For authors with recent first-time pro sales, you might want to check your eligibility for a John W. Campbell Award (not-a-Hugo)[1] by going to this site. Once you’ve confirmed that you’re eligible, you should let the folks running the awards know that by clicking the “Contact Us” link on that same web page.
Good luck!
[1] That’s the full name of the award, yeah?
There’s a free casual game that my son really enjoys, called Square Meal. It can be played by two people at once on a single keyboard and it’s part puzzle, part monster-fighting. It’s pretty innocuous and the strategy is nice.
However, the company that made it had a couple problems making it work properly (which is why there’s no link) and I said I wasn’t going to play it again. Once through was enough, but kids like to play things several times.
Anyway, there’s a poll on their blog to choose which game they’ll make a sequel to, and Square Meal is only in second place. Would you mind popping over there and voting for it? Voting closes on February 1st, and currently a stabbing game called Double Edged is in the lead.
Thanks.
Today, I have four copies of Child of Fire wrapped up and addressed for mailing. Two are addressed to my senators, one to my congressional representative, and one is addressed to the president. Included with each book is a nearly-identical letter stating, in essence: This is my work. This is what I do. If we had decent health care reform, I could give my day job to someone else who needs it and write books full time. Pass health care reform, please.
I expect none of them will see the book or the letter, but it’s something I needed to do.
And now, the reviews: Continue reading
I’d meant to post a quick update on the guy who body-slammed a moving bus Wednesday night (lacerations, broken wrist) but instead I’ve been distracted by http://www.peopleofwalmart.com and it’s endless parade of furry boots with hot pants, hateful T-shirt slogans, epic plumbers’ cracks, pimp outfits, too-short skirts with no underwear, cellulite, high heels with hot pants (on dudes), animal prints, hair cuts that make a mullet look like a ‘do from a 5th Ave Salon, costumes, bellies protruding from tiny shirts, schizophrenics who dress themselves, kids on leashes, clothes made from trash bags, people with monkeys (seriously, why so many monkeys?), cars with random shit glued to them, hair styles meant to look like a toupee, hair styles meant to look like animal parts, hair styles meant to look like obscene gestures, yellow go-go boots with hot pants (on dudes), and complete grownups walking around with fake animal tails.
I… I just don’t understand it. Is this my country? Are these my people?
According to research done by a research department of Harvard Medical School:
Lack of health insurance is associated with as many as 44789 deaths per year in the United States, more than those caused by kidney disease (n=42868).41 The increased risk of death attributable to uninsurance suggests that alternative measures of access to medical care for the uninsured, such as community health centers, do not provide the protection of private health insurance. Despite widespread acknowledgment that enacting universal coverage would be life saving, doing so remains politically thorny.
but it really does have a bunch of interesting posts there. More OKCupid data in convenient graph form, this time about how men and women rate the appearance of the opposite sex.
No kidding, but this is interesting. Be sure to look at the race post and the religion post.
1) Yet another reason I’m glad I’ve given up screenwriting. As bad as the credit situation is for writers now, it’s better than it was before the WGA negotiated the right to determine the credit. In the old days, a producer could leave the writers’ names off entirely and give the credit to a girlfriend, if they wanted.
2) A modern-day Jesse James? If Jesse James had 15,000+ Facebook fans, I guess.
3) Upcoming Nicolas Cage projects! aka, some guys with Photoshop put Nic Cage’s face on Davros, Wayne (of Wayne and Garth), and everyone else.
4) I am shocked shocked to discover FBI agents misused the power to conduct warrantless searches! Apparently, the agency has described this lawbreaking as “technical.”
5) Myths of online dating photos: The folks at OKCupid run statistics on their online dating services. What photos get the most interest? What photos turn people away? There are more posts on other topics in the sidebar, including matching people by religion and race.
6) Ta-Nehisi Coates on Jews and basketball.
