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4

Cryptofiction. It Lives.

March 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Pardon me if my personal obsessions tend to float onto the screen via this blog, but what are blogs good for if bloggers can’t indulge in self-involved logorrhea from time to time? If it wasn’t already quite clear, I am interested in cryptozoology and the book I am struggling to complete happens to relate to this subject so I do a lot of interweb research on it. Research that then tends to bubble up on this bookish blog. Luckily, there is a long history of cryptids in literature, so I am not completely off task here. (I’ll keep linking vocabularly words in this post until I feel justified.) Hell, there’s even a word for it now, even though the genre is as old as Dracula: Cryptofiction.

Here’s a new book about werewolves that I am dying to read: Sharp Teeth By Toby Barlow

Even kids want to read about cryptids, see here.

Here are more examples of modern cryptofiction that may inspire you to go book shopping:

No Return, by Pete Travers:  A life is tragically lost in the rugged backwoods of Idaho. But what does one do when the only eyewitness is a creature that is not supposed to exist? A legend comes alive from the Old West.

Steve Alten’s The Loch

Cryptid: The Lost Legacy of Lewis & Clark by Eric Penz.

The author of Cryptid, above, wrote a nifty little piece about the genre:

Cryptofiction, A New Genre on the Horizon?

by Eric Penz

A generation ago literature we label today as science fiction was simply fiction. Science fiction as a genre had not yet been born. Then seemingly over night “science fiction” burst onto the scene.

Literature may be experiencing a similar phenomenon today. Just as science fiction’s roots can be traced back to the generation prior to its acceptance, as far back as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a new genre may have roots nearly as old, dating back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World and the original King Kong. Both of these titles were not considered separate from the rest of fiction in their day, but today they could be labeled within a new genre with strong ties to science fiction. Cryptofiction.

Just as science seemed to have burst into the public’s consciousness at about the same time as the birth of science fiction, a new field of science is spawning a new genre of science fiction. Cryptozoology is a branch of science that studies cryptids, or unknown and as yet undiscovered species of animals. Not yet widely accepted by mainstream science, cryptozoology is nevertheless a self-styled and self-labeled field of study with a growing audience. The same can be said for cryptofiction…

For the complete article, please click here.

(The book biz is still up a creek, so I ask you all to please go out and buy a book this weekend, preferably from a local ma & pa bookseller. It does not have to be about cryptozoology.)

Feb

24

The Etch-a-Sketch for Grown Ups…

February 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment

It’s time to legitimize my eBook complaints and praises. I’ve finally, actually read some things on both the Kindle and the Nook. I was really surprised by the “etch-a-sketch” technology on the reading surfaces of both of these eReaders (this ingenius black-and-white display technology was developed by E Ink.) As a result, reading on them does not have a computery-pixel feeling. Who wants to relax with pixels after a long day pushing them at work? I can sort of imagine owning one of these devices now that I’ve seen how they don’t light up or function using anything that is any more eye-straining than a printed page. The Nook is my favorite, mainly because the reading screen seems larger (it’s actually the same as the Kindle: six inches), and there is a touch screen area near the bottom for browsing book covers (similar to Apple’s Cover Flow interface). The Nook also uses Google’s Android mobile operating system, meaning that someday it may run additional applications; it has an open platform (a nifty book-sharing function too); and via the Google Book Project, it offers many free books. The Kindle only functions with Amazon titles. Also, the Kindle utilizes up/down buttons for scrolling and seems in general to be more archaic than the Nook design-wise. I hear it has better battery life than the Nook, which is a big thing - the idea of having to plug in yet another thingy makes my sockets hurt.

Regardless, I am going to wait to buy one of these monsters until someone offers a good one with touch screen tech and that good old “etch-a-sketch” tech from E Ink. In other words, the whole reading surface and keyboard/scroll should have a touch interface so that one is able to “turn” pages with a finger and the reading surface needs to not be a glaring pain in the eye. The touch screen part of the equation is already available via the iPad and a few others - though the iPad is not exactly a refined tool for book reading - the whole light up screen issue is a deal breaker for me. The no glare e-paper feeling of the Nook and the Kindle is the saving grace for eReaders, plain and simple. My sense is the iPad is trying too hard to be too many things, like those old fax/printer/Zerox gizmos that never really did any part of their job perfectly. Then again, I’ve never even been in a room with one. So much for legitimizing my claims!

