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Literary agent Peter Cox makes several interesting points about the publishing industry's failure to engage with consumers in his Litopia Daily podcast here.
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An urban fantasy novelist's blog on writing, folklore, and the creative life.
11 November 2009 @ 11:11 am
One of the things I do always, and especially when I get depressed, is to ponder my blessings. I believe that no matter how dire things get, there are blessings, and it is my job to seek them out.
Fortune smiles upon me in my middle age. I often jest about my spine of steel, but my real backbone takes the shape of these three young women, my beautiful trinity of evil:
These are my daughters. When I get down, they can be counted on to lift me up. I was a young mother and on many levels, that served us well. On some it did not. Sometimes I was a rotten mother, sometimes they were rotten kids. We have been thrown out of bookstores for being "rowdy sisters". We have out-gothed all of South Street in Philadelphia back when there were still goths on South Street. We have had battles and heartbreaks and have caused each other unthinkable sorrow. We have also had moments of utter bliss between us and I love all three of them beyond belief. All I have to do is say "please help" and they do, each in their own way. I miss them, of course I do, but they follow their own stars just as I do.
I think it is important to acknowledge what one hasn't got. I hold the ache in my heart that the death of my only son caused very close. But I think it is equally important to acknowledge what we do have, and in my very darkest moments, these faces are always alight.
Pictures of kids swiped from facebook without permission, because I'm their mother and it's my right to embarrass them.
Fortune smiles upon me in my middle age. I often jest about my spine of steel, but my real backbone takes the shape of these three young women, my beautiful trinity of evil:
These are my daughters. When I get down, they can be counted on to lift me up. I was a young mother and on many levels, that served us well. On some it did not. Sometimes I was a rotten mother, sometimes they were rotten kids. We have been thrown out of bookstores for being "rowdy sisters". We have out-gothed all of South Street in Philadelphia back when there were still goths on South Street. We have had battles and heartbreaks and have caused each other unthinkable sorrow. We have also had moments of utter bliss between us and I love all three of them beyond belief. All I have to do is say "please help" and they do, each in their own way. I miss them, of course I do, but they follow their own stars just as I do.
I think it is important to acknowledge what one hasn't got. I hold the ache in my heart that the death of my only son caused very close. But I think it is equally important to acknowledge what we do have, and in my very darkest moments, these faces are always alight.
Pictures of kids swiped from facebook without permission, because I'm their mother and it's my right to embarrass them.
11 November 2009 @ 06:03 am
For earlier installments, click here
My dear M--,
You are right: things are bad here, though I myself didn’t know how bad until your letters came. The helicopter visits have become erratic. Bullying and Friendlier offer no excuses, but the pilot has told me that when the steam clouds from the ruby lake are as thick as they have been in recent days, it’s hard to fly. He looked frightened when he said it, as he always does when he talks to me. “Forgive me,” he said--as if I might call up a spout of lava from the lake to seize him.
( Read more... )
Yours with love,
K--
My dear M--,
You are right: things are bad here, though I myself didn’t know how bad until your letters came. The helicopter visits have become erratic. Bullying and Friendlier offer no excuses, but the pilot has told me that when the steam clouds from the ruby lake are as thick as they have been in recent days, it’s hard to fly. He looked frightened when he said it, as he always does when he talks to me. “Forgive me,” he said--as if I might call up a spout of lava from the lake to seize him.
( Read more... )
Yours with love,
K--
11 November 2009 @ 10:01 pm
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
There really are no words to decribe the glee that this picture gives me. No words at all. This picture makes the world a happier place.
(via the Kickette, who also saw fit to inform the world that Arshavin chose the shark suit, and the others had to make do with what they got)
11 November 2009 @ 11:25 am
aggravated11 November 2009 @ 05:23 am
There's a special film on PBS tonight about a group of senior citizens in Bangor, Maine who meet every plane that comes or goes from that airport carrying servicemen and women. Bangor is one of the eastern-most airports in the USA, so quite a few planes carrying military people pass through that airport. Even if it's at 2 am, this group of citizens and veterans meets the plane.
Our local TV station has celebrated every award this independent film has earned, and tonight it's on national TV. If you miss it and would like to see it, PBS will have it available to watch online starting tomorrow.
Current Mood: 
grateful
grateful11 November 2009 @ 01:42 am
Julia Baird has an essay in Newsweek about how Dorothea Lange's photography changed attitudes toward the poor during the Depression. These images, taken as Lange explored rural California and the Midwest in her dusty Ford station wagon on behalf of the New Deal's Farm Security Administration, serve as a striking reminder of how subversive it can be simply to view people with respect. Lange chose attractive subjects, Gordon writes, "but she also found the attractiveness in everyone," through courtesy, not flattery. And, when her subjects were uneducated, exhausted, hungry farm workers, "her respect for them became a political statement."
