Tag Archives: books

June 10, 2013 · 3:33 am

Review: My So-Called Freelance Life

My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for HireMy So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire by Michelle Goodman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are considering a freelance gig–full-time or part-time, and especially if it’s in a creative field–pick up this book. Goodman leverages her extensive background as a freelance writer and editor to explain the tricky points of starting your own business, and does it all in a friendly girl-next-door tone that is reassuring despite a sometimes-stressful topic.

The book is divided into three parts: Initial set-up (“You Fled the Cube, Now What?”), Getting Ahead (“Sell, Baby, Sell”), and general topics (“Your So-Called Freelance Life”), and each part is divided into chapters on particular topics, like setting your price or figuring out insurance. And she covers a lot–despite the fluffy fun title, starting your own business is serious work, and Goodman reflects that. She offers practical advice, a trove of books and online resources, real anecdotes from freelancers of all stripes, and some wit along the way.

It’s not just for creative professionals, and Goodman does a great job of creating examples for people of all industries–for example, in a section about why you might want to go freelance and still be able to pay the bills, she says “More often than not, your breadwinning work will help you fuel your enthusiasm for the screenplay, crocheted handbags, or life-size ceramic replica of Margaret Cho you’re chipping away at on the side.”

Interestingly, this book IS targeted to women freelancers, something I guess I was supposed to assume from the cover’s pink writing but honestly surprised me when I realized it 20 pages in. Nothing about the front or back cover (except the pink) says this is a no-boys-allowed book, and I don’t think it really needs to be. Despite the occasional mention of things that are slightly gendered, like childcare, I think a man starting out on his own would benefit from Goodman’s sound advice as much as any woman. (I’m pretty sure the IRS doesn’t come after female freelancers only, if you know what I mean).

While it does claim to help freelancers from the beginning up, I’m not sure it quite does. I would have liked to see a whole chapter related to “getting your business started,” beyond the nuts-and-bolts “what do I charge?”-type questions. Though she mentions that all freelancers she knows have taken some kind of temp job to support their freelancing, she doesn’t really explain, and you don’t get a sense of the reality of the beginning of a business except through cobbled-together snippets scattered throughout. While the chapter on time management (at the end of the book–I had to skip ahead and read it sooner because it felt pretty urgent to me) might help a phone-always-ringing professional like Goodman, it doesn’t offer much for a newbie, so you’re more or less on your own there.

Similarly, I plan on picking this reference up again as topics become more relevant to me: protection against lawsuits isn’t at the top of my list when I’m still figuring out if getting a business card is worth it.

Overall, this was a very helpful and inspiring book and I’m glad I found it before I got my editing business off the ground.

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May 30, 2013 · 9:32 pm

Review: The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, #2)The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Once again, Atwood demonstrates her incredible command of language as well as her abilities with speculative fiction with The Year of the Flood, a not-quite-sequel to Oryx and Crake (and presumably a not-quite-prequel to MaddAddam, which comes out in September). They’re all based in the same destroyed Earth, and some characters overlap, but the stories could potentially be read as stand-alone pieces.

The Year of the Flood follows two survivors of “The Waterless Flood,” a global pandemic that has wiped out most, if not all, of humanity. The two women, Ren and Toby, independently survive with luck, flexibility to circumstance, and their shared background in God’s Gardeners, an environmentalist cult that had predicted some kind of human-ending “flood” and preached that their believers would be the ones to populate and tend the “new Eden” to come.

Not only is The Year of the Flood an intriguing story, it also is a warning: about caring for our environment, treating our food sources with respect, the dangers of the growth of megacorps and the privatization of public entities, genetic modification, experimentation divorcing from ethics, and the divide between rich and poor. (All that, and probably a bit more, really is in this book. If you are a huge fan of processed chicken and cutting down trees, this really isn’t the book for you–or is, if you don’t mind changing your habits.)