My unsolicited advice to the industry is: Create a light weight, long battery life, open platform e-paper reader (E Ink), with a full touch screen, book sharing ability, and cover flow interface (for book cover junkies). I’m waiting!

Feb

17

book (s)news

February 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Hello readers and welcome to a book “news” post. I tend to offer book news when I’ve decided that eBooks are tiresome to complain about, or when my muse is drunk on mint juleps in Palm Springs. The problem is, this week there is a whole lot of news on books written by people, who, if you’re me, you are not at all sure you want to hear from. But alas, books are books.

Let’s begin with Mitt Romney who warns in his new book No Apology that “America’s status as a leading nation is in danger if the country as a whole is unable to work through the challenges it faces.” Oh really? We had no idea.

Next! -

“Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel is coming out with a book next month — his first in six years — that’s sure to please some folks while enraging others. Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda will be published March 30 by HarperCollins, with a first printing of 1.5 million copies”… (the rest, here.)

Sigh.

And surprise! Tori Spelling ventures into children’s books:

“American actress Tori Spelling has a reality TV show, a children’s clothing line, and two autobiographical books to her name, and now she is branching out into a new area: children’s literature. Simon & Schuster said its Aladdin imprint is to publish Spelling’s first children’s book called “Presenting … Tallulah” in September this year.” (The rest, here.)

(The Tori thing wouldn’t bug me so much if my daughter’s name wasn’t Tallulah, but it is, so…)

Here’s one that could be interesting, but somehow I doubt his life is as fun to read as his inventions are to use:

Steve Jobs assists with the writing of his new biography -

“The book, which is in the early planning stages, would cover the entire life of Mr. Jobs, from his youth in the area now known as Silicon Valley through his years at Apple…” (More, here.)

Now I’ll attempt to balance out the mediocre news by linking to a list of the Black history month books for children -

“Every year at this time, publishers commemorate Black History Month by releasing a round of new titles memorializing the struggles and accomplishments of African-Americans.”

This year’s releases offer a potpourri of subjects that either celebrate black history through family stories of slavery and civil rights, or illuminate some of the lesser-known achievements of black pioneers.”

Click here for a selection of actually worthy titles!

Feb

11

The Ghost of Mrs. Muse

February 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Pardon the pun in my title, but have you seen your muse lately? I seem to have lost mine. It’s Valentine’s weekend, a month and a half into the year that is supposed to be the year for creating everything I’ve ever wanted to write, and I still have not seen any muse dust falling from the rafters in my house sparkling the aura of my creativity. And I’m mad! Here is where I’ve decided to lay blame: On the electronic crack that is the internet. I can have any entertainment I want at any time any where. I’m like a toddler addicted to Dora The Explorer who has a TV in her crib. I just cannot stop entertaining myself long enough to sit at a cold desk with a cup of tea and a shy little idea that needs to be coaxed out of the closet of my soul. And you know what? I am afraid that everyone is going to be just like me in about six months. Have you seen the iPad? Have you seen what books are about to become? Reading is no longer the main skill required for enjoying books. You really just need the ability to watch video and seek out an electric outlet once in a while. Robotic insects are now capable of literacy. You know what this means right? This means that even reading is going to entertain me right onto the couch with an electronic device instead of being sort of comparable, as far as effort goes, to writing something down.

