August 26, 2014 · 9:15 am

Review: Skeleton Crew

Skeleton CrewSkeleton Crew by Stephen King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For a collection of short stories, this book took me forever to read. It’s an interesting peek behind the curtain of the famous writer while also being chock-full of scary, interesting, and mysterious tales. It’s a lot of fun, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to read it on your relaxing vacation (see: took me 3.5 months to read it all).

If you’ve read King’s famous “On Writing,” you may find this book extra interesting. He can’t help but reveal himself in these short stories, and when they are all collected together, it’s easy to see commonalities. For one, I feel like I have a real roadmap to Bangor, Maine (King’s beloved hometown). The laundry where he worked before he found a teaching job (and then became a writer) makes several appearances, and country roads in the vicinity twist and tangle until some of the more unruly characters appear. I have to wonder if King’s drug addiction lies behind some of the more nauseating and skin-crawling horrors: the rat-person in “Mona” in particular, and certainly the methodology in “Survivor Type.”

It’s interesting to read “The Mist” and King’s thoughts on it in the decades before it became a movie (his son Joe Hill even being “cast” as the precocious little kid in the story). The story, which opens the book, is one of the best, but is not the most frightening, by far. “The Jaunt” is a cheerful attempt at science-fiction, with the ending practically obvious from the get-go. The final story, “The Reach,” wasn’t horror in the slightest; it’s more of a quiet contemplation.

I found it intriguing that the horror factor in several of the stories (“The Mist,” “The Raft,” “The Monkey,” “Morning Deliveries (Milkman #2)”) is never clearly defined, explained, or even resolved. Particularly in “The Mist” and “The Raft,” bad things just sort of happen, and there isn’t a lot anyone–reader, character, perhaps writer?–can do about it.

While I enjoyed reading these stories because it allowed me to study King while he was at work (or, as he says, “my muse shat on my head–this happened as it always does, suddenly, with no warning.”), it reads like the grab-bag off his desk: a little of this, a little of that, some worth more, some not worth writing on the back of a napkin. It’s a ragtag bunch of stories, and shows the breadth of King’s talent and interests, but may not be for every reader.

View all my reviews

3 Comments

Filed under Reviews, Short Stories

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

August 21, 2014 · 9:53 am

Don’t Let Rejection Weigh You Down

This New York Times article is…weirdly composed. It’s a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster (what do odd resume’s and rejection lists have in common?), but I’m glad it brought the rejection list to my attention.

Basically, author Monica Byrne has kept track of every single rejection she has ever gotten. There are more than 500 now on her list, compiled over 6 years. Which just has to be brutal. But I found her comments about it inspiring:

“Of all the things I’d ever submitted to or applied for,” she writes at The Washington Post, “I’d gotten only 3 percent of them. That’s a 97 percent rejection rate. That means I got 32 rejections for every acceptance.”

But she DOES have acceptances, including a book deal and a sold-out play. I also liked this quote:

“The anti-résumé remains my deceptively simple answer to the question, ‘How do you do it?’: that I persisted during all those years of rejection for no other reason than that I loved writing so much I wanted to spend all my time doing it. Writing must be its own reward, even for the most talented and hardworking writers, or they’re going to have a tough time.”

I’ve not had much success with courting agents. I’ve gotten some nice comments, a few requests for manuscripts, but nothing has really gelled. And it’s been frustrating. Sometimes I think back on my rejection list and wonder if maybe I’m “doing it wrong”–“it” in this case being “everything.” But Byrne reminds me that this is sort of just how it is. Just keep going for it.

2 Comments

Filed under Publishing, writing

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 19, 2014 · 9:40 am

Real Costs of Self-Publishing

I found this excellent peek behind-the-scenes of self-publishing from Writer.ly’s CEO Abigail Carter.** It’s the kind of information that is just hard to come by, and I found it really useful.

She describes not just the costs she has put into the book pre-launch, but also the struggle to get recognition via reviews. It’s a good reminder that self-publishing means you have to take on a lot more than you would if you were picked up by an agent and publisher (though the difference in your royalties may be worth it to you).

Before launch, Carter spent $2,570 to get the book ready (yeah, that number rocked me back a bit, too, but it’s so great to have actual hard numbers). In a week, she made… $75.41.