Baird wants to know where the Dorothea Lange of the current recession is. Beyond that, though, it's just a great piece showing how much effect art can really have in society.
11 November 2009 @ 12:02 am
Cassie goes almost everywhere with us but depending on which car we take it's like traveling with two different dogs. In my car, a Honda coupe, she sits directly behind me on the back seat. She's happy as can be, looking out the back window or just laying down to wait for us to get wherever it is we need to go. But when the three of us go out, like on our 45 minute drives to Santa Cruz, we usually take my husband's car, a Toyota Four-Runner. We have a doggy gate in the back and Cassie races to the car and jumps in, always anxious to go along, until the car starts and we move down the road.
Then she turns into a barking machine, non-stop from San Jose to Los Gatos to Santa Cruz. Constant barking. Loud barking. Frantic barking.
It's been over a year that she's lived with us and nothing seemed to make a difference. Recently, after a long trip filled with barking in the Toyota I took her on a short trip in the Honda and noticed again how I didn't have any problems with her. I suggested to my husband that we take out the doggy gate and put down the seats so she could come up closer to where we were.
Filled with hope, we invited Cassie to go for a ride. She jumped in the backseat and then walked all the way up to the front and sat down. We started the car and headed down the road.
Silence. Total silence.
This past week we've done several more short trips, around the block a few miles downtown, and each one is just the same. A quiet dog happily going along for a ride. It's not a permanent solution but I think now that we know what the problem was, we'll be able to work on acclimating her to riding in the back. Heck, the view's better back there anyway with more windows. But for now, it's all about getting up close and personal on our family outings.
Some stories are like that, staying in the background, barking at you, begging for attention. They're never satisfied until you bring them up front with you, as close as they can get. But sometimes we're afraid to bring the stories too close. Afraid of what the story might show the world about us or perhaps afraid of the story might show us something we don't want to see.
I never expect that kind of writing to come easily to me. I scream at the computer and throw a few barking fits of my own. I've finally learned that I can't do that kind of deep, emotionally honest writing in one sitting. But I can do it in short bursts, like a trip around the block.
The best stories, the ones that stick in our hearts and minds, are the ones that reflect life as it is, not as we wish it were. The ones that bring us up close and personal.
Then she turns into a barking machine, non-stop from San Jose to Los Gatos to Santa Cruz. Constant barking. Loud barking. Frantic barking.
It's been over a year that she's lived with us and nothing seemed to make a difference. Recently, after a long trip filled with barking in the Toyota I took her on a short trip in the Honda and noticed again how I didn't have any problems with her. I suggested to my husband that we take out the doggy gate and put down the seats so she could come up closer to where we were.
Filled with hope, we invited Cassie to go for a ride. She jumped in the backseat and then walked all the way up to the front and sat down. We started the car and headed down the road.
Silence. Total silence.
This past week we've done several more short trips, around the block a few miles downtown, and each one is just the same. A quiet dog happily going along for a ride. It's not a permanent solution but I think now that we know what the problem was, we'll be able to work on acclimating her to riding in the back. Heck, the view's better back there anyway with more windows. But for now, it's all about getting up close and personal on our family outings.
Some stories are like that, staying in the background, barking at you, begging for attention. They're never satisfied until you bring them up front with you, as close as they can get. But sometimes we're afraid to bring the stories too close. Afraid of what the story might show the world about us or perhaps afraid of the story might show us something we don't want to see.
I never expect that kind of writing to come easily to me. I scream at the computer and throw a few barking fits of my own. I've finally learned that I can't do that kind of deep, emotionally honest writing in one sitting. But I can do it in short bursts, like a trip around the block.
The best stories, the ones that stick in our hearts and minds, are the ones that reflect life as it is, not as we wish it were. The ones that bring us up close and personal.
11 November 2009 @ 01:32 am
If I'm trying to sleep, the ideas won't stop. If I'm trying to write, there appears a barren nothingness. ~Carrie Latet
11 November 2009 @ 09:18 pm
On My Wishlist is a new weekly meme run by Book Chick City that allows us to share books we haven’t bought yet but are waiting to be bought and devoured – those books that we really really want and torment us every time we go to the bookshop or go online and look at them.
This week’s choices are both anthologies – I’ve been wanting to try some out for some time, but for one reason or another have yet to do so.