I was annoyed when I heard that an author I have adored since I was twelve is about to come out with a video-enhanced digital book. Ms. Rice, I know you don’t want to share your muse stash with the rest of humanity, but helping to kill off the remaining attention spans of humanity? Is that humane? Sure, we’re in the midst of a bit of a revolution here, media-wise, but is this revolution okay? I mean, for our brains? Will humans eventually reach some sort of event horizon of the species from which we cannot return, where we no longer are satisfied with objects that don’t interact? Will trees cease to be worth looking at unless they are digitally enhanced with high definition foliage games? Am I completely stupid to think that this new range of doodads that we plug into are any different than the TV once was, or the papyrus for that matter? Am I overreacting? We’ll be fine, right?

Maybe my muse is busy watching a book?

(Isn’t it ridiculous that I am complaining about new technology as I type on my MacBook, on which, later, I will watch the premiere of Past Life, a new show based on my friend M.J. Rose’s novel?)

P.S. In case you need a little help in the muse department too, here’s some advice on how to call her (not on your iPhone):

How to Call in Your Writing Muse

Feb

3

Musings on The Nature of A Book

February 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I was going to report on the iPad, but doesn’t it already seem sort of old hat, some shiny apparatus on which folks are able to read books while at the same time searching for their ex-boyfriend’s house in Google street view? If we were going to be really industrious, wouldn’t we go all old school tech and tattoo books on people? We could keep folks in a library “hotel” and check them out for a couple of weeks. Maybe they’d come with their own food stash, or maybe not, and instead of powering up our eBook reader, we’d just have to put out some crackers and decent cheese (depending on the class book of course), and make sure the thermostat was turned up.

So, my question is: What the hell are books? Apparently they are a whole lot of things now, and to be honest, I quite like this. It’s very free and inspiring for content to have so few limits. In college in the ’90’s, a sculptor friend created “books” from pressed wax with rusty nails and hinges. These art pieces were compelling because they were such far off facsimiles - tweaked monsters, often wordless or unreadable, grotesque, surprising. More interesting perhaps because at that time books were still exactly what they’d been since papyrus got stitched together. My response to them was universal - as if I’d been sent there from the Literature department to validate Book status qualifications, my reaction to these “books” was “this is so not a book, why is he calling this a book?”

I think that if they were made now, these pieces would not be quite as powerful - because actual books have sprouted wings. Fly! Be free! Incidentally, the “books” my friend made are still startling - I recently saw one again on a visit with an old friend, perched, not at all besmirchingly, right on the book shelf.

Jan

27

Literary Audio Joy

January 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I haven’t tried it yet, but there’s this site called Audible where you can download audio books. There is something really wonderful and almost primally comforting about being read to, and for some reason it hadn’t occured to me to partake in this delight outside of childhood. My problem is that I do everything in extremes, especially conveniences. An innocent audio book next week could turn into me wandering the house at bedtime trying on new shoes or inhaling chocolate fondue as my little darling cuddles up to the cold warmth of my laptop while it spews Suess at her, albeit charmingly. Ya know?

iTunes also offers audio books. Who knew? I feel like I just opened Pandora’s box. I’ll never get any writing done now…

A source for another kind of literary audio joy is WritersCast. Check it out. It won’t cost you a dime.

In random book news:

Amazon is offering Kindle books in other languages now. This is completely overdue of course.

And if you haven’t already heard, the winners are…

THE NEWBERY MEDAL (Named for an 18th-century English bookseller, this is awarded annually to the best American children’s book published the previous year.)

• 2010: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

THE CALDECOTT MEDAL (Awarded annually since 1938, this medal goes to the artist with the most distinguished picture book of the previous year.)

• 2010: The Lion & the Mouse, illustrated and written by Jerry Pinkney

Jan

20

Future Quick & Future Clever

January 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment

If last decade was all about having to get used to all these annoying and inconvenient tweaks we are going to have to make to get along with our planet, each other, and our totally awesome and bizarre new technologies, the “tens” are going to be about quick and clever use of these ideas and things. We’ll finally get to enjoy near perfect versions of things from rain gardens, to prosthetic hands that can actually feel via nerve connections. The whole gosh darn world is going to be as useful and easy as your new iPhone.