She followed up recently with another post, detailing more of her expenses, in particular her hard work to get those vital Amazon reviews. She got 102 reviews and more sales, and her expenses went up to $3,183. With sales at only $441.94. Yikes, that’s a big cost. Hopefully it will pan out for her.

If you’ve self-published, have you “broken even” yet? What did it take to get those early reviews?

**Full disclosure: I work with Abby sometimes through Writer.ly, because I find it to be an excellent resource for writers, editors, and illustrators. She’s a nice person. No one paid me to write about this, however.

5 Comments

Filed under Publishing, writing

Tagged as , , ,

August 17, 2014 · 9:02 am

Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard #1)The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m not sure I’ve ever had such trouble rating a book with such excellent writing. The truth, though, is that, while it is exceedingly well-written, it’s convoluted and faces so many different plot options it is hard to stick with the story.

Let’s start with the good stuff: Lynch has wrought a fantasy-tinged world in greater detail and clarity than the real world. His Camorr has layer upon layer of complexity, beauty, grime, seediness, character, and mystery. Despite the ample attention to detail, I wanted more. I wanted to know about the incredible Elderglass towers and how they were created, and how humans came to occupy them. I wanted a calendar of all the holidays in the city and descriptions of each festivity. I wanted to peek inside the temples of each of the 13 gods. It is rich and detailed and effortless; characters curse and revel in this very real world without a hint that this is fiction.

I’m also quite pleased with the confidence schemes that Lynch has concocted. They are as much of a joy to the reader as the characters committing them upon unwitting folk. Locke Lamora sells his false-face activities well, and I hungered for more of the like. In fact, I wished the whole book were nothing but a testament to the way Locke got himself in and out of one scrape after another.

That’s also the problem: from the first 1/3-1/2 of the book, that was what I thought I was reading: a lighthearted and amusing tale of a con men pulling a con. And I liked that. It was great fun trying to guess how Locke was going to manage the next touch against his enemy, wondering how close he could get to being caught.

But then the book took a sudden and dark turn, literally out of nowhere. It felt like this was not really one book, but three, smooshed together. To the point that, as much as I liked the characters and the overall world, I’m not sure I want to read any more adventures. I felt like the book I started and the book I finished were not at all related; the plot got twisty, and not always in a good way.

Possible spoilers to follow. Read at your own risk.

In vague terms, here are the major plot intersections I can identify:

  • Locke, as a child, is taken up by the Thiefmaker.
  • Locke, as a child, finds a new home with Chains.
  • Locke and his gang, now grown, are pulling a big con on some wealthy folks.
  • It seems the secret police are onto the con… oh no! Oh wait, no, that’s just more of Locke’s cleverness at work.
  • While doing a typical errand, Locke is encumbered by a marriage engagement he can’t easily escape. What will ever become of him?
  • A bad guy, heretofore unknown to the story, kidnaps Locke and requires he perform an impossible task.
  • OUT OF FREAKING NOWHERE, the bad guy kills the girl Locke was supposed to be engaged to, less than two chapters after it was introduced, forcing his boss to require Locke to help him fight the bad guy.
  • Double-cross by the bad guy. Things are not going at all according to plan.
  • Everyone you love is murdered. Locke swears revenge.
  • More murder, almost excessive. Bad guy takes over.
  • Other villain only previously hinted at turns out to be real and hatches a plan to get Locke.
  • Locke overcomes multiple obstacles and difficult situations to win the day, much the worse for wear.

 

I gotta say, I felt like I couldn’t really enjoy the book after the marriage-proposal feint. I’m not even sure what point it served; it feels like that could be cut entirely from the book without a mark of incident. It just seems too convoluted, and it made it hard to know what I was supposed to be cheering for at any given moment. Plus, dark-revenge-tale is deeply different from the lighthearted caper we were enjoying at first.

My other beef is the situation with female characters. Though there are ample women used as setpieces and secondary characters, some even with some mild action, this book is a sausage-fest. There’s even plenty of opportunity for a female character: one is mentioned repeatedly but never shows up. You could change one (or more) of the characters in Locke’s gang into women without at all changing the story. A few women toward the very end of the book see some action, but it seems half-hearted. Though characters–even a whole chapter!–claimed that women were not to be trifled with, it seemed more sentiment than truth, and made me wonder if Lynch was somehow afraid to write women characters (which is foolish, because his background ladies were really interesting! Just…not a lot to them.)

