Worst Books of The Decade

The Guardian's Worst Books of The Decade has some interesting choices in the comments section. Oryx and Crake! Cloud Atlas! Never Let Me Go!

How could they?

Wouldn't it be great to be well known enough to feature in a worst books of the decade list, though?

The Future is ChickieNobs

In her brilliant novel Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood's characters discuss the invention of ChickieNobs:

"This is the latest," said Crake.

What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes, and at the end of each tube another bulb was growing.

"What the hell is it?" said Jimmy.

"Those are chickens," said Crake. "Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They've got ones that specialize in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.

"But there aren't any heads..."

"That's the head in the middle," said the woman. "There's a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don't need those."

Now read this article in The Times

I feel a bit sick.

Self Publishing - The Way of the Future?

The Harlequin debacle has renewed the debate over self/vanity publishing.

I'm not convinced that this is a good idea for fiction writers unless they really know what they're doing and are realistic about the chances of doing well.

Some bloggers have similar views, others don't.

It'll be very interesting to see what things look like in five years. Will the publishing industry have changed out of all recognition or will it have simply been tweaked a little?

Dearly, Departed

I read about this YA novel in Publisher's Lunch:

Lia Habel's DEARLY, DEPARTED, a maximalist, post-apocalyptic, neo-Victorian steampunk zombie novel in which a girl, whose blood is impervious to the "Z-virus," searches for her missing dad, is kidnapped by (good) zombies, falls improbably in love with a rather sweet zombie boy, and sets out to save the world from a zombie plague beyond imagining, to Chris Schluep at Ballantine, in a significant deal, in a two-book deal, by Chris Lotts at Ralph M. Vicinanza.

I think this sounds great fun! Sweet Zombie boys make a refreshing change from sparkly vampire boys, don't you think?

I very much like the author's website.

There's Gold In Them Thar Slushpiles...

...or so Harlequin have decided, much to the disgust of many a writer.

I wonder if other houses will follow suit? "Hey, we don't think enough of your book to publish it, but pay us a few hundred squid and we will! And then, if it makes money, we'll offer you a real publishing deal."

Win-win for the publishers. They don't even run the risk of rejecting a potential best seller.

Whew. It's a bit cynical, isn't it? I know publishing is a business and all that, but...

What Does It Mean?

I'm re-reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. I've read the series a few times now, but this time I'm even more astounded by its brilliance, perhaps because I'm reading more carefully (I read in an odd way, I think. The first time I read a book, I read it really quickly, to find out the story. If I like the book, I then re-read it at least twice. I re-read my favourite books dozens of times. Sometimes I have to buy new copies because they fall apart from too much reading).

This line from The Subtle Knife is so simple, but so beautiful.

"..he felt something so rare his heart nearly failed; he felt Hester's face pressed to his own, and it was wet with tears."

That sentence is loaded with meaning, at least for me. And as Pullman himself says:

"The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the thoughts in the reader's mind. So when people ask me what I meant by this story, or what was the message I was trying to convey in that one, I have to explain that I'm not going to explain.

Anyway, I'm not in the message business; I'm in the “Once upon a time” business."

Pullman is right about this. Once a story goes out into the world, it no longer belongs solely to the author, but also to the reader and it's up to the reader to decide what it all means.

Pacing

(Pic from Born Free Foundation Archives)

That's what I'm doing. Up and down the room, making sure my plot all fits together.

I'm on, I think, the fourth draft of this version of the story. Luckily I LOVE rewriting. It's my favourite part of the whole process (I HATE HATE HATE writing the first draft). I enjoy the challenge of changing story elements, adding new bits, deleting others, all the while making sure the whole thing doesn't collapse.

But there's another type of pacing to be considered at this stage of the game - story pace. I read this fabulous post from the fabulous Scott Westerfield. He suggests compiling a pace chart for the three levels of pace (action, tension, nothing).

I love this idea and I'm going to have a bash once I've finished the current draft.

Lately, I forget things. I've usually got a pretty good memory. It may well be old age, but I watched this Stephenie Meyer interview. She talks about how her head empties of everything but the story. So, I think maybe my brain is too full up of my story and it's squeezing everything else out.




The lovely Sandra has nominated me for a blog award. How decent of her.

Now I have to nominate seven other bloggers. The rules are:

1. Copy and paste the pretty picture which you see above onto your own blog.
2. Thank the person who gave you the award and post a link to their blog.
3. Write 7 things about yourself we do not know.
4. Choose 7 other bloggers to award.
5. Link to those 7 other bloggers.
6. Notify your 7 bloggers.

Seven things about me you do not know:

1. I almost got expelled from infant school for doing something bad.

2. But it wasn't me who clogged up the toilets with loo roll. I was fitted up, I swear.

3. I am afraid of clearing out the cupboard under the stairs.

4. I once had Pete Shelley round for dinner.

5. I lived next door to my secondary school. If I played truant, the teachers would come round and knock on the door. Meanies.

6. One of my best ever stories is about a runaway dragon (penned by an eight year old me).

7. The film The Man With The X-Ray eyes traumatised me so much, I was afraid to be in the house alone for about a week.* If thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out! OMFG.

* I was thirteen at the time.

I now pass this award to:

A Write Blog
Melinda Szymanik
Sophia Bennett
Lorraine Mace
Nik Perring
Bob Burke
Anne Brooke

But don't worry, I won't send Ray Milland and his EYES around if you don't spill the beans.