Writers on Writing

"Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil - but there is no way around them." -- Isaac Asimov

Tuesday's Tips for Flailing Writers

I'm partial to the 2nd of Annie Dillard's 12 keys to stronger writing: Don’t ever use the word 'soul,' if possible. (Via)


I was mildly bemused while I quickly perused Cracked's 9 words that don't mean what you think they mean.


BookEnds, LLC is a literary agency. (Go on. I'll wait until you're done Googling their email address so you can send 'em your query letter. Done? Okay.) Here's their advice re: deadlines.


Article Writing Tips has 5 things you should and shouldn't say to an editor. (Or, for head-game kicks, you can use all 10 and really throw 'em off balance. This is often referred to in women's magazines as 'giving off mixed signals,' and usually results in making women of low self-esteem want you all the more.)

The Monday Menagerie:Print, Cut, Wear -- Paper Masks for Literary Cos-Players

The Guy Fawkes mask from Alan Moore & David Lloyd's V for Vendetta.
Available free here.
Jim Rugg & Brian Maruca's Afrodesiac.
Available free here.












Stan Lee & Jack Kirby's Silver Surfer.
Available free here.
J.K. Rowling's Death Eater.
Available free here.

One of Maurice Sendak's many Wild Things.
Created by me(!), and available free here.

Crave more literary costumes? Click here.

Chickensh*t Book News, In Brief

Worried that the Amazon/Wal-Mart/Target price wars will prove a death knell to many indie booksellers, the ABA has announced, "No fair! I'm tellin'!"


Scared that the many e-readers flooding the market this year will curb the current, unsubstantiated 'success' of their Kindle, Amazon will soon be offering free software apps for both PCs and Macs.


Nervous that their combination ostrich approach/let's think positive PR was no longer cutting it in the real world, the publishing industry has decided to try and go for the public's pity when dealing with e-books and e-book piracy. Hence, analysts and their analysis.


Frightened that a small breach in copyright will open the floodgates to, say, an unauthorized lexicon, the lawyers in charge of protecting the Harry Potter(c) brand have put the kibosh on a "one-off" (and yet twice a year for the past few years) Harry Potter(c)-themed Halloween dinner party.

Yee-Haw! It's the Negative Review Round-Up!

Not only are negative reviews easier and more fun to write than positive reviews, they're easier and more fun to read, too. So pick up a torch and join me and the mob as we heap hate upon a few recent releases in this week's installment of The Negative Review Round-Up.
(Note: As most of us are lying, whorish, booksellers ready to sell our souls to make a softcover sale, I've also included small print links to some positive reviews. Feel free to crib liberally from these when dealing with the money-wielding masses.)

Park Slope's in a panic! Their chief news source has labeled their literary wunderkind's latest, Chronic City, tedious, maddening and aimless.
(Then again, The NYTimes loved it.)


The Guardian UK uses their patented British tact, hiding their displeasure with Philip Roth's The Humbling behind the vague phrase, "an embarrassing failure."
(Then again, The Huffington Post loved it.)


The NYTimes disses Piers Dudgeon's J. M. Barrie biography, Neverland, calling it a "crowded and frustrating book" that "blends scholarship, name-dropping and scandal-seeking heavy breathing." And that's just the pull-quote!
(Then again, Shelf Awareness loved it.)


Last but most meta, Jessica Mann, "an award-winning author who reviews crime fiction for the Literary Review," has announced that she is through writing reviews of crime fiction due its disproportionately large amount of violence aimed at women. She backs this stance up quite nicely with a couple of truly f**ked anecdotes.
(Then again, James Ellroy claims his crime fic is a 'critique of misogyny.')

Publishing Is Like John Cusack -- The Older It Gets, The Less Charming It Becomes

Then:


Now:

This vs. That: Bloodless Book Battles

Book buying habits on both sides of the pond: U.S. vs. U.K.



Fantastic feudalism: Karl Schroeder talks about Futurism vs. Science Fiction



Okay, so this one will surely shed a li'l blood. (Namely, ours.) The Price Wars: Wal-Mart vs. Amazon.



Author Joe Konrath dares to share his sales figures, comparing his Kindle Numbers: Traditional Publishing vs. Self Publishing.

Cool Covers from Recent Releases

A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution by Dennis Baron
Children and the Internet by Sonja Livingstone














My New Mac, Snow Leopard Edition by Wallace Wang
iPhone SDK Development by Bill Dudney

Adaptation News(cuz books is fer nerdz!)

