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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.)

Dec

23

Using the decade’s gravity to hurl oneself into action…

December 23, 2009 | Comments Off

Screw writer’s block, my problem is that I just can’t find a second to write. I won’t go into the sordid details of my seasonal time problem, but I will present you with some of the advice that I’ve bumped into on this subject. I plan on absorbing some of this wisdom over the holidays and then busting out with it in full force in the new year. I am so excited to get my writing (and reading) mojo back in 2010. It’s so much more than a just a new year, it’s a new decade! I wish you luck too, with whatever or whomever it is that you love that you need to spend more time with…

From my friend Marla’s blog - Marla is a life coach for writers that I’ve mentioned often. She has excellent ideas and shares many of them free of charge:

What to Do When Your Writing Time Vanishes

Let’s just say it’s the holiday season, 2009.

And you’re a very busy person. (A very busy writer-type person.)

Writing much?

—–

@secondglantz: @marlabeck The holiday rush has usurped all writing time. Can’t wait to get back to it in the new year.”

If you’re struggling to make time to write during this busy holiday season, you’re not alone.

Like my Twitter friend, Cheryl, more than a few of my coaching clients have expressed frustrations with their writing lives this week.

No matter the source of their time stress (end-of-year work deadlines, kids’ calendars or holiday to-dos), they’ve realized that their writing time has simply vanished.

Gone with the (winter) wind.

What to do when your writing time vanishes? Here are 3 tips I’ve used with success in my own writing life and coaching practice. See what you think.

For the complete post please click here.

Speaking of folks who know stuff we want to know and write so eloquently about it that when we read it our brains grow, check out Nathan Bransford’s blog and his most recent post summing up 2009 for us, with a slant on publishing and books (he’s a literary agent and author in San Francisco).

Oh! I nearly forgot - Happy Holidays!

seasonal-winter-holiday-christmas_eve_by_j-_hoover_no_date_loc_2122063062.jpg

Dec

16

Getting inebriated on books…

December 16, 2009 | Comments Off

There’s a lot of book stuff online and it helps if someone curates it. Here’s my attempt for you for the week:

More intelligent perspectives on the print and digital divide, this time from Loud Paper:

The future of traditional print publishing is, well, no future at all. The model has long since morphed, leaving books, magazines, and newspapers to languish, but not quite yet die. It’s with morbid fascination that pundits, journalists, and bloggers are actually taking sides in the debate about the future of publishing. Tim Maly of Quite Babylon neatly dissects Douglas Rushkoff’s take on a Google/Murdoch industry. David Carr over at the New York Times is optimistic. “The future, which is not a bad deal if you ignore all the collateral gore. Young men and women are still coming here to remake the world, they just won’t be stopping by the human resources department of Condé Nast to begin their ascent… (for the rest, click here.)

If you haven’t seen the video of Palin reciting from William Shatner’s autobiography on the Conan O’Brien show, it’s a must. For a while now, Shatner has been performing vignettes of satire on Palin’s often obtuse use of words in speeches, on her Twitter account, and most recently in her new book. With beatnik bongo accompaniment, dim cafe lights, and poetic delivery, Shatner’s skits are wonderful. So, Sarah Palin does get a little payback here, and it would be refreshingly lighthearted to witness except that she is eerily comfortable on stage, reading from the teleprompter while looking as fearless as a feasting, bloodymouthed polar bear with glasses. And that sort of upsets me.

Here are some book related gems to visit if you have the time:

WritersCast - interviews, readings and discussions with writers

Readiac- get inebriated on books!

Chaptr1 - an easy way to sample new books

Booktrix blog

…and from our own LiveWriters, something that resonates with me (I reviewed this important little book here a few months ago): A video with the author of Will War Ever End? - Paul K. Chappell

Click here to watch.

Will War Ever End? is a deeply personal story of a soldier’s search for human understanding that will lead to universal transformation. Its message is one of hope, offering practical solutions to help us build a better world. www.willwareverend.com

If you’re still waiting to be inspired about what books to buy as gifts for the holidays, here’s what happens to be sitting on my bedside table right now:

The Memorist by M.J. Rose

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

The Ground Truth by John Farmer

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

WorldShift 2012 by Ervin Laszlo

Cheers!

