– Alex
Thought I’d better post this breaking news, which Rob and Louise and Stephen and Dusty and I just found out about and which affects many, many of our writer/readers:
Amazon.com has pulled books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the United States, in a dispute over the pricing on e-books on the site.
Here’s the story:
Amazon Pulls Macmillan Books Over E Book Price Disagreement
I have been fretting this week about questions and comments I’ve gotten, publicly and privately, which I guess go along with the territory of teaching and blogging and writing about writing as if I really know anything at all about what I’m talking about.
(But I have to say there have been a few questions that I should never have gotten at all – it’s mystifying. For the record, if you have a grammar question, DO NOT write to an author to get the answer. That is not our job, you will have burned a valuable opportunity to ask something actually worth asking, and it will make us crazier than we already are, and you really don’t want to do that.)
All these questions, aside from the grammar ones, have made me want to say this again, and repeat it often:
While I blog about, and write about in the Screenwriting Tricks workbook, a formula for film structure that is widely used in Hollywood, the MAIN POINT of what I am always writing about here is that you study the specific structures of movies and books in your genre and that specifically appeal to you, so that you can discover the specific tricks that great storytellers use to create the stories you love.
And whatever it is you think they’re doing, you might try doing it yourself.
That is the bottom line of every single thing I have ever written about writing.
It’s the same with creating character.
As much as I get asked to teach, I never teach workshops on character. Not solely on character, anyway. I just don’t. It’s not that I couldn’t figure out something to say. It’s just that – as I’ve said before – I think writers live with characters in our heads on a daily and nightly basis. I could be totally wrong, but I suspect people don’t become writers if they don’t have characters living in their heads. We don’t live with structure quite so intimately, and therefore it seems more teachable.
And honestly, I very, very rarely hear anyone say anything about creating character that makes me think – WOW, that’s it, I get it now. Of course, I’ve never taken Rob’s class on character but that’s only because he’s refused to let me in.
But I see other workshop instructors at conferences handing out character charts, breaking down movies or stories I know pretty well myself, and will occasionally swipe one of those charts to see what the secret might be, and am sometimes absolutely horrified at what I see.
Case in point… people love to break down The Wizard of Oz. God knows I understand that. I’ve used tons of examples from Wizard myself. We all KNOW Wizard, so it makes sense to reference it. But The Wizard of Oz is such a special case. It is an iconic movie for reasons that I wouldn’t possibly want to have to explain – it’s like explaining sunlight, or – a rainbow. You can break it down into its elements, but that will never give you the experience. There was a special magic looking over that movie through all its harrowing changes of writers, directors, actors, etc. – and let’s not forget that it was based on a classic SERIES of books – and, oh, yeah – it’s a MUSICAL. And all that terrifying mess somehow combined to make a classic. It is not something anyone could ever duplicate.
It’s confusing even to break the movie conveniently into sequences, because it is a musical, and musical numbers were cut and rearranged (and rightly so!) which would have made the timing of the sequence structure make more conventional sense. Just as an example – the studio wanted “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” cut because it made the first Kansas sequence too long, but the movie gods apparently intervened, the song remained, completely screwing with the sequence timing, and film students have been arguing about the Act One break ever since.
So when I see the characters of a movie like The Wizard of Oz dissected on a chart, I am wary and skeptical. I am hard–pressed to believe that you ever even come close to developing a story as rich and enduring as The Wizard of Oz based on the two-dimensional layout of a chart.
Just consider what The Wizard of Oz would have looked like had Shirley Temple (often named as the top choice for the role) been cast instead of Judy Garland, as Dorothy.
The casting of Judy Garland, and her lush, just blossoming, completely vulnerable sexuality, TOTALLY changed the dynamic of the character and every single interaction she had with the other characters in the movie. It changed the meaning of the journey. A young woman’s dream, or fantasy, or metaphorical journey – whatever you want to call that adventure to Oz – is completely different from a child’s. Teenagers yearn for significantly different things than children do.
When I was a preteen I became firmly convinced that the whole Wizard of Oz journey was Dorothy’s dream letting her explore which one of the three farmhands she wanted to marry – as a young woman reaching marriageable age, those would be her obvious choices in such a farm town. In Oz, Hunk/the Scarecrow is the first one she meets, and over and over and over again the Scarecrow steps forward as the problem solver and her biggest defender. (She also dances with him in a musical number that was cut from the final film – The Jitterbug, and as any dancer or choreographer knows, when two characters dance in a musical, that means they’ve just had sex.). When she leaves Oz, she tells the Scarecrow she’ll miss him most of all, and when she wakes up in bed, he kneels by the bed and she touches his face. She’s chosen.
I would tell people this occasionally in college and they’d laugh – but years later I read much more about the elaborate history of the film and learned that the final scene of an earlier script really had concluded with Hunk going off to agricultural school and winning a promise from her to write to him – implying a romance that would continue (and marriage once “The Scarecrow” had his real-life diploma).
What I’m saying is, there was a structure built in to the script, as well as the magic of casting, that resonates in a way that is not capturable on a character chart.
Okay, you might be saying now that I’m the only person who’s ever watched the Wizard of Oz and gotten that out of it. But you’re wrong. My author sister friend Ann Voss Peterson has always felt the same way, so there. And even if there weren’t at least one other person who sees the truth of it – my analysis of the subtext is meaningful to me, just as my analysis of Ophelia’s role in Hamlet is, and my strong personal opinions on the movies I watch and the books I read, however obscure they may seem to other people, have been invaluable to my growth as a writer.
Plus, I have more to say about what makes Dorothy a great character.
Another level of my take on Dorothy – and I know I’m not alone in this one – is that
she is going through an inner journey to internalize the qualities of braininess, heart, and courage – and her higher self, Glinda – so that as she grows into a woman, she will be able to use those qualities against enemies like Miss Gulch instead of running away as she does at the beginning of the movie.
And another big change that happens with Dorothy is that we see her in situation after situation go from a scared little girl who needs protecting to a woman who will step forward and protect her friends. It’s a big character arc for a teenager, growing up like that.
I guess what I’m saying is that a LOT goes into creating a character, and even if some writer or teacher or workshop leader breaks it down brilliantly for you, it’s even more important to figure out what YOU think is going on with that character.