It started with the Kindle going mainstream by landing in your Holiday stocking, and it’s going to end with a shiny unobtainium outlet in your brain for direct uploads of supremely excellent HD content. Of course, some of us are going to throw our tech out the window and go for long useless walks in the grass, or canoe over the bay just to see if that sea lion was really a sea lion or was just a dark diving sea bird. But most of us will be texting in 3D instead.

So, cheers to the new decade. In the meantime, let’s get excited about all the cool literature that is going to come out of everything we encounter on our path through the tens. And let’s write some of it!

Here’s a fun piece to check out. I found it on The Inkwell Bookstore Blog.

American Book Review asked writers to speculate - in one sentence or less - on the future of fiction. Here are the responses: Fiction’s Future: Words, Sentences, Quotes

Jan

13

Do something crazy, open a bookstore why don’t you? (Plus, a new way to finish that project…)

January 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment

Here is some book news that tells me we need to ramp up some sort of effort to save our bookstores. I mean really, this time:

Laredo could be largest US city without a bookstore

By PAUL J. WEBER, Associated Press Writer Paul J. Weber, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 16, 4:37 pm ET

LAREDO, Texas – The final chapter has been written for the lone bookstore on the streets of Laredo.

With a population of nearly a quarter-million people, this city could soon be the largest in the nation without a single bookseller.

Click here to read the rest. (And here’s more on dead bookstores.)

On a more optimistic note: Since the new year, I’ve been posting about how to get things done project-wise. As you know, Marla is the unofficial official Life Coach For Writers on this blog and I use her wisdom a lot here, so it’s only fair that I let you know about her upcoming coaching group:

Finish Your Project in 90 Days with “The Inner Game of Writing” -

“The Inner Game of Writing: Finish Your Project in 90 Days” is a coaching group for professional writers who need to finish an important writing project in 90 days. Designed and facilitated by Life Coach for Writers, Marla Beck, this very affordable program provides you with accountability, coaching insights, proven productivity tools and camaraderie–everything you need to focus on and finish your novel, proposal or website.

Program begins in mid-February. Register by February 8 for a special “early bird” bonus.

For more details, please click here.

There will also be a free 60-minute teleclass related to the group: “How to Finish What You Write” - You can find all the details here.

About Coach Marla
Marla Beck has coached hundreds of writers since launching her coaching practice in 2005. She holds an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University and trained and certified as a professional life coach through the Coach Training Alliance. A poet, copywriter and musician, Coach Marla’s “Relaxed Writer” coaching methods spring from her experiences as a young cancer survivor, a long-time student of meditation and her disposition as a “left-brain / right-brain” type. She is an active member of the International Coach Federation and North Bay Coaches, and lives in Marin County, California with her husband, her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and a very patient cat.

Read “The Relaxed Writer” Blog:
http://www.TheRelaxedWriter.com

Subscribe to “The Relaxed Writer” ezine
http://www.CoachMarla.com
- a monthly e-zine: for accomplished writers who want to work smart, balance their lives and achieve their writing goals

Jan

6

How to sell your book in 2010, Part 2 (Pitching Woo)

January 6, 2010 | Comments Off

Pitching Woo (previously published on SF Station)

Once upon a time, an agent was a writer’s best friend. Now getting an agent is just as tough as finding a publisher, and just as crucial. One insider offers her advice.

By Emily Kischell

I used to work at the Writers House agency in Manhattan as assistant and reader for the founder Albert Zuckerman, an old-school book guy with a long-term client base of dedicated authors. When he started his business three decades ago, Zuckerman didn’t have much of an office so he would meet his clients in a bank lobby, according to agency legend. A swanky bank lobby, as grandiose as a ballroom, but a bank lobby nonetheless. He started small and built up to a renowned agency run from a book-lined brownstone in Chelsea.

Much has changed in the business since then. The publishing world has become a corporate labyrinth. Agents are generally the only way for authors, especially new ones, to navigate the multi-tiered bureaucracy. But literary agencies themselves are becoming hierarchical fiefdoms with the agents sequestered away and hard to reach. Finding an agent is crucial, challenging, and utterly intimidating. What’s a young writer to do?

