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Breakdown Shakedown

Books / By Gwenda / March 5, 2009

Yes, I did just make an alarming musical reference. Get over it.

Anyway, just quick pointing to this BRILLIANT post by Maggie Stiefvater (whose Lament I really do have to read very, very soon) breaking out the various stages of rough draft. Because I'm just finishing a revision, it makes me long to get back to those messy, early draft days. Soon. Soon.

(Although the new ending makes the 75,001-80,000 word stage pretty much still what I'm experiencing RIGHT NOW. Only crossed with having done it once already, but ending 15,000 words earlier. Some of us have drafts that have to get longer in revision. Shocking, but true.)

Bleary-eyed, and off to bed — with a copy of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Yay, zombies!

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Monday Hangovers

2 Comments / Hangovers / By Gwenda / March 2, 2009

Scientific American piece on albinism.
The latest Mind Meld asks a bunch of writers about their literary influences in the ongoing conversation of SF.
"Why can't a woman write the great American novel?" at Salon. (Via Medialoper.)
It's not every day a fashion piece references Gaddis — but, then, it is by Cintra Wilson.
Ilona Andrews has been continuing to pick apart paragraphs. They're like fascinating little autopsies, where at the end the paragraph gets entirely reanimated.
Eliza Dushku interview in USA Today. Mom was a women's studies prof. Hmmm…
Kate Messner on virtual author visits, with some must-read analysis about what worked and what didn't at her school's first one. These will only get more popular, and that's a fabulous thing.
Another thoughtful piece about the "death of independent bookstores." See also the death of the novel and the death of blogging, etc. Updated: Meghan with a great rant on how the indie bookstore business model is not inferior.
Nathan Bransford offers some thoughts on sympathetic vs. unsympathetic characters. Also, see: Holly's crazy writing theory that the truly forbidden is characters going gross. (John Green, you need to write the lovable nosepicker, just to be the exception that proves the rule.)
Slate on the Kindle and why it may be bad for publishing. (Perhaps, though, playing devil's advocate, it will force a more sensible and speedy progression for e-books. I just hope it doesn't seal the deal as the only game in e-book town.) And Gavin has the news on Amazon backing down on the text-to-speech feature, making it title-by-title.
Do belt-tightening times make us better artists?
Psychedelic fish.
The Boston Globe takes a look at a number of Mormons writing YA, including two excellent writers I was lucky enough to have in my workshops at Vermont College — Carol Lynch Williams and Julie Berry. (And, bonus, brilliant genius Martine Leavitt — my last semester advisor, and also a graduate of the program — is interviewed as well.) I find the article's implication that YA is a virginal playground odd, especially considering what happens in the last Twilight book. (Isn't straight-up romance the only genre that actually requires sex? And there's probably some occasional wiggle room there.) But I do agree with Martine that story is paramount in YA and children's literature, and it's nice to see such a generally thoughtful article about a less-well-known trend in the field.
AND, relatedly, Julie's first novel The Amaranth Enchantment is out this week. After spending the weekend with it, I can assure you it'll hit the spot if you're in the mood for a traditional, smart, light-hearted fantasy with charming thieves and diabolical plotters and mistaken identities and witches who carry their souls around with them (sort of). It's a frothy romp with a goat named Dog. And it was selected for the IndieBound spring kids list. Take note of Julie's name, because you'll be hearing way more from her. Trust me.
Joy Williams reviews the new Flannery O'Connor biography by Brad Gooch, which I just started reading the other night.
Stephany needs a baby name! Stop her before she goes with Angina.
Philip Pullman's speech to the Modern Liberty Convention.
Happy pre-birthday to Mr. McLaren, winner of most of the stuff from the Shirley Jackson auction. Maybe the year treat you well.

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Desperately Seeking Picture Book

8 Comments / Books / By Gwenda / March 1, 2009

I want to look up a picture book I loved as a kid, but can't remember–for the life of me–what it was called. Googling and searching the children's book database by keyword aren't helping. I should say that I have no idea if it was actually any good or not, but I was semi-obsessed with it anyway.

The book is about a little girl (with red hair and possibly a blue nightgown in the illos) who has a fever and is very sick. She dreams various adventures on which she's accompanied by her stuffed animals/toys, and the events correspond to changes in her condition in the awake world. One of the companions was a bear with a cart, I believe. And, of course, at the end the fever breaks and all is well. Anyone know it?