Atwood’s extensive research shines when it comes to God’s Gardeners. Rather than traditional saints, the Gardeners have environmentalists, famous and lesser-known, as their totems. Atwood, through Gardener leader Adam One, creates sermons dedicated to some of these environmentalist saints, weaving the events of the novel in with the history of the real-world environmentalists. She even includes hymns written for these holy days–and you can buy the CD on her website.

She has also clearly done research on plant-based remedies, beekeeping (I wonder if she and Neil Gaiman bond over that?), general plant care, and endangered species. (Side note: I sort of hope the twisted-but-awesome “Extinctathon” game she included in the book becomes real some day, though I hope far fewer real animals get added to the list).

Her world-building is nothing short of epic…but that made the problems I saw all the more jarring.

(Spoilers below)

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May 16, 2013 · 9:32 am

Path to Publishing: You Wrote a Book, Now What?

After the DFW Con, a family friend heard I had requests for manuscripts from agents (squee!) and asked what the process was. When you’re just starting out, it’s really hard to get a sense of how this whole crazy publishing thing works.

To help you out, here’s a summary.

  • Write a book.
  • Celebrate! You just wrote a book! That’s really freakin’ hard! Most people never even get that far, so bask for a bit.
  • Give it a rest, then go back and edit it with “fresh eyes.” Make it polished.
  • Consider giving it to someone else to edit. Or give it to a “beta reader” who will be honest with you.
  • Decide whether you want to self-publish or go the traditional route.

If you want to go the “traditional route”:

  • Write query letters. They’re like cover letters/resumes for you and your book.
  • Send your queries to agents after you’ve carefully researched them. (The internet is your friend).
    • An agent is the first gatekeeper. You need an agent to get a publisher. You should never have to pay any reputable agent anything to read your stuff. They get paid by taking a commission off of anything you eventually publish. Sort of like a real estate agent. Typical timeline for acquiring an agent? 6 months to a year or longer.
  • Go to events, like the conference I just attended. Turns out a risk I was taking in my query was the reason I was getting rejected. Meeting in person got me the attention I needed, and I got requests.
  • Find an agent you like (and who likes you) and sign a contract saying you’ll work together.
  • Your agent will then sell your manuscript to publishers. This can take 6 months to a year.
  • Then, if they want to publish you, you’ll get a contract, an advance, and (hopefully) royalties.
    • They’ll do edits, a cover design, prepare marketing materials, provide some advice on how to market yourself, and make all the decisions related to actually constructing a book. You’ll get the prestige of being published by a “big publisher,” (even if it’s not one of the “Big Six”**) and know that someone other than your mom and dad was interested in your work. You’re more likely to have your book sold in print form from a bookseller.
      • The “Big Six” are: Hatchette; Macmillan; Penguin Group; HarperCollins; Random House; Simon & Schuster

The self-publishing/indie path (they are separate, but overlap in a lot of ways):

  • Hire a reputable editor to look over your work. Yes, you’ve already edited it at this point, but the biggest distinguishing feature of a poorly constructed self-published work is bad editing. Do it again. Be willing to invest in your work.
  • Decide what format you’d like to publish. Is it a book that needs to have a physical copy? Is ebook-only ok? This really depends on your goals and the kind of book you have.
  • Hire a cover design artist. You need a cover even if you are publishing e-book only. I suggest looking somewhere like Writer.ly.
  • Here’s where it gets tricky. There are several places you can self-publish, and lots of resources about them. Do your homework before you give your book to anyone. While there are reputable places (Lightning Source, PubIt!, CreateSpace), there are also more sketchy places that aren’t suitable for a large-scale book production (Lulu, AuthorHouse, etc), and there are people who are outright looking to scam you. Don’t let them. Do your research first.
  • If you’ve got an ebook, format and upload your book to all the places you can (Smashwords, Amazon, Nook, Apple). Again, do your research, because this gets complicated. (If you don’t care about saturation, just upload it to Amazon. That’s the easiest and has a pretty solid market share.)
  • You make all your design, book construction, marketing, and pricing decisions yourself. You also get more of the royalties per book, but you’ll sink a lot of time into this process, and there’s still no guarantee that anyone will buy it. You get speed, and more per book, but may not end up with a printed copy to show off in your bookcase.

