Yesterday’s post about Chasing Ray giving away plots should have come with the proviso, “Some assembly required.” Actually, ALL assembly required. Characterization. Dialogue. Description. If you missed that detail, you missed that Colleen was only sharing her IDEAS. Mea culpa.
If you thought someone giving you the plot was going to make your writing easy-peasy, then, shucks, I not only have a bridge to sell you, but I know you’ll want to check out what Powell’s Book Blog recently reported — the terrifying news of the launching of WEbook… “You are the “we” in WEbook. Work with friends on your inspiration or add a few lines to someone else’s. The very best work will be published as WEbooks,” the site trumpets.
Conceptually, it’s fiction by committee — which, for some reason, fails to excite me. Hm.
Your Neighborhood Librarian is pretty sick of those lame-o READ posters with disinterested looking, badly dressed celebrities loosely clutching books they probably haven’t even read. She thinks they’re fugly, and has a much cooler poster in mind. Hat tip to Smart Bs/Trashy Bs for the fun link.
Booksluts in Training this month is all about the animals — and if you love your reptiles like I do, you’ll want Lizard Love to be the next love story you read. The cover is GORGEOUS! A great roundup of YA novels with animal protagonists, antagonists, characters and causes, plus a brand new Charles de Lint. Don’t miss!
Completely off-topic, except if you’re a Kiki Strike Irregular: Ananka reports on a REALLY disturbing bodily waste recycling idea at her blog… it’s all in the name of science though, right?
Right. And now back to work.
O thank you, thank you. I LOVE that Iowa “read” poster (and am reminded that I need to read Your Neighborhood Librarian way more than I do. I wish I had three extra hours in the day for blog-reading).
Anyway, thanks.
The ALA is totally gonna rescind my membership. Bad librarian, no!
OMG and I didn’t know Ananka had a blog! THANKS for the link!
Great links today! YNL, I love your blog tagline (one of the top seventy thousand blogs on the internet!).
Great poster, too. I think I want to read all of those animal books–I do have Laika in my pile, but I see I’ll have to get Coyote Road and Dingo, too…
That Kij Johnson story in “Coyote Road” is just amazing guys – you can read it online and see what I mean. (http://www.kijjohnson.com/evolution.html)
There has been some flack over at Roger’s on the whole mystery plots post but it seems to have settled down now (thankfully). I don’t know why anyone would have thought I was doing anything other than throwing out some rough ideas for ways in which a mystery series could be written with a teen protag; why must we always assume the worst of a blogger’s post?
So.Frustrating.
In response to all this I have heard from a few writers who say that mysteries they have written just didn’t sell much. I wonder if the PR machine is still too in love with fantasy and coming-of-age in the YA category….that mystery just isn’t getting the spotlight like it should.