Nanowriwon’t?

If I had been doing the national novel writing month, I would have failed. Perhaps I would have tried a little harder if I had registered, but in any case, I only wrote 43,550 words not 50,000 for the month. In my defense I wrote 41k in October and 43k the month before that.

According to the website the big three genres this year, were fantasy, young adult and science fiction. So it looks like those three are still popular with writers, and hopefully with readers.

There were some super neat offers making the rounds. Scrivener was down to $20 for Nano winners (people who finished the challenge) and 20% off for those who didn’t finish but registered. Now the tricky part is to finish it, edit it and then do something about it.

Yeah, right. Easy for me to say. *looks sideways at pile of unfinished projects*

Sighs.

I think that might actually be the hard part.

It’s always hard to hold yourself out there. To show to someone else, the thing that you have poured so much effort into.

So shop around. Find out what publishers accept the kind of stories that you have written. Don’t waste your time, and theirs, sending a Christian publisher your vampire porn story. Think of it as a job interview. Get it right. Do your research. You wouldn’t apply for a job if you didn’t have the qualifications.

Meanwhile, read it through again. Polish it. Edit it. Make it the shining jewel that will catch someone’s eye.

Worst case scenario? Get a cool cover made for it and load it up on Smashwords.

You just never know. And of course, with Smashwords, you haven’t actually signed away the rights to anyone else. Ugh *shudder*. I remember reading some fine print pages and backing away fast. One actually said that if you uploaded the document, it now belonged to them; even if they never ever published it. No thanks.

*I cannot find the image owner, but clearly the words are Neil Gaiman's.

Worlds colliding

I have noticed the strangest thing lately, my worlds keep colliding.

It’s not that they haven’t collided before; obviously… it’s just that I am noticing it and it’s all in the last month.

I love the books of Neil Gaiman, and I love the music of Amanda Palmer. And they are married to each other! But I never expected one of my favourite humorous blog writers The blogess, to love her music, and to write about going to one of her concerts alone. She had a panic attack about it and Amanda, being awesome, sent her a tweet telling her that she had set aside an area for her so that she wouldn’t have to be in the crowd. Interesting how the really funny people often hide the darkest sides, eh?

Then the Blogess talked about how one of her favourite musicians is an Australian called Tim Minchin… wait... what? How could she know about him? He is like the Australian Robert Smith (lead singer of the Cure) with wild, spiky hair and eyeliner - if Robert Smith sang incredibly funny songs and accompanied himself on a grand piano.  Another fanfic friend tweeted a vid of his about hating bad reviews and how well he got over it… NOT. She had got it from the Blogess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SPxqTufO38&feature=youtu.be

Circles.

Then someone asked Neil about Lemony Snicket who wrote the Series of Unfortunate events novels. My kids loved those books and we have them all. Neil said this: “I am ridiculously fond of Daniel Handler, Mr Snicket’s representative. He played the accordion at my wedding.”

Wait… what? The accordion?

I am currently reading the Game of Thrones books. Well… chewing my way through the most recent one… gah. I force myself to read a couple of character point of views each night. Like eating an elephant except it is stomping me back… should have killed that sucker before I started chomping on him… in any case, I saw an article about how George RR Martin worked as a book editor for the Wild Cards series, which takes place in a shared universe post-World War II where humanity gains superpowers after the release of an alien-engineered virus. Whoa… I knew he had worked on television scripts for twilight Zone and stuff like that, but I didn’t know he had written comic books. (I think the correct term is super hero prose)… and then I see a tumblr post about how Neil Gaiman proposed a character idea to him back in 1987… he didn’t like it.

http://www.robotmutant.com/2012/10/03/the-comic-character-who-was-almost-a-wild-card-neil-gaimans-1987-pitch-to-george-r-r-martin/

They know each other?

Circles.

I went to see the Irish band Snow Patrol in concert with a friend. Before I went, I checked their Facebook page and the lead singer, Gary has a photo of himself in costume to play a minor role on Game of Thrones, the TV series… wait… what? I am willing to bet he is playing a bard or singer; don’t you reckon?

I also watch Doctor who, the BBC television series that started a very long time ago in black and white TV land. Laurel K Hamilton, who writes the Anita Blake books, mentioned that she cosplays characters from the 4th Doctor series. Wait? What? And of course, Neil wrote an episode called the ‘Doctor’s wife’ that just won a Hugo award. Then ensued a twitter convo between her and Neil about how she would love to write an episode but that they would need to give her a list of rules not to be broken, just to be safe.

Circles, again.

I think I like it. Anyone you have been surprised to find are friends? 

Neil Gaiman advice

I don't have a tumblr account (be thankful for that - lol) but if I did I would totally reblog this answer that Neil Gaiman gave to a fan on his account. 

http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/25463384251/making-it-rebloggable-because-people-keep-asking-on

My faith in humanity and in writers (who take the time to answer fans) is restored.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi, Neil. In a recent VlogBros. video Hank Green said that 50 Shades of Grey has sold more copies than the number of books Ray Bradbury sold in his lifetime. That worries me, and I’m afraid that it will become increasingly difficult to find brilliant literature in the future. Do you think the commercialization of literature (if that’s an appropriate phrasing) has put good, thoughtful and valuable literature at risk? The aforementioned statistic seems rather ominous. Thanks for reading.

 misterwil-son

If ever you’re curious, go and look at the annual bestseller lists for years gone by. You’ll find a lot of books that sold an unbelievable number of copies when they were fashionable. I’m sure The Revolt of Mamie Stover also sold more books than Ray Bradbury will ever have sold in his whole life in its year*. Have you read it? Heard of it?  Off the top of my head, Peyton Place in its year, or The Gospel According to Peanuts, or The Ginger Man, or even Jonathan Livingstone Seagull in their years undoubtedly outsold all of Ray Bradbury. But when their day is done, mostly those kind of books drift back into the void, and go, if not out of print, then back into a world where, even if a select few people like them, nobody quite knows why they sold that many copies any more. (Do you know who Gilbert Patten was? He sold about 500 million books in his lifetime…)

Meanwhile, Ray Bradbury sold quite a lot of books in 1956, and quite a lot of books in 2006 (Fahrenheit 451 alone has sold over 5 million copies by now), and he found his readers for his books and his stories in every year. And I’ll wager a hundred years from now he’ll still be read…

So, honestly, I wouldn’t fret, if I were you.

Nothing’s changed.Some books are, often inexplicably, even with hindsight, bestsellers. That’s been the way of it for a hundred and fifty years or more.

Read the books you love, tell people about authors you like, and don’t worry about it.

*1951. It sold over 30 million copies.