Rant – Rhyme = Reason(?): The Daily “Huh?”

 

Image: Guilty as Charged

“You give me what I want, or I will not eat.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I said I will not eat. I will starve myself.”
“Really. You DO know that will hurt a lot, right?”
“You will be sorry if you do not capitulate.”
“Hmm. Not as sorry as you will be.”
“You will watch me grow thin and die.”
“No, actually, I’ll go home for dinner and watch TV.”
“But it is my LIFE we are talking about.”
“Yep. Sure is.”

From: Waterskiing in Finnegan’s Wake

A Musical Note: Cat Stevens – Oh, Very Young

The story of Cat Stevens is an odd one.  He made a huge hit on the world of music in the early 1970s with albums, Tea for the Tillerman, and Teaser and the Firecat, and followed them with a third album, Catch Bull at Four each of the albums winning critical acclaim, and selling very well.

In 1977 he converted to Islam and took the name Yusuf Islam, auctioned off his guitars and gave the money to charity, and put aside his musical career.  He returned to pop music in 2006 with an album “An Other Cup“.  His new music is competent, but I miss his original sound.

And speaking of the original sound, may I present to you, “Oh, Very Young”, by Cat Stevens.

The Battle for ePublishing – AuthorHouse

The story is told of Diogenes of Sinope.  He was a different sort of chap.  A contrarian if ever there was one. 

It is said that he carried a lantern with him, even in daylight, in search of an honest eBook publisher.  Eventually the guy he stole the lantern from came to reclaim it.  But that is another story altogether, and it has very little to do with today’s report on eBook publishing.

In my scatter-gun technique for finding an eBook publisher I continue to search for a good solution to creating an eBook for a blog.   I have not yet found one, if you are wondering, but I ran across Authorhouse.com today. 

Image: http://www.authorhouse.com

From what I can tell, they do offer eBook services and a free download of their own eBook on publishing.  To get it you have to answer many questions and present patents of nobility, which is a bit of a pain, especially because their free book appears to be more  a very long advertisement than a useful reference book.

To be fair, they look to be competent, but it seems that their prime motivation is to sell you traditional format books produced via self-publishing.  The prices they display go from $399 to $599.

Frankly, folks, I’m not yet sold on any of these big houses.  I feel there is an easy—and if “easy” is stretching it a bit, at least an inexpesnsive—way to format and post an eBook on our blogs.

A recap so far:  I’ve found two free processes that will format your book and allow you complete control over the end product… but you will recall the “catch” is that they will not work on a WordPress hosted blog.  Perhaps I should add that unless you want to give your eBook away, you’d have to either have created your Blog on a paid host, or have moved your blog from the WP hosted site to a paid host, as WordPress will not allow you to sell on a blog hosted with them.

We can but push on, and push on we shall…

Derriere: Word of the Day

Derriere, n.

The buttocks; rump.

She was known for many things, but mostly for being callipygian of derriere.

Alternate usage:

He hated living near the dairy.  It was the smell, mostly, what he called the “derriere.” (If you say it out loud, it makes sense)

How will you use derriere in a sentence today?  (Or callipygian for that matter?)

10 Ways to Strengthen Your Fiction Writing – Daily Writing Challenge

 

  

Everybody has at least 10 good rules, hints, ideas, etc. for improving writing.  

So, why do this all over again? 

How many good rules are there for Fiction Writers?  More than you or I could count, no doubt.  

Still, these rules have served me well, and continue to do so.  

Image: http://www.storyrules.com

 

Allow me to share: 

1. Your characters may not know how to spell (when writing), but they don’t misspell spoken words.  Writing in dialect is tricky.  If you’re not sure, practice first, try it out on your reader friends, don’t do it until you’re ready.
2. Misspellings have a place, but it is ONLY if you are showing something a character writes.
3. Present tense is tricky, especially in the first person.  If you insist on doing it, read several, and I mean SEVERAL books written that way, and try to catch the author up.  If you can do it for published books, think twice.
4. Dialogue should sound like speaking, but not like writing.  People do not normally speak in complete sentences, especially among friends.  Formal speech is for speech-making, not daily conversation.  On the other hand, most daily conversation would be boring to the average reader.  Boil it down.  Make it simple, and straight-forward.
5. Yes, Virginia, the first sentence of your novel IS very important.  Even if you don’t care all that much about a first sentence, you can count on it that agents, editors, and marketing managers live for them.
6. Starting your story with a long narrative is an excellent way to bore and chase your reader away.  Put some action on the first page.  Better still, put some action in the first sentence.  In fact, eschew prologues and initial flashbacks.  Hit the ground running and you are likely to hold your reader.
7. If nothing happens that forwards the story while your character is en route to work, simply say, “he drove to work”.  Describing the mundane is a pace killer.
8. When writing action scenes: consider short paragraphs, short sentences, simple direct words.
9. Description of a setting helps to create the mood, but don’t kill the pace of your work by dragging it out.
10. Whenever you read a list of 10 rules for writing, only take the rules that work for you.

Today’s challenge: 

What “rules” would you add to this list?  Which ones would you delete?