Weekend Update #15
Look, don't expect me to comment on the recent Virginia Tech massacre, or the perpetrator's now infamous writing. Tod Goldberg has already said more than I'd ever want to. Heck, every second blog has said more than I'd want to. Tod says it well enough.
[Moment of silence.]
News from the You Will Never Be This Good Dept: Cormac McCarthy won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) for The Road. (Via The Elegant Variation.)
That weird noise you heard last weekend was the rumblings of of the science fiction community sharpening their lightsabers after outgoing SFWA vice-president Howard Hendrix referred to writers who publish online as "webscabs", who are "undercutting those of us who aren't giving it away for free". GalleyCat has a nice roundup of the collective umbrage. I think it was Groucho Marx who said "I would never join a club that would have him as an officer."
And just in time for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, an over-reaction to the above which I know is going to be marked by the posting of a thousand terrible stories (including yours?), Miss Snark says "don't post your work on the web". Oh, the quandaries you find yourself in.
Even in 2007, you still can't put "Fuck" on the cover of a book if you want it in mainstream bookstores. Of course, you can get The Book Formerly Known as Fuck Noir (with the, um, original cover) at your local Fucktopia, Uncle Cranky's Fuckapalooza, Post-Fuck Fiction, Fuck Fucky & Fuckit, Would You Like Some Fuck With That and wherever lapdances are sold.
The Arizona Republic delves into the issue of ghostwriting, which soon may be the only way to break into publishing (I'd point out that Kerry Lengel wrote the story, but how can I be sure?). If James Patterson™ and Tom Clancy™ continue to expand at their current rate, there will eventually be only one Official Author™ per genre, the Booker Prize will be given for the best Salman Rushdie™ novel, and Harlan Ellison™ will once again rule over science fiction. (Via Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.)
Simon Haynes explains why outlining sucks, and why not outlining sucks.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden says that changes to Google's search/results algorithms are making it slightly harder to find examples of bad writing. God only knows why she'd go looking for bad writing, when people mail it to her every day.
Nathan Bransford on where the other 90% of a book's cover price goes. Oh, and your blog counts for exactly squat.
Frank Darabont, screenwriter/director of the extraordinary The Shawshank Redemption, whom you would think was finally above such things, talks (briefly) about the crushing disappointment of having his script for Indiana Jones 4 rejected by George Lucas. Please take a moment to voice your own version of "How can anyone think George Lucas is qualified to judge writing after Star Wars Episodes I-III?" (Via Defamer.)
I don't think I need to say anything about an American Idol-style show called Publish My Book!. If the exclamation point isn't enough, just imagine watching it.
According to the Rejecter, there are two kinds of bad books: there are the ones that sell a million copies anyway, and there are the ones that you write.
Miss Snark gets an awful lot of "joke" queries from people who think that saying the opposite of what you mean is the apotheosis of funny. And sometimes, just sometimes, agents are assholes. Sorry, "idiots".
English literary critic and Professor of Unemployable Graduates Terry Eagleton:
I have tried to stop writing. In fact, I am looking for a “contrascriptive” — a tablet you can take that stops you from writing. There’s this organization called Writers Anonymous. They try to get you down from a full-length volume to a poem.
There. Now you don't have to read the interview. (Yes, I'm annoyed that I didn't think of "contrascriptive" first.)
Stop Writing if You Need This Advice award nominees:
- Miss Snark details the people you don't want to be at a writer's conference.
- It doesn't matter what your genitals look like, as long as your writing does not emanate from the neighbouring orifice.
- Sending your query on colored paper just makes it stand out in the trash.
- Your novel is not "hot", "cool", or "sexy". It's a room temperature pile of paper, you sick freak.
- Miss Snark's own ten reasons you're stuck in the slushpile, which is a slushload less funny than mine, but probably more accurate.
- FictionScribe suggests you pay attention to the little details, and spell your own name correctly.
- Jessica Faust at Bookends points out that you need a thick skin. See Reason #56: You Can't Handle The Abuse.
- The Rejecter says if you're turning to writing after your midlife crisis, just give the fsck up now, because she's already read and rejected the novel you're writing.
