The Open Author

Looks like we’re getting ready to start again, day two of the LDStorymakers. There are a few more faces than there were yesterday. On the docket for today, an author panel to start with, Workshops until lunch, a few more workshops, and then a final speaker. After that, we’ll have the Whitney awards gala. Should be fun.

Panel members:

Christopher Bigelow – Zarahemla Books
Lisa Mangum – Deseret Books
Kammi Rencher – Cedar Fort Inc.
Kirk Shaw – Covenant Communications

A question was asked about why there are not agents in the LDS market, and if the publishers would work with them, should an author get them. Resoundingly the publishers said yes, they would work with them. However, since the LDS market is so small, there just aren’t that many agents in the market.

A question was asked about what kind of historical fiction is DB looking for. Lisa Mangum says anything, with the exception of Book of Mormon historical fiction. Kirk says that Covenant likes to look at books with a ‘unique look’ on history. Things that haven’t been done.

A question was asked about ‘is there a particular content you don’t allow in your books’? Zarahemla says, “we allow anything in our books.” Then laughed. That is not true, but he does say that they tend to allow things that the other publishers do not allow. He says that Zarahemla allows things a little more ‘earthy’. DB says that don’t like swearing, graphic sex, etc. They want PG topics. Kammi says the same thing. She says there are things that we may need to discuss, but it needs to be done tactfully. Kirk says they had a great book sent to them about polygamy, but since they don’t publish that topic, they couldn’t accept it. Plus, no mountain dew.

A questions was asked, “does .99999999999 (repeating, of course) really equal 1?” The answer came back, “I’m not sure. The answer is yes.

Chris Bigelow says they are looking for quality books that were rejected by DB, Covenant, etc., because they were a bit too ‘adventurous’.

When sending manuscripts to Christian publishers, do you have to hide your Utah address? Lisa says the sad truth is that sometimes you do. Utah has a reputation among Christian publishers and book sellers.

What is expected of an author in regards to doing their own marketing? Authors should do a lot, if not the majority. Here is my problem, I hate to market my stuff. Lisa says, “we want you to do as much as you can do.” Covenant says, “we have found that book signing doesn’t do much.” They prefer their authors to come in and talk with their marketing team, find ways that they can push their book.

Kirk is giving us some pointers on how to get your manuscript noticed.

Kirk had us do a little activity on writing openers. He’s got a nice list of good openers. Some of my personal favorites”

Early this morning, 1 anuary 2021, three minutes after midnight, the last numan being to be born on earth was killed in a pub brawl in a suburb of Buenos Aires, aged twenty-five years, two months and twelve days. – P.D. James, The Children of Men

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. – J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit

It was a pleasure to burn. – Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

Forty miles out of London, passing through the rolling green fields and cherry orchards of Kent, the morning train of the South Eastern Railway attained its maximum speed of fifty-four miles an hour. – Michael Crichton, The Great Train Robbery

A few important things to consider:

Voice – It’s important that each character has it’s own voice. This is very tricky because it’s a single author writing the book, but you have to keep track of each character’s style.

Kirk mentions how important conflict is. He said how he sometimes has a book with good characters, good setting, but no conflict, and he has to dismiss the book.

Show, not tell. This is an oldie, but goodie. You don’t say “Brad was angry”. Rather you describe what Brad is doing, which makes it clear to the reader he is angry.

The biggest thing an editor looks for is Climax. If you don’t have a good build and a strong resolution, then in Kirk’s opinion, you don’t have a good book. You can have multiple climaxes, but make sure the final one (and main one), is the best.

Josi gave a great presentation on how to write a synopsis, however it was so good that it was standing room only, so I couldn’t take notes. I did notice a few things, while standing in the corner.

I’ll see if I can get a handout, and post some of the highlights.

Tim Travaglini is an editor from putnum, and he looks surprisingly familiar. I don’t know where I would have seen him before. He’s wearing a bow tie, which is pretty dang cool. Tim’s comments are in regular text, my 2 cents are in italics.

Tim is talking about getting out of the slush pile. He says there is no easy way to do this, or rather no guaranteed way. He mentioned a recent Newberry award winner who had 400 rejection letters. This kind of news always cheers everybody up in the room. If a newberry award winner has to go through 400 rejection letters, where does that leave the rest of us poor suckers?

Statistically speaking, none of you are going to be published by the end of today. Rats! I want my money back.

Three components to success.

