Writers Pseudonymous

The lady on the plane next to me yesterday explained, when I told her I was a writer, that as a former English Major she had had dreams of being a major novelist, but she was making a living instead, and she hoped to one day have enough free time to write.

And I remembered Gene Wolfe getting up at 5.00 am every day and writing two pages before going in to work, and I told her that if she wanted to be a writer she ought to write. ("It's like most jobs," I told. "It's amazing how much of it just consists of showing up." But she didn't believe me.)

--Neil Gaiman

OK, bentensama is no longer private. It's open to all fiction writers. Bring your friends!

The lovely ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have discovered the "news that Amazon seems to be stripping the sales figures and accompanying rankings from GLBTQ books, erotica, and romance novels, particularly those with what they term 'adult content.' " Here is the entire entry: Sunday, April 12, 2009.

But here, this is something more from that entry:

"When pressed for a reason, Amazon.com’s customer service department told YA author Mark Probst:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude 'adult' material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

So, for that reason, the following link:

Amazon Rank

This is known as Google-bombing.

Second of all: Urbandictionary.com. We’re creating a definition and if it’s approved, you can vote on it to increase its prominence. Link to definition to come soon.

All you have to do is link to the page using these words: Amazon Rank. The more you do it, the higher up in rank the page will go, and the more successful it will be. One would hope.

The goal: that “Amazon Rank” points to the definition that underscores Amazon.com’s shortminded censorship and inconsistent policing of what ought to be accessible to the book buying public.

"Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse). Based on an old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution.

"The technique got its name from results obtained in initial playing, 'Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau' (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine). Other examples are: 'The dormitory of friable little girls puts the odious box right' and 'The Senegal oyster will eat the tricolor bread.' These poetic fragments were felt to reveal what Nicolas Calas characterized as the 'unconscious reality in the personality of the group' resulting from a process of what Ernst called 'mental contagion.' " ~Exquisite Corpse

 

I was thinking a variation of the game; we'd have to have someone to referee. We'd have to have some sort of sign up and figure out a topic. We'd need someone to get each contributor's submission, then release only the last line for the next contributor. That's about as far as I've thought about it.

I am having not-writing hell.
*bleargh*

I am trying to remember writing games. Any thoughts? Something along the lines of exquisite corpse, but in prose format.

Augh.

I've signed up but have no idea what I'm going to do. midnight is two hours away. wheeee~!

Writers write. We don't do it because we want to. We do it because we have to. You ever hear about someone who quit writing? That wasn't a writer.

(X-posted from my journal.)

I try to keep quiet about SMeyer and Twilight. I've tried to read the books (I really have, I still have the PDFs on my desktop). I've tried to see what people can see in this. But even if I look past the writing, the grammar, the characters, etc, I cannot get past the fact that the entire series is, at its core, no more than puerile wish fulfillment. And I certainly won't deny the kernel of seething hate I feel that I can't muster the courage/confidence/connections to get published, and this hack has.

And then there's crap like this, utter stupidity that makes me insane with rage.

I'll let you read it yourselves, if you care, but I can't resist reposting a comment I made in another LJer's thread:

SMeyer: With writing, the way you feel changes everything.

No. No it doesn't. If whim dictates your work, you're a hobbyist, not a writer. This is something I struggle with; that wherewithal to keep moving forward, regardless of the despondency I typically feel. Writing, if left entirely to inspiration and "feeling," would simply never happen.

SMeyer: If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story.

So what she's saying is, again, whim - rather than plot or character - dictates story. Just... whatever she feels like at the time.

Wanker.

Preditors and Editors is a site devoted to leveling the playing field for newer authors. Here is their warning page--not only advising caution about particular agents, and tips to identify scammers, but also about internet entities like Yahoo/GeoCities that threaten copyright.

The site is currently being sued by a literary agent and an attorney for PublishAmerica.

I don't know that I hold with how snarky some of the site's entries are. However, any information is better than no information.

Thought it might be useful.

I have a slight attention problem when it comes to finishing a work, be it a short story or anything longer. Do any of you have issues with starting a dozen projects and never finishing them? How do you deal with it?