For those of you who don’t already know, I live a short jaunt from the National Mall.

And, when I say “a short jaunt” I mean that, if I had a straight line of site from my balcony to Independence Avenue, with my US Navy Expert Marksman ribbon I would stand a good chance (with a rifle) of hitting a man-sized target skirting the rear of the Air and Space Museum.

Okay, maybe that’s a rather violent illustration, but I think I’ve made my point.

So, imagine my excitement at the news that the entire National Mall is now wired for the Internet!  Granted, it is a bit ironic since I just signed up for 3G service on my new laptop with Verizon last weekend, but let’s not look a gift horse (or gift Wi-Fi) in the mouth.

Expect some blog entries from the shadow of the Smithsonian (or, God help my waistline, the Mitsitam Cafe at the Museum of the American Indian) in the near future!

God bless Kassia Krozser of BookSquare for adding her voice to a growing chorus calling out the nakedness of the Emperor.

Yes, publishers themselves are helping to devalue books with their poor business decisions, by pushing awful books by famous people hoping we won’t remember, with speculative bidding frenzies that abandon all sense of reality, etc. 

Of course, it’s a rant, but go read it.

You might think: I don’t write fantasy or sci-fi, so what do I need to know about worldbuilding? Maybe your story is set in the “real world.”  That means the world is already built for you, right?

Like so many things, once you concentrate the essence of it — as worldbuilding is so essential to speculative fiction — you realize the key role it plays even when it is a minor ingredient.  As David B. Coe explains over at the Magical Words blog, every writer builds a world.

Writer Lydia Sharp at The Sharp Angle posted a nice, brief piece yesterday on how song lyrics can teach us to write prose that flows more easily.  Illustrated with two musical examples, it is good counsel for any writer who has ever heard the critique that something they’ve written “sounds awkward.”  (In other words, all of us at some point.)

God knows I think there is a distinction between good art and bad.

Even so, I find artistic elitists, who snub as “sell-outs” anyone who drifts too far from the cleverly esoteric, to be tediously transparent in their attempt to arrogate the status of Alpha Tribe in whatever cultural kingdom they’re raising colors over.

At the Wall Street Journal, Juliet author Anne Fortier challenges the prejudices of such “literature snobs” who sniff in disdain at anything “commercial” or “ambitious.”

Although her critique does lean a bit far to the right for my radically anti-partisan tastes (characterizing public spending in a democracy as “dish[ing] out other people’s money” …. really?) it is a fun read that bops the upturned noses of the literary aristoi.

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Extra points to the first commenter to accurately explain the title.

A reader’s question to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer‘s “Booktryst” blog leads to an intriguing peek into the publishing practices of the 19th Century and before. 

Do you know what a “half-title” is, why they are so often missing from old books, or why their presence can cause the value of collectible books to sky-rocket?  Do you know how those elegant leather-bound books were originally bound in leather?  Do you know what’s particularly hard to find in an original printing of Pride and Prejudice (you know, the one without the zombies)?

It’s a neat read for lovers of books and the archaic.

At Big Think, novelist Rick Moody explains How the Recession has Hurt Literature.   Moody discusses the stifling effect of too many writers vying for too few publishing slots, and how self-publishing is not going to make things better.  A great interview!