Monthly Archives: April 2010

Lit Agents – Sharks, Goddesses, Beasts, and Bloggers

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Say Hello to Friday, which is from the Old English Frígedæg, meaning the Day of Fríge, Germanic goddess of keeping beer cold in magical cabinets.

So, let’s get right to business, which also happens to be a pleasure: passing along some interesting postings from my favorite literary agent blogs.

I cannot even begin to describe what Janet Reid has written here, a combination of humor, rivalry, crime-fighting women, and sharks.  Click it, read it, it’s well worth the five minutes.

At the Dystel & Goderich blog,  Jessica tackles the issue of writing manuals, while  Miriam points us to a sobering piece at  The Daily Beast on the effects blogging has on “regular” writing.

Jessica at BookEnds advises us to treat each query as our first, lets us in on some of her query stats, and  tells us why queries get rejected.

Kristin Nelson at Pub Rants assures us that writers are a hot commodity these days!

At her Rants & Ramblings blog, Rachelle Gardner asks why people want to be published, whether your agent has to love your book, and what are the limitations of market research in publishing.  She also reminds us that writing is a lifestyle, not a hobby, and invites guess blogger Christa Allan to discuss  how to use a  journal to defeat writer’s block.

Category: Blogroll

Archaic Definition of the Week – Tony

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publishingtony __ Swank. Stylish. Posh. Elegant. [Am. XIX. < High-toned, an expression much in use in XIX Am. society to label a cultivated elegance that combined morality, good breeding, and an opulence made possible only by daddy’s dirty money.]

A Second Browser’s Dictionary and Native’s Guide to the Unknown American Language by John Ciardi (1983).

Category: ADOTW

Writer Links – Sucktitude, Happiness, and Building Worlds

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Here we are at the end of another week.  I had fully intended to finish an Observer short story called “The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die” this week, but I got distracted by residential concerns.  I’ll blog an update when one is warranted.

On the residential concerns.  When the story is ready, I’ll just publish it.

In the meantime, here are some interesting blog posts by writers I like.  Take a look at them all! Continue reading

Category: Blogroll

The Amalgam Poems

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amalgamThe cornerstones of Talgam’s many schools
all claimed to be worked by Amalgam’s tools,
and yet we have no masons in our town
so all of Talgam’s schools were beaten down.

Continue reading

Category: Amalgam

Publishing Links Bonus – Film Trailers for Books?

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I always seem to find something interesting right after posting a string of links

Mike Harvkey over at True/Slant asks a very interesting question:  can film trailers for books — like that created for the upcoming Pride and Prejudice and Zombies : Dawn of the Dreadfuls — boost the sagging publishing industry?

This is particularly interesting to me because I have been thinking of creating a “trailer” for The Ligan of the Disomus for years.  Also being a musician, I had written a few pieces for the story.  Had I ever forced myself to scribble out the storyboard-style sketches I envisioned for the trailer, I would be linking to it right now instead of just talking about it.

What do you think:

Would a film trailer help sell you on reading a book? 

Or, is it premature, jumping the gun on the book-to-film transition? 

Or, even worse, is this yet another way that the film medium is swallowing up the written word?

Publishing Links – Bookstores, Reviews, Adventures, and Misadventures

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Just in time for Tuesday (yeah, I’m not sure what that means either) here are some publishing professionals to link up!

Author magazine encourages us to  embrace simplicity in our lives and our writing, while Moon Rat at Editorial Ass regales us with tales of adventure in book reviewing. 

Alan Rinzler at The Book Deal lets us in on the dynamics of bookstore visibility, and explains how writers build courage.

 Publishr’s Brett Sandusky is interviewed at BookSquare on the future of publishing, while Eric at Pimp My Novel discusses the “middle way” of indie publishing

And wrapping it up for this week, the Moby Lives blog  flings a harpoon or two at “clownish historians” — specifically Stephen Ambrose and  Orlando Figes.

Lit Quotes – The Book of Sports is a Must Read! by Order of the King

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From The English People on the Eve of Colonization : 1603-1630 (1954) by Wallace Notestein:

“The matter of the use of Sunday afternoon became presently a controversial one between Puritans and their opponents.  In 1616 James I on his way down from Scotland was waited upon in Lancashire by a delegation of servants, laborers, and mechanics, who complained that they were estopped from all recreations on Sunday.  James needed no coaxing to utter pronouncements and the chance to encourage Sunday sports was not to be resisted.  The upshot was the Book of Sports authorizing the people to enjoy themselves on Sunday afternoon.  It was ordered to be read in all churches … although here and there a daring [Puritan] clergyman failed to do so.”

So, we have King James to thank for NFL Football?

Category: Quotes

Archaic Definition of the Week – Sixes and Sevens

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publishingSIXES AND SEVENS. Left at sixes and sevens: i.e. in confusion; commonly said of a room where the furniture is scattered about; or of a business left unsettled.

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue : A Dictionary of British Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence (unabridged) compiled originally by Captain Grose

Category: ADOTW | Tags: , ,

Lit Quotes – Ethnic Humor for Advanced 18th Century Readers

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I include the following not-so-literary quote because (a) it is from a scholastic reader and so, although it is not about reading, it is for the purpose of teaching children to read, and (b) I really like how the Native American flips the script on the first speaker.
_

From The Columbian Reading Book (1799) as quoted in Old-Time Schools and School-books by Clifton Johnson:

The retort Courteous.

A white man meeting an Indian asked him, “whose Indian are you?”  To which the copper-faced genius replied, “I am God Almighty’s Indian : whose Indian are you?”

The Amalgam Poems

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amalgamA bear had wandered to Amalgam town;
its fur did not seem black, white, grey, nor brown,
and since we’d heard of no such other bear
we went our ways as if he weren’t there.

Continue reading

Category: Amalgam | Tags: , , ,