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May 14, 2013 · 12:05 pm

Review: Leviathan Wakes

Leviathan Wakes (Expanse, #1)Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you like space operas, you are going to LOVE this book. If you don’t know if you like space operas because you’ve never encountered one before (they’ve gotten to be a bit rare), that’s ok: If you like “Firefly,” or “Alien,” or “Armageddon,”and maybe a bit of “The Walking Dead” and “Law & Order: SVU,” you’re going to like this book. Heck, if you like “Star Trek: The Next Generation”‘s interaction with the Borg, or if Gaius on “Battlestar Galactica” was your favorite character, you’ll love this.

If you see “Leviathan Wakes” in the bookstore and are terribly intimidated because it’s a monstrously thick book, get over yourself and buy it anyway. Or buy the ebook. But you should absolutely read it.

“Leviathan” is a bit slow to get going. There’s a weird mystery from the very beginning, but it took me awhile to “get it” and to really understand the monstrosity of it. You’ll start out getting acquainted with the rough-and-ready crew of an ice hauler, just going about the normal efforts of transporting ice from Saturn to the colonies out in the asteroid belt. But of course, things go wrong.

You’ll also meet Detective Miller, who shows you a thing or two about how to deal with crime in a Belter colony. (Hint: Mess with the atmo, get thrown out an airlock). He’s a space version of your tired old tough-guy TV cop, and you’ll love him for it, even as he slowly breaks apart.

I don’t want to give too much away, but the rest of the book involves:
-terrifying monsters (hint: zombies)
-sentient alien weaponry
-the challenges of dating in space
-intra-galactic battles
-mystery
-crime
-cunning diplomats
-against-all-odds scenarios

I think that just about covers it–but, admit it, I had you at “sentient alien weaponry,” didn’t I?

This book is a heckuva lot of fun, and really defied my expectations. Just when I thought I knew what was coming, it took another shocking turn. I really appreciated the respect for the science; you get a really good look at the many challenges of living in/colonizing space, and how that would change not just the solar system, but the people, and how those challenges might be overcome.

Great read. Cannot praise this story enough. Go get it!

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May 9, 2013 · 10:30 am

Disconnecting from Constant Connectivity

It’s something of a joke, the amount of time I am on the internet. At my day job, much of my legitimate work requires me to be connected to the ethernet–and a great deal of my screwing-around time does, too. Then I come home, and…play on the internet some more. Or maybe I watch Netflix, through my internet connection. Or check the weather on my smart phone.

I’ve become one of those people.

In fact, three years ago, before this day job, before the smart phone, before Netflix, I had already identified myself as having an affinity for the online. It was part of what inspired me to write “Alt.World.”  I took the idea to some extremes in that book, and the three weeks I was completely cut off from the internet after a hurricane informed the story quite a bit. (What do you do when you can’t get the service to which you are addicted? Where literally your whole world exists? What do you do with yourself after that?)

That’s why I found this article, “I’m Still Here: Back Online After a Year Without the Internet,” so interesting.

The author, a guy about my age and with a similar background, decided he was too addicted to the internet, and decided to challenge himself by…not being addicted to the internet anymore. By quitting cold-turkey.

He was hoping for enlightenment, but didn’t find any. Or rather, he found some: he found out a lot of his problems didn’t exist because he was distracted by the internet–the way, I think, he was secretly hoping.

Things would certainly be harder without the internet. So much happens there, that one person opting out means they are opting out of a whole lot more than an information source. They’re opting out of casual friendships. Of contact with people from far away. Of easy-to-access navigation and dinner ideas and dating services.