Title: The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales Of Love And Desire
Editor:Trisha Telep
Contributing Authors: Holly Black, Libba Bray, Melissa De La Cruz, Cassandra Clare, Rachel Caine, Nancy Holder & Debbie Viguie, Cecil Castellucci, Kelley Armstrong, Maria V. Snyder, Sarah Rees Brennan, Lili St. Crow, Karen Mahoney, Dina James
Publisher: Running Press, Random House Australia
Get Your Own A Copy From: Amazon.com, The Book Depository
The allure and mystique of vampire tales have seduced readers for all time. For those fresh-blooded fans of paranormal romance or those whose hunt and hunger never dies, these delicious morsels – including bites from bestselling authors – will make everyone a sucker for eternal kisses.
Why Is This On My Wishlist? It’s vampires. It’s Rachel Caine. It’s Nancy Holder. It’s Sarah Rees Brennan. It’s Maria V. Snyder. That’s enough for me to want it. Plus the Australian/New Zealand cover art is absolutely beautiful. I don’t like the other one though – if you’re going to have both title and image refer to the kiss of the vampire… it would be nice to actually see it.
While there are a couple of authors on the list I am not fans of, the number of authors I do fangirl like whoa outnumber them – plus there are plenty of others I have yet to encounter, so I might find some more. 
Title: Unbound
Contributing Authors: Kim Harrison, Melissa Marr, Jeaniene Frost, Vicki Pettersson, Jocelynn Drake
Publisher: HarperCollins
Get Your Own A Copy From: Amazon.com, The Book Depository
5 of the hottest, New York Times bestselling authors in urban fantasy–KIM HARRISON, MELISSA MARR, JEANIENE FROST, VICKI PETTERSSON, and JOCELYNN DRAKE–come together in one spellbinding anthology. From the Hollows to Sin City, from New Orleans to Savannah, discover some of the most intriguing heroes and heroines who work on the supernatural borders.
Kim Harrison reveals a hidden adventure, as Jenks and Bis investigate a strange haunting…and find far more than they ever expected. Melissa Marr delivers her first adult story, featuring a young woman struggling to escape the supernatural fate of her family. Jeaniene Frost goes to New Orleans, where Bones must face down a ruthless pair of serial killers, while Vicki Pettersson returns to Sin City and, one man’s fight for his soul. And Jocelynn Drake goes to Savannah, where a strange murder calls the balance between human and nightwalker into question..
Why Is This On My Wishlist? I’m mainly just here for the Melissa Marr (I need something to tide me over until Radiant Shadows, plus I am way excited for her adult novel in the future, so this will be a good way of getting an example of adult!Marr) but the other stories sound awesome too.
Mirrored from On The Nightstand.
11 November 2009 @ 06:57 am
And the worst of it is the aches and pains in all joints. I did an online assessment and am eligible for Tamiflu, but I don't have anyone to go pick it up for me. I'll call the primary care trust once they open to see what my options are. I'm out of imortant foodstuffs, too (such as cat food), and don't quite know what to do about that, being as how I don't want to spread my germs. Looking forward to feeling better...hell, looking forward to my temp dropping below 100F (37.8C)!
11 November 2009 @ 02:00 am
- 01:07:35: I stubbed my toe. It hurts.
- 01:10:36: So who ended up being the Gossip Girl threesome?
- 02:57:50: Reading through the 'Students Choice for UB SpringFest 2010' facebook group really amuses me.
- 04:00:41: @dmfitzy08 you left your music on. i turned it off. good night.
- 10:51:45: Geology test today.
- 14:31:15: Facebook Uno is my new favorite thing.
Tweets copied by twittinesis.com
11 November 2009 @ 01:14 pm
I have a sneaking suspicion that holding up my headphone cable in my ponytail is a little bit too Luna Lovegood: the kind of action that seems completely harmless but completely socially unacceptable. *sigh* I'm pretty sure I make this kind of faux pas all the time.
