This post is brought to you by the letter ...

is for November, the month soon to be upon us. It is also the beginning of: 


National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). 


Writers from all over the world will rise once again to the challenge of writing a 50K-word novel in the space of 30 days (the month of November). Last year 200,000 people took part - writing a total of over 2.8 billion words! 


Want to give it a try? Click on the link below for details.

                 www.nanowrimo.org

  Thirty days and nights of literary abandon!

In Passing: William Warner Sleator III

I am sad to note that William Sleator, author of over 30 young adult books, including "Interstellar Pig", "The Green Futures of Tycho", "House of Stairs", "Strange Attractors", "The Spirit House". and many others, passed away on August 3rd, 2011

He was a profile writer, accomplished composer and musician.

Follow the link to learn more about the man, his books and his music. .

Man Booker Prize 2011 Long-list Announced

The longlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction - the ‘Man Booker Dozen' - was announced today. It includes four first time novelists.

The chosen are;

Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)

Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)

Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)

Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)

Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)

Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)

Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)

Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)

Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)

A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)

Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)

Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)

D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

The titles were chosen by a panel of five judges chaired by author and former Director-General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington.

A total of one hundred thirty eight books were submitted, seven of which were called in by the judges, to be considered for the ‘Man Booker Dozen' long list. 

The four first time novelists on the list are Stephen Kelman, A.D. Miller, Yvvette Edwards and Patrick McGuinness. 

The list also includes three publishers new to the prize: Oneworld, Sandstone Press and Seren Books.

Play For Pay: Harry Potter & The Hypocrisy of the Church

An article in today's Columbus Dispatch by Meredith Heagney trumpets,

                             Faith leaders forgive Harry Potter  


"It wasn't so long ago that an orphan boy with a lightning-bolt scar was considered a danger to America's children, at least by some Muggles. Conservative Christians blasted the Harry Potter books and movies as promoting witchcraft and black magic.


"But years have passed, and Harry has grown up to become a mainstay in pop culture. Ahead of next Friday's release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the eighth and final movie in the series, religious critics are largely absent."


As glad as I am to see that the faithful have finally come to their senses, signalling what we all hope is the end of religious persecution of a group of fictional characters, I have to wonder why. 


It seems to me that the reason is obvious; the religious institutions that were here-to-fore persecuting the author and her books have finally figured out how to play them in a different light.

Indeed;


"In fact, many voices of faith are trumpeting the morals and values of the series, which they say can teach timeless truths about love, courage and sacrifice."


They still do not like the witchcraft and wizardry, which is the magic that makes the Harry Potter series what it is... a compelling coming-of-age tale of good-versus-evil set in a fantasy world.


Meanwhile, back-at-the-ranch, these same religious leaders continues to demonise other fantasy writers for committing the same sins that author J.K Rowling supposedly committed.


The real meaning of all this I'll leave to you, the reader to decide, but I know where I'd place my bets.




 You can read the the entire Columbus Dispatch article here. 

It's Short Story Month

To Celebrate, we invite you to come read some really great short stories by a group of talented newcomers!

The Unlocked Project - Unlocked: Ten "Key" Tales

Ménage à 20 (Twenty Goodreads Authors) 


And the best part? They're Free! 

So, come read us, then, and let us know how we're doing.

Happy Children's Book Week

 Be a sponsor, be a friend. Click on the image above and donate to CBW.

The Monday Morning Quarterback

Let's begin our week with a couple of really good Blogs that are worth your time and effort.


The first is EMU's Debuts: An exploration of the winding path that lies between the Book Deal and the Debut.


Content brought to you by debuting authors represented by Ammi-Joan Paquette and Erin Murphy of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency (EMLA). New content appears on Mondays and Wednesdays.


Next on my list of Blogs of Interest...


Cartoon Letters To Grandpa: By the very talented writer and artist Ruth McNally Barshaw, creator of the Ellie McDoodle series, and creator of the character sketch of myself you see on my blogs. A rather wonderful first post explains the premise of the blog.


You can see Ellie McDoodle, as well as Ruth's other work at the RuthExpress.


Well, that's all the news that's fit to print, except to say congratulations to all the newly published authors and writers out there. Here's wishing you all a great, productive week.


We now return the author to her regularly scheduled frenetic sessions of manuscript editing.

From The Land Of Misfit Manuscripts:Why Do Writers Abandon Novels?

Illustration by Ben Wiseman

In the 4 March 2011 edition of the NewYork Times, writer/author Dan Kois posits an interesting question in his essay piece: Why Do Writers Abandon Novels?

Whether you're still working toward that first publication or you're working on the fifteenth volume of your chapbook fantasy serial, I'm sure you have at least one misfit manuscript in your drawer or file of projects that were abandoned or forgotten that has at least a glimmer of hope left in it.

I recently came across a manuscript I'd put it in an envelope some twenty years ago and marked it; Do Not Open Unless I'm Long Dead and Buried. 

For the life of me I could not remember why, so I opened it, read the manuscript... and promptly ran it through the shredder. It was a good idea that had been badly executed.

Why I saved it I shall never know, except perhaps that the good idea was waiting for me to become a better writer.

How about you?

 

 

It's too damn quiet in here.

In case you've been wondering, the reason this blog has been so quiet is very simple: I'm up to my armpits in manuscript revisions and editing... and its not going quietly into the night.