I take internet sabbaticals. When I go on vacation, I don’t plan on taking my computer with me. I write things down in a paper-and-pen notebook, so I can remember the experience later. I don’t “check in” anywhere with any apps. I try to soak in the experience.

And I think those kinds of breaks are useful, and good. But I also spend at least an hour online, catching up, as soon as I get back in town.

Do you need the internet? Could you go without? What do you think would happen if, for some reason, society suddenly lost the internet?

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April 30, 2013 · 10:00 am

Review: A Practical Wedding

A Practical Wedding: Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful CelebrationA Practical Wedding: Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration by Meg Keene

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I would like a pocket-size version of Meg Keene to carry with me as I go through the wedding planning process. She’d be amazing! Better than an angel and devil on your shoulder, my mini-Meg would tell me to breathe, not freak out over pretty pictures of things I can’t afford, and talk me through the inevitable tough moments as I plan my wedding bash. A little voice of sanity in an insane bridal world, if you will.

This book was outstanding, and I can’t recommend it enough. Compared to the others, which may claim to be about being budgeting while encouraging you to “splurge” on 100 different things, A Practical Wedding is, well, practical.

Look, if you want a book to make you feel princessy and floofy and special-snowflake and to reassure you that you HAVE to do a hundred million idiotic things, go read something–just about anything–else wedding-related. Heck, forget buying a book and just sign up for every wedding website out there. And then book your honeymoon to an asylum where the internet is blocked, because it will probably drive you Cra-ZY.

If you’d rather be realistic about your wedding and learn how to negotiate the challenges and fights that seem to come with the territory, pick up this book. Additionally, it doesn’t assume much about how things “have to be.” This is a book that would work well for an atheist couple, a gay couple (though a lot of the language is still habitually bride-centric), a Methodist couple, or a freewheeling-whatever-goes couple. In addition to the fantastic real-world bride stories (covering everything from weddings after tragedies to doing your own floral arrangements), I really appreciated that Keene included the actual history of weddings. Long story short: If someone says you “HAVE” to do it because “tradition,” odds are it’s an imaginary tradition.

I had originally planned to read this book then pass it on to another engaged friend…but now I’m not sure I can give it up. I can already see myself going back and rereading sections as it comes down to the wire to actually handle the issue for that chapter. I’ve already asked my groom to read the extremely sensible pre-marriage questions section with me. I’m considering passing this book on to my mom to ward off “tradition!” fights.

But you should definitely pick up a copy if you’re engaged and overwhelmed! (Or just read her website. But really, you’ll want the book, too!)

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April 18, 2013 · 10:00 am

The “Easy Path To Publishing” Myth

Since I’ve begun this blog and been contemplating self-publishing, I’ve read a lot–articles, blog posts, books–about “how” to do it. Some of these have been intensely practical how-to guides; some have purported to tell “the way” to do it, with the insinuation that if you follow these steps exactly, presto! your book will be a hit.

I’ve read a lot, and I think it’s time to blow the whistle: that ain’t the truth of it.

Rather, I contend, even amidst this publishing revolution, no one–not the Big Six publishers, not the editors, not readers, not how-to-get-published writers, and certainly not Susie-Q author–has a damned clue of what makes one book a success while the other oozes.

Sure, we have some rough ideas: well-edited copy, a nice book cover, a smattering of time spent on social media, an interesting story idea, write in a popular and accessible genre. But, it seems to me, you can have all of those things AND work your butt off AND spend a bunch of money on supposed aids to success and still not have it take off.

I don’t say this to disappoint you.

In fact, I find this liberating.