7) From 10 Strangest Books on Amazon.com: How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way? I should mention, this book also has a better sales ranking than mine, but how can I top a quote like “Besides shooting out a big blank from your buttock, you can feel as if your root chakra leaked sweet hot mucus.”
The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations and unions have the right to donate as much cash as they like to candidates, calling it free speech.
Next week, they’ll grant them the right to marry each other. Sorry, gays. Better move to Spain.
The NY Times has a lengthy profile of bestselling (co-)writer James Patterson. I have to say, whatever you think of Patterson’s books (and I haven’t read them based on how they’re described) it’s fucking fascinating.
Dude started out reading high-brow work, and won an Edgar Award for his debut novel–a noirish crime thriller with (as described in the article) no real hero. After that he dabbled in different genres, trying to find his footing, and eventually came into his own with his thrillers.
He also stopped worrying about sentences. Referring to that award-winning novel:
“The sentences are superior to a lot of the stuff I write now, but the story isn’t as good. I’m less interested in sentences now and more interested in stories.”
Which reminds me of something Lawrence Watt-Evans has said (and I paraphrase and hope he corrects me if I got it wrong) more than once that there are good reasons to write well, but sales isn’t one of them because most readers don’t care.
On top of that, he insisted on a TV commercial when standard wisdom was that TV doesn’t sell books, and when his publisher balked he produced one himself. He insisted on releasing several books a year, despite his publisher’s concern that he would dilute his brand. He works in several genres, despite concerns that he would turn off fans of his thrillers. He did targeted book tours, hired co-authors on his own dime, cut back on the amount of description in his books so the action would come to the forefront.
At this point, he has four or five employees at his publisher who handle his books and his books only. When he meets with his editorial staff, they do it in his living room. His current crop of books start with a 50-page outline which is sent to his co-writers, then he edits and revises the chapters as they write them.
One telling line is this one, though:
For all of his commercial success, though, Patterson seemed bothered by the fact that he has not been given his due — that unlike King or even Grisham, who have managed to transcend their genres, he continues to be dismissed as an airport author or, worse, a marketing genius who has cynically maneuvered his way to best-sellerdom by writing remedial novels that pander to the public’s basest instincts. “Caricature assassination,” Patterson called it.
Despite what the article said, this bothered Stephen King for a long time, too, didn’t it? No matter how much public acclaim, writers ache for critical acclaim, too.
And I have to admit that I’m skeptical of the claims that publishing’s focus on bestsellers makes it hard for new writers to break in. I certainly broke in. Others have. I’m sure it makes it hard for writers to stay in if they don’t have early success, but that’s a more nuanced point.
I was also startled by the comparison of Patterson’s co-authoring process to writing television. It’s true, isn’t it, that good work can come from collaborative work. But in a novel? I’m not sure how ready I am to accept the legitimacy of that.
Still, it’s interesting to read about all the work he put into promotion, especially since my own efforts have revolved around reposting amusing videos and complaining about my feet.
Last night, on the bus ride home from work, the bus driver said something unexpected:
“A pedestrian just ran into my bus!”
Now, when I heard that, I was immediately reminded of all those accident descriptions on insurance forms, where drivers claim that trees suddenly jumped out in front of them, or that old men leap onto the hood of their moving cars. But as it turned out, that’s just what happened.
As the bus was driving down the street in the right lane (I’d say it was going about 30-35 mph) a guy jumped off a retaining wall, sprinted across the pavement and slammed himself into the side of the bus.
I didn’t hear the impact. (Ironically, I was reading Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.) I’m told he survived–an ambulance came for him quickly, and someone who’d seen him said they couldn’t tell how badly he’d been hurt, because he was covered with blankets. I didn’t go near him, because I didn’t want to see anything nasty. I have enough anxiety as it is.
Was it a drunken, mistimed suicide attempt? Was he trying to injure himself to spend a night at a hospital? It did happen just downhill of a long-term homeless encampment.
I’ll never know, I guess.