Facing the Sun

Friend and fellow writer Richard Levangie had surgery yesterday to remove a brain tumor. He's not going to be able to work for a while, so some friends put together an anthology (to which I contributed) to keep him afloat financially while he recovers. The anthology, called Facing the Sun,can be found here. Any dollar amount will get you the anthology—which, given the writers involved, promises to be good reading.

Free 3D software

Free 3D software from DAZ Studio for a limited time. 

Mira Bartok and THE MEMORY PALACE

You may not know Mira Bartok. I don't, either. But I do know she runs a great site to help artists in almost every discipline by posting information about grants and their deadlines. If you create, it's likely Mira has posted about a grant or two to help you forward your artistic career. This is something she does completely free of charge for us.

She released THE MEMORY PALACE a while back, her memoir about her childhood and early adulthood with a schizophrenic mother. The book just won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Autobiography.

Go on over to her website and give her a congrats, if you would. And buy the book.

Congrats, Mira!

EE's 1000th Facelift

No, that's not something out of science fiction. The facelifts are query letter critiques. Those of you who write and want help with story openings, synopses, and query letters could do a lot worse than sending them to Evil Editor for his spot-on analyses. You'll get more than a few belly laughs, too.

I'm a day late with this. But send him a congrats, anyway. 

The Happiness Advantage

Shawn Achor applied to Harvard on a dare. To his surprise, he was actually accepted. So delighted was he with Harvard, that he stayed there for the next twelve years—first as an undergraduate, then a graduate student, then to research his "happiness project."

Achor was intrigued by the difference between his attitude of feeling blessed and lucky to be at Harvard and the stress he routinely saw his classmates go through. Those that weren't happy tended to cut themselves off from their colleagues and friends, and even though they worked just as hard or harder as their classmates, they tended to suffer academically as well as socially. One student, for example, decided to spend all her time at the library, cutting off her friends so she could study. Another opted for study groups, sometimes taking time to enter an Oreo-eating content now and then. You'll never guess which student fared better academically and reported feeling more well-adjusted by the end of the semester.

I confess I used to be the worst example of the first kind of student. I have no problem with the discipline side to creativity—it's the fun part I struggle with. I have a feeling that, had I been a monk in 16th century England, I would have had no problem flogging myself to sleep every night.

Some of this is my genetic makeup. Some of it, I think, is that somewhere along the way I lost the trick of knowing how to be happy. I let the world steal it. It's taken time, and a lot of soul searching, but I can say that these days, both mentally and emotionally (alas, not physically ... at least not yet) that I'm better off than I was a year ago. I've had to learn how to train myself to be happy. THE HAPPINESS ADVANTAGE, by Shawn Achor, confirms my belief that a person can indeed do this. Happiness comes more easily to some people than others. For some of us, happiness is a skill that has to be developed. And it can be.

There's a growing body of empirical evidence that being happy actually increases intelligence and creativity. I think I've found this to be true in my own life: when I have money in the bank, the words and pictures definitely flow much more easily, and the ideas are better. It's when I'm down to my last nickel that I'm not writing, and instead incessantly searching the Internet for the next gig. Those are not happy times.

But I used some time during this last downturn to start examining previously unexamined beliefs. I think it's paid some dividends. It's funny how our most irrational beliefs—some we're not even aware that we have—can power our lives in ways we cannot see.

Voice Lesson

Those of you who've been around for a while know I dig Gary Oldman. I'm also on Team CoCo, though CoCo has no idea. Here's Sexyface demonstrating his voiceovers for the Call of Duty videogame: 

Had to post. Too funny.

Branding Your Platform

One thing I've been thinking about lately—and this is prompted by Justine Musk's post—are writers who aggressively promote. (Justine has a great blog, by the way, and she's very engaging. Can't wait to read more of her work.)

We've all heard of "branding" and "platform." I confess these are words I can't really get my head around. What do they mean? Are they words coined by some ad exec? Don Draper, perhaps? According to Nathan Bransford, there is no such thing as a brand.

