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Book Vs. Film: Total Recall / We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
August 10th, 2012
At the very beginning of the recently released Total Recall, a graphic recognizes the company behind the movie, producer Neal H. Moritz's Original Films. The unintentional irony of the word "original" being attached to a remake caused the audience at my screening to chuckle knowingly. What the people in that theater may have missed in their gentle mockery was another card, deep in the credits, that acknowledged another layer of inspiration: Science Fiction legend Philip K.
Read Column →Book Brawl: YA Covers vs. Adult Covers
August 9th, 2012
Everyone does it. Some people might claim they don't, but they're lying. It's ingrained in our human DNA. It's a natural reflex that can't be denied. We can fight it, but our first instinct will always be to judge a book by its cover. And what's so wrong about this behavior, anyway? We may not have evolved enough as a species to overcome our superficiality, but haven't we developed as artists and designers? Is there any excuse nowadays for a bad cover? (The answer, by the way, is no.)
Read Column →Transgressive Women: How Bad Covers And Sexism Threaten All Of Literature
August 9th, 2012
Look at this book: Mentally project said book onto a shelf as you walk by. Assume your eyes flicker to it. Does it appeal? Would you reach up (in my hypothetical situation, you are short or the shelf is high) to read the back copy, maybe flick through the pages?
Read Column →Transition As Metaphor
August 8th, 2012
Introduction We’re all familiar with transitions as they relate to speeches or essays—the wide variety of clunkers we packed into our high-school and college papers in an effort to reach that ever-dreaded, ever-required, word count. Filler like: “In conclusion," or "with regards to," or "apropos of." As dead as these particular transitions may be to us as story-tellers, perhaps we must play Dr. Frankenstein and create for our living and breathing stories the pieces of tissue that keep their bones linked.
Read Column →Good Sex, Great Prayers: A Journey in Publication (Part 1: Origins)
August 8th, 2012
It was sort of like the Machete trailer they showed in Grindhouse. I had the genre, the title, and a vague idea of what it would be about, but ultimately, Good Sex, Great Prayers was just something I used to fake people out regarding the ‘what are you working on now?’ question (see also: the dubstep novel, which is exactly what it sounds like). It was a joke, more than anything.
Read Column →The Blagger's Guide to William Faulkner
August 7th, 2012
To blag (v): to sound like you know what you’re talking about when you don’t The Blagger’s Guide to Literature (n): an invaluable resource for those who wish to blag about books without actually reading them.
Read Column →Writing 'The Twenty-Year Death'
August 7th, 2012
My novel, The Twenty-Year Death, is the story of a “great American novelist” named Shem Rosenkrantz as he goes from literary darling and popular success to used-up hack who can’t get work. His story, which unfolds over twenty years, is told through three complete novels, each in the style of a different mystery master: Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler, and Jim Thompson.
Read Column →What I Learned From My Kickstarter Campaign
August 6th, 2012
A little less than two weeks ago, my Kickstarter campaign ended with 330% of its original goal. I had asked for $8,000 to help fund the printing of my first novel, The Girl Who Would Be King, which I had tried and failed to sell to publishers in 2010 (read about that journey here!) and ended up with a shockingly wonderful $26,478. So what did I learn?
Read Column →Ask The Agent: Rejections And Rude Agents... What To Do?
August 6th, 2012
This week’s questions deal with the more emotional side of being a writer. Not only is this a technically hard industry to break in to (so many rules and regulations, so many faux pas), but it’s also a very emotionally hard, intimidating, and taxing industry to work in. It doesn’t always have to be that way. Listen carefully to this week’s answers.
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