1. Natural Talent
2. Training
3. Persistence

See, something like that scares me. I don’t know if I have the first one, I know I haven’t got the second one, and as for the third one…I’m bored with this sentence, I’m stopping.

Tim says that if you have two of these, you’re good to go. If you’re really good, and have good training, you might be laxy and still succeed. Or if you have no talent, but you have a good trainer, and are persistent, you might still succeed.

If you want to write, you have to read. And read. And read and read. You can’t skip out on this step. If you don’t read, you won’t be able to write.

Writing is a masochistic pursuit. Isn’t that the truth!

I’m a member of LDStorymakers. This weekend is their annual conference, and I’ll be blogging about both the sessions I attend, and the Whitney awards. It’s kind of like the Oscars, but without all the psychosis.

I’ll blog about the sessions here at this blot, but I’ll be blogging about the awards at this site. We’ll be doing that live, so if you keep hitting refresh (tomorrow night, don’t start now or you’ll ruin your mouse), you’ll know before mainstream America knows just who the big winners are.

If you’re like me, you’re just not pleased with the number of digits to which you have memorized pi. I mean, come on, anybody can say 3.14159. How much cooler is it to be able to say 3.1415926535. And if you really want to be the life of the party, then you need to be able to strike a pose, take a deep breath, and rattle off, 3.14159265358979323846.

Now you’re talking.

But if you’re like me it can be difficult to memorize pi to this many places. I mean it’s just numbers. There is no rhyme nor reason to them. It can really hamper your social life if you can only get to the 12th digit. I mean, come on!

Well, have I got a solution for you. Instead of having to memorize those pesky digits, there is now an easier way. You now only need to memorize this.

That’s right, baby. That page contains pi. Do you see it? Count up the letters of each word. That is the next digit in the sequence. It’s becomes a simple matter to recite the poem, count up the letters, and bang! you’ve just produced pi.

So, the next time you find yourself without a calculator, and with no access to the internet, or any math book, but you desperately need pi to 20 places…I’ve got you covered. Memorize the poem, and you’re good to go.

Looks like the last of the Big Three have passed away. Arthur C. Clarke has passed away.

I don’t read as much SciFi as I did when I was younger (why that is could be a subject for another post), but I always liked Clarke’s books. Which is interesting because nothing ever really happens in his books. When you think SciFi you think fantastic, exciting stories. Star Wars is a great grand opera with lasers, glowing sabers, and mystics.

Clarke’s books will have none of that nonsense. Take Rendezvous with Rama. If I were to sum up that book in a sentence it would be “This big space ship comes close to earth, a team goes in to explore, and there isn’t much there.” Sound mind-numbingly boring? It’s not. It’s considered a classic, and well should be.

Or take the movie 2001, which Clarke wrote. There is no dialogue in the first 20 minutes. It’s just a bunch of apes wandering around. The movie is good, the book, superb.

So, if you’ve never read one of Clarke’s books, do yourself a favor. Pick up Rendezvous with Rama, and give it a try. Then read Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and finish it off with Asimov’s Foundation.

Clarke’s death marks the end of an era, but we’re lucky to have hundreds of books from these great authors, and entire worlds that for many are still undiscovered. Happy exploring.

This afternoon I had to walk to my son’s birthday party at the local ‘fun park’. I was waking across the parking lot when I had the strangest sensation. It was a feeling on my face. As I walked I could feel it begin to travel from my face, to the rest of my body. It took me a minute to realize what it was, because it’s been months since I’ve felt it.

It was the sun! And the strange sensation I felt was warm (at least that is what we called it last fall, the last time it was around).

Anyway, I think I could get used to the feeling. I enjoy it quite a lot.

I came across a site today that I have to share. The State of Florida just dropped their reading curriculum (the nation spends 8 billion dollar a year on curriculum) in favor of a program on the internet, for the low, low price of free.

That’s right. Free.

But if it’s free it can’t be all that good right? I mean if we’re spending 8 billion dollars on curriculum then…*snicker* then it has to be of very high…*sputter* quality, right? *guffaw*.

Sorry, I tried really hard to say that with a straight face.

Anyway, check out the site. It has sequential lessons that introduce, reintroduce, and reinforce. There are videos to demonstrate sample lessons and more. It’s all quite comprehensive and well put together.

Oh, and did I mention it’s free? And not just free, but it’s licensed under the creative commons attribution – share alike license. So you can add to, copy, and redistribute, as long as you attribute the work. It’s built on medi-wiki.

So, if you know of anybody trying to teach their kids to read, send them on over.