer builds a character with care and craftsmanship.

Finding character traits and circumstances doesn’t always take vast amounts of time. This afternoon a story came across my news feed, which carried one of the strongest characters I’ve seen in a very long time. The young lady in question was perfect for an idea that I’d been working on for a while.

A 15 year-old girl suffers from a rare, debilitating disease that has determined her entire life. She cannot eat as others do. A combination of an autoimmune disease and severe food allergies forbids her to eat anything by mouth other than potatoes. Sounds fictional, doesn’t it?

Her hurdle of choice is to become a professional chef. This lovely young woman wants to cook for those who can enjoy the food she’s denied. And she’s well on her way.

Talk about character. This is the type of model that makes for exquisite story characters. They are real, living and breathing in the world.

You might ask what kind of story can be built around such information. Here are some of the plotlines already under consideration.

• YA—female lead enters cook-off where one of the requirements has the chef sampling her own developed recipe concoctions
• YA—female lead suffers from condition which forbids 5 Comments on Character Building from Hurdles, last added: 5/11/2012