Because if the common thread in self-publishing success stories (read Hugh Howey’s excellent piece on his success here, or this short article about yet another rise-from-obscurity author here) is a random blessing from the universe, the pressure is off! I don’t have to follow the rigorous social media schedules, or do the 50-states-book-tour, or dress up in zany costumes. In fact, it almost seems that the opposite is more effective: work on something you love, even if it is sort of crazy (maybe especially so), and just send it out into the universe. Maybe it’ll pick up steam. Maybe it won’t. But you don’t have to stress and labor and allow yourself to work until you hate yourself and your work.

Isn’t that a revolutionary idea? If no one knows exactly how the magic happens, then you are free to find the magic that works for you!

There’s no 12-step plan. There’s just you, your stories you want to tell, and the universe.

Good luck.

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March 27, 2013 · 9:20 am

Review: “Wool Omnibus”

Wool Omnibus (Wool, #1-5)Wool Omnibus by Hugh Howey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Wool Omnibus is a collection of 5 novellas, which makes a broad summary difficult. In very general terms, the collection is about people in a post-apocalyptic world who live in a huge underground silo and struggle with secrets from the past.

I really wanted to love this book. Wool is exploding everywhere right now, and Hugh Howey is the defining self-published success story. In fact, if I were writing a review just for the first novella in the book (the eponymous Wool, renamed Holston in the collection), it would have handily earned 4 stars, teetering on the edge of five.

Unfortunately, perhaps because of the way it was written, the tightly woven story with elaborate detail in the first book did not carry through. The further along in the book, the more problems Howey had as a writer in keeping the form and overall concept going. The fifth and last story in the collection, The Stranded, had such big weird mistakes that I would have given it two stars.
I’ve tried to keep the exciting and compelling spoilers out–for the most part, I’m not giving any huge secrets away. But if you don’t want any spoilers at all–you’ve been warned!

There will be spoilers from here out, so if you are still interested in seeing what Howey has created, you’ve reached the end of the road.

Spoilers Ahead!

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March 19, 2013 · 9:45 am

Critical Consumption: Dealing with Problem Media

This will be a hit during Fashion Week.

This will be a hit during Fashion Week.

I love Disney movies. To the point that it’s a little ridiculous, actually. In fact, the only person I know who definitely knows more Disney trivia than me works in one of the parks. I like the princesses, the music, the beauty of hand-drawn art, the themes that fill you with emotion.

But all that love doesn’t mean I don’t know about the problems those movies have. On the contrary, in a college psychology class I aced a project  dissecting all the ways Disney negatively portrays women. (There are quite a few).

Sometimes it seems weird that I would be so devoted to something that I find a lot of problems with–but that is hardly restrained to Disney. As a video game fan, it’s pretty common for me to be really enjoying a game that doesn’t line up with my personal views, or even how I’d like to fit into the world. And I’ll read books that do a poor job treating women as full characters.

There’s been a lot of news lately about Orson Scott Card and people protesting his books/soon-to-be movie because of his personal views. And some of my favorite Neil Gaiman stories feature content that is highly disturbing and very challenging to watch.

So what are we to do?

Growing up, I knew some religious parents who wouldn’t let their kids watch any movies containing magical elements of any kind…there really aren’t a lot of G-rated movies that don’t include magic in some way.

I don’t think censorship (even self-censorship) like that is the answer. I think it’s important that we take time to analyze the broader messages of the media we consume: both the messages we’re meant to be getting (as in The Little Mermaid: that love has no boundaries and can overcome all obstacles) and the messages that we’re getting even if the producer didn’t really intend to send them (that Ariel’s physical body is all that is important to her “catching” Eric; her personality is completely unnecessary and probably it’s better if she just focus on body language anyway).

This lets us consume the media we enjoy, and take out the best parts, while acknowledging the problems with the rest. We say “yeah, that’s true, that’s there, but here are all the reasons I like the rest of it.”

As long as you’ve got both parts, I think there’s something we can learn from just about anything.

What do you enjoy that sometimes also makes you cringe? What have you learned from it?