And I’m also saying – and this is very true of the Wizard of Oz film in particular – sometimes it is absolutely impossible to track how something was written. There were so many writers, directors, artists, producers who worked on this one – somehow certainly the movie gods were watching over it to create the alchemy that makes it the classic it is.
Some things are quantifiable, but some simply aren’t. And please don’t be satisfied with anyone else’s quantification.
You are the writer. Ultimately, it’s you and the page. You are God, baby. Make your own rules.
So I’m snowed in here in Raleigh, after being in 90 degree Cozumel four days ago. My body has no idea what it’s supposed to be feeling anymore.
Since I’m not going anywhere today, does anyone have any unique interpretations of movies or books to share? Some deeper theme you’re convinced of, but somehow no one else sees it?
And what about Dorothy? Does she marry Hunk?
– Alex
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Related posts:
What Makes a Great Protagonist? Case Study: Jake Gittes
Creating Character – The Protagonist
Screenwriting Tricks For Authors – now available on Kindle and for PC!
Interview by Stephen Jay Schwartz
I met the lovely and talented Rebecca Cantrell at last year’s Bouchercon in Indianapolis. But I’d seen her picture before on the ITW Debut Author’s website and I’d heard wonderful things about her novel, “A Trace of Smoke,” which was nominated for RT Best Historical Mystery of 2009 and the 2009 Bruce Alexander Memorial Award. It was also listed as one of the Top Ten Novels of 2009 by The Mystery Bookstore’s Bobby McCue. I picked up my own autographed copy of “Smoke” and read it with relish.
“A Trace of Smoke” is a richly-textured period thriller set in 1930s Berlin during the Nazi rise to power. Protagonist Hannah Vogel is a journalist investigating the murder of her brother, a renowned homosexual cabaret star who has many admirers. One, in particular, is a very powerful officer in the Nazi Party. Cantrell’s lens captures the transition from Berlin’s free, tolerant society as seen in the cabarets, to the xenophobic nightmare of things to come. The subtle rise of anti-Semitism is seen in every chapter. And hypocrisy abounds. Cantrell creates a beautifully visual world with images so specific that I sometimes wonder if I read her book in print or saw it unfold on screen.
Rebecca is on a blog-tour for the paperback edition of “Smoke” and I’m honored to present her to our Murderati gang today.
Rebecca, you’ve developed a striking and unique character in Hannah’s brother Ernst. Why did you choose to portray an openly homosexual character in the setting of 1930s Berlin?
I wanted to set a book just before the Nazis came to power, and 1931 was the last year I could do so. Looking back, we know that 1931 was the year that Germany was lost to the Nazis. But they didn’t at the time.
The late 1920s and early 1930s in Berlin was a time of intellectual and social freedom mixed with grinding poverty and violent protests. Berlin was a center for modern art, cinema, writing, and music. And yet within a few years it would all be gone: the artists fled, in camps, or in hiding. Just like that an incredibly vibrant part of a modern European city vanished to be replaced by the horror of the Nazis. How could such a transition NOT be a fascinating time to set a novel?
Once I had my time, and did my research, I was delighted to find there was such a vibrant gay culture in Berlin. I’ve since read that there were more gay newspapers and magazines in Berlin in 1931 than in New York City in the 1970s. This was lucky, because I knew that Ernst Vogel would be gay, out, and flamboyant.
Who was the first character in your book that came to you and why?
Ernst was the first character to come to me. In the mid-1980s I went to Dachau for Spring Break (I was weird even as a teenager). I was transfixed by a stark wall with a row of colored triangles worn by actual prisoners: yellow, red, green, blue, purple, pink, brown, and black scraps of fabric. Above each now faded triangle, thick Gothic letters spelled out the categories: Jewish, political prisoner, habitual criminals, emigrant, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, gypsies, and asocials (a catchall term used for murderers, thieves, and those who violated the laws prohibiting Aryans from having intercourse with Jews).
Even though I was just a teenager, I’d read enough to know what the Nazis did to the Jews, the Communists, the gypsies, and those who disagreed with their ideology. But I’d had no idea they’d imprisoned people for being gay. At that time I lived with a host family and my host brother was gay, flamboyant, and out. We often went clubbing in Berlin until the wee small hours of the morning. The subways stopped running around midnight, and if you missed that last one, you were out until five unless you caught a night bus. Then you were on the night bus for hours as it wended its way through every tiny street imaginable. Without much adult supervision, my host brother and I spent what in retrospect was probably too many nights leaned up against each other like puppies sleeping on the top front seat of the night bus or on the benches at the subway station.
We would snag a table at Metropol where we would both drink a Berliner white beer (his with a red shot of syrup, mine with a green) and then dance with an endless array of GIs. At the end of the evening, we’d hook back up and start our long journey home, talking about guys. Forty years before those innocent evenings would have been enough to send him to the camps.
That stuck in my mind and all these years later, I wanted to write about the people who lived in that long ago world, and what happened to them.
Hannah Vogel is such a warm and intelligent character. I found it hard to turn the last page knowing that I wouldn’t be part of her world anymore. How much of you is in Hannah?
Thanks, Stephen! The good news is that Hannah will be in at least three more novels: “A Night of Long Knives” (set during the 1934 purge, comes out in June 2010); “A Game of Lies” (set in the 1936 Olympics, comes out in June 2011); and “A City of Broken Glass” (set in Kristallnacht, comes out in June 2012). And I have ideas for a total of nine books that go up to 1950.
How much of me is in Hannah is a complicated question. I think the truth is: more than I’d like to admit. She has my strong sense of right and wrong and irritating habit of trying to do the right thing, even when it’s inconvenient. On the other hand, I’m not as tough and would probably not be jumping around so soon after being shot, stabbed, and just in general roughed up the way she is. I like to think I’m better at relationships too.
You write Berlin with the authenticity of someone who lived there. How much time did you spend in Berlin?
I lived in Germany for three years. One year near Dortmund, two in Berlin (West) and six months in Göttingen.
The first year, I asked to be sent to a small rural German town, something similar to my Alaskan home town of Talkeetna (population 250). They sent me to West Berlin, a city of two million people surrounded by a giant wall in the middle of communist Europe.