In other news, is it impossible for me to go to the Writing Center at school without being hit on? statistics would say so. The last four times I've been, the boy grading me has hit on my or flat out asked me out. This was nifty at first but is getting to be annoying, especially tonight. I think it has to be the accent. If you work in the writing center you more than likely have a more than healthy obsession with the English Language, and my English accent seems to attract pretentiousness like ants to honey. Tonight though, I might have actually liked to hit on him back, had I not been deathly pressed for time. There he was, drolling away, elaberatly analyzing my paragraphs, mistakenly under the impression that I could care less. sitting there, tapping my foot and frantically glancing back to and from my watch, I inevitably broke and exasperatedly proclaimed, "Honestly, I really don't care. could you please just sign this so I can back in time for V in 30 minutes!?" Which did lead to a rather interesting conversation about the new V series, firefly, and his Blue Harvest t-shirt, but it unfortunately also lead to me driving home at 60 miles an hour in order to make it home for V. Nothing gets between me and my scifi, not even cute boys in Star Wars T-shirts. >_0
In other news, is it impossible for me to go to the Writing Center at school without being hit on? statistics would say so. The last four times I've been, the boy grading me has hit on my or flat out asked me out. This was nifty at first but is getting to be annoying, especially tonight. I think it has to be the accent. If you work in the writing center you more than likely have a more than healthy obsession with the English Language, and my English accent seems to attract pretentiousness like ants to honey. Tonight though, I might have actually liked to hit on him back, had I not been deathly pressed for time. There he was, drolling away, elaberatly analyzing my paragraphs, mistakenly under the impression that I could care less. sitting there, tapping my foot and frantically glancing back to and from my watch, I inevitably broke and exasperatedly proclaimed, "Honestly, I really don't care. could you please just sign this so I can back in time for V in 30 minutes!?" Which did lead to a rather interesting conversation about the new V series, firefly, and his Blue Harvest t-shirt, but it unfortunately also lead to me driving home at 60 miles an hour in order to make it home for V. Nothing gets between me and my scifi, not even cute boys in Star Wars T-shirts. >_0
11 November 2009 @ 12:38 am
Wednesday, November 11
10am-5pm: NanoDaySprints Host:Alethessa9
8pm-10:30pm: NanoEveningSprints Host:Alethessa9
10:30pm-2am: NanoIntoTheNight Host:WritingVixen87
2am-7am: NanoNocturnalSprints Host:NewsWorthy92
10am-5pm: NanoDaySprints Host:Alethessa9
8pm-10:30pm: NanoEveningSprints Host:Alethessa9
10:30pm-2am: NanoIntoTheNight Host:WritingVixen87
2am-7am: NanoNocturnalSprints Host:NewsWorthy92
11 November 2009 @ 12:31 am
step 1: read articles
step 2: write briefs
step 3: interview Save Our Schools people
step 4: write some intellectual journals
step 5: work on applied paper and presentation
step 6: finish Nest in the Wind
step 7: write some more intellectual journals
step 8: finish those online briefs
step 9: finish applied paper
step 10: study for pacific class final
step 11: write more of those intellectual journals
step 12: damn i was hoping this would be a 12-step program! so close!
oh well....and by the way lindsay...these don't necessarily have to be done in this exact order, that's just what you have to do. you can do it. i promise. oh, and please pass everything so you can graduate.
please please please!!!
and thank you!
step 2: write briefs
step 3: interview Save Our Schools people
step 4: write some intellectual journals
step 5: work on applied paper and presentation
step 6: finish Nest in the Wind
step 7: write some more intellectual journals
step 8: finish those online briefs
step 9: finish applied paper
step 10: study for pacific class final
step 11: write more of those intellectual journals
step 12: damn i was hoping this would be a 12-step program! so close!
oh well....and by the way lindsay...these don't necessarily have to be done in this exact order, that's just what you have to do. you can do it. i promise. oh, and please pass everything so you can graduate.
please please please!!!
and thank you!
11 November 2009 @ 12:32 am
The Great Ceiling Escapade continues apace. Truth? It's nearly done, but I am lazy terribly busy and important and haven't had the opportunity to make regular posts regarding the day to day progress. Let's just think of this as an experiment in time travel - nay, time and space. There may be wibbley wobbly bits.
( My living room is bigger on the inside. )
There's my classy boy.
coming soon: more kitty tales, why I failed at NaNo before it even began, and Almost Finished! pics
( My living room is bigger on the inside. )
There's my classy boy.
coming soon: more kitty tales, why I failed at NaNo before it even began, and Almost Finished! pics
11 November 2009 @ 01:06 am
The kind that keeps a novel going and keeps a reader reading, not what a writer does while fretting about how said novel is doing.
Is pacing in books becoming more frenetic? More like, well, as I’ve read discussions on it, more like sound-bites. But for Reading! Yeah, that’s just wrong, on so many levels. Isn’t it?
But the fact of book publishing seems to be for short quick snippets or whip-its of chapters [No, we are not reverting back to penguin porn! That was already covered in previous post quite sufficiently. ;-D ]
Most people seem to think that Hemmingway etc.. would never be published now. And even recently it was heard, at the JRW Conference I think, that even Michener didn’t think he would have been published in his ‘present’ day, and was glad his career had started in a much earlier time.
Do you think we’ll ever go back to that? To the leisurely pace that meanders or slowly leads you to the end?
