Catch up
The posts from the old board, ported over:
James D Macdonald
I live here
Posts: 3185
(2/10/05 7:18 pm)
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Work In Progress
For reasons that seemed good to us, we've set up a LiveJournal to discuss our latest Work In Progress, a novel called (working title)
Mist And Snow due later this year to Avon/Eos.
www.livejournal.com/users/mist_and_snow/
See y'all there. (And here.)
maestrowork
Resident Bug Chef
Posts: 6240
(2/10/05 8:50 pm)
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ezSupporter
Re: Foreshadowing vs Set Piece
Yeah, I remember grabbing an Asimov book at libraries as well...
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. -- MLK
Read my reviews at:Ray's Reel Reviews or Actors Ink Movie Reviews
HConn
Board legend
Posts: 931
(2/11/05 12:40 am)
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Re: What's in a name?
Here's a fun example of the ABM:
pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2005/02/opinions.html "I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
-- Jerome K. Jerome
JimMorcombe
New friend
Posts: 43
(2/11/05 1:02 am)
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Asimov
Asimov wrote so many books that some people didn't believe he was a real person. I read an "authorative" article somewhere twenty years ago that said he didn't exist and the name was used as a corportate front for a number of different writers.
I checked it out thoroughly. Just one guy. And he worked as a professor somewhere so perhaps writing was just his second job
When (if) I grow up, I want to be just like him.
Jim Morcombe
Bored Elder
mr mistook
Board fanatic
Posts: 410
(2/11/05 2:17 am)
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Re: Work In Progress
Quote:I read an "authorative" article somewhere twenty years ago that said he didn't exist
They say the same things about Shakespeare. Ridiculous how the world works.
NTM61921
()))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))# ~ ~ ~
cactuswendy
New friend
Posts: 15
(2/11/05 2:47 am)
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Re: Foreshadowing vs Set Piece
HCONN....wow ...what a site...thanks for sharing that....
Makes me want to pull up my spine...get my act together
and write like a writer........thanks again.
Jules Hall
One of the
locals
Posts: 164
(2/11/05 7:32 am)
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Re: What's in a name?
Quote:Here's a fun example of the ABM:
ABM?
Quote:pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2005/02/opinions.html
Wow. Remind me never to get on
her bad side.
James D Macdonald
I live here
Posts: 3188
(2/11/05 8:04 am)
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Re: What's in a name?
ABM = Author's Big Mistake. The ABM is replying in any way to an unfavorable review.
I don't think that particular writer was committing the ABM. An ABM is more on the line of "I read your review and here's why it's wrong and, incidentally, you're a poop" not "I refuse to read reviews and think reviewers in general are poops."
Asimov was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.
Medievalist
Board regular
Posts: 85
(2/11/05 8:55 am)
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Re: Asimov
Asimov was quite real--scores of people met him at science fiction conferences.
--
Lisa L. Spangenberg | Digital Medievalist
Celtic Studies Resources |
www.digitalmedievalist.com
My opinions are my own. | Who else would want them?
maestrowork
Resident Bug Chef
Posts: 6247
(2/11/05 9:37 am)
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ezSupporter
Review
I think the writer of that blog was just venting. Many writers don't read reviews of their work either. I guess that prevents them from doing the ABM.
(Unless you have a nasty review on Amazon that is totally untrue and done visciously by anyone with an Internet access... then you should probably ask Amazon to take it off... as Jenna did some time ago)
Jules Hall
One of the
locals
Posts: 165
(2/11/05 10:15 am)
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Re: What's in a name?
I suspect she'd got a bit of negative correspondence from reviewers after posting this earlier article:
pbackwriter.blogspot.com/.../pass.html
Sailor Kenshin
Board regular
Posts: 95
(2/11/05 1:36 pm)
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ezSupporter
Re: fonts
I haven't read the whole enormous thread yet, but this is a great topic.
Quote:The point of this exercise is this: Have you ever gone to an art museum and seen the art students sitting there with their easels and oils, copying the great masters? The point isn't to turn them into plagairists, or to make them expert forgers. The point is to get the feeling into their hands and arms of how to make the brush strokes that create a particular illusion on canvas. Writing is no less a physical skill than painting.
I've said this often enough. When I was painting, I'd go and do that. Now that I'm writing I copy at will to discover how a favorite author does things.
Quote:I except your word usage notes accept they do not apply to me. In effect, these rules do not affect my writings at all. Allot of other people, though, will learn alot from this. A lot won’t.
I would rather have someone write incorrectly and to censor them than to censure them. After all we have freedom of speech.
James illicits good thought on this so we learn and won’t write elicitly.