First things first: Write a great book, or get started on one. Only then should a writer approach a literary agency — with a few tricks like these up the sleeve.

1. One Page, Please

The agent’s “slush pile” of query letters represents both hours of tedium and a siren call of promised golden treasure — the next big author waiting to be discovered. This schizophrenia works in favor of the author, as agents and their assistants will rarely ignore a query in their mailbox. The trick, then, is to write your query letter as close to one page as possible and make it as interesting as your book. As Zuckerman liked to say, “If an author can’t zing me with the writing in his query, I doubt he’ll zing me with his book.”

Your query letter should spell out the following:

* What makes your book wonderful.
* What your book is about.
* Why you are the best one to write it.

It’s an art form in and of itself, like a film trailer. In two years of query reading, I rejected hundreds simply because the first two lines didn’t grab me. Assume that all readers are this hard to please.

2. More Query Rules

* Sending multiple queries out is fine, but not to multiple agents within the same agency. There is no written rule about this, but if an agent or assistant discovers you have queried more than one agent at a time within the agency, they will be turned off on some level.

* Find out if a particular agent is open to emailed queries before you assume so.

* Whatever you do, don’t forget to include a self addressed stamped envelope with your query. If you don’t include the SASE, your query may be thrown out, unread. (Please don’t send loose stamps.)

3. Name Drop

How do I know who to send my query to in the first place, you may ask? First, you may look into who represents authors that you admire with projects along similar lines to yours, or you may complete the egalitarian feat of sifting through listings in any of the guides to literary agents that are on the market. The very best way to put a blinking neon light on your query is to name-drop in the very first line. Therefore ask everyone you know if they will refer you to their agent.

4. Beware the Overload

Never send your entire manuscript or even a tiny bit of it to an agent unless specifically requested. Your first contact with an agent should be a query letter only. If you ignore this “rule,” most agents and/or assistants will decide they do not like you. After mailing a query, you will either receive a rejection letter outright, or you will receive a request for a sample. Read more

Dec

30

How to sell your book in 2010. Part 1:

December 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Wake up! It’s 2010! Ok, it’s not quite 2010, but by the end of the week it will be. Have you located your shiny new resolution that you left under that pile of crumpled up gift wrapping and empty Frangelico bottles?

Since we will all be finishing our book proposals or novels this year, some apparently nice agents (Upstart Crow Literary) want to help us understand the next step in the process. They have provided a pleasant how-to on getting signed with an agent, based on the experience of one of their own clients:

How to Sign with An Agent…

Today on her blog, my lovely client Shannon Morgan detailed twelve ways an agent can sign a potential client based on our own experience just about one year ago. I thought I’d return the favor and catalog the twelve steps a writer may experience when signing with an agent.

1. Write an awesome story, revise, share it, sit on it, revise again, research agents, send it out, and commence fingernail biting.

2. At first, check email constantly, even though you’ve researched response times and know, in your heart of hearts, that you’re in for a wait. Finished with fingernails, move on to toes.

3. Begin to hear back on the queries. A few nos (Boo!) but a few yeses (Hurray!). If I’m requesting, it’s always for a full manuscript. I don’t request partials. I’m just cool like that…

For the rest click here.

Happy New Year! Be safe and have fun.

(Tune in next week for an article full of practical advice on getting an agent that I wrote for a San Francisco magazine. I am the former assistant to a big wig New York literary agent.)

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Mar

4

Cryptofiction. It Lives.

Cryptofiction, A New Genre on the Horizon?

Feb

24

The Etch-a-Sketch for Grown Ups…

Feb

17

book (s)news

Feb

11

The Ghost of Mrs. Muse

Feb

3

Musings on The Nature of A Book

Jan

27

Literary Audio Joy

Jan

20

Future Quick & Future Clever

Jan

13

Do something crazy, open a bookstore why don’t you? (Plus, a new way to finish that project…)

Jan

6

How to sell your book in 2010, Part 2 (Pitching Woo)

Dec

30

How to sell your book in 2010. Part 1:

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