It is instead rather like an out-of-tune brass band, with each instrument needing careful tuning. Hundreds of once pristine pages turned to little more than ash and rubble with the simple slashing motion of a red pen. 


Such is the writers folly, to think that a story will stay written as initially conceived.


Chapters that made sense where they were during the initial composition seem destined to be not the great preludes they were wrought to be but instead interludes to acts unfathomed at the time of their creation.


Scenes, so artfully constructed, now little more than hazy backgrounds in the clarity of the new world arising from the ashes.


And characters, once thought destined to be the MC's of the story are instead finding themselves in the supporting cast, supplanted by voices that crept surprisingly out of the chorus to rise above the rest.


And such is the writers joy; 


To find new life beneath the rubble, a phoenix amongst the ashes of despair.  

Information overload, the early years - The Boston Globe

Five centuries years ago, a new technology swamped the world with data. 

What we can learn from the aftermath?

An absolutely fascinating read at 

My question is this; Why aren't YOU participating in NaNoWriMo?

                   I was told today that "NaNoWriMo writers are psychotic."


Demented maybe, but consider please; I am a writer. My normal daily output is usually somewhere around four thousand words. Usually that's divided between several projects... both writing and editing.


I don't usually count all the other extraneous writing I do in the course of a day, but I became curious after all the scribbling I've been reading about how those participating in the project are "wasting their time" and how those "words would be better spent elsewhere." 


                          Curiosity killed the cat.


I created a small utility programme that allows me to turn a counter on and off when I'm typing blog entries, emails and messages on GoodReads, Facebook and couple of other daily communications and networking apps.


Granted that it may be ten words here and fifty there... but I discovered that I cumulatively write somewhere around two thousand words a day. 


     Writing 1,667 words in a day equals 50,000 in a month.


So, imagine what would happen if you were to take all the words you write between chat and notes and texting and remarks that you make during the course of a day, and focus them on one task.


During the month of November I've cut my external commenting down by over half and focused all my writing effort toward one book... the one I committed myself to start writing during NaNoWriMo.




        P.S. If my counter is correct, this message, sans title contains 314 words.

12 reasons to ignore the naysayers: Do NaNoWriMo

If you want to write a novel in 30 days, don't let anyone stop you. Not even Salon's Laura Miller.

From the LA Times: 12 reasons to ignore the naysayers: Do NaNoWriMo

It's NaNoWriMo Time

It was a dark and stormy night. 


Well, not really... Actually, it was a cold moonlit night. The tree's had dropped their leaves and dumped thousands of acorns underfoot, causing every step to sound like a thousand people eating crunch bars in unison.


While we're off doing the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), we invite you to read The UNLOCKED Project Never-Ending Story, and contribute... if you dare!

Won't They Ever Learn?

ABFFE Earns Injunction in Alaska (From Publishers Weekly)

Booksellers, librarians and other media groups won an injunction on Thursday in Federal District Court in Alaska to Senate Bill 222, which made anyone who operates a Web site that features content deemed "harmful to minors" criminally liable.

The plaintiffs--among them Fireside Books, the Alaska Library Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the AAP, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund--claimed the bill infringed on citizens' First Amendment rights and would also result in potential prosecution for librarians and retailers based on what they lent and sold online and in their stores.

The plaintiffs' attorney, Michael Bamberger of SNR Denton, said the statute was "overbroad" and his clients were happy the courts recognized it posed a "clear violation of the First Amendment rights of all citizens, in Alaska and throughout the country."

SB 222, as the bill is called, was signed by Governor Parnell in May; the details of the case, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, et al. v Sullivan, and Alaska, can be found at www.akclu.org.

And The Sign Said…

“…. that despite my authors invectives, I persist in my efforts to seek publication.”


Dear (Name Withheld)….


It is rare indeed that we receive submissions from fictitious sources; enough so that our curiosity was indeed aroused. 


Having perused the proffered sample submission, we feel that we must extol your author to further calumnious verbosity.


Kind Regards;

Picture Books Aren't in Trouble Just Because NYT Says So.

"The worry of the day is the The New York Times article that tells us that the picture book market is fading as parents push their kids into chapter books. Now the kidlit folks will all go crazy defending picture books and deriding parental pressure. 

But people, we are forgetting one important thing here. This is The New York Times. And in terms of children's and young adult literature, this is what they do. Some writer comes up with a topic in this field in which they know very little. They "research" that topic with a few interviews, an observation or two, and a quote from man on the street. Or in this case, parent in the bookstore.** 

They've done this with the topic of Young Adult literature being too dark. They've done this with summer reading lists being too light. They've done this with The Catcher in the Rye being useless for today's teens. And with Twilight as the defining book for our generation. Or profiling a family that blogs about children's books as being this amazingly unique concept..."

Read the rest at MotherReader

Read Banned Books

Banned Books Week 2010 is the twenty-ninth annual celebration of the freedom to read. This freedom, not only to choose what we read, but also to select from a full array of possibilities... be it books, magazines, newspapers, films, broadcasts, plays, performances, electronic publications, or exhibits, is firmly rooted in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. 

Although we enjoy an increasing quantity and availability of information and reading material, we must remain vigilant to ensure that access to this material is preserved; would-be censors who continue to threaten the freedom to read come from all quarters and all political persuasions. 

Even if well intentioned, censors try to limit the freedom of others to choose what they read, see, or hear.

“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” 

- U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, in Texas v. Johnson