I fell in love with Berlin: its sights, sounds, tastes, and historical burden. I lived in the cold shadow of the Soviet wall, toughing it out with my gay host brother, sarcastic artists, scrappy old timers, and German draft dodgers. On any given Friday night, more flirting teenagers, guest workers, and GIs danced to Starship’s “We Built this City” in the Kuh-Dorf disco than lived Talkeetna.
I’ve only been back for short visits since, but I think one of these days I’ll be able to stay awhile and see what it’s really like post-Wall.
What drove you to write this story? What truths did you want to convey?
I set out to tell Hannah’s story in such a way that the reader would be transported there, able to see what she saw and hear what she heard. I wanted to go to places that I had never seen in fiction: Berlin’s vibrant gay subculture, the life of a woman crime reporter living alone, and an imaginative little boy. Hannah is going to some dark places in future books too, as she sees what the rise of Nazism did to the mothers and sons of Germany. I’m hoping that she can go in there, shine a candle around so we can see it, and then bring the stories back out. That’s where the truth lies.
What’s in store for Hannah in the future?
I just finished the rough draft of “A Game of Lies” last night. But first she has to get through the Röhm purge of 1934 (know as the Night of the Long Knives) after she and Anton are zeppelin-jacked back into Germany. There is film interest, so perhaps we’ll get to see her walking across the big screen too.
What’s in store for Rebecca Cantrell in the future?
I’m hoping to get a chance to write the nine Hannah Vogel novels in my head. For now, I have three written and four total contracted. I also have a short story set on a train transferring prisoners from Dachau in the late 1930s called “On the Train” in the “First Thrills” anthology that comes out in June 2010. Plus I have a YA series that I can’t talk about yet, but hopefully next week!
So, Murderati, please join me in welcoming Rebecca to our enclave, and make her feel at home! To read more about Rebecca and her adventures in the writing trade, check out her website at http://www.rebeccacantrell.com.
Thank you, Rebecca!
I’m a strong believer in doing the right thing. From the little to the big, some times the choices we need to make aren’t necessarily the easy ones nor the ones that will benefit ourselves, but they are the right ones. We knows this deep inside.
I am, by no means, perfect at this. But I try.
I’ve been thinking a lot more about this because of several things. First, it’s a theme in my next book NO RETURN due out in early 2011. Second, the amazing response to the disaster in Haiti. And third, because of an email I received from the son of an old friend of mine. An old friend of mine’s son recently spent a month in Ghana teaching kids how to play soccer. While he was there, he saw what conditions the kids had to live and play under, that he decided to do something about it. With the help of his parents, he raise enough money to buy things for the kids they would have never had otherwise. His name is Tony Albina, and here is the letter I got from him thanking me for my donation – which was nothing compared to what he was doing…
Thank you so much for your donation to the children with whom I worked in Ghana Africa this fall. I want to express the gratitude that I felt from the children and send you a few pictures so you can see the difference that you helped me make. A positive difference in the lives of the children and a positive affirmation that, given an opportunity, people will help those who need it – and that the boundaries of geography, culture and politics are certainly no barrier to human compassion and generosity.
I’d like to tell you about my trip, share with you my experience and help you understand how much your gift meant to these children. I spent a month in Ghana Africa, helping underprivileged children in the city of Accra with a non-profit organization called Projects Abroad. I have been playing soccer since I was 4 years old and was the Captain of my varsity high school soccer team for the last two years of my high school career. In Ghana, I would be learning soccer coaching from a semi-pro team and then using those skills to teach in the under 12 children’s program. The city of Accra is located along the southern coast of West Africa.
When I arrived in Accra I was greeted by the unrelenting heat, followed by a tour through the city from my placement coordinator with Projects Abroad. When I sat down in the taxi, my coordinator turned to me and said, “Tony you may see some things that you are not used to seeing back home. Ghana is a much different place than where you are from”, and on that note we headed off into the city. First, we drove to the home of my host family where I would be living for the next month. After introductions were made, we stepped back in the taxi to go see the soccer field where my placement was to be, and I use the term “field” lightly. The pitch they play on was in the worst shape of any field I have ever seen. Instead of grass, the field was made up of a mixture of sand and clay, and was hardly flat. There were large raises and dips all over the field. Very different from the level, lush green grass I have played on since I was a kid. I can remember complaining about the condition of the fields in high school if mid-field was a little bare and worn down late in the season. However, as I soon found out, the condition of this field in Accra made no difference at all to the children here.
The next day I hopped on a tro-tro, which is a glorified mini-van, held together with bailing wire, that runs on a fixed route, and headed to the field. Riding in a tro-tro, you can never be sure that you’re actually going to make it to your destination. To say the ride is harrowing would be an understatement! When I arrived at the pitch, I met up with the semi-professional team with whom I would be training to learn the coaching skills I would be using to train the children. After seniors training, I headed back to my host home as the under 12 year old children’s training did not begin until the evening. Ghanaians try to avoid the mid day heat, for which I was very thankful! That evening I went back to the field for the kids training session. I was expecting young kids in cleats and shin guards ready to play soccer. I was mistaken; some kids wore cleats three times too big, and others played barefoot. A few of the kids had half decent cleats, without too many holes – which, I found out later, were donated by past volunteers. Most of them wore the same clothes every day and the majority of it was donated clothing that was passed down as children grew. The condition of the field, the garbage dump that bordered it, the raw sewage running in troughs through streets, the ill-fitting cleats and torn balls didn’t seem to matter to the children. They played with the same joy and excitement of any child. They seemed blissfully unaware of their circumstances. They were just happy to be playing soccer today.
The next few weeks went on like this. Senior training in the mornings, and under 12’s training in the afternoons. One day I was speaking with Ramma, the captain of the senior team, about some of the under 12’s children. He explained to me that nearly 10 of the kids were homeless and without families. Ramma went on to tell me that he has 5 of the kids currently living at his house, and 3 live in the team’s equipment shed located near the soccer pitch. Many of the children were abandoned at a very young age and were left in Accra with literally nothing but the shirts on their backs. Luckily, Ramma was able to take some of them in. These kids have gone through so much at such a young age but if you met them, you couldn’t tell that they have suffered more in 12 years than most of will in our whole lives. They look and act like regular fun loving kids with a truly amazing passion for soccer and life!