IO9 has 6 clips from Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox.



It's funny because it's true: Movieline's When Werewolves Go Wrong: 9 Awkward Images From the First New Moon Clip.


'Mumblecore' actor Joshua Leonard will make his directing debut with The Lie, based on a T.C. Boyle short story that originally ran in the New Yorker.


The BBC is developing a TV comedy-drama (what industry folks retardedly refer to as a "dramedy") based on Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently detective novels. Chortle.co has more.


Remember when I said that I was through posting Where The Wild Things Are links? I lied. Click here to see storyboard art from the film and to read an interview with the artist. (Oh, and as an added bonus, the same guy is doing storyboard art for Kenneth Branagh's upcoming adaptation of Thor, and he's got a couple tid-bits on that, too.)


Updated! More Thor news. Unsubstantiated rumor has it that Jude Law and Robert DeNiro have joined the cast. Yeah, I couldn't care less, either.


Doubly updated! Yet another WTWTA link. Trust me, though -- this one's a great one. Vanity Fair visited Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, where they got a guided tour of how the Wild Things were made. Hmn...I wonder if the Creature Shop is looking for a blogger...

12 Creepy Photos of Kids' Lit Authors

I'll give you Shel Silverstein and Lewis Carroll for free. But if you wanna see the other ten, you're gonna have to click here.

Scandalous Book News, In Brief

Wow, I bet no one saw this coming: Christian groups complain about R. Crumb's Genesis.


I wonder what those same moral guardians would think of this bookstore's unintentionally obscene name?


In other self-righteous reading news, the Dragon Ball manga series has been removed from all Wicomico County school libraries because of its über-cartoony depictions of nudity and violence, and because it doesn't meet the county's vague "graphic novels with appropriate content can be a useful tool in encouraging reluctant readers to pick up a book and read" criteria. Don't worry, though -- they still carry all four Twilight books!


The CBC has a must-read article about an odd Ottawa art exhibition. The exhibit's theme? 'The Martyrdom of Famous Canadian Icons.' For a hint at how Green Gables' Anne Shirley fares, allow me to quote from the above photo's original caption: "The Martyrdom of St. Anne by Diana Thorneycraft features an Anne doll carrying plasticine representations of her breasts on a platter." To read the rest, click here.

Writers on Writing

"Writing is the flip side of sex -- it's good only when it's over."
Hunter S. Thompson

Recommended Viewing:Elmore Leonard @ Montgomery College

Part 2, 3

Tuesday's Tips for Flailing Writers

Lose contacts and contracts with The Writers' Digest's 3 Sure-Fire Ways to Insult Someone in Publishing.


Indulge your pride and paranoia with The Self-Publisher's 5-Minute Guide to Copyright.


Virgin CEO Richard Branson recently anchored his hot air balloon full of supermodels long enough to share his 7 Book Marketing Lessons.


We all know that sacrifice is the cornerstone to nearly every organized religion and FDA approved diet plan. Turns out, it's needed in writing, too.


Once you've given up everything you ever held dear, it's time to give the ol' heave-ho to the intangibles like love and loyalty. Or, as Lionel Shriver put it, "I sold my family for a novel."

Anarchists & Teabaggers Will Want to Put Down Their Pens Tonight at Midnight...

...as Congress has decreed Tuesday, October 20th to be The National Day of Writing.
(Via: Helaine Becker)

Book News, In Brief

Entertainment Weekly takes a nation of overly-protective parents to task, reminding them to remember what they read as kids.


Publishers, nervous about allowing too much of their intellectual property to be offered free, dread the spread of e-book usage in libraries. The NYTimes examines these fears in a refreshingly Cory Doctorow-free article.


John Orstead was a Vanity Fair writer preparing to expand his 'History of The Simpsons' article into a full-length book when the bigwigs behind the hit show said no. Click here to read the behind-the-scenes story of the recently released behind-the-scenes book.


David Carradine is the next 70's superstar to have an alleged incestuous affair made public via a memoir. Marina Anderson, ex-wife and manager of the late Kung Fu & Kill Bill star, plans to publish a tell-all book about their relationship and what she politely refers to as Carradine's "deviant behaviour."


The Chicago Tribune hypothesizes on The Future of Book Signings in the e-Book Age. The ideas range from horrible ("the screen-and-stylus method used by package-delivery drivers") to the hopeful ("To refocus author events would mean they'd would become less like getting a passport stamped and more like a community-building discussion").