And You Thought Rejection Was Bad
In our ongoing effort to keep you occupied beyond your wildest dreams, we present some light reading. And a gentle reminder that query letters are hard to write. Really hard. Query Letters I Love
Entropy? Synchronicity? Co-Incidence? The English Language Fails Us
The problem with traveling (other than the part where getting the husband to understand that, if he doesn’t make decisions, we cannot be responsible for the fact he can’t shave) is that you get into a news time warp. Truly, you’re under sedation. Yes, we’ve already lost our point. Luckily, through the magic of Firefox, we have found it again (have we mentioned tabbed browsing?). Yesterday, we posted about character, the author as character, and family (including friends, bosses, etc) as character. Is there a line, and who, pray tell, is going to define it? Not that we’re letting Meg
Thinking About Gender Bias (yes, We’re Sitting Around, Waiting)
We are as susceptible to media overload as the next person. In our case, this resulted in an uninformed but rational decision to bypass Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Luckily, Gladwell personally sold us on his book (okay, us and like 3,000 other people, but it felt very one-on-one there in the standing room only crowd). The book suggests that many decisions are made without detailed information, even in situations where it appears a large amount of information is being gathered. In certain cases, the lack of information leads to better decision making. In his SXSW keynote speech, Gladwell recounted the story
If Ever There Was A Time To Just Say No, Now Would Be It
Don’t get us wrong: we have the greatest respect for the Great Ormond Street Hospital, and believe those poor little kids get the short end of the stick when it comes to money from exploiting Peter Pan. We wish that weren’t the case, but they stand at the bottom of the financial totem pole (this may actually be an instance where an entity makes less than authors, but we cannot be sure). However, Peter Pan does not need a sequel. There is no logical reason (except for financial) to take the story to the next step. In fact, imagining what
Next, He’ll Confess To Reading Magazines For The Pictures
Once upon a time, we took great pride in the fact that we always finished books. For reasons more perverse than practical, we would slog through to the bitter end, if only to figure out how the thing got published. Then books started piling up, littered with bookmarks stuck in the middle, some closer to the beginning than we’d care to admit. Still, we maintained the fiction of finishing everything we started long after it became apparent that we were fooling nobody. This, of course, is not something we’d admit in public. We have our reputation to consider. Also there
Early Morning Analogies
We cannot say why we’re amused by this item, except that we do appreciate hubris. Even more so, we appreciate people calling out those with excess hubris. This isn’t the first time Page Six has been accused of lifting gossip from others, and it probably won’t be the last. We’re not so sure about honor among gossip columists (do they have their own guild?), but we do know it’s important to properly credit the work of others. Without requiring they pay for the privilege. C.J.: Reheated item was fresh here
One of Those Convenient Moments of Convergence
Comic books and characters, together again for the first time. Right. Anyway, for those looking for immortality (and what with the 24-hour day not being enough, who isn’t?), Neil Gaiman has generously offered to help. You can live forever as a cruise ship. Or rather your name can live forever, emblazoned on the cruise ship in Gaiman’s upcoming Anasi Boys. Bidding is already fast and furious (and, sadly, too rich for our blood). From the auction: All proceeds from this auction will benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization that specializes in the defense of First
You Are What You Write (Or Not)
The idea of character versus reality has come up in many ways over the past few days. For example, today Ana Marie Cox, a keynote speaker at SXSW explained that Wonkette is a character (it was also revealed that she’s married…this was news only to Robert Scoble). If you’re a fiction writer, this makes perfect sense. After all, our nearest and dearest know that we don’t know everything; we cannot, for example, convert miles to kilometers. Character, or rather how you present yourself in various situations, has threaded through the SXSW sessions (note: in our defense, we have not attended
May We Suggest A Brief Navel Gazing Respite?
We went into this article on the, uh, death of first fiction filled with appropriate sympathy. Truly. For many reasons, not all of which are selfish, we want authors to succeed and write and publish. We want lots of variety when it comes to reading choices. We need appropriate material for dark and stormy moods; we need just the right thing for first day of spring moods. Let us suggest that today’s literary fiction doesn’t sell at blockbuster levels because it doesn’t speak to mass audiences. We remain perplexed by the continued success of The Da Vinci Code, but the
Previously On Booksquare
See, if they were charging, we wouldn’t be able to bring yet another New York Times article to your attention. One, we might suggest, that has actual topical relevance to this blog. Endings. Writing them, to be specific. As it turns out, what goes up must come down. Or stories must end. Hmm, perhaps this is how the soap opera evolved. They couldn’t figure out how to wrap all the storylines up. Actually, due to a variety of reasons (like, oh, not wanting people to know how things end in this fast-paced ifnormation era), television series are pushing the writing