After learning what these kids go through, I wanted to help them somehow. That is right about the time when my parents called me and told me that there were people who wanted to donate money for the kids. I had no idea that friends, family and many people that I’ve never even met could be so generous! In just a week, $1,300 dollars was donated. I was so excited – so much could be done for the kids. I started throwing around some ideas with the coaches and we all agreed that personalized team bags and new soccer balls would be a great help. While they were coordinating to have the bags made, I took some of the senior players out into the market with me buy some new balls, and professional jerseys, shorts, and socks for each child to put in their bag. The bags arrived during my final week in Ghana. I took them back to my host family, and put the gear for each child in each of the 22 bags. Looking down at this massive pile of bags and gear, I was amazed at how much I was able to buy for the kids.
With the money left over after purchasing all the equipment, I organized with some of the coaches, a trip for the kids to go to a professional soccer stadium. I called a security guard that the coaches knew at the stadium and organized a tour. So the next day, I arranged for a mini-bus to pick us up and take us to the stadium. The kids were told they had a game that day, so they thought that’s where they were headed. But when the mini-bus turned into the stadium entrance, the kids went crazy! We met up with the security guard and he led us inside the stadium. We went up into the VIP seating section, and he told us about the history of the stadium. The security guard then said to everyone “Ok lets head on down to the field so you can take some pictures, then we’ll take off”, but I had different plans. As we were walking down to the field, I asked the security guard to let the kids actually play a little on the field. After some monetary convincing, a way of life in Ghana, he accepted my offer. When we got down to the field, I took out a ball I had been hiding and kicked it onto the field. “Get on the field! Go play!”, I yelled –and I didn’t have to say it twice. The kids, in total disbelief, sprinted onto the field with huge smiles stretching across their faces. For most of them, it was the first time they had stepped foot inside the stadium, and it was definitely the first time any of them had played on real grass! They ran, carefree as children do, jumped, laughed and played in bare feet on the cool grass probably for the first time in their lives. I wish you could have seen their faces light up with joy. It was a tremendous gift from you to them.
The next day was my last in Ghana. Half way through the under 12’s training session, I rounded all the kids up, and told them to follow me. Ramma came with us as well. We got to the equipment closet where I was hiding their bags of gear, and I turned the kids and said, “As you guys know I’m leaving tomorrow. But I have a surprise for you all. There are a lot of generous people back home that gave me donations for you and with that I was able to get you all some gear. Some things that will make you look more like a team.” I pulled out the first bag and tossed it to one of the children. He caught it with a look of astonishment on his little face, and realizing what it was, let out a shriek of joy. I grabbed another bag, and threw it out to the group of now jumping, excited children. Then another, and another until all the children had one. It was joyful chaos as all of them rifled through their bags pulling out a jersey here, and a pair of socks there, some shorts waved in the air. All of them were smiling, and cheering the whole time – happy for themselves and happy for one another. One young boy came close and said a quiet thank you to me, and through teary eyes, I told him he was very welcome. Ramma turned to me and said, “In all of my years working with this team, and seeing volunteers come and go – I have never seen so much generosity towards the children. I can’t find the words to describe how happy I am right now.” He reached out, gave me a hug and said, “Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.” I said, “Rama I can never give these kids what you have given them. I gave them a jersey and shorts, you gave them food. I gave them a bag with socks, you gave them a home. I should be the one thanking you.” He gave me another hug, and said, “I’m going to really miss you Tony, and I know that the kids will too. You will never be forgotten.” And with that, I picked up my bag, and walked away. Tears rolling down my face, I looked back, to see all the kids waving good-bye. I gave one final wave, then turned back around and headed for a plane that would take me home to New Hampshire. Never to forget the little faces, the friends, the memories. I will never forget your generosity and neither will the young lives that you have touched. Thank you.
Gratefully yours,
Tony Albina
I know Tony’s dad Adam must be immensely proud of his son. But I also know there are other “Tonys” out there, people who are doing the right things both big and small.
In the comments, feel free to share some of your stories about people doing the right thing.
by J.D. Rhoades
Dear Readers, I know what all of you really wanted to see today was yet another post about e-books and piracy. You really wanted to see more fretting about whether we as writers are all doomed by this new technology to a life of penury, or even worse, having to go out and get what our loved ones often refer to as “real jobs.”
Well, I’ll meet you halfway. I’ll give you the post, but I can’t do the fretting.
See, the thing is, I don’t see the sky falling here.
The people prophesying “the end of the world as we know it”, as Tess somewhat ironically put it yesterday, make a couple of assumptions. First, that that e-books will become, not just a method of delivering stories, but the only one. The second is that piracy will drive out actual buying. Neither is necessarily the case.
Let’s address the first assumption. Go to any blog or website about books or literature where comments from readers are allowed (which is to say, most of them). Look for posts where someone brings up the topic of e-books. I guarantee you, within the first five comments, someone will assert that they prefer paper books. They like the feel, the look, even the smell of a paper book. Watch as more and more people chime in. These people are not going away. Here on Murderati, even the most enthusiastic e-book adopters aren’t giving up paper books. Think about the last new technology for delivering stories, namely the audiobook. Have people stopped buying paper books because they can listen to the same story on a CD or MP3? No. There may be less paper books sold, but I don’t see this venerable technology dying out any time soon.
Really, though, when we talk about ‘loving books,” is it really the physical object we’re in love with? If we held in our hands a beautifully bound volume on rich fancy paper, a volume whose very aroma took your mind back to the many happy hours you spent in the library when you were a kid…but the actual words in the volume were complete gibberish, would you really say “I love this book?” Doubtful, unless you have some sort of fetish, and if you do, well….bless your heart.
No, “I love books” is a misnomer. What we love are stories. And the e-book, like the audiobook, is just another delivery mechanism.
The question then becomes: in a world filled with pirates, how do we make a living telling stories? Well, we aren’t going to do it by sitting around crying about how hard everything’s going to be. Back when the Ice Age came aroiund, there were undoubtedly some cavemen who huddled around the fire that was getting increasingly hard to keep lit, complaining about the awful weather and how the damned sabretooths were making it impossible to make a living. There were others who wrapped themselves and their families up in the nearest handy mammoth pelts, sharpened their spears, and lit out for someplace where the hunting and gathering was better. You know, our ancestors.
