Fellow Writers

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Leo Babauta discusses the future of books with Seth Godin

November 18, 2011 in Fellow Writers, Writing Tips | No comments

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’m bookmarking this here mainly so that I can go back and listen to the whole thing. Some of the topics discussed:

  • Whether the new world of publishing is scary or not
  • The clear, well-lit path that publishing has been taking for more than a decade
  • How lack of scarcity has changed publishing forever
  • The new role of publishing in the online world
  • How not to wait to be picked
  • How Seth’s Domino Project deals with unsolicited requests from authors
  • How the Domino Project planned to transform everything about publishing
  • How he eliminated cover images, shortened books, eliminated advances, and what he learned
  • Whether collectible editions of books work well
  • Spreading ideas through books, and how paid works vs. free
  • The growing problem of people hating reading
  • Whether you should publish how-to or cookbooks at all
  • What types of books will sell well in the new landscape
  • The problem of getting selected by the masses in the vast sea of millions of published books
  • Why you don’t need that many followers/friends as an author
  • Why the willingness to fail is so important, with so many options available to authors
  • A future where everything that happens is your fault — and whether that’s good or bad
  • The horror stories of Pulitzer Prize winning authors
  • Amazon’s vastly important information about readers
  • Deciding to publish your best ideas on your blog vs. your book
  • Why Seth doesn’t have comments on his blog
  • Giving up the goal of having everyone in the world like your stuff
  • The cycle of productivity, and having nothing next
The original is here: http://zenhabits.net/seth/

Congratulations to my friend William Ledbetter!

July 29, 2011 in Fellow Writers | No comments

I was incredibly happy to hear the news that one of my best friends in this (or any other) world, William Ledbetter, just won 1st Place in the current Writers of the Future contest! Way to go Bill!

Some news from Chris Baty

July 28, 2011 in Fellow Writers, Recently Observed | No comments

I just got this in my email inbox. A little sad, a little happy, the guy who played a good part in me becoming a full time writer is now moving on to become one himself. Good deal, Chris. Good deal. Go get ‘em, and if anyone stands in your way, use Monkey Face Attack.

His letter:

Dear Esteemed Writer,

Since founding NaNoWriMo back in 1999, I’ve had the pleasure of sending a lot of emails to participants. I’ve written pep talks, newsletters, exhortations, thank-you notes, apologies, and donation appeals. And, occasionally, I’ve threatened you with the release of face-eating guilt monkeys should your writerly output not increase.

Today, I’m sending you an email I’ve never written to participants before. I’m writing to let you know that this January, after competing in NaNoWriMo XIII, I will be stepping down as OLL’s Executive Director. I am going to be taking a page out of one of my pep talks and heading off on the big, fun, scary adventure of being a full-time writer.

Eeeee.

Yep.

When NaNoWriMo began as a bunch of overcaffeinated yahoos, I never dreamed it would grow into a nonprofit with an office, a year-round staff of eight, Municipal Liaison-run chapters in hundreds of towns, and classroom programs taught in almost 2,000 schools.

Every day I come to work feeling lucky to be a part of it all, and so much of that has to do with you. It’s no secret that OLL has the best participants in the world—a wildly fun, brave, supportive, and hilarious group. Through NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy, and the Young Writers Program, I’ve met so many people who have completely changed my life. We’ve laughed together. We’ve cried together. And several times a year, we’ve threatened each other with face-eating monkeys. Just to show how much we care.

I’ve loved every minute of it, and when I step down as Executive Director, I want to continue on as a participant. I’ll also be taking on the role of OLL Board Member Emeritus, which is a fancy way of saying that I get to offer input and advice without actually having to do any work.

And when I head off to write in January, I’m really hoping you’ll come with me. I’ll need you to help me maintain my sanity as I sit in front of my computer all day long, so please stay in touch.

And now? Now we have some work to do, because another autumn of creative mayhem is almost upon us. Come December, we’ll hire a new Executive Director, and the staff and I will train this person to within an inch of his or her life. There will be wind sprints. There will be broadsword instruction. There will be espresso-based endurance tests.

They will be judged worthy.

On January 20th, I will head off with you to my writing bunker, and NaNo, the Frenzy, and YWP will continue under the same Program Directors who have been running them with passion and vision for years. Our beloved Municipal Liaisons will keep organizing raucous get-togethers to boost our word counts and writerly mojo in April and November.

OLL’s mission will deepen. The programs will grow and improve. The inspiration engine we’ve all built together will help kids and adults discover their creative potential for decades to come. It’s going to be good.

Thank you for continuing to be such a central part of this organization, and for being an important part of my life these last 12 years.

With a few monkeys left in me yet,

Chris
Executive Director
The Office of Letters and Light

Lauren DeRosa, the Writer in the Window

March 30, 2011 in Fellow Writers, Procrastination Techniques, Recently Observed | No comments

Never mind that Lauren DeRosa does her writing in a store front window ... she still uses a typewriter. You go, girl!