I’m not sure I would recommend this book. It feels like those who would like a fantasy caper might not like the end (like me) and those who might like a gore-heavy revenge story might not get through the lighter beginning material to see the stuff they liked. But it is incredibly well-written and I’m impressed with Lynch as a whole. Perhaps I’d like one of his books that ran shorter than 720 pages.

View all my reviews

Leave a comment

Filed under Reviews

Tagged as , , , ,

August 14, 2014 · 9:12 am

Amazon vs. Publisher Kerfuffle Continues

Though I don’t yet have a dog in the race, I’ve been following the Amazon vs. Hatchette/authors battle. Looks like there’s been another volley, and it’s just a bit silly. Amazon apparently emailed a bunch of “their” authors (those who have used the KDP) requesting that they email Hatchette and cc Amazon’s PR folks on it…to prove it, I guess?

Basically, they wanted to use the authors are human battering rams against their rival corporation. The funny thing about writers, though: they like to write things. So I saw a cascade of folks offering up their opinions.

Here are some good ones to read:

  • Neil Gaiman:  “It’s like Godzilla battling Gamera, and we’re looking up from the sidewalks of New York rather worried that a skyscraper might topple on us.” And he points out some independent bookstores people might populate instead.
  • Chuck Wendig: Who wrote a long, detailed and really great post about the whole thing. “It’s a cheapy tactic meant to drum up support from a group of people who don’t really have a huge dog in this fight — this is a fight with traditional publishing about traditional publishing. “
  • John Scalzi: The following quote is only tangentially related to the controversy, but it hit home for me.

“Look, here’s the thing: You can construct in your mind a world where there are the tough and scrappy self-published authors on one side of a battle and the posh and pampered traditionally published authors on the other, and pretend to set them against one another, like flabby, middle-aged Pokemon. But I think that’s kind of stupid and I’m not obliged to live in that particular fantasy world. Nor do I believe that the successes of other writers take away from my own. It’s not actually a zero-sum game where only one publishing model (and the authors who use it) will survive and the rest are eaten by weasels, or whatever. The world is large enough to have authors publishing one way, or another, or by some combination of various methods.”

Considering that Amazon has widened its fights to include a drag-out fight with the monolith that is Disney, I can’t see this slowing down anytime soon. However, I must say it has given me pause regarding whether I’ll publish with Amazon. I mean, I probably will–they’re the biggest fish in the pond in the ebook space, and it’s sort of crazy to ignore that–but it does make me hesitate.

Anyone else keeping tabs on this? Thoughts?

3 Comments

Filed under Publishing, writing

Tagged as , , ,

August 12, 2014 · 8:56 am

Fast Foodie Nation

Doritos Taco Loco, via HuffingtonPost

Really? People eat this stuff–on purpose?

My husband and I were talking about the newest concoctions from fast food/convenience store marketers, and I had an epiphany. We’re calling it the “Fast Foodie” trend.

Basically, we think there are two basic movements happening in the food market, two fundamental types of  relatively new consumers.

The first is already well-documented: the Foodies. These are the folks who prefer organic ingredients, melt over the freshest kale innovation, who want to know which farm has the chicken that laid their omelet. It’s all about fresh, and healthy, and good for the world. It’s also fairly expensive, with a little bit of a reputation of snoodiness.

It used to be “Foodies” in one corner and “everyone else” in the other. But then we got a new sub-group: the Fast Foodies. These are folks who, like their Foodie counterparts, are looking for something a little different on the menu tonight. But, unlike Foodies, they don’t have a lot of money, or they don’t care much for health trends, and are not at all worried about the environment or freshness or, really, if that even really is chicken egg in their breakfast. There’s also a great shock value effect when you tell someone what you had for lunch and they say, “Really? You ate that?!”

And thus was spawned a market.

We have these Fast Foodies to thank for the incredible, awe-inspiring monstrosities saturating the market: Taco Bell Doritos Taco Loco; Ben & Jerry’s new Core flavors, which feature a build-your-own middle flavor; the Bacon Sundae at Burger King or the Bacon Shake at Jack in the Box; Pizza Hut’s Hot Dog Crust pizza; White Castle Chicken Rings; Taco Bell’s Waffle Taco; KFC’s Double Down–who needs bread when you can have more fried chicken?; Loaded Doritos at 7-11.