Or are we destined for the quick breathless pace of a thriller, no matter what type of book we are writing?
I have mentioned the words/story/what-ever-it-was I threw together last year for an ‘unofficial’ nano. It taught me a Lot about pacing. And how to manipulate it. Which was Really terrific. But it seemed to come naturally with that particular story line. Not so easy to work it in ones I’m working on now.
What do you think? Are you good at pacing? What makes you good at it? And is it easy for you in Everything you write? Or is it easier in some than others?
11 November 2009 @ 12:44 am
I discovered these two on wimp.com and followed the link to their youtube page, and I'm Oh-So-In-Love with them. They are amazing! I like indie, but it has to be "right" indie and these two are SO RIGHT it's almost wrong!
( Check it out, good covers here )
They do their own stuff too, but I only listened to the covers for now.
( Check it out, good covers here )
They do their own stuff too, but I only listened to the covers for now.
impressed11 November 2009 @ 04:25 pm
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
17739 / 50000
And to think I didn’t know what to blog about today!
I returned from a very decadent morning (cough, well into the afternoon) hanging out with the awesome Penni Russon and her very smart little girl Una, chatting about books and publishing and motherhood and education, one of those conversations I rarely get to have in person with other authors – online is a very good substitute, but still completely different.
I come home, get Jem off for a nap with remarkable ease, I’m feeling replensished and enervated and generally good about the world and then I find out that the battle against the proposed changes for the parallel importation of books has been won.
The press release itself makes interesting reading. It seems to focus on the additional spending programme that the Productivity Commission recommended as a (completely inadequate, in my opinion and that of most writers and publishers) compensation for the adverse effect on our careers that removing the restrictions on PIRs would have on our industry. The press release implies by its words that the government don’t want to spend any more on the publishing industry or writers, and thus have rejected the Productivity Commission’s recommendations.
Which is… good, but it’s just weirdly phrased. That isn’t the battle that we were fighting, and it misrepresents what the point of the whole issue was about. The press release, if anything, implies that they are forcing the publishers and the printing industry to stand on their own two feet (when they were already doing just fine, thanks) and makes no mention of the fact that it was booksellers (or to be precise, corporations who have an interest in selling books) who were driving the proposed changes.
Eh, semantics. It’s a win. A really important, awesome win. And besides, writers, publishers and even printers should be used to having their position misrepresented after all this. It’s such a relief that the juggernaut that was the Coalition of Cheaper Books did not prevail in their attempts to gain greater profits at the expense of our industry. I was quite horrified to see some of the ways in which they and others were attempting to present writers and publishers as being somehow greedy and selfish for trying to preserve and protect their industry at the expense of all those poor bookless customers.
Like the writers of Australia don’t all spend most of their income on books anyway.
I am so very glad to see that all the efforts of the campaigners and protesters against the corporations have actually won this one. I honestly didn’t have faith that the right choice would be made, this time around, and I’m glad I was wrong.
When I wrote my letters to the various politicians – as many of us did – the aspect I chose to focus on was not as a writer, or even as a regular (cough, SUBSTANTIAL) consumer of books. My focus was as a mother, because it freaked me out that the other side was pretending their cause would benefit education in this country, when they had no apparent respect for what books actually are.
The thing about books are, they’re all different. They’re not easily-swappable commodities. And my daughters’ education, while I hope it will include learning about many different cultures, countries and genres, needs to be firmly rooted in this country’s literature and language. It’s not mad parochialism, or anything. I want my girls to be able to pick up books they can see themselves in. Funnily enough, this circles back to my writerly playdate this morning – Penni’s Little Bird delighted me because it was a gorgeously packaged, widely distributed, blatantly-for-teen-girls novel which was set in Hobart. As I said to her today, the Allen & Unwin Girlfriend line of books excites me because they are marketed and branded just like the mass-selling teen books of our childhood (cough, Sweet Valley High, cough) only they are Australian, taking in a variety of the different lifestyles and cultures within this country.
These are the kinds of books that would have been lost if the Australian publishing industry was forced to globalise. The ‘great novels’ of ‘Australian literature’ (air quote, air quote) will never be entirely at risk because there are grants and awards and because there’s a certain degree of masculine status and ego wrapped up in them. But the easy-to-read-with-familiar-settings teenage girl books that maybe will be the difference between a 14 year old reading or not reading? Those would have so easily been lost between the cracks. And the Coalition of Cheaper Books would not have minded, as long as they could pump out more and more overseas copies of the latest Twilight trending tome.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write some more of my Ancient Roman-flapper-shapechanger fantasy novel, which has very little Australian content, but at least has Australian spelling.