Just had a Dorkgasm

TRON: Legacy
and
The Last Airbender

'nough said.

How You Doin'?

In the lifetime of WIP's, mine is entering its summer. I have completed a sturdy, hefty round of edits and shall begin to transcribe them to my digital copy.

I highly recommend printing out your MS. After three or four rounds of edits on your digital copy, a hard copy will help you catch those retarded evasive mistakes that eluded you in the past.

I'm not saying that mine is ready to go, but I feel much closer now.

On a macabre side note, there was a crime today in my city that eerily resembled the murder scenes of my WIP. It was reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution here. I couldn't help but notice the similarities, and develop a morbid professional interest in the details.

I know. If there is a hell, y'all make sure to send me a postcard.

A Very Weary Query

Let's see a show of hands now:

How many of you are ready to query?
How many of you have edited your MS as much as you possibly can? 

Do you all send out the queries before your MS is fully polished, or not really, since you know that it will likely get re-edited once an agent accepts it. Notice "once" not "if". 

I've been pondering on this for some time now, eventhough I'm not quite there yet. My musings were, I don't want to say interrupted, but rather complimeted by an idea for my WIP. A way of tying up all my murders and my protagonist with a nice silk thread. More on this later. 

Anyway, lemme know your thoughts, kiddies. Gotta go 'cause my flight is about to board. 

Sent from my iPhone. 

Send Hate Mail here, but:

When your way of conducting business makes people think that flying an airplane into your building is better than dealing with you, it may be time to reconsider your business practices. That said, it was an absolutely senseless loss of life, for all involved.

Psychosomatically Busy

I'm not just trying to be fansy schmancy with the titles... it trully has been an insane time for me. My for realz life is invading my virtual one, and started rape, pilage and plunder. I don;t know where this all came from, but I am hoping that I can create my own little Hannibal the barbarian, fight back this intruding force.

I miss my blogging buds, and their great posts.

Personally, I blame you.

$9.99 for an e-book is an outrage. A flat out crime. There is a lot of talk in the media of how publishers are pulling away from the internet behemoth (AKA: Amazon) in favor of the sales model Apple is offering. And why wouldn’t they? After all, everyone knows that Apple corp. is the Mecca of user friendly prices and consumer driven affordability. In fact, their new tablet generated more buzz then the tablet Moses introduced. Even though Moses’ tablet was wireless and buttonless, and even came with its own set detailed instructions, it didn’t generate this much noise. Never mind that the instructions were supposed to be handed down from a higher power.
PFFT.
Apple’s [tablet] comes from a way, way higher authority. The Immortal omnipresence of Steve Jobs. Moreover, it has an app store. Take that, burning bushes.

But I digress.

Instead of letting the market dictate the price of an electronic reproduction (which in reality costs close to nothing to digitize) they are pulling away and opting for the pricier sales model? Perfect.

Way to alienate readers. Great work guys.

That has about as much brains behind it as the recording industry and their struggle to keep CD’s alive. Holding on to the old ways is only chasing away the customers who want information now, and accessible. It’s simple. I’d rather sell 30000 copies of something at $6.99 then 8000 at $14.99. A broader audience is reached, which creates talk and talk beckons more sales. I’m not even going to get into the illegal downloading that is heading our way.

I’m not an e-book reader, having a strong preference for the feel and smell of paper when I read, but I do know more and more people are. The price of things should go down (and not up) to keep customers coming back. If my book comes out as an e-book, I’d want it to be a cheap as humanly possible. I’d rather have people clicking and downloading instead of thinking “gosh, I don’t know if I wanna spend $14.99 for a writer I don’t know.” But people will go out, and buy it, and support the few books that already have an audience, while torpedoing the entire next generation of authors and their books.

Amazon Contest

If ever a time to get your panties in a bunch was there, this be it!

Well, no, not really. It's just a contest, but hey, if you feel your stuff has the stuff to win, and get stuff in return. Then I say, send your stuff.

Click here for the link and best of luck.

The contest if for any Genre fiction and Young Adult. So good luck kiddies, and go on and shine.

You Like to Write? No Kiddin'

I’m damn near certain that I am going to piss off some people here and even lose some followers, but I feel this must be said (or written, rather).
I am a blogger, but more than that, I am a reader. I thoroughly enjoy learning what others in the blogsphere are thinking and committing to the internet. That said, I can tell you that on most occasions, I get turned off by the overly lengthy posts. I understand that sometimes we go off on rants, and our fingers take over our reason and pound away paragraph after paragraph. I know I’ve been guilty of that as much as anybody else.

However, I have a feeling that I am not alone in seeing these daunting reads, and either skimming through them, or skipping them all together. There are a few reasons for this. First and foremost, my severe ADD. But there is also the fact that I have several (well over 100) blogs that I follow and try to read at least every other day. If I have to spend 15 to 20 minutes reading just one post, I just don’t have enough time in the day to read them all. Its shame, I know. I’m an ass, I know that too, but some things just need to be said.

I try to keep my posting to no more than three (maybe four) paragraphs. Something that can be read in under three minutes. I’m sure there is a lot of good information in those long posts, but it’s probably been lost on me. Another thing, I don’t read excerpts of unpublished novels. And I always advise against posting them. For once, they tend to be long, and for twice, every agent blog I’ve read says DON’T DO IT. What do you all think? You like and read all the long posts? Or prefer the short and sweet ones?

NOTE: By long I mean the ones that have more than 6 paragraphs, or more than 1000 words.

Characterization

I know that we are all seasoned character builders and personality developers. We are, go ahead, try to argue against me. No? I didn’t think so. Well, since that’s already been established, I am going to teach you a lesson. Yes, you, oh master of characterization. Here is an example of how a character can be so well out of “character” and still ring absolutely true to the person:

Boy: (6 y/o): “Ugh, I hate that.”
Male CareTaker (30 y/o): “What’s that kiddo?”
Boy: “That, that show.”
MCT: “Why?”
“Because it’s full of girl stuff. I hate girls.”
“You can’t hate girls, kiddo.”
“But I do.”
“What are you gonna do when you grow up then? Marry a Boy?”
“Ugh. I said, I hate girls. NOT women.” Boy rolls eyes.

Not in a million years did I see that coming from a six year old, yet in hindsight, it is a totally appropriate response from THIS six year old boy. Needles to say, I lost my shit when he said it and could no longer remain in the room with a straight face. It was a few hours later that I was able to rationalize and see how it could be applied to my writing. As it turns out, I was handed a gem of a character trait, from a 6 year old. Awesome.