Like those hardy and resourceful cavemen, there are writers who are managing quite well in this brave new world, and they’re doing it in ways you might not expect.
One of these is writer, blogger, and tech correspondent Cory Doctorow. If you haven’t read his book LITTLE BROTHER, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Doctorow has an interesting way of combating piracy of e-books: he gives them away for free. Not only that, he does it on the day the paper book is released. And, get this…he encourages readers to copy them into new formats and pass them along.
What is this guy, crazy? Isn’t this like resolving a standoff by having the cops shoot the hostages? Well, maybe. But maybe Doctorow’s crazy like a fox. He asserts that the free e-books help him sell paper books:
For me — for pretty much every writer — the big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity…Of all the people who failed to buy this book today, the majority did so because they never heard of it, not because someone gave them a free copy.
Further, on the subject of e-books vs. paper books, he makes this point:
…the more computer-literate you are, the less likely you are to be reading long-form works on those screens — that’s because computer-literate people do more things with their computers. We run IM and email and we use the browser in a million diverse ways. We have games running in the background, and endless opportunities to tinker with our music libraries. The more you do with your computer, the more likely it is that you’ll be interrupted after five to seven minutes to do something else. That makes the computer extremely poorly suited to reading long-form works off of, unless you have the iron self-discipline of a monk.
In other words, you may like reading on your iPhone, but a paper book doesn’t ring, and it doesn’t distract you with other stuff. The bottom line, for Doctorow:
Doctorow’s not alone in finding that a free e-book bumped sales of the paper book. Sci-fi writer Tobias Buckell noticed a significant sales bump for his book CRYSTAL RAIN after his publisher, Tor, released it as a free e-book. Sales of the sequel, RAGAMUFFIN, also increased. Buckell admits that, due to the myriad of factors affecting sales, he can’t say definitively that the free e-book ws the reason for the sales jump, but it’s worth noting that another Tor author, John Scalzi, saw a 20 pecent jump in sales of his book OLD MAN’S WAR after it was released as a free Tor download–and sales of the sequel jumped 30 percent.
Another experimenter is my good friend Joe Konrath. Joe uses free downloads to sell his paper books. But more and more recently, he’s been putting stuff up exclusively in e-format. And, he claims, he’s making money at it, even though he’s pricing his work at what a publisher would consider a scandalously low price, usually less than two bucks. So the pieces serve not only to promote the paper books, but become a profit center in themselves.
As for piracy, Konrath figures that same low price takes care of the problem all by itself:
The rules of supply and demand don’t work in a digital world, because the supply is unlimited. You don’t fight piracy with weapons. You fight piracy with cost and convenience…If there were a central hub, where you could easily search for ebooks and get them at a reasonable price, there would be no need to pirate books.
Apple, Konrath points out, finally figured out that 99 cent songs and no DRM is the way to go. But it took them way too long to get to that point, and as a result, we have a healthy, active piracy community.
Hopefully, the publishing industry won’t create the same public relations disaster as the music industry. As one tech website observed:
The challenge for publishing is to avoid being seen as greedy. In music, the debate quickly became characterised as The Man versus The Kids, where The Man was Bono, his celebrity mates and their filthy rich record companies…when [Bono] drew parallels between file sharing and illegal porn and accused ISPs of stealing all his money, the entire internet torrented U2 albums out of sheer spite. Probably.
It is, as I’ve observed, possible to be completely morally and legally in the right and still shoot yourself in the foot.
Some of these experiments will pan out and make someone a pile of money. Others will crater in a big way. And it’s impossible at this point to say which will be which. As another information guru I’ve quoted before once put it:
The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing.
It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine.
by Tess Gerritsen
Last week, after I blogged on my own website about e-book piracy, the post garnered some reactions elsewhere on the web. A few commenters felt that my fears of piracy are overstated, and that we authors should look on piracy as a good thing because, hey, it gets us more readers. Even if they’re not paying us for our work. It is far better to be popular than to pay our bills, and theft is the highest compliment one can pay you. If your work wasn’t worth it, no one would be stealing it, so cheer up! Someone thinks highly enough of your stories to swipe them!
It’s a strange new world for authors, and I’m struggling to figure out just what to expect next.
Recently I had a fascinating conversation with a man who offers paid editorial and design services to authors who want to self-publish their work as e-books. Over drinks, we got into a lively discussion about what the future holds for authors. He predicts that e-publishing will level the playing field for all authors, everywhere — and in a good way, he believes.
Every aspiring writer, he said, whether talented or not, will be able to bypass the traditional publishing route and get his own work published online, at minimal cost. Amazon.com, Scribd, plus a variety of other online booksellers will allow you to sell your poems, memoirs, recipe books, what have you, direct to the consumer. All you have to do is turn them into pdf files and upload them to the bookseller. You can also go here for further guidance. It sounds so tempting. Within hours, you could have your work available for sale, and be earning royalties. And the royalties are a hefty percentage of the cover price — a far higher royalty rate than you could get with a traditional print book from a traditional publisher. Why would anyone want to brave the gantlet of traditional publishing — the rejection letters, the dismissive editors, the astronomical odds — when all you have to do is upload your work and presto! You’re making money!
He made the whole prospect sound so tempting that I couldn’t help wondering, just for a moment: hey, why not? What author in his right mind would turn down a 70% royalty rate?
But then my logical mind clicked back in place. E-publishing has not been known (so far) to produce a James Patterson – level bestseller. I mentioned that particular detail to him, and he responded that e-publishing is just the entry point. Those authors who have really strong sales in e-format will end up attracting traditional publishers, and then they can become James Patterson.
In other words, his definition of true success really isn’t any different than what it is now: print publishing. In his heart of hearts, he still believes that e-publishing is really just the try-out for the big leagues. And the big leagues, even for this enthusiastic e-publishing advocate, is the old-fashioned printed book. A book with real pages.