These are folks that don’t care that a Taco Loco from Taco Bell contains 14% of their daily value of sodium, and that nearly half of its calories are from pure, glorious fat. In fact, they might like it because of that. After all, it took less than six months for Taco Bell to top the $1 billion mark for the $1.89 tacos.

It certainly isn’t the first time we’ve eaten strange things–McDonald’s may have been the kickoff, offering the McGriddle and McRib before the fad seems to have started–but it does seem like it’s a big movement now.

Personally, I can’t speak to the taste or quality of any of those products: I veer more toward the Foodie side of the Foodie–Fast Foodie spectrum, and the idea of eating any of that stuff makes me kinda sick. But I do think it’s fascinating.

What do you think? Is the Fast Foodie trend real…and is it here to stay?

4 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

August 7, 2014 · 10:54 am

First-Ever Fan-Fic

Believe it or not, I’ve never written fanfic before, despite having been writing in some form or another most of my life. But I literally woke up the other day and said, “Omigosh, this needs to exist.” So I wrote it, and that’s how we got my possibly-bizarre Harley Quinn fanfic I posted earlier this week.

I’ve never felt comfortable writing with other people’s characters, even if I thought of a cool story. But this time, it just felt right.

Harley Quinn is a relatively recent addition to Batman’s rogues. She was introduced by Paul Dini in 1992 on Batman: The Animated Series, an absolutely fabulous kids’ show featuring The Dark Knight himself. Harley is just such a genius character–I’ve always loved her. She’s a psychiatrist with a background in competitive gymnastics who becomes obsessed with the Joker, to the point of throwing away her life as Dr. Harleen Quinzel in order to follow him and be his minion/lover, Harley Quinn (a play on harlequin, get it? Eh? Eh?).

I just thought, hey: What if she still wanted to make it as a psychiatrist after all that time with the Joker? I mean, it takes a lot of work to get to the point where you are interacting with patients. She’s a smart cookie! Aside from the lovesickness/psychotic break/delusions that turned her into Harley Quinn, maybe she’s still got some of that Dr. Quinzel in her. And that’s where I got “From the Desk of Dr. Harleen Quinzel.”

I have less love for recent incarnations of the character: she’s veered well off the smart-scientist track and into a more bubblegum ditz/super-strong sex symbol. But I’ll always have a particular fondness for that pun-loving, wise-cracking gymnast-scientist.

2 Comments

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , ,

August 5, 2014 · 9:38 am

From the Desk of Dr. Harleen Quinzel

To Whom It May Concern:

Please accept my submission to the esteemed American Journal of Psychiatry, “No Laughing Matter: Humor & the ‘Criminally Insane.’” I realize this submission is unconventional, so I have provided further information to help you make your decision.

I am Dr. Harleen Francis Quinzel. I began my career at the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane after concluding my studies at Gotham City University. As an intern, I interacted with many of the famous inmates, but one in particular seemed worthy of additional study: the man best known by his nom de guerre “the Joker.”

Because of his many exploits and the extremity of his manner, many of the staff feared the patient. As a result, I noticed the patient was frequently isolated and demonstrated a depressive affect. Feeling that all patients deserved a high level of care, I volunteered to analyze and treat him.

In him, I found one of the most fascinating subjects I have ever encountered. My patient presented a challenging case, his only clear characteristic being his instability.

Indeed, while under my supervision (lasting several years), the patient has been labeled psychopathic, manic depressive, schizoid, schizotypial, histrionic, antisocial, socially deviant, manipulative, suicidal, and, yes, homicidal. But I have been led to believe, despite off-the-cuff analysis, that the patient is not afflicted by any of these disorders (or others found in the DSM-V), but rather is merely an underappreciated intellectual with a highly developed sense of humor. (A full analysis can be found in my attached article.)

Some may try to discredit my research because of my close association with the patient. I believe that such devotion was necessary in order to more closely study and learn his ways. It is not my fault that to know him is to love him; it is merely a sign of how thorough my research has been. It is true that it was my familiarity and affection for the patient that led to my current circumstances; however, I do not believe that is at all an impediment to my work.

