Tomorrow’s C-U Writers Group meeting is about promotion, so that’s what starts off this set of links:
Writing Excuses podcast: Basic marketing, branding, and websites (3 separate episodes)
YA author Saundra Mitchell on Marketing Timelines (thanks to Kelly Swails for the links): Part 1 and Part 2
Things to do with your galleys
Other stuff: Continue reading
Since I’m collecting writing links for my local group, I thought I’d share them here as well.
May 5’s meeting is on pitching a novel, so let’s start with…
Pitching/Queries:
New query testing site (post your query, see how many up/down votes you get, and comment on other queries – it’s kinda fun to vote on the queries): http://www.querytest.com/ (and the FAQ)
Continue reading
Filed under Links
Adventures in food labelling
Found at the grocery store:
Ready-to-Eat peaches — First, they still have to be washed, so technically they aren’t ready to eat. Second, what would constitute non-ready-to-eat peaches? Green ones? Blossoms? A potted peach tree (just add water)?
Canned tuna — After the ingredients list (tuna, broth, water), it helpfully warns, “Contains: Fish.” Yes. I should hope so. Perhaps they want to emphasize that it’s dolphin-safe.
Garden status
We ate our grape tomato this week. It was very tasty. If we’re lucky, the green tomatoes will ripen sometime this year (then we’ll have ready-to-eat tomatoes). We also had a couple very small heads of romaine (~ 5 leaves each), which actually looks like lettuce now. Our herbs and hot peppers have not yet achieved ready-to-eat status, though the basil is ok if we only want a couple leaves at a time.
I built a thread trellis for my morning glories, as the fence boards are too wide for them to climb. I should have bought flowers that bloom at night, though. I’m unlikely to see the morning glories very often.
Harry Potter
Reread the first 6 Harry Potter books. I timed it badly and left myself with two weeks to anticipate book 7.
Book 5 has really improved since the last time I read it, or maybe remembering that I didn’t like it lowered my expectations enough that it seemed better. Or maybe it was because I’d just finished 4, which is still my least favorite because of the gaping plot hole.
We saw the movie Order of the Phoenix yesterday — it was not good. Umbridge was spot on, but so many other characters did things that were out of character (or at least not supported by anything in the movie) that it was rather frustrating, sort of like watching shorthand. At times the dialogue-heavy scenes were boring.
Orson Scott Card has an interesting essay on Snape. He has some good points, although many of his arguments depend on figuring out what Rowling was thinking as she wrote the books, which I think requires too many assumptions about how she works and how skilled an author she has been at different times.
(I’m still fence-sitting on whether Snape’s good or evil. After reading book 6 the first time, I leaned towards good; after rereading all the books, I’m leaning towards evil. From a storytelling perspective, redemption might work better. If it were me, I’d think that’s too obvious.)
Random question: Where do British wizards go to school before they’re 11? It seems they must all be home-schooled: they don’t know enough about Muggles to have gone to Muggle schools, and unless there are a lot of wizard kids who don’t go to Hogwarts, there aren’t any wizard elementary schools.
Misc.
I finally got a library card, only 10 months after moving here. I’ve been spoiled — this is the first place I’ve lived as an adult where I have to drive to the library because it’s too far to walk.
Yesterday I went shopping and got my early birthday present from my boyfriend: a slipcover for the couch. It looks much nicer than the lack-of-cover we had before. Very thoughtful of him to get that for me. 🙂
Links
GalaxyZoo seeks people to categorize photos of spiral and elliptical galaxies because “the human brain is far better than a computer at recognising the patterns that divide ellipticals from spirals.” After you sign up, do a tutorial, and take a test, you look at photos and determine what they are. [Links to articles about it.]
PSA: Do not listen to your MP3 player outside during a storm.
Yesterday I did my first volunteer stint at the park, which mostly consisted of more detailed training. Watered the butterfly garden, made hummingbird food and filled feeders, fed the fish and turtles and frogs, sent visitors with questions to the naturalist because I know nothing yet…. 🙂
One of my tomatoes is very orange, and my lettuce seems to have stopped dying. Soon I can have a very tiny homegrown salad. Quite exciting.
Links:
Elizabeth Bear remarks: It’s harder to revise old text to anything like not sucking than just to write new less sucky text from scratch. It’s like the suck gets ossified in.
Thursday I had my volunteer interview at the park and learned about all the very cool things I can do. Saturday I have my first volunteer stint at the nature center (on a weekend, yikes); I also have a butterfly survey to sign up for. They’re also going to put me in touch with the people who monitor which wildflowers are blooming, which is very different than what I did before (counting populations of rare species), and will require me to actually learn my plants.
Links:
Filed under Links
Links:
And even before the potential post-publication humiliation, there’s deadline pressure; crippling self-doubt; diets of Entenmann’s pastries and black coffee; self-made cubicles structured with piles of books, papers and unpaid bills; night-owl tendencies; failed relationships; unanswered phone calls; weight gain; poverty; and, of course, exhaustion.
So forget the American dream! Getting a book deal seems more like a nightmare.
Or maybe people should have more reasonable expectations. Still, an amusing article. And what’s wrong with night-owl tendencies?
Filed under Links
My lettuce has sprouted; a few seeds of something else have also started coming up. Or maybe two something elses. (No, I didn’t label my herb container. They’ll become identifiable eventually.)
Links:
Today I redesigned the afghan I’m crocheting to account for the impending shortage of yarn. I decided to try adding to more colors to it: it’s off-white and navy and dark green, so some lighter shades of blue and green should work.
Went to two stores (the third was closed) and they didn’t have a large selection. I may try the third store tomorrow, or go to a real yarn store (although the real yarn store does not sell the brand I want, according to their website). I don’t want to buy online because I need to compare the colors. I have plenty of time to find yarn, since I still have 48 green and white squares to make.
Had more success at Lowe’s: we now have tomato, hot pepper, and basil plants, along with some lettuce, parsley, mint, and morning glory seeds. But I have to go back and get more dirt.
Meant to go to the park today for more flower photos, but everything took forever.
Links:
Me: Vis-a-vis the implementation of SAP technology, what is the source-related derivation of the acronymically based identifier of the service entity, and how does it operate so as to enhance production and profitability or, alternatively, improve the business model of the shelf-stable protein supplier of which Clarkston is now a client?
He was surprised at the results.
