January 28, 2010 by Cathy R.
“If there is no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money.” — Robert Graves
Writing friends…Our business changes all the time. On Wednesday, the long-awaited Apple iPad came out, with a starting list price of almost $500, which guarantees it won’t be a game changer in this writer’s life, at least not for a while. And last week, the online bookseller Amazon made an important announcement: it will begin offering a 70% royalty to authors willing to publish with them in digital text format for Kindle. That means authors, once they accept the terms of this offer, could receive more for their books than they might through physical books sales. For example, a typical $8.99 book would pay an author $3.15 under the standard system, but $6.25 under the new 70 percent scheme.
Some say this announcement is good news for self-publishers and small presses because it allows authors to cut out the middleman and go directly to their audience, much the same way that technology paved the way for independent music labels to connect musicians directly with their fans/listeners. (Of course, going forward, writers will really have to understand fine print and copyright laws, editing and marketing, if they’ll be working without that extra level of assistance.) Many in the book world are not pleased with this new course of events. To read more click here: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-amazon-fires-torpedo-at-book-industry-launches-70-kindle-royalty-option-2010-1 Or here: http://sfwriter.com/2010/01/amazons-70-royalty.html
Writing challenge set . . . To your keyboards! First-and-thirders, our hosts for Fifth Tuesday – March 30 at Booked for Murder – have set the writing challenge: “A Night at the Bookstore.”
Yes, anything can happen after the last person to leave turns out the lights and locks the door. Put your story in a poem, essay or a bit of flash fiction – a really short short story. Maximum length: 400 words.
Deadline is March 22. Email your piece to Jerry Peterson Beat the rush. Write right now.Commit to write: Defeat what literary agent Nathan Bransford calls “Excusitis”—an affliction that can kill writing dreams through doubt and excuses. Successful writers, he says, refuse to allow “buts”—“but I don’t have the time”—to get in their way.
Choose to edit: Once a month perhaps? If you’re unable to edit this e-letter frequently, offer to gather information and send it out, with whatever writing and publishing news you’ve come across, every other week or even less often. February will be without news, unless you volunteer to do it. —Cathy
Last Meeting…
No updates from second-and-fourth group.
Who’s Up Next…
February 2: Clayton Gill (chapter 9, Fishing Derby), Amber Boudreau (chapter 7, YA novel), Pat Edwards (poems), Millie Mader (chapter 16, Life on Hold), Alicia Connolly-Lohr (chapter 32, Lawyer Lincoln), and Kim Simmons (???).
February 16: Clayton Gill (chapter 10, Fishing Derby), Amber Boudreau (chapter 8, YA novel), Kim Simmons (???), and Jerry Peterson (???).
From our Writers…
Carol Hornung of second-and-fourth group went to Barnes & Noble earlier this month to listen to and meet author Temple Grandin, noted animal behavior specialist and an adult living with autism. Dr. Grandin’s research and insights have fascinated readers and landed her in Time Magazine, U.S. News & World Report and on the television shows such as 20/20 and ABC’s Primetime Live. A full-length film about her, featuring actor Claire Danes in the title role, will premier on HBO February 6.
Emotions and Interests
“On January 20th, Dr. Temple Grandin spoke at Border’s Books in Madison, promoting her new book, Animals Make Us Human. She has also written several books about her life with autism. She was welcomed with a standing-room-only crowd.
Dr. Grandin, an animal behavior specialist, spoke about emotions in animals. Do they exist? People tend to anthropomorphize animals – bestow human emotions on them that probably aren’t real, so behaviorists had to step back and study what’s really going on.
Animals do have basic, real emotions, Dr. Grandin says, and this drives their behavior. They experience fear, which helps them avoid danger; rage, which gives them the ability to defend themselves; panic, a form of anxiety that creates a social attachment system within animal families; and seeking, which drives the animals to find food, water, shelter, and a mate. All these emotions enhance the animal’s ability to survive.
It occurred to me that these emotions are also a terrific guideline for writers plotting a story and trying to figure out how their characters should behave. Of course, human emotions are more complex, but the basic conflicts are there – fear, anger, loss, and desire.
Dr. Grandin also took questions from the audience on the topic of autism. She’s an advocate of having autistic people do as much as they possibly can. When asked why the autism rate is increasing, she said for mild conditions, like Asperger’s syndrome, it’s just being diagnosed more. “The geeks and nerds, we’ve always been around.”
People with autism should develop their strengths. This, too, I thought was applicable to writers. In her case, she was an artist. She’d draw pictures of horses all day long, but her mother challenged her to draw other things. When young Temple created a picture of a beach, her mother put that picture in a nice, glass-covered frame and displayed it, as if to say, “what you’ve done before was fine, but this is really special.”
For writers, look at what you like to do. If you love writing pages and pages of description, take time to really work on a scene with dialog. If you tend to focus on characters, make sure you spend some time constructing a solid plot.
Whether it’s animal behavior, autism, or writing, we all look at the world from our own unique perspective and can learn so much from different points of view.
Words & Language…
Another great word from Paul McFedries at WordSpy:
Email apnea. Noun: The unconscious and temporary suspension of regular breathing while checking and reading email. Also: e-mail apnea.
Example citation: Researchers say that the stress of not being able to process information as fast as it arrives, combined with the personal and social expectation that, say, you will answer every e-mail message, can deplete and demoralize you…Author Linda Stone, who coined the term “continuous partial attention” to describe the mental state of today’s knowledge workers, says she’s now noticing, get this, “e-mail apnea”: the unconscious suspension of regular and steady breathing when people tackle their e-mail. – Paul Hemp, Death by Information Overload,” Harvard Business Review, September 1, 2009.
Earliest Citation: I wanted to know—how widespread is “email apnea?” I observed others on computers and Blackberries: in their offices, their homes, at cafes—the vast majority of people held their breath, or breathed very shallowly, especially when responding to email. I watched people on cell phones, talking and walking, and noticed that most were mouth-breathing and hyperventilating. – Linda Stone, “Just Breathe: Building the case for Email Apnea.” The Huffington Post, February 8, 2008.
One Soulful Contest for Poets
January 31 is the deadline for entry in the Spirit First Poetry Contest, sponsored by a new non-profit meditation community, located in the Shenandoah Valley of Maryland and directed in part by former magazine publisher and Washington, D.C. freelance writer Steve Caplan. Spirit First’s mission: to encourage “holistic attitudes, healthful living, gentleness with the earth, and compassion with the world.”
About the contest, organizers say: “Every poem is a gift, and each one is read slowly and aloud.”
Submissions may be of any length and any style but must have a theme of meditation, mindfulness, stillness or silence (or any faith or none.) Poems must be previously unpublished. Award: $150 first prize; $75 second prize; $50 third prize. Winning poems will be considered for possible inclusion in a book project. For more info see SpiritFirst.org
Writer’s Craft: Book Trailers
Best-selling author Jacquelyn Mitchard sends them to everybody on her e-mail list. Many authors wouldn’t consider promoting a book without one. Some readers even buy books based on the powerful images they project. Book trailers are an effective way to convert the written word to visual pictures, and if you’re so inclined, you can make one yourself. Check out this link and get going: http://www.squidoo.com/booktrailers
The Last Word…
Columnist and author Dave Barry:
“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.”
Tuesdays with Story 
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