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March 9, 2013 · 10:36 am

Review: “Cyclops”

Cyclops (Dirk Pitt, #8)Cyclops by Clive Cussler

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I picked this book up at a charity book swap for a dollar. After that last book, I figured I needed something fun and easy on the brain. I mean, Dirk Pitt is Indiana Jones + James Bond + water! Several Dirk Pitt books have made an appearance as family road-trip fodder, because, while basically predictable (What, this story involves a secret treasure that’s probably in the ocean somewhere?! Who would guess!), it’s fun. What’s not to like?

So when I tell you that I basically enjoyed this book until I hit one completely abhorrent scene 3/4 of the way in and considered dropping the book completely–and that that one scene so disrupted my positive feelings for the rest of the book that I never enjoyed it again from that point onward–you know we’ve got problems.

Now the book is 30 years old, so I’m not going to bother with spoiler tags (plus I don’t think you should really bother with it anyway), but if you don’t want to know what happens, turn back now.
…

Okay. So the book somehow manages to combine a secret moon base, a massive lost golden statue (La Dorada), a missing millionaire, CIA agents, and a terroristic plot against communist Cuba and Fidel Castro personally.

It’s important to note that this was written in 1983 and set in 1985.

Essentially, these plot lines aren’t actually at all related, except that it made the President pretty damn unhappy and almost killed our hero Mr. Pitt at least a half-dozen times. This is one of the reasons I almost dropped the book; once one plot line was resolved, there wasn’t a lot of reason to continue. Plus it’s hard to believe Pitt made it most of the way through the novel without requiring serious medical attention. But he’s Aquaman meets Harrison Ford, so that’s not such a big deal.

What was a big deal was the way Cussler treated his ONE female character (seriously. There are, like, 8 prominent male characters. There is one woman with a name who is important; one other appears briefly to give background and returns to her retirement home).

If you think I’m just being melodramatic, consider this scenario:

You’re an incredibly beautiful, intelligent woman married to a millionaire (her only fault is her inherent woman-ness. Gag). You can speak 5 languages, are a skilled SCUBA diver, and, oh, yes sure, you can fly the extremely rare and challenging blimp your husband managed to get kidnapped from. You make the mistake of traveling with Dirk Pitt. In the process, you are captured by evil Soviet KGB agents and tortured (the details are fuzzy, but you’re naked and thoroughly bruised). Then, your husband is killed in front of you and you make a mad dash for escape. You end up on a beach in Cuba, wearing the wet and stinky uniform of a Cuban militia. You spend the night hiding in a storm drain with Dirk Pitt. What would you do next?

…If your answer isn’t “have sex with Dirk Pitt, a man who maligned your dead-not-even-12-hours husband for his adultery,” then you clearly are a sane person and not in this book.

There are so many things wrong with that scene!

I threw the book across the room when I read it. It was less than 2 pages, but that scene ruined the entire book for me.

But I’m not one to abandon books, generally, so I finished the danged thing, but wow, it never got better, and Jessie LeBaron (Ms. Richy-Rich herself) just got more ridiculous and whimpering helpless woman the farther I read. If this were the only Cussler book I had ever read, I’d think he’d never met an actual woman.

Now, there were some great things writers could learn from this book. For example, the level of detail for ships and cars was incredible. You can tell where Cussler’s real interests lie. That was super! …it did become a failing when he screwed up some really fundamental information about the moon (like that the “back side” never faces the Earth. And that people couldn’t hang out on that side anyway, because it’s really freaking cold). I don’t know if that information just wasn’t available in the 1980s, but I feel like maybe it was; the US had been on the moon for nearly two decades at that point.

Another thing I think I could learn from was the level of brutality that Cussler is willing to throw at his main character. Seriously, Dirk Pitt got hit with everything under the sun. It reads like something out of a soap opera when listed out, but in the book, it’s great for keeping things exciting.

But all in all, there are far better Cussler books out there. If you’re interested in his writing, go read one of those instead. This one would be better off on the bottom of the sea.

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