Do you agree? I think I do. I think for me, it's not so much the "branding" or "platform"as the willingness to engage with people. A couple of my "friends" on Goodreads are authors, and they only use the site to promote their own work, rather than share what they read. They're clearly trying to brand, but as a reader, that's a lot less interesting to me than authors who DO share book recommendations. One of them has written a series that looks awesome, but I haven't made time to read it, and I think that's at least in part because s/he does nothing online (that I've seen) but promote the blog and the books. It's kind of a turnoff. Authors who are willing to open up a little—even if it's insecure or negative—are a lot more likely to stay on my radar. It's not so much about the willingness to engage with people one-on-one (although I very much appreciate the authors who do that); it's more about the willingness to show a little personality. Authors on Twitter, for example, who link to articles they've read, who take a stand on some issues, who have opinions and are not afraid to share them—those are the authors to whom I naturally gravitate. Even authors who tweet what they have for breakfast—as long as the breakfast is awesome—are far more likely to attract me than authors who do nothing but aggressively promote their books. I'm still loyal to some authors, such as Stephen King, who don't use social media at all. But he did plenty of engaging in ON WRITING. Engaging can work wonders—whether it's online or off. I did two films (shorts) with a guy I "met" on Twitter, and we still keep in contact, even though we've yet to meet in real life.

I think this is one of the reasons Neil Gaiman is so popular. I wouldn't call what he does as branding or a platform at all. His blog is more like this smorgasbord of great links, book recommendations, advice on writing, etc. It started off as advertising for AMERICAN GODS and just grew from there. Yet he gets requests all the time to post pics of his dogs, cats, beekeeping stuff, etc. His fans think those things are just as interesting as everything else. I think one of the reasons he's so popular now is because he's willing to engage with his fans—perhaps even eager to do so. I once went to one of his readings here in Chicago, and he was a lot more earnest than what I expected. He really wanted people to enjoy the reading, and he spoke with every single person who wanted to get a pic, or a hug, or whatever. Not a bad "platform" for authors to model themselves after, in my opinion. I mean, obviously it helps that his writing is great. It always does. I guess what I'm saying that the people who are really good at branding make it feel like it's not branding. Because it isn't. Not really.

Great Post

All the things writers should know about rejection. 

No Worries

I've been sweating my NaNoWriMo word count for a few days, but no worries now. Gatsby's been helping. 

What's Your Take: Why Do You Write?

This whole NaNo thing has kicked off a bit of an existential crisis for me: Why am I doing this? This novel is going to suck. It's derivative and poorly written. It will never see the light of day. It's the third idea I've started. Yesterday I started a fourth idea.

It's almost like my brain is creating new ways to get me to fall behind. Yet today, at 10 a.m. Central time, I will put in an hour of writing before going back to slogging around the Internet looking for new work. Then I'll put in another hour. I'm going to try to get in 3,000 words today, but ... who knows if I'll get that far.

The truth is, I don't have the foggiest clue why I write. I pretend it's so that I can have some element of control over my life, but let's face it: the work goes where it goes. That's both exhilarating and terrifying. Mostly it's been terrifying lately. Yet I'm still doing it. It's like I'm the very definition of crazy.

What's your take? Why do you write? 

Word Count

3376.

Starting to catch up. 

NaNo Novel

I've started, though I'm behind. Only about 750 words in. You? 

Halloween

Happy Halloween, folks!

Unfortunately, I'm not taking part in any festivities this year. Deadlines. Yay! Deadlines! And ... oh dear. Deadlines. 

What's Your Take: Ebook Pricing

This year I bought a Kindle. I didn't buy it because I'm all excited about the ebook revolution; I bought it because, at the time, I was editing fiction for a small publisher, and having an ereader to which I could download PDFs was necessary. I've moved on from that job, but now I'm a script reader for a screenplay competition, and this week I'm reading fifteen scripts—all of which are now sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be read.

I have to say without an ereader, I could not do this job. It's been great for traveling, too. A couple of weeks ago I visited my folks, and instead of having to lug my iMac, as I usually do, I simply downloaded what I needed to my Kindle and I was on my way. It's been great for my fiction reading, too. No more standing in front of my bookcase, trying to decide which book to take. No more bulky backpacks that accidentally smack people in the face on the train whenever I turn an inch. I gotta say this ebook revolution thing has been great for my back and for my safety.

As for ebooks, I've heard a lot of talk about the "problem" of ebook pricing. $9.99, it seems, is too high a price to pay for a novel. Yet ebook sales are increasing all the time, so obviously someone is paying this price. What gives? Why does the ebook price have to equal the mass market price? From my perspective, it seems a couple of dollars more is a small price to pay for the convenience of not having to wait for the book to ship. With nonfiction, I'd buy every book as an ebook (if it were available) since searching through one is SO much easier than in a hard copy.

What's your take? Are ebooks priced too high? 

Book Review

Reviewed Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. Highly recommended.