Good-bye to Miss Snark
I bring sad news! Miss Snark { http://misssnark.blogspot.com/ } is leaving us, though not without a prize: the archive of her blog, thus allowing us to search it at will so we can learn from the snarkiest of snarks. Miss Snark, if you don't know, is an agent with a penchant for telling the truth, as brutally as possible. A form of tough love, if you will. I suggest you look at her snarkives (a.k.a. archives two years in the making) for guidelines on how to write a proper query (any of the submisions Crap-O-Meters will give you an excellent idea of what not to write to an agent).
So good-bye, Miss Snark. Do send my regards to Killer Yapp.
Tragedy, Haitus
First, my thoughts and prayers go out to the students, staff, and faculty at Virginia Tech, and their friends and families.
Second, I am starting a slight haitus. The quarter is heating up and it's time for me to be a full-time student. See you in a while, and leave a comment! If anything comes up then I'll be sure to post, but in the meantime, may the muse be with you.
An Update
So. How is the WIP going? Fairly well, I would say. It's a new month, which means I've printed out the previous month's (incomplete) draft, kissed it, set it aside, and convinced my mind that I'm starting this month with a new inspired view of the WIP. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it seems to work for me. I'm 29% complete with this draft that I call The Rewrite of Novel # 2 (tm).
It's sort of a running joke between my friends, or, at least, those who are interested in my writing, to call my books by the order in which I started them. There is, of course, Number One, which is my self-published (subsidy) book from high school, Catching the Rose. Number Two is what I keep calling the WIP here, while Number Three is the sequel to Number Two, and the result of my participating in NaNoWriMo 2006. Number Three's fun and quick tone convinced me to rewrite Number Two. (All of this is more information than you cared to know about, I'm sure, but I find the writing habits of other writers fascinating... so every once in a while, I indulge myslf.) I haven't had a chance to write in the last four days or so, other than blogging, and I can feel the strain. This is funny, in a not-so-funny way, because last week I suffered from a mini-Block. This week, I'm struggling to hold the reins of my imagination until I have control of everything and know the exact route I want to take. Talking through the plot, or just talking about the WIP in general, does help, however, which is what happened this time around to kill the infamous WB.
I'd like to make an update, however, about a previous post in which I talked about Lulu's Published By You package. According to POD Critic, while the package claims that the author (which would be you) is designated as the publisher (which essentially means you are the publisher and Lulu is merely the printer), the truth of the matter is that everywhere else you submit your book, Lulu will be listed as the publisher.
I began to think about this, and what the implications are. So, let's walk through this. By registering your book with Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, etc, POD Critic claims that these websites still list Lulu as the publisher. Which means Lulu is still a subsidy press, rather than a community of self-run micropresses. It does make sense. After all, you can't actually buy ISBNs separately, you have to buy them in groups of ten. So, Lulu is still being the middle-man by buying the blocks, and then allowing you, the author, to buy the ISBN separately, from them, Lulu. The U.S. ISBN Agency, however, will still list the ISBN as owned by Lulu. Anything that happens to the ISBN after selling it to Lulu is not really their problem.
Tricky, no? I think it's a tricky move, and kind of mean, actually, but then, I suppose it is the author's responsibility to look up and understand all the details of such a transaction. And really, if you're going through all the trouble of buying the ISBN from Lulu, you might as well just set up your own micropress, like how POD Critic advocates. If you're that serious about self-publishing, you might as well go all the way and just do it yourself.
Good-bye to POD-dy Mouth
I just wanted to mention the going of POD-dy Mouth. She had a wonderful experiment of finding self-published print-on-demad authors, reviewing them, and even coming up with a top list of books with the reward being that the winner of her Needle Competition would have a reading with a literary agency. She's done a lot of good work these last two years trying to change the way the publishing industry looks at POD and self-publishing.
This is kind of big for me. Her posts kept me inspired to continue the work of being an independent author. In fact, I was hoping she would keep it up long enough for me to possibly submit my own work... sadly, I have taken way too long and worried too much about my details/characters/whatever to get farther than 25% done with the manuscript.
Which is another update: I'm more than 25% complete with the current draft! How exciting is that! This is the one bad thing about finals week: instead of studying, I start writing. But then, when I indulge the writing urge, I can focus on studying because I'm not daydreaming about writing...
Anyway, I just thought I'd make note of POD-dy Mouth's leaving the blogosphere. She'll be missed.
