Standing on shaky ground....

Tuesday started off with excitement in the New Zealand children’s writing community and then the day turned into horror.

At 6am the finalists in the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards were announced. These awards are keenly followed by the community. There were familiar names and quite a few new names which is wonderful for showcasing the depth and quality of our children’s writers. Of course there were big surprises that established previous award winner’s latest books weren’t in the shortlist but that is the nature of awards.

The excitement and the hope that National Media might notice the Awards this year faded quickly as the news that a major earthquake aftershock hit Christchurch at 12:51pm (the middle of a busy day) came through. 

Christchurch is one of our biggest cities, situated in the South Island, it is very historic and often packed with tourists as it is the main gateway to the alps, glaciers, and our biggest scenic tourist attractions.

As the afternoon progressed and the scale of the destruction was understood, the country stopped.

We are now in a National State of Emergency with over 98 confirmed dead and the toll is rising. We have over 200 people missing. As I commented in my November blog post, New Zealand is small and there are only 3 degree’s of separation here.

People are desperate for news of friends and family in Christchurch including the New Zealand Children’s Writing community. Some of our most prominent writers and illustrators are based in Christchurch including finalists in this year’s New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. In a week when the New Zealand children’s writing community should be celebrating, we are sad and anxious for our colleagues, friends and fellow kiwis.

Life in the rest of the country goes on but with a sense of the surreal...the picture postcard perfection of one of our most scenic cities in ruins.

Our most famous Christchurch landmark last week and this week.

So a shorter list of links to look at this week.

In the blogosphere the 2010 Cybills were announced.  This is an award for children’s books nominated by anyone but judged by bloggers in the Children’s Literature community.

Bob Mayer has a great post on the seven keys to unforgettable characters, this is part of his return to the basics series.

Bubblecow has a good post on finding the essence of your book. If you are looking for how to write tag lines or elevator lines this is a good resource.

The Great Jane Friedman has an interesting post on commenting on blogs...so if you have always wondered whether you should and what you could say...Jane has the answer for you.

Over on Craicerplus I have links to articles on

Offering Value For Book Buyers and Bookstores

Indie Publishing- the Problems With Book Distribution (became an ‘Aha- now I understand’ post on 

facebook this week 

How To Make A Quick Video For The Internet

Maureen

Pic Catholic Cathedral Christchurch

In the video, South Island landscape and the Canterbury plain not far from Christchurch, famous courtesy of Lord Of The Rings

Game Changing and Piracy

On the side of my blog I have a list of must read blogs. One of those is Jane Friedman’s There Are No Rules. 

Jane is one of the touchstones in the blogosphere on publishing and change. She has been a keynote speaker at many big conferences on publishing and will be speaking at SXSW soon. Jane has a round up every week of what she thinks are among the best articles of the week (often I have already filed some of them for you) but I always pay attention to her list.  This week Jane highlighted a critical must read article by Kristine Rusch and yes I think that it deserves that status.

Kristine Rusch is a bestselling, award winning, romance, mystery and science fiction writer. She has been writing a series of articles on change in the publishing world. This week she has seen such a significant game change in self publishing that against all her previous advice she now believes that beginning writers should look seriously at self publishing...and not only them.

Bob Mayer was one of the first to comment (no surprise he agreed with what she said.) This week, on his own blog, Bob has an article about what he has learned in his writing life.  And it is a good read too. Bob breaks down the lessons he has learned since writing his first book...as he says... the more you consciously know about writing-the harder it gets!

However, to help you in this difficult creative endeavour is Mike Fleming and Elisabeth S Craig. Together they have sorted out a solution for storing all those links on writing... The Writers Knowledge Base.

This week Agent Mary Kole answered the tricky question...Would you turn down a book you loved but you knew you couldn’t sell? This is a good look at what agents are faced with...

Last week I asked the question, Who will be the digital ebook reviewers we trust?

I pointed you to Kristen Lambs blog post...this week also answering this question is Morris Rosenthal of Foner Books. Morris reckons that groups of writers will band together and become the new gate keepers...and then turn into writers guilds with too much power etcetcetc (check out the comments)

The Huffington Post has an interview with Annik LaFarge on effective author websites this is so full of information that you will probably need to set aside a long coffee break to take it in.

Over on Craicerplus (My Amplify Page) I have links to articles on

Writer Envy...The Rejectionist- Dear Superior Person

The Rules of Sci Fi...(don’t spare the red shirt guy)

The Best Writing Mistakes and How To Make Them

The Espresso Book Machine...This is a book printing robot in a NY book store which prints books 

immediately....Go and take a look at the video!...opens up a whole new world....

To Finish

Upstart Crow have a great archived article on Mid Grade and Y A differences and where you draw the line and 

The best article on story structure I have seen from the formidable Larry Brooks over on Storyfix, How to Learn Story Structure in Two Minutes or Less.

I leave you with Neil Gaimen talking on how Piracy helped him...

enjoy,

maureen

P.S The Jane Friedman that Kristine Rusch refers to is not the Jane Friedman of There Are No Rules. There are two Jane Friedman's in the publishing world.