From the author’s point of view, e-publishing your own book does sound enticing. It gives you a direct connection to the consumer. You are both creator and manufacturer. You cut out the publisher as middleman, and take home a bigger share of the profits. No longer will some pipsqueak editor keep you from your goal; you are in total control. And with the expanding share of readers who’ve moved to digital books, the whole world is your audience. On the face of it, it sounds like traditional publishers are doomed.
Then I came across an article in January’s Fortune Magazine. “The Plan to save the Music Biz,” by Mina Kimes, is about how the music industry has struggled, and how major recording companies appeared doomed.
When iTunes and other Internet music providers exploded onto the scene, the worry was that bands would bypass the four big music companies — EMI, Sony, Universal, and WArner Music — and earn their bling by self-publishing on the web. And indeed, more artists than ever are putting out albums online — there were 106,000 new releases in 2008, compared with 44,000 five years ago, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Precious few, however, ever break through. Of the 63 new releases that sold more than 250,000 copies last year, 61 were issued by major music companies.” Yes, occasionally a singer-songwriter like Ingrid Michaelson, whose self-released hit album, “Girls and Boys”, has sold 286,000 copies since 2006, makes it big. But as the story of Hollywood Undead suggest, the record labels will continue to play a major role, albeit a new one.
Even rebel bands who launch themselves on MySpace or YouTube still aspire to the old-style definition of success. They want to be picked up by a traditional record label. They want their work available in traditional formats.
So much for being a real rebel.
In the book world, I suspect this is also the secret desire of even the most successful e-pubbed author. Authors still want to see their book in actual print. They still want that deal with Random House or Simon and Schuster.
There’s another reason to desire traditional publication. The strictly e-pubbed author is frighteningly vulnerable to piracy. If your book is released solely in digital form, pirates can have it copied and available for free within 24 hours (as Dan Brown’s experience shows.) Which gives you only a 24-hour window for actual sales before your book turns into a freebie. Think about it. The book you spent a year sweating over has only a day to turn a profit, and then it’s dust.
Luckily, we still have a healthy audience of readers who prefer print books. But within a generation or two, that audience may be migrating to e-readers. At which time the book market could look very, very different.
How different?
With easy e-publishing available to every aspiring author, there’ll be a glut of content that’s never been winnowed down or edited. Online bookstores will be overwhelmed by the very material that now sits in the slush pile of literary agents. Some of it may be wonderful; most of it will not be. The consumer won’t be able to tell which is which, because there’s been no screening process to weed out the good from the bad. It’s going to be anarchy out there.
Then piracy will make it all free, anyway.
In that overwhelming sea of novels, though, a few writers will stand out and develop a fan base. How? My guess is, they’ll distinguish themselves not through word of mouth (which is going to be difficult to build when you’re competing with a million other novelists, all of whom start on an equal footing in the e-publishing morass). It’ll be because they’ve been anointed by — surprise! — a traditional kingmaker. A real print publisher. Or Oprah. Or a TV or movie deal.
In other words, everything old will be new again.
In the meantime, as the world spins crazily toward the future, what can we writers do?
Those of us who are now traditionally published are the lucky ones, because we’ve already been anointed. This is our chance to solidify our brand and build our visibility, before everyone in the world is self-published. By virtue of having made it through the obstacle course of traditional publishing, we’re ahead of the pack. When publishing swings to mostly digital, when everyone and his uncle can call himself an author, we’ll be known as the authors who were vetted — and found worthy of reading.
by Pari
“Piracy.” It sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? The high seas. Adventure . . .
But there’s nothing romantic about the case in Minnesota where a woman was fined $2 million for illegally downloading 24 songs and sharing them with others. Last Friday, the judge slashed her fine dramatically – by more than $1.8 million — saying the initial punishment was too much.
However, he still fined her.
And guess what? She’s fighting against paying even the much reduced amount.
Piracy has been on my mind lately because of the Google Settlement deadline. (It’s Jan. 28, Kids, in case you still haven’t decided what to do.) And the fact that I think the terms are so iffy and squirrely that it verges on a landgrab.
And then I read about the Minnesota case in Huffington Post. Last Friday’s decision stimulated an interesting conversation in the comments. Many readers implied that the woman was a victim of corporate greed. Indeed, they asserted, she was the one wronged.
Wait a minute . . .
Am I missing a crucial piece of information here?
Was she forced to download these songs?
Did someone hold a gun to her head? Threaten to kill her children?
No.
The woman willfully took items that didn’t belong to her. She took them because she didn’t want to pay for them.
Um . . . correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I looked that was called “stealing.”
If someone walked into her house and took 24 things she’d spent months or years making, do you think she would’ve stood for it? Or would she have called the police to report a robbery?
My bet is on door #2.
So why is piracy tacitly condoned in many circles? Why do normally intelligent and considerate people think that it’s perfectly okay to pilfer someone else’s work? (I’m talking about taking it. Owning it. Often sharing or selling it . . .)
Some of you might be thinking, “Pari, chill out. Each song would’ve only cost her a few cents, maybe a dollar or two.” I can see you shaking your head at me in pity. “Don’t we have bigger problems in the world than a couple of bucks?”
Not if you’re a novelist.
And if you are a novelist and you’re not paying attention to piracy, you’re worse than the proverbial ostrich. By not standing up against it – and by pirating other’s works yourself – you’re helping destroy your own career.
Simple as that.
Every day I hear of – and see — more and more sites that are distributing full copies of our works for free. Without our permission. Without our publishers’ permission.
In my case, I own electronic rights to my works. That means these people are stealing directly from me. And my children.
Theft.
Punishable by law.
Yes. It may be only a few cents per work, but it’s my effort on the line. Here’s a little secret: I didn’t expend so much time and energy to get published so that someone else could feel entitled to rip me off.
I might not have this reaction if novelists and other writers were paid one-time high fees for their work. But most of us aren’t. Our money comes from advances and then royalties tallied against actual sales. Wholesale, mind you. Not net. As far as I’m concerned, every time someone downloads one of my books without paying – it’s an active slap in the face. It’s wrong and needs to be stopped.
I’ve had discussions with my creative friends – writers, photographers, painters, songwriters – and we constantly come to the conclusion that creativity in our society is horribly undervalued. It’s as if people seem to think that anyone could write Jane Eyre or The Raven. That once a book – or other creative endeavor – is produced, it should enter the public domain.