Procrastination
I should be studying for my finite automata exam. Really, I should. However, I find myself procrastinating. Which is funny, because usually I use my studying and classwork as a way to procrastinate from my writing. Now, I'm procrastinating from the very thing that allows me to procrastinate.
Why am I procrastinating from my writing? Well, because when I look at the page, I sigh and my shoulders slump, rather than smile and put my eager fingers to the keyboard. Like I said before, I know where I want to go next. What I don't know, what the characters refuse to tell me, is what path to take in order to get there. And no, I am not schizophrenic, though sometimes my mother worries I might be when I start talking about my characters as if they were alive.
The interesting thing about this (to me, at least) is that I have to write. I need to write. Not writing causes actual changes in personality. Feel free to picture a Jekyll/Hyde situation, but only because it's amusing, not because it's true. I do become a little more cranky, but the main thing is, I feel a lot more stress when I don't write. Being a person generally inclined towards stress (and here my friends laugh and shake their heads at me because they know that's an understatement), having a writing outlet has become an integral part of my personality, especially if I want to maintain general content (the adjective, not the noun).
I've heard from multiple people that this...need rather than want to write is what makes me a "serious" writer. I heard it earlier today, actually. Does it make me a serious writer? Perhaps so. I can't be sure, I only know my experience with writing. I do know that there is a direct correlation between how stressed I am, and how long ago I last wrote something "creative." Or sometimes since the last time I wrote anything, period.
So, I suppose my main hope is that by writing this entry, I will have gotten the procrastination blues out of me. That I will turn from my monitor excited to study finite automata, context-free grammars, and regular languages.
Or...at least helped you all to procrastinate a little with me.
In French, Chat Chapeau
I forgot to mention that this past week, The Cat in the Hat turned 50. I have very fond memories of that book, and the little musical cartoon movie. Dr Seuss's nonsensical words, among many other things from my childhood (Sesame Street, The Letter People, Reading Rainbow, and Wishbone), gave me my love of language.
So, happy birthday, Mr Cat.
Happy New Year, Get Studying
Happy New Year everyone! May your muse shine brightly this year.
Now to some business: for those of you who are interested in taking graduate-level courses, check out the following programs. Some of them are only a week long, but cram enough information to cover a year-long publishing internship/entry-level job. I suggest looking these over, especially if you're thinking of self-publishing and doing it properly and well. Also, it looks great on your resume, and, I think, looks even better than saying you have a graduate degree in Creative Writing. The thing is, a creative writing degree is hard to sell unless you came from a prestigious school or had a well-known writer as your lecturer. Even so, having the degree only means you know the tricks--it says nothing about whether you can apply them or not. With a publishing degree, it shows you take the process of writing a book seriously. Your publishing house/agent/whomever knows that you understand the process and therefore know that even though they're publishing the book, your marketing skills are absolutely key.
NYU Summer Publishing Institute: Provides lectures, workshops, simulations, site visits, special events, and career planning sessions to those interested in developing a publishing career. Explore key principles and practices in this thorough introduction to publishing, as well as the role of editing, marketing, design, new media, production, budgeting, advertising, circulation, publicity, and much more.
Columbia Publishing Course: Shortest graduate school in the country; would take you a year in an entry-level position in publishing to learn what you will learn in six-weeks here, and ten years to meet all the people you will meet. For almost sixty years, the course has been training young men and women for careers as editors, literary agents, publishers, designers, publicists, and more. Graduates can be found in every kind of job, at major magazines and publishing houses across the nation.
University of Denver Publishing Institute: An intensive, full-time, four-week, graduate-level course that devotes itself to all aspects of book publishing: editing, marketing, and production. During the final week, the Institute provides career counseling sessions to assist students in finding positions in publishing.
Emerson College MA in Publishing and Writing: Offers courses in book, magazine, and electronic publishing; in fiction and nonfiction writing; and in literature and criticism. Internship and apprenticeship opportunities are available, for credit, in Boston publishing and production firms and literary agencies.
Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing: Canada's premier training ground for professional publishing, Simon Fraser University's Master of Publishing (MPub) is a rigorous 16-month program of seminars, guest lectures, technology workshops and an internship.
Publishing Training: Learn publishing skills from the industry's training provider. Classroom-based open courses cover everything from editorial skills to marketing and publicity. Can also study proofreading, editing, copywriting or picture research by distance learning.
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