Yesterday was Labor Day here in the US. I spent a good share of the day moving all the stuff around in my office so I could fit in my new filing cabinet.
The bad news is that things are still in disarray (a polite way of saying that it looks like the cats spent the night in my office driving tiny bulldozers all over the place) and I can’t find anything.
The good news is that the next issue of my humor column went live yesterday. Once again this month, Sam the Plumber speaks out on an important topic for all novelists. And I reveal an extraordinary new use for pipe wrenches.
I’m having a bit of trouble typing today. (To see why, read the column.)
Hey – double casts means no heavy lifting for a couple weeks – your office is at the mercy of tiny bulldozing hairballs. 8o
If everyone had such a lizardy little heart, the world would be a better place. 😉
I feel your pain. 😉
Fun. Now I’m going to have a moment of pride for reading some of the books you recommended. (I couldn’t read them all because, dude, you recommended A LOT OF BOOKS.)
: )
Well dang me, Mr Rooney, if you ain’t been out reading them self-help books again!!
If wannabes can’t take the advice of a mentor, HOW in the world will they get through the editing process??
The Sam wrench story reminds me of a film short I saw a while ago. I think it was based off a Stephen King story. Anyway, a guy signs up for a stop smoking service, and the service does horrible things to him and his family every time he smokes. I thought it could be a helpful and viable service.
Bryce – The Stephen King story was “Quitters, Inc” and was in his book “Night Shift.” EXCELLENT reading!
Maybe THAT will get me out of my writer’s block… have someone threaten to chop off my husband’s pinky finger if I write fewer than 3,000 words per day! But really… does oen really NEED their pinky finger?
Randy… thanks for the smile today!
I may have to rethink some suggestions given to me by my critique group… maybe they were right…
What surprises me even more sometimes is a person who will PAY me for a critique and then argue every point. It’s certainly up to each writer if they think the advice works for them (or not), but I sure wouldn’t pay good money to argue with someone!
Writer’s First Aid
Wow. You sure unplugged my drain with that one. Good comments and so true.
Randy (or other blog readers) please help!
I’ve come across the acronym CBA a few times now, and recently also ABA. I’ve worked out that CBA is basically the Christian market, ABA the general market, but what do they stand for? I’ve tried googling them only to find the acronyms used over and over with no explanation to be found!
Thanks for satisfying my curiousity…
🙂 Karen
Hmm… well I’ve read down far enough on Chip MacGregor’s blog to find answers to half my question.
CBA is the Christian Booksellers Association. It’s for Christian book retailers. So selling to the CBA market would be selling to Christian book retailers.
They have an Expo which, it seems, didn’t go well this year. I remember reading about that in the Christian Fiction Online Magazine too, although at the time I had no idea what it was.
Then there’s the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) which is an association of publishers. They are going to have an Expo too, which is more about books and authors than the Retailers Expo.
OK. I think that makes sense.
Still not sure what ABA stands for, but I’m sure learning that one acronym will involve four more acronyms if it’s in the same vein as the CBA!
TTFN. Not quite an acronym, but writing in full sentences after trying to make sense of all that just didn’t seem right.
🙂 Karen
ABA = American Booksellers Association, I think.
AmyVR – you just sent shivers down my memory lane – I read Night Shift a bazillion years ago and I remember that story! The Duel truck story too, born as a short story first, I think. Maybe Quitter’s Inc inspired the full length “Misery”, which I didn’t read but did watch.
Can’t you just picture Kathy Bates showing up at a writer’s conference asking for autographs? Randy got off easy with a pipe wrench. Imagine the heft in a sledgehammer.
Imagine trying to give advice to wannabee writer Jack Torrance aka Jack Nicholson in The Shining! Not without a helicopter waiting nearby, ready to go …
You made me cry with laughter once again Randy. The article title frightened me so much I had to make a cup of tea before reading on. Is this me, I wondered?
Well, (I’m wearing welders’ gauntlets as I type this) I’ve got Fiction 101 and 102, which I printed off full size and put into 3 thick A4 sized folders with transparent sleeves, separating off the sections with coloured sheets of A4 so I can get to what I want quickly. I’ve three fat ring binders set up according to the 10 steps of The Snowflake Method – folder III being Draft One and am working on the character summaries right now, which has actually intro’d some new scenes, deepened the plot and revealed the REAL theme of my book and the characters’ motivations.
The piece of advice you’ve given me so far on my actual writing, I immediately took up – I promise – and it also showed up some other stuff I hadn’t noticed, by the way! I’ve bought about 5 books you’ve recommended – I even bought one twice by mistake! I’ve also bought some you haven’t mentioned, joined ACFW, possibly THE most supportive writers group on the planet.
And re: Retribution – Chapter One Page 20 – brilliant writing. I loved Rivka at once, because I’d just done something similar – something that had to be done regardless of the fact that it was certainly going to make my life more difficult!!!(No I’m not a hero, but enough sometimes has to be enough)!
Without Snowflake, I’d be wandering down a pretty lane full of quite nice little images forever and ever and …
Is it safe to take off the gauntlets, she asks herself?
Randy,
You may have covered this before, but I have a question.
My understanding is that agents do not like to consider work that has been shopped to editors already, because they want to be the one to present it in their own way.
Because of this, as an un-agented pre-published novelist, I am planning on only meeting with agents at the ACFW conference.
Should I avoid talking about my work to editors? Not that I would be impolite if asked about my work, but should I avoid pitching if something comes up in conversation?
Thanks,
-Robert