Classic Thoughts

At our Wellington Children’s Book Association club night this week we looked at classic books, specifically our favourite all time book. 

As we all have a passion for children’s books none of us could stop at one. The two I picked I couldn’t bring to the meeting because various small members of my family wouldn’t let me borrow them for the night.... So I grabbed some others. 

I was interested to find that, for most of us there, our classic book was the first book we read on our own that made an impact in our young lives...generally at age seven. It seemed to be a recurring theme. The classic book was the first book where we, as children reading, wanted to climb inside the book and totally live in that world.

Oh to write such inspiring words for young readers. (yup...maybe one day)

This thought has been encouraging me all week as I take myself back to Mars and think about character motivation...Getting inside some of my characters heads is hard work...it doesn’t help when it’s forty below and there is a solar flare about to fry everybody....

Today I read a great blog post tackling the question If Your Life Is Boring, Can Your Novel Be Great? This fits my mood of persevere...it will work out.

Greg Rucka has an interesting essay on how he researches his books. How to research a novel -Hardcore advice. Read a snippet here on Media Bistro. I use the internet and the library a lot! I’ve never thought about YouTube tho.

Mary from Kidlit.com was on a publishing trends panel recently and the talk quickly turned to the future of publishing. This is an informative blog post. One, because Mary (agent) was on it as well as Meg Cabot and Two because Lisa Holton of Fourth Story media (Amanda Project) was on it. Oh and publishing trends...if you could predict them you would be rich! (zombie fairies in a dystopian world?)

Richard Curtis, one of the leading agents in the world, has an extremely good article on his blog about timing. When is the right time to go to a bigger publisher...a bigger agent...and why sometimes the writer gets it wrong.

Jeff Sexton has written a compelling blog post about the Psychological Principles Behind A Marketing Success In A Networked World. Do not let the title put you off. This is a very good look at a sleeper hit...and how it happens...(this post has appeared on best of the week lists all over the place.)

Kristen Lamb of Warrior Writers has written a reassuring post to authors about Social Media and why you don’t have to slavishly be on everything. After all you want to write don’t you? She does point out what you should be concentrating on tho.

Over on Craicerplus (my Amplify Page) I have links to Articles on

To Smashwords or Not to Smashwords (this is interesting if you are thinking of POD)

15 Amazing Literary Tattoo’s

The Only ‘How To Write’ Lesson you Will Ever Need. (lots of interest in this one)

Writing Rules are Just Tools...(this is a timely post for those of us staring at the edit!)

Nathan Bransford introduced a new client of his this week by having a guest post from him. This was a really good idea for lots of reasons. Nathan has a huge readership, so instant success there. Jim Duncan talked about all the crap queries he did before he got picked up. And in honour of this and his new blog, he has a contest to write a rejection letter response to the query rejection.

I missed out on the deadline for subbing mine but if you want to read some side splitting responses check it out.

My response is below...

Dear (insert name here)

Thankyou for your query response on (insert date).

We are currently oversubscribed with offers on our (select appropriate or all... romance, crime, urban fantasy, science fiction, hero quest, paranormal, horror, erotica, western) manuscript.

Please keep us in mind with any further offers you may make. Don’t forget to read our website blog for updates about what we like...our fascination for the colour orange for example is always a  good start in understanding why we might be (select one, unwilling, unable, unnerved)  about accepting your submitted response.

All good wishes for the future,

(insert current pseudonym)

enjoy,

maureen

pic is my classic book...