But how are creatives supposed to live in a society that doesn’t want to pay for their work?
I don’t know. Can you tell me?
And why would anyone think that we should work hard . . . for free?
What’s going to happen to our culture, our society, if the most original and creative people decide it’s not worth the trouble? I wonder.
This takes me back to piracy.
It’s not innocent.
It’s not okay.
It’s not cute.
It’s stealing.
It’s theft.
It’s fucking wrong.
And I’m sick of it.
____________________________________
What about you?
Do you think it’s all right? A act against “the MAN?”
Do you think I’m being unreasonable, that it’s a brave new world and I’d just better get with the program?
I look forward to this conversation.
edited to add:
NFC CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!
WHO DAT, BABY, WHO DAT!!!
WHO DAT SAY DEY GON BEAT DEM SAINTS?
HUH? WHO DAT? WHO DAT?
I have a lot of great friends and fans in Minnesota. But today, there’s this lil ol’ football game where our beloved
are going to take on the no good, no ‘count, wretched, terrible honorable Vikings, [a team I would otherwise cheer for], a team with that guy who keeps coming out of retirement (he keeps saying that word, I do not think it means what he thinks it means…).
Meanwhile, those of us here in the
are gonna pray (and probably do a little voodoo) that Farve has a really off night and Brees, aka Breesus, as in
well… we just hope that Brees keeps on keeping on ’til the Saints come marching on into a victory.
We’ve been Saints fans since way back before they were called the ‘aints, and let me tell you, it was hard, some years, admitting to fandom for a football team who routinely seemed to shoot themselves in the foot whenever they got anywhere close to a winning season. There’s nothing quite like having an amazing winning season–especially for a city so hard hit like New Orleans, who really needed the economic and morale boost like this season has given it. Mostly, it’s just really nice to see perpetual underdogs finally have their year.
It’s a great story.
And I’m going to be glued to the TV, nervous and excited and probably yelling like a damn fool.
If I had any actual working brain cells left, I’d make some sort of parallel to the story arc of an underdog season to that of a good novel, or a parallel to shitty first drafts and crappy seasons, then editing and drafting the right players, and then the final polish and a Superbowl, but really, I just moved my entire house’s contents back into place in three days and then hosted a party for 62 people over here today (because we are crazy, we don’t have a better excuse) and in the middle of all of that, wrote a bunch on the new book that I am freaking loving (which is scary the bejesus out of me). So I’m going to yell at the TV, envy the hell out of friends of mine who have seats inside one of the suites in the Superdome, and, hopefully, be singing Who Dat? all damned night long.
So how about you? Do you root for a team? Any sports you love? Or if not sports, what inspires your fandom?
I’m holding a contest–all commenters for today’s blog through midnight (central US time) Monday night are eligible to win a $25 gift certificate to celebrate Allison’s newest release: ORIGINAL SIN. (Go check it out–it’s a supernatural thriller.) I just saw an amazing review for it, which should be up soon, and I’ll link as soon as I see it go live.
Since I just found out I’m supposed to be driving to Vermont TODAY and not tomorrow, this is going to be a bit of a drive-by post (I’m going to Aunt Julie’s benefit auction for Haiti, to donate a character name in my WIP.)
I have been thinking about poetry lately. Here are some current (and perennial) favorites of mine:
This Be The Verse
by Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
(of course, now that I’m a parent myself, I also like Judith Rich Harris’s rebuttal:
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth
To hear your child make such a fuss.
It isn’t fair–it’s not the truth–
He’s fucked up, yes, but not by us.)
The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys,
The sinkers, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of movable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.
Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error—
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.
Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.
But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.
Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.
No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide
Early germ
warfare. The dead
hurled this way look like wheels
in the sky. Look: there goes
Larry the Shoemaker, barefoot, over the wall,
and Mary Sausage Stuffer, see how she flies,
and the Hatter twins, both at once, soar
over the parapet, little Tommy’s elbow bent
as if in a salute,
and his sister, Mathilde, she follows him,
arms outstretched, through the air,
just as she did
on earth.
Natural Music
Robinson Jeffers
The old voice of the ocean, the bird-chatter of little rivers,
(Winter has given them gold for silver
To stain their water and bladed green for brown to line their banks)
From different throats intone one language.
So I believe if we were strong enough to listen without
Divisions of desire and terror
To the storm of the sick nations, the rage of the hunger smitten cities,
Those voices also would be found
Clean as a child’s; or like some girl’s breathing who dances alone
By the ocean-shore, dreaming of lovers.
What’s your favorite poem?
How much do we need? How much is too much? At what point does our dependence on information supersede our creative life?
These are all questions I’ve been asking myself this week.
I will be the first person to admit that I’m an information junkie. News, current events, politics, heck, even the weather: I’m constantly updating my internal databases with the latest news. The same goes for my publishing career. I’m always asking questions, wanting the latest information. I read the industry blogs, get daily mails from Publishers Weekly, Publisher Marketplace (silly, because the information contained therein really is redundant, I should pick one and let the other go) Galley Cat; newspapers, police sites, anything that might help me research, or learn, or feel informed.
I subscribe to RSS feeds of several major publishing related blogs, like Sarah Weinman. And I subscribe to several other kinds of blogs – news oriented, productivity oriented, wine blogs, funny blogs. It takes me nearly an hour to catch-up every morning, and more and more lately, I’m falling behind because I run out of the allotted time. (Because if I don’t allot a specific amount of time, I can easily splurge and read blogs all day.) There are just so many fascinating parts of the world to explore, and many, many writers who explore them in ways that I never can. So I read and experience these things vicariously, and feel smarter because of it.
Perfect example, right now I’ve subscribed to the Crime RSS feeds of the London newspapers, because I plan to set a book there and I want to get a sense of what’s happening. Do I need to do this? No. I could wait until I get ready to write the book and do the research then. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.
But why is this necessary? Why do I need to know all of these things? Need. Want. Two very different beasts.
I’ve been “complimented” in the past for being “plugged in.” I was actually introduced to a group as having my “finger on the pulse of publishing.” You can only imagine the internal cringe when I heard that. And it’s not true at all – I rely on others to feed me the most current information. Then I synthesize it and apply it to whatever project it needs to get applied to. I don’t take this as a compliment – to me it says I’m spending too much time away from my job. I’m a novelist, after all, not a journalist.
