If today’s Telegraph interview with The Passage
But, beyond the tale of how he constructed his best-selling novel during bike rides with his daughter, Cronin offered up some excellent insights into the literary-genre divide.
Tag Archives: twilight
Happy Friday, loyal readers and visitors future loyal readers!
It has been a crazy week, from figuring out that Dan Brown is lately more popular than the Bible to learning that the Hulk is now a literary critic. My favorite Lit Crit Hulk observation: “HULK KNOW IT PASSE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT TWILIGHT FRANCHISE, BUT HULK STILL WANT TO SMASH EVERY GROWNUP HULK SEE ON TRAIN READING THAT CRAP.”
(Hello, Xbox? Wii? Marvel Superheroes vs. Twilight characters, please.)
So, a crazy week, but you know what’s not crazy? Checking out this week’s links from publishing industry pros:
Today is the birthday of Charles Scribner, personal editor of author Ernest Hemingway, whose last name I heartlessly employ as a euphemism for booze sipped while writing.
Now, this might seem the perfect occasion to combine the literary agent links with the editor/publisher links like I threatened promised hinted I might do, last week.
But, no! You shall have your literary agent links, separate and per the usual schedule, and you shall like it!
This week I have begun a variety of summer renewal projects. I have potted 10 new plants in my new place, and have begun a photo catalog of my bookshelves. (I may post these to the blog, if encouraged.)
I have also begun a targeted revision of The Ligan of the Disomus, and a related short story, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die. Although I do not subscribe to the common wisdom that a work of art is “never finished, merely abandoned,” I am glad that Ligan had not been picked up for publication before I had a chance to sketch out and complete a few short stories in the Observer’s world, and thus work out some larger-scale plot and character development decisions.
But, enough about my writerly life! On to the links from other writers: Continue reading
Hey kids! And by “kids” I mean all of you, because children’s and young adult publishing is being buoyed partly by adults who read books not intended for adults.
When Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney says, “There are a lot of adults I encounter who exclusively read children’s literature,” I would have to concur.
Although certain examples of YA fiction might hinge a bit too much on stiflingly immature emotions and fantasies, preferring kids’ lit is not necessarily a sign of being unable to operate in the grown-up world. As regular readers of this blog might know, I’m no fan of glittery pedophilic vampires with sappy purity pledge sentiments, but I do admire Milne and consider The Hobbit to be well worthy its more “mature” literary siblings.
And, the first Harry Potter fan I ever met was a national security professional working a mission in which all of the violent ugliness of the real world was unavoidable. Grown-ups can enjoy children’s books and still be grown-ups.
All of which is mere preface to my publishing link of the weekend, from the Sunday Washington Post: The future of children’s book publishing. Enjoy!
From The Clergyman’s Almanack (1815) as quoted in America and her Almanacs : Wit, Wisdom, and Weather 1639-1970 by Robb Sagendorph:
“The indiscriminate reading of Novels and Romances is to young females of the most dangerous tendency … it agitates their fancy to delerium of pleasure never to be realized … and opens to their view the Elysium fields which exist only in the imagination … fields which will involve them in wretchedness and inconsolable sorrow. Such reading converts them into a bundle of acutely feeling nerves and makes them ‘ready to expire of a rose in aromatic pain’ … The most profligate villain, bent on the infernal purpose of seducing a woman, could not wish a symptom more favorable to his purpose than a strong imagination inflamed with the rhapsodies of artful and corrupting novels.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same. (Just imagine what they’d say about Twilight! Or internet porn…)
“Hey, John!” I imagine you say, “Why are you not writing more of The Crow and the Kinnebeck, instead of posting another round of links to other blogs?”
Well, first of all, I am still writing, but I am also doing some reading and research essential to getting the historical and literary references just right.
Secondly, stop italicizing the title of that short-story-gone-rogue as if it will become a novel! I don’t care that you’re only italicizing it in my hypothetical typed form of an imaginary conversation with a notional reader. Do not conspire with the Muse. She has a strong enough grip on me already. Note how She recruits even my psychological projections to do Her bidding?
So, where was I? Oh yes: more publishing and writing links! I know the last bunch were professedly for Christmas, but just consider them the “under the tree” links. You know how, every year, you ravenously tear open all the “under the tree” presents until you’re sitting there (possibly breathing hard) in a nest of bows and shredded paper feeling a sudden, inexplicable emptiness? Then HO-HO-KAPOW: you remember the stocking!
Consider this is your link stocking. And, for some odd reason, just like real footwear all of the items below come in twos.
Lydia Sharp shares her dream about meeting — and then becoming one of the — characters from Twilight. If this sounds like an awful stocking gift, consider this spoiler (alert!): unlike the fictional Bella, and unlike millions of emotionally manipulable readers, Lydia loses/rejects both of the B-grade YA Romeos.
I have also added the following publishing-related blogs to my reading list: Alice’s CWIM Blog (why are there so many YA and Children’s Lit blogs?) and Booksquare.
Rachelle Gardner offers up some good words on who should and shouldn’t self-publish, and how her insane work-out schedule helps her help you!
And finally, guest contributor Randy Susan Myers at Pimp My Novel offers up a smorgasbord of books on writing, conveniently organized into two categories: “Part One – Before: Technique, Tools, and Support” and “Part Two – After: Selling Your Book Without Selling Your Soul.”