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Dollhouse Discussion

7 Comments / TV Goodness / By Gwenda / February 27, 2009

And episode three:

Stage Fright. Echo becomes a backup singer to watch out for a female singing sensation with a very overzealous fan. Agent Ballard's investigation takes a turn for the worse.

I have to say that the description of episode five alone will keep me hanging in until then. But let's hope for less girl running and screaming this week.

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Nebulized!

Scientifiction / By Gwenda / February 27, 2009

The Nebula Award and Norton Award noms are out. Go, Dave Schwartz and Superpowers! Go Ysabeau! And Kelley! And Doc Kessel! And Kij! And Jeff! And Rick Bowes and Jim Kelly! And pretty much everyone, really! Good list, is what I'm saying, and particularly kudos to the Norton jury for excellent selections.

And, ahem, we have two YA novels–Powers and Little Brother–in the novel category, which has to be first, right?

Full list behind the cut.

…

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Your Fingers Will Fall Off

2 Comments / Books / By Gwenda / February 26, 2009

I love it when I'm just doing a quick check for something, and accidentally happen on, say, the Wikipedia entry about book curses. I especially liked this tidbit:

Most curses were written in the book's colophon by the medieval scribe. This was the one place in a medieval manuscript where a scribe was free to write what he wished so book curses tend to be unique to each book.

So many possibilities.

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Girl With Yellow Hair

4 Comments / Memes Upon Memes, Musical / By Gwenda / February 25, 2009

That iTunes meme via Holly. I always use shuffle, because I'm lazy about such things–I also hit skip frequently, though not now because the rules are:

My Life in Itunes

RULES

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.

2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

4&5. Deleted the part about tagging people, so just do it if you like.

6. Have Fun!

…

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Two More Things

12 Comments / Books / By Gwenda / February 25, 2009

1. One of my writing heroes, the divine Daniel Pinkwater*, gets the full interview treatment over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast today. A snippet:

I have had many adventures, including being stranded at night in the Serengeti, living on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, meeting many remarkable people, being in the right place at the right time over and over…and none of those are as much fun as writing. As to keeping the ideas flowing, like everyone else I have sixty ideas a minute. The trick is to pick the ones that are least lousy out of the flow, and what do do with them once you've picked.

2. Top Chef finale (do not spoil me! I won't get to watch until tomorrow evening!): Go, Carla, go! She's my favorite contestant on anything ever.

*I still pinch myself that we share an agent.

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Follow Us Off a Cliff

MFA Rock / By Gwenda / February 25, 2009

Some students and alumni from the Vermont College MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program decided to launch an unofficial Twitter feed to share news related to the projects and activities of current and past members of the program. Other children's and YA lit-related stuff will be in the mix as well. There will be TONS of good stuff, really a gob-smacking amount.

I'm the tweeter-in-chief at the moment, with a couple of helpers, so follow us and spread the word:

http://twitter.com/VCFAwriters

I promise it won't really be off a cliff. Or, if it is, it'll be a well-written cliff.

Tuesday Hangovers

2 Comments / Hangovers / By Gwenda / February 24, 2009

I would type up all the info about Small Beer offering their backlist on Scribd (which I'm just investigating), but Charlie Finlay has all the relevant dish so I'll be lazy and link to him instead. (Also, The Patriot Witch sounds awesome, and you can get a preview of that at Scribd too.)
Over at NPR, Joss Whedon talks about Dollhouse and several women writers discuss the first couple of eps.
Richard Florida on how the crash of 2008 and America's future.
Cyn interviews editor and writer Stacy Whitman.
I twittered-but-forgot-to-post-here a link to Laurel Snyder's excellent article, "Where the Wild Things Aren't," on the need to de-lame-ify much of Jewish children's lit.
Lots of chatter here and yon about Susan Orlean using Google Docs to write her new book. I love Google Docs, although I rarely use it for fiction writing–Scrivener suits that purpose much better. But I love it to keep notes about various things and to access files so I don't have to open the Evil Evil Microsoft Word, which always makes my computer creeeeep along.
What Laini said, and congratulations on hitting the big 5-0-0th post. I appear to be on 1555 here. Yowza.
Okay, back to the Scrivener mines.

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