There is a tipping point, a moment when you realize that while it would be nice to know every single detail of the world, you don’t need to. Trying to know everything is incredibly, incredibly stressful. My tipping point came last week, when I realized I was spending half my allotted blog reading time slogging through Mashable. Mashable is a cool site, with lots of content. So much content that you could easily read Mashable alone and never get a chance to do anything else. It’s information overload at its finest. The day I deleted Mashable from my RSS feed was my first step toward information independence.
Here’s more irony for you—late last year I adopted a minimalist lifestyle, which included trying to have a more minimalist experience on the Internet. I just realized that in my quest to learn about minimalism, I ended up subscribed to 12 minimalism/productivity blogs, all of which basically repeat the same information over and over again. Not very minimalist. It was ridiculous, really. Anyone can talk the talk. It’s walking the walk that’s the hard part. There’s one blogger (who shall remain nameless) that I used to love. When I realized that he spent all his time talking about creativity, yet never creating, I deleted him from my feeds.
Psychology time. The most minor self-examination led me to a quick conclusion: It all boils down to the fact that I have a few small issues with control. As in, I’m a control freak. I’ve been known in the past to end up lifting heavy projects myself because I don’t trust others to do it right. It’s narcissistic, at best, to assume that my way is the best way. So the way I approach information is similar: If I KNOW all these things, then I’ll never get caught short out in the real world.
I think we all experience this from time to time – we are the ME generation, after all. We want to be smart, to be hip, to be now, to know more than the person next to us. It’s borne from the same motivation that causes us not to listen to others when they speak—the weird way our brains work in conversation, mentally composing our next sentence to sound witty, erudite, charming and funny, not fully paying attention to what the other person is saying. Come on, admit it, you’re guilty of that just like I am. Naughty, naughty.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s a certain amount of information that you absolutely need to know to succeed in your business. But do you need to know everything? Every nitty, gritty detail? No. The world is not going to end if you hear about the Google Settlement the day after it happens through the grapevine. We lose days talking about publishing houses getting kicked out of writer’s organizations, authors who take on reviewers and end up in the New York Times, Twitter gossip – all under the guise of necessary information. But is it really necessary? No. Not necessary.
Deciding the difference between necessity information and curiosity information is a good place to start with this. What do I need to know to get through my day? What will niggle in the back of my head if I don’t give it a glance?
While analyzing that dichotomy, I realized that the level of information I need has changed dramatically over the years. When I was first starting out, I HAD to know as much as possible, because having a little insider information might have made the difference between getting a contract and not.
But now? Now I don’t need to be up on the latest news from agenting. I don’t need to read about creating a synopsis. I definitely don’t need to read people’s publishing stories, because no matter what, it ends up being a comparison of apples and oranges, and many of the oranges have had a rough go of it lately, and are getting a wee bit negative on their blogs. (These posts are more likely to bring me down than up, and that’s not what I want from my online reading excursions.)
I have an agent. He’s wonderful. I’m not looking for a new one. I find myself reading agent blogs, thinking, hey, that’s good advice, and passing the information along to the folks I know who need it. And while that’s nice of me, it’s really not my job to educate people about how to get an agent. (Narcissism again. Tsk.) I don’t need to be reading every detail of the DRM issue. I’ve put a team in place to work for me, to deal with these issues so I can focus on my writing. Knowledge is power, most definitely, and I don’t advocate falling off the train entirely. But ascertaining what you must know versus what you want to know can shave hours off your day.
If pushed, I would say that I felt like so many people helped me out along the way, I owe it to the next class of writers to help them up too. But then I remember that weird thing called bootstraps, which I used to pull myself to the top of the heap by doing my own research on how to get an agent. I didn’t go to a writer and ask how, I researched the living hell out of it. (Hmm. Note to self. Next time someone asks me how to get an agent – I shall tell them to Google it. That’s how I got started…)
You get my point. I’m moving on.
I took some of my own advice, and deleted a ton of blogs from my daily roundup. I installed Instapaper on my Mac so I can skim headlines in the morning and give myself the sense that I’ve covered the bases, and save the detail for later in the day, after I’ve gotten my creative work done. I changed my RSS feeds – deleting about 50 that were either redundant, inactive, or otherwise not necessary to my daily being. I deleted a bunch of bookmarked pages, streamlined my toolbar so only the vital sites are visible. I dropped ALL of my social networking sites into a folder, and stowed that folder out of sight in my bookmarks that I don’t open regularly. Out of sight really is out of mind for me.
Having so many sources of information wasn’t giving me a broad-spectrum view of my interests. It was stressing me out. So it felt very good to crash my system and start fresh with LESS.
It’s only going to get worse from here, folks. E-Readers will access the internet (and where’s the fun of escaping into another world if you’re email beeps in the background?) smartphones already do, netbooks – you know why I love to travel? Because there’s no internet on the plane. That’s X number of hours that I don’t have to feel guilty if I’m not available. When that small bit of heaven is taken from me, I don’t know how I’ll ever escape. So I’m starting my good habits early, before the world goes haywire and Google starts broadcasting into our brain chips.
I challenge you to this information duel. Skip a day. Just… skip a day. Don’t read the paper. Don’t turn on the television. Don’t read your blogs. Don’t look at Twitter. Forget about Facebook, just for one measly little day.
A note on the challenge: You’ll need to replace your Jones with something. Go for a walk. Play with your kids. Write a letter to a friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Take yourself to lunch. Read a book. Something, anything, to get away from the information overload.
And here’s the kicker. When you come back the next day, delete everything. You’re not allowed to go back and read yesterday’s news or blogs. Move forward with your life, and see what happens. I’m willing to bet cold, hard cash that the world will continue spinning on its axis.
Go forth, my friends, and free your minds.
Wine of the Week: Chateau Borie de Noaillan – a very nice Bordeaux that I plan to restock my every day cellar with.
PS: I’m running a contest to celebrate the upcoming release of THE COLD ROOM February 23. Swing by Fresh Fiction and enter for a chance to win a Barnes & Noble Nook!