Inspiration and Fiction

Some intriguing posts have got me thinking this week about writing and inspiration and the mixture of the two.

First up Fan Fiction. I remember explaining to an award winning Young Adult writer here what fan fiction was and how big it was. 
I started reading Harry Potter fan fiction with my daughter when we were desperately waiting for book five...and of course book six... book seven. Sometimes we would look at each other and say 'whoa that reads like J K Rowling wrote it.' 
Yes the writers were that good and some went on to have big writing careers of their own.

Jami Gold has a nice post on fan fiction and what it means to Authors. Do you want fans playing with your characters? Do you want restrictions? What can you do? Jami tells you the pro’s and con’s.

Publishing Perspectives takes a look at information gained from their one day mini conference on children’s publishing. Some interesting insights on what makes great children’s books.

You have to feel for the Russian Children’s writers. They have the same number of bookshops in Russia as in 1913. No awards for their work and no advertising of children’s books. Book Expo America has a Russian focus this year and Denis Abrams spotlights the struggles of their children’s publishing community. (and you thought you had it bad...)

Invent a Digital Reader then invent software for writers to create exclusive content. Apple did it with iBooks now Barnes and Nobel are doing it for the KOBO but with a difference...they want authors to play the KoboWriting Game.

Earn points and badges if you sell overseas...It is still being trialled at the moment...get the scoop here.

Kristen Lamb takes a look at Facebook and now that it is public what is happening to fan pages.. Facebook could potentially hold your page to ransom as they have to earn money for shareholders. How do you get around it. This applies to you if you have an author fan page.

Writers Digest have posted a list of seven things that will doom your novel...hopefully you are not guilty of any of these.

A standout post this week for me was this one. How I went from writing 2000 words a day to 10000. This is quite mind blowing in its simplicity and you will smack your forehead...

The WANA group/tribe, (We Are Not Alone) was started by Kristen Lamb a few years ago as an online twitter hangout for writers to share success etcetc. Kirsten is taking it up a notch and has created an online community social network site with classes... forums...resources and she has tapped into some great people to help her do this. Go and take a look.

Talli Rowland has a great post on dreams and the shifting goalposts of publishing. Have your publishing dreams changed in the last few years...are you having trouble just finding the goalposts.... Tali will help you make sense of it all.

Today the news came through of Ray Bradbury’s death. All those in the Sci Fi community mourn the loss of one of the giants of the genre. Neil Gaimen wrote a piece of what Ray Bradbury meant to him and it sums up what the sci fi community are feeling. One of the great legacies of Ray Bradbury is that tech he dreamed up became inspirations for the science community to build...so if you are reading this on a flat touch screen...Ray thought it up first!

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury.

Passing The Hat

This morning I have been thinking about Creative Tribes and their power.  

When the tribe idea was first being kicked around I blogged about it ...yes way back then...and this grew into a series of posts around the 1000 fans concept that same year. Just type 1000 fans into my search box.

This week I have been struck by the power of the Tribe in funding creative projects. 

Amanda Palmer is having a block party in New York as I write this, because she raised over $1 million in her Kickstarter campaign for her creative project. She didn’t set out to do this. All she wanted was $100,000 but her Tribe got the word out and all through the month of May she has broken every Kickstarter record.

Yesterday my friend Fifi Colston put up her request for funding an Art Exhibition of her work here in Wellington on the New Zealand site Pledge Me. Within 24 hours she had reached her modest target. 

The reward system that Kickstarter and Pledge Me use is interesting. Think of it as buying the product or experience before it is made. I don’t know if anyone has bought Fifi’s offer for a personal portrait of themselves but that would be worth having...she is so talented.

Fifi’s comment when she reached her target...

Whatever I earn goes straight back into the business of being a freelance creative. I am currently trying to have some money in reserve to enable me to work on my next book project. It will be months of writing, illustration and photography to get it done. And it will be a stunner. So thanks for all your support to me and everyone in the arts...

Around the blogosphere this week there was a lot of comment on The New York Times article on writers slacking if they ony write one book a year.... Most of the comment was on the ‘brutal’ regime of writing 2000 words a day but there were lots of other red flags being waved at writers through publishers comments in the article.

Kristine Rusch examines this article and some of the flags raised, including the current publisher asks of short form novella ebooks effectively for love as a marketing tool for publishers and what it means to a writers career. This is a great and timely article and a good heads up for people.

Elizabeth S Craig has another take on the N Y Times article about being a writer who puts out 3-4 books a year and what it means for her.

As always, I urge you to read the comments of both these posts...for extra information and insights.

Writer Unboxed had two posts this week that got everybody talking.

What Authors Seem To Forget About Marketing and

Tawny Stokes On The Bandit Creek Series.

The Bandit Creek series is written by a writers collective, who write stories based on the fictional town of Bandit Creek, as a cool self publishing experiment for themselves outside of their traditional published roles. 

You all know how interested I am in writer collectives, this is a really interesting model and with FaBo 3 in the planning stages...it could morph (just kidding Fabo team....)

James Scott Bell has a great post on 5 things every author needs to know before going the self published way.

Catherine Ryan Howard finishes up her month of blog posts on self publishing by looking at the best way to use Amazon.

In the Craft section

James Killick has a post on why writing a treatment before you write the novel is a good idea.

There is a great post on storytelling the Pixar way

A group taking storytelling into the business world is doing some great stuff - take a look.

And for those who like pretty pictures, here is the periodic table of Storytelling!

For those of you into numbers...

Galley Cat has an info graphic on how many kids are reading on electronic devices.

Roz Morris has help for you on doing your Taxes.

Rachelle Gardner takes a look at what a publishing contract should contain.

This week I have been finalising details for a group doing a writing course at Karaveer Writing Retreat.

Writing retreats are great for an all out focus on your work. I get huge hunks of work done when I am on a writing retreat because there are no interruptions from kids, phone, internet, kids.... You get the picture.

If you can’t get away to Karaveer you could look down this list of inexpensive ideas for a writing retreat for yourself. Of course if you want to take a trip up North...and get some hands on tutoring from one of the best romance writers in the world, well Karaveer could be just the place.

I leave you with a fun comic on critiques by Inkygirl who’s website is well worth a look around.

maureen