Dec

9

Sarah Palin Is Probably Excellent at Killing Zombies

December 9, 2009 | Comments Off

In the wake of the ever-frantic and pretty darn genius Nanowrimo (30 days and nights of literary abandon!), let’s see what else is going on out there in the writer’s freakshow. How about Slate’s “write like Sarah Palin” contest? With lines like “The Snow Machine Pummeled Through the White-Dusted Plain Like a Jubilant Beaver” how can anyone resist peeking in on this?

“In honor of Sarah Palin’s best-selling new memoir, Going Rogue, we asked Slate readers to submit sentences that captured Palin’s unique style of writing. We received more than 700 entries, the best of which combined pastoral lyricism (”the soft periwinkle glow of the Alaskan morning”) with unlikely metaphors and an adventurous approach to the English language.”

Click here to read a slide-show report on the three winners, plus the runners-up.

I’d like to see a contest where folks must write like Sarah Palin for an entire month. Or wait, maybe I don’t want to see that. Writers are already rogue-ish enough without subjecting ourselves to that sort of psychological stress. To be honest, I have yet to attempt Nanowrimo, and because of this I am a fake writer. A hack. It’s odd that a freaky little phenomenon like this can become such a part of the writing process that not taking part in it marks one as a lazy-ass. However, I do insist that mothers of toddlers should be exempt from the pressure of participating in anything that requires a month of concentrated effort.

In other news, that crazy mashup and bestselling book Pride And Prejudice And Zombies Will Be A Miniseries. I have not read the book, and I am not sure I want to, though the concept bewilders and sort of excites me. Has anyone out there read it? Care to provide Livewires with a review?

Dec

2

Going Rogue, Bird by Bird

December 2, 2009 | Comments Off

December is the month for snarkiness and sarcasm. This is how most of us survive the holidays. In light of this, let’s enjoy a particularly wise-ass Mark Morford column that makes delicious fun of Sarah Palin’s book:

Top 10 uses for “Going Rogue”

You have found/run over a copy of Sarah Palin’s “book.” Now what?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Did you think I was going to say toilet paper? Or birdcage liner? Something to do with animal waste in general or perhaps roadkill, moose droppings or Alaskan elk carcasses in particular?

Well, I am not going to say that. It’s just far too easy, and obvious, and does nothing to give either “Going Rogue” or the former VP candidate its/her proper respect, and, of course, by “respect” I mean quivering lamentable hellshot of blinding cerebral pain that makes you wince as though you’ve just been smashed in the face with a hammer.

Here then, a far more artfully compiled list of things you can do with the former Alaska governor’s book — or, as millions might say, “book”…

Read the rest, here.

Part II for today: The Relaxed Writer (a lifecoach for writers?! Thank you Coach Marla!) gives us the permission AND the instructions for How To Write All Weekend. Writing all weekend is exactly what we should be doing in December instead of shopping for gifts. The internet was created so that we are able to finish our holiday shopping in a few hours late one insomnia-ridden night in November and spend the rest of our sanity doing other things such as taking it Bird by Bird, as the super smart Anne Lamott has instructed us to do.

Part III goes like this:

The Booktrix Blog is something worth reading. Incidentally, so are books. Check this out:

Reading books. Really reading. Really.

OK readers, it’s time to look at yourself in the mirror and tell the truth…

Click here to tell the truth.

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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:

Dec

23

Using the decade’s gravity to hurl oneself into action…

What to Do When Your Writing Time Vanishes

Dec

16

Getting inebriated on books…

Dec

9

Sarah Palin Is Probably Excellent at Killing Zombies

Dec

2

Going Rogue, Bird by Bird

Top 10 uses for “Going Rogue”

You have found/run over a copy of Sarah Palin’s “book.” Now what?

Reading books. Really reading. Really.

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2

Top 10 uses for “Going Rogue”

You have found/run over a copy of Sarah Palin’s “book.” Now what?

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