I write as that so don’t look at me like I’m wrong.
Yikes. "Hiten mitsurugi style, Do-Ryuu-Sen!"
Edited by: Sailor Kenshin at: 2/11/05 2:32 pm
Diviner
New friend
Posts: 16
(2/11/05 2:20 pm)
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Re: What's in a name?
I have a great fondness for St Martins Press. They publish several different genres as well as literary fiction. For years I would look on the shelf of the library and grab up any published by St Martins. Rarely was I disappointed.
Now that I have moved from mere reader to wannabe writer, I am wondering if they have imprints or are an imprint and if they should be the publisher I should approach first with my historical fiction. Of course, my book is not yet finished, nor do I have and agent, but I am thinking ahead.
What is the best way to find out about publishers? If you add in the small presses, there seem to be overwhelming numbers of them.
James D Macdonald
I live here
Posts: 3194
(2/11/05 2:27 pm)
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Re: What's in a name?
What is the best way to find out about publishers? If you add in the small presses, there seem to be overwhelming numbers of them.
To know the artist, study the art.
There are around twenty thousand publishers -- but by the time you get to the end of the list you're looking at historical societies that put out an annual Old Home Days Cookbook.
So ... read books. See who published the ones you admire. See who published the ones that resemble your book.
Get their guidelines. Follow their guidelines. To the letter.
(Books like Writers Market and Literary Market Place are good starting points, but your own research is necessary. No one source is error-free or foolproof.)
There are only two things under your control as a writer:
How well you write, and
Where you submit.
Both should be
the best possible.
Edited by: James D Macdonald
at: 2/11/05 2:32 pm
Lenora Rose
New friend
Posts: 4
(2/11/05 3:04 pm)
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Re: What's in a name?
NB - Most of this was written before I read The second set of comments on that blog. To the second set, I will only say, yes, some reviewers are crud or will disagree with you. Some fiction writers are crud and will disagree with you.
but my comments to the first part stand:
Now, some ditz with internet access and a hair up an orifice for whatever reason wants to come and tell the world how he or she would write my book? Oh, be my guest. Only when you write that review, imagine how you'd feel if I came into your place of business, knowing little to nothing about how to do your job, and commenced to decide how well you did it.
Not just this one, but everyone who talks about why they don't read reviews or why reviewers have no right to dare touch their books brings out the "And what are
your credentials?" Even if no reviewers had fiction qualifications, this is a false question, implying the credentials for writing reviews are exactly the same as those for writing fiction. If anything, I find writing reviews sometimes harder than writing fiction. It's certainly not something I do because it's easier than "real" writing.
As for her first sentence - all insults to random strangers aside - what she fails to understand is that reviews are not writers telling how they would write the book. Reviews are
word of mouth. Word of mouth is one of the biggest ways to sell books. They're word of mouth by someone you don't necessarily know, which is a slight negative, but they're also a word of mouth that reaches far far more people than most avid readers could. And they can become as reliable as imprints for whether or not you, personally, should bother to listen. For instance, I'd been reading Green Man reviews for over two years before I became a staff member, because with the exception of a single reviewer (A brand name within a brand name, I guess), I found reviews from that source as reliable as in person word-of-mouth from my friends (Maybe more so, as some of my friends do not share my tastes in books or music). They were also well-written, and intelligent, and it was clear editors had a hand in the finished product. They were also picked up as blurbs, and read widely outside myself.
I joined in because I wanted to be able to spread my own word of mouth with a reputation that reliable. I didn't want my opinions to be Jane Anybody with a web site. I didn't want my favourite books to be picked up by a few of my friends and nobody else. I wanted people who would share my tastes to hear about them, and people who would not share my tastes to be able to know clearly to go elsewhere.
I didn't go into it to tell successful writers what I would have done with their books. If I must be a character in the story writers tell about their own books, they're free to make me a villainess, but they should at least get my motivations right.
James D Macdonald
I live here
Posts: 3197
(2/11/05 4:25 pm)
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Reviews
Good point.
The reviewer isn't the writer's friend. The reviewer works for the reader.
To that end, there's no need for the writer to read the reviewer's works.
(And a reviewer who's wrong 100% of the time is more useful to me as a reader than one who's right 50% of the time. With the former, if the reviewer recommends a book I know to stay away while if he trashes it I know to go pick up a copy. With the latter I might as well flip a coin.)
James D Macdonald
I live here
Posts: 3198
(2/11/05 4:58 pm)
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IMPORTANT NOTICE
No more posts to this thread, please. We're about to go flying over to the New Board. New posts won't go with us.
Anyone who wanted to copy
this thread, do it now!