Tag: Misc

What is your favorite book of all time? Why? Plot, characterization, description, setting? What made you remember it?

Did Jeff Savage put you up to this? He’s always trying to trick me into revealing my secret identity.

Seriously, while I won’t give you specific titles, the novels I like best are very strongly character driven with plot twists that take me at least two thirds of the way through the book to figure it out. I need solid, clever dialog. Setting is almost completely unimportant to me, as long as it’s believable and I only need enough description to give me a sense of place.

Yes, I know it’s not Wednesday yet, but I will be out of the office for a couple of days and may not be able to get anywhere near a computer.

Which brings up my summer convention schedule. I’ll be traveling a lot between now and September and doing a lot of conventions. Getting to a computer on a regular basis is hard. Finding the time to write the posts, in between regular catch-up work is even harder. So, I thought I’d open this up to guest bloggers.

If you’d like to guest blog here, write your post and e-mail it to me. Do not send it as an attachment. Paste the text within the e-mail itself.

Posts need to be about writing and/or publishing–what to do, what not to do, personal experiences. They need to be well-written, interesting and/or entertaining. I need to agree with the main premise. Include your name and credentials and your web/blog address(es) for linking. Other LDS publishers get first consideration. Published authors get preference over non-published.

I will respond to all submissions as soon as possible. If I won’t be using yours, I’ll let you know why and you’ll have a chance to rewrite and resubmit. If I will be using yours, I’ll give you a ballpark posting date.

Do you think it’s easier to become a brain surgeon than a published author?

Yes.

It’s all about perception. There is an actual mathematical equation for this. It is:

Actual difficulty + [(perceived personal skill + personal desire to achieve goal) X number of people who believe they have the skill and desire] + number of perceived stumbling blocks unfairly placed in the way by people who are not as intelligent as you = perceived difficulty

According to the scientific study of 1,000 random people that I did last night in preparation to answer this question, I discovered:

(10 being most and 1 being least)

10 + [(0 + .2) X 0] + 3 = 13 = Difficulty in Becoming a Brain Surgeon

4 + [(10 + 9.5) X 1,000] + 10 = 19,514 = Difficulty in Becoming a Published Author

Okay, maybe despise is too strong of a word.

I was going to pretend I didn’t see the tags over on Six LDS Writers and on Josie Kilpack’s blog. (Both of which I read regularly). But then some blabber-mouth mentioned it in the comments trail here. Kind of hard to pretend I don’t read my own blog.

So.

1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday without the year:
(Thought you could trick me, eh? Josie said I could use the date my publishing company started–as if I can remember that far back. So I’m going with the date I started this blog.)

April 29–voted 364 to 1 as THE most boring day in the history of the world

2. List 3 events that occurred that day:
1429–Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans.
1770–James Cook arrives at and names Botany Bay, Australia.
1967–After refusing induction into the US Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.

3. List 2 important birthdays:
1982–Kamran Jawaid, Pakistani film critic and producer
1957–Timothy Treadwell, American bear enthusiast

4. List 1 death:
2002–Lor Tok, Thai comedian and actor

5. List 1 holiday or observance:
Baháí Faith–The ninth day of the Festival of Ridván.

Question from comments trail:
So what have you learned from us? And what thought processes have you changed because of our posts? Just wondering….

Among other things, I’ve learned that I really need to speed up my response time to your submissions. I am not so hung up on whether or not I get a SASE. The company has changed our preference from paper submission to electronic submission. We’ve reworded our ROFR clause, limiting it by time, quantity, and genre. I take more time explaining our contract to new authors. I read further before rejecting. When I’m rejecting for reasons other than quality of writing and/or appropriateness of content, I try to make that clear so the author understands it’s nothing to do with them. I try to think more deeply about my posts here and when I respond to a particularly idiotic question or comment (not yours), I imagine that I’m answering someone I care about, like my mother, and I try not to be too much of a snotty smarty pants.