Though I have recently taken my career in other directions, psychiatry was and always be my first love. I also hope my recent incarceration is not too large a burden for your great institution. In fact, my time here at Arkham Asylum has been a boon, finally allowing me the opportunity to fully process and prepare my research.

I hope you will consider publication of “No Laughing Matter: Humor & the ‘Criminally Insane’” in the American Journal of Psychiatry. (Please keep in mind that, if you don’t, my puddin’ might take it personally. He put a lot of himself into this research!)

Smiles,

Dr. Harley Quinn
Arkham, #12
Gotham City, DC 91192

Pretty please?

 

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Short Stories, writing

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 2, 2014 · 9:45 am

Homophobes Against Homophones: Why Words Matter

This is just ridiculous, but it shows, painfully clearly, why language and being educated about language, matters.

The social media specialist for a language school was fired for writing a blog post about homophones (words that sound the same but aren’t), because the owner presumed–or thought others would presume?–the post was about gay sex.

Seriously, I can’t believe this happened (here’s the original story). Take a second to let that soak in:

  • School that focuses on language for non-native speakers
  • Has blog post about a basic issue that non-native speakers encounter when learning language
  • But the name for that issue is vaguely, distantly related to a different word
  • Causing the owner–who had to look up the definition–to fire the blog writer.

The fire-er actually said, “People at this level of English may see the ‘homo’ side and think it has something to do with gay sex.”

Mind = blown

Barney expresses my feelings quite well.

I mean, of course they would! It’s not like they have a language school they can attend where they can learn these things!

Oh…wait…

Awkward gif

 

Just for our brilliant language school owner’s edification, some common homophones include:

  • their, there, they’re
  • threw, through, thru
  • mourning, morning
  • air, err, heir, are* (in some dialects)
  • flee, flea
  • flew, flu
  • rain, reign, rein

Also, some other words that begin with “homo-” but have nothing at all to do with gay sex (plus definitions!):

  • homogeneous: having the same structure, being composed of similar parts
  • homologous: matching in structure
  • homocysteine: an amino acid found in the blood of mammals and appears to be associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease
  • homoiothermic: warm-blooded
  • homocercal: relating to a fish fin, having upper and lower lobes that are approximately symmetrical
  • Homo sapiens: mankind, human beings (that’s right sir, you are indeed Homo!)

This is just one of the many reasons learning the ins-and-outs of your language is so vital—so that you don’t make a fool of yourself on a national stage like this school-owner just did. I hope the blogger finds a new job swiftly; it will undoubtedly be an environment more open to actual learning!

1 Comment

Filed under writing

Tagged as , , , ,

July 31, 2014 · 10:09 am

Review: Ill Wind

Ill Wind (Weather Warden, #1)Ill Wind by Rachel Caine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some books are warm cozy blankets that you just want to snuggle into again and again. That’s Ill Wind for me. Rachel Caine writes with a welcoming, conversational style that makes it easy to forget you’re reading. This is the book (and series) that I most like to imagine as a TV show–it would make a damned good one.

The concept is so great, you’ll wish you’d thought of it first: the natural forces in the world are not entirely science–they’re a little bit magic. And so there are teams of Wardens who can manipulate those magics, whose only jobs are to keep Mother Nature from killing us all. Humans using magic + science to stop sentient storms from destroying the earth? Why hasn’t this show been made already!? (Weather Channel should pick it up; it has a 100% chance of awesomeness.)

Our hero is Joanne Baldwin, a Weather Warden who is in way over her head. She’s too young yet to have earned her Djinn helper, but it is urgent that she get someone more powerful to aid her. Chased by Wardens who don’t know the whole story and hunted by an unknown rival, Joanne sprints off to an intense race to survive. Along the way, she discovers that everything she has been led to believe about the supernatural Djinn is way off: humans are enslaving them, twisting them to their will.
Besides, when they’re wild, they can be damn sexy–well, at least one of them, with scenes so hot it’ll make your skin sizzle.
This is my second or third read of this book, and it doesn’t stop being fun and enthralling. I can’t recommend it enough.

It’s the first in the series, and they really do get better from here.

View all my reviews

Leave a comment

Filed under Reviews

Tagged as , , ,