This kind of reminds me of my WriterCam.com website (which I hardly use anymore … but should). Savannah Georgia area writer Lauren DeRosa has decided to take up residence in a storefront window to inspire her to keep churning out the pages.

I did (and still occasionally do) the same thing via the Internet, but then again, it’s not the same, because she interacts with people and I’m merely on display. Plus, she’s cute, and I’m not so cute. There’s probably a difference there somewhere as well.

If I didn’t have a day job I might do something like this, but the closest I’ll ever get is in the virtual world Second Life, where my avatar will often sit there typing away while I, on the other side of the screen, type away.

Look for “Groovy Greenberg” on Second Life if you ever have the urge to interrupt me while I’m typing. I’d be happy to chat … we writers are always looking for an excuse not to write.

For more information on Lauren DeRosa, see the article in SavanaNow.com or go to her LinkedIn page.

Millea Kenin, where did you go?

October 20, 2010 in Fellow Writers | 4 comments

Originally Posted March 30, 2007 – Brought back to top because I was just thinking about her.  Millea, you are not forgotten…

Dear Millea,

This is a letter I should have written years ago, but alas, it would have already been too late.

I have you to thank for the novel I have published. It was you, back in the days of Owlflight Magazine, who sent that initial story back to me and said, “Jerry, this really should be a novel!”

You were the only editor in my fledgling days who I would simply write letters to, not even to send a story. You always wrote back. You were always so nice. I have always remembered you fondly.

I turned that story into a novel and it did sell, and was published, but you never got to see it. I lost touch with you long ago. Then today I decide I really have to thank you for this. So I went to that global extension of the human mind, Google, and looked you up.

Too late. Way too late. You passed away over ten years ago.

My heart sank. Suddenly, too late, I wanted to know more about you, and so I Googled for more. All I found was page after page of nothing. Your name is everywhere on lists, publication credits, and the mention of an obituary in Locust. I saw that you have a daughter in New York, and that she graduated and is married.

But the one bio page I found for you is blank.

That is not acceptable.

There is a void in the group mind that must be filled. We know you were an editor, an author, and a poet. We have lists of your works. But that’s not enough.

Here, right now, with this missive, I want to release into the group mind that you were also a wonderful person. Kind, artistic, caring, and nurturing … even to a strange kid who kept sending you crappy stories.

Ironic. Now that I know that you’re gone, I miss you. Because it’s too late to thank you.

Please someone out there fill in that blank biography page.

Please.

Philip José Farmer is dead

February 25, 2009 in Fellow Writers | No comments

Another writer gone. I remember first reading Philip’s story “Riders of the Purple Wage” in Harlan Ellison’s “Dangerous Visions” anthology. His works have always been a wild ride.

RIP Philip.

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John Updike is Dead

January 27, 2009 in Fellow Writers | No comments

UpdikeMy fellow writers, we lost another one of our own.

He lived 76 years, and that was long enough for him to see the transformation or, as some might say, decline of the literary arts.

May favorite of his was Rabbit is Rich, which I read before my first marriage, and am living now.  Not that I’m rich, but I’m the age of his main character, and facing a lot of those mid-life questions.  But also in RiR is the theme of rediscovering life during an age where you can fully appreciate it.

That’s me, now.  Old enough to appreciate it, young enough to still explore it.

This tenuous link is how I somehow felt connected to Updike, and learning of his death, feel loss.

Ironic that what I have been reading for the past few weeks is a collection of Updike’s short stories called The Afterlife.

He wasn’t the greatest of writers, but especially for his time, he was a frank and bold one, willing to look unflinchingly at life, no matter how mundane, and find the wonder of it.

Geoge Orwell Has A Blog

August 8, 2008 in Check it out!, Fellow Writers | No comments

How 1984 is this? Decades after his death, George Orwell now has a blog.

Starting tomorrow, the organization who runs The Orwell Prize will begin publishing Orwell’s diaries, each diary entry to be published exactly seventy years after it was written.

Now that’s some serious network lag.

R.I.P. Sir Arthur C. Clarke

March 19, 2008 in Fellow Writers | No comments

“After a prolific and esteemed career, Sir Arthur has passed away in Sri Lanka.”

Clarke’s books were the first real SF I read.  It was Tom Swift > James Bond > Arthur Clarke.

This is a sad day for our genre, but who knows … if there an “other side” to this existence, he is now on his most adventurous odyssey.

- Jerry  :-(

Goodbye Kilgore Trout

April 12, 2007 in Fellow Writers | 1 comment

Kurt VonnegutWe lost one of my favorite authors yesterday. Kurt Vonnegut was our modern day Mark Twain. He passed away yesterday at 84 of complications from a head injury he received a few weeks ago.

From CNN: Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he’d prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

“When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon,” Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005.

“My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I’ll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children.”