Archives
I have many many many posts in various states of undress, which I cannot get to because of other pressing matters. But I do not want to leave you with nothing so here is a sample of some links which have amused me:
Which monkey is cuter? Go to Jennifer Lynn Barnes' blog and
vote on which of her monkeys attracts more mates. I think it's completely obvious.
An excellent article by Meg Reid on the new Disney movie, which features a black princess.
This one just made me laugh. English writers
TAKE ON THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE and WIN. Cause that's how writing works. It's all a death match.
A
truly amazing artist, Ernie Barnes, dies.
On
exclamation ...
Posted by Justine at 0:00, April 30th, 2009 under Bloggery |
I was actually looking for "Brush Off Up Your Shakespeare" cause it's brilliant plus it's clearly inspired by
Damon Runyon who published many of his best stories in the 1930s and is thus within the period of my next novel, which makes it vaguely research-ish. Not to mention Runyon's stories are almost all set in NYC. A highly imaginary NYC, I grant you, but still.
(Er, for those who don't know my next novel is set in NYC in the 1930s. I'm only reading and watching and listening to 1930s stuff until the novel is written. I'm being extremely strict about it except for sometimes my interpretation of "1930s" gets a teeny tiny bit elastic.)
Sadly, I could not find ...
Posted by Justine at 0:45, April 29th, 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, New York City/USA, Praising, Viewing |
Posted by Justine at 9:08, April 28th, 2009 under Cricket, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 0:07, April 27th, 2009 under Publishing business, State of the World |
Posted by Justine at 8:48, April 26th, 2009 under Viewing |
Posted by Justine at 10:23, April 25th, 2009 under Bloggery |
There's a very fine line between promoting your books and writing tickets on yourself. It's a moving line. What one person finds overly self promotery other people think is fine.
For instance, I was once told I had crossed the line because my Livejournal icons were of the front covers of my books. I thought that was nuts. I like the covers of my books. Why can't I make icons out of them? Too pushy, I was told. It's like you're only on Livejournal to get people to buy your books. Someone else told me I shouldn't mention my books on my blog because it sounds like I just want people to buy them and that's the only reason I ...
Posted by Justine at 13:39, April 24th, 2009 under Publishing business, Writing life, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 12:42, April 23rd, 2009 under Publishing business, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 23:23, April 22nd, 2009 under Bloggery, Fashion |
Posted by Justine at 12:55, April 22nd, 2009 under Ranting, State of the World |
Nathan Bransford has a typical agent's blog. He talks a lot about the business and answers questions from his readers, most of whom are unpublished writers. Recently he
ran a competition to give aspiring writers an insight into one aspect of an agent's job: reading query letters. He ran 50. Three were for books that went on to be published. Readers got to pick five.
Reading the query letters was the least interesting part of the exercise for me. I didn't finish a single one. I hate reading queries almost as much as I hate writing them. I think they're a form designed to breed clunky, cliched, boring writing. It's close to impossible to write an elegant and engaging ...
Posted by Justine at 11:40, April 21st, 2009 under Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 8:13, April 20th, 2009 under Reading, Viewing |
Posted by Justine at 10:18, April 19th, 2009 under Fashion |
Posted by Justine at 13:10, April 18th, 2009 under Magic or Madness trilogy, Praising |
Posted by Justine at 17:31, April 17th, 2009 under Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 8:57, April 17th, 2009 under Liar, Magic or Madness trilogy |
Ever since I first started learning about publishing I've been hearing that the majority of the books published by legitimate publishing house don't earn out. But I've never seen any concrete evidence to back this claim up. Since I started learning about children's & young adult publishing I've been hearing that the majority of their books do earn out. I've heard the same about the romance genre.
As far as I know no publisher releases what percentage of their books earn out. All we have to go on is anecdotal evidence.
I'm starting to wonder whether this oft quoted stat---sometimes it's 7 out of 10 don't earn out; other times it's 9 out of 10---is solely about adult publishing. Because the same ...
Posted by Justine at 10:36, April 16th, 2009 under New York City/USA, Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 16:08, April 15th, 2009 under Bloggery, Frippery, Young Adult literature |
I'm getting some push back in email and elsewhere about
this post so I'd like to set the record straight ((Wish me luck with that.)):
There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking a publisher for an ARC (advance reader copy) of a book.
ARCs are created solely to promote the book in question. The hope is that the ARCs will go out to bloggers and reviewers and librarians and booksellers and generate excitement and enthusiasm for the book ahead of its publication date. That's what ARCs are for.
My sole purpose in posting was to let people know that I'm not the person to contact for Liar ARCs. I was not saying that you should not try to get hold of ...
Posted by Justine at 13:49, April 15th, 2009 under Liar, Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 0:02, April 15th, 2009 under Frippery, Liar |
Posted by Justine at 12:02, April 14th, 2009 under Frippery, Liar |
I started using
Twitter in earnest at 9:16 AM on the 5th of April, 2009 (Eastern Standard USian time).
And it was good.
Since then I have tweeted around 15 times a day. And that's only because I was restraining myself. Why did no one warn me how addictive the world of Twitter is? Damn your eyes!
I admit I was dubious. I signed on at first solely to follow two friends of mine back home in Sydney. Neither of whom blogs and we're not very good at writing each other. It worked. I feel much more in touch with them than I had previously. Though, ironically, I'm now tweeting way more than they are. See? Even on Twitter I am ...
Posted by Justine at 8:52, April 13th, 2009 under Bloggery |
Posted by Justine at 10:41, April 12th, 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, Admin, Liar, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, April 12th, 2009 under Bloggery, Liar, Vainglory |
Posted by Justine at 14:43, April 11th, 2009 under State of the World, Sydney/Australia |
Remember way back on Wednesday when I previewed the
Oz cover of my next novel, Liar? Well, now it's time to have a squizz at what my publisher in the US of A came up with. This cover was so well received by sales and marketing at Bloomsbury that for the first time in my career a cover for one of my books became the image used for the front of the catalogue. Front of the catalogue! One of my books! Pretty cool, huh?
Apparently all the big booksellers went crazy for it. My agent says it was a huge hit in Bologna. And at TLA many librarians and teenagers told me they adore this cover. In fact one girl ...
Posted by Justine at 0:09, April 10th, 2009 under Liar, New York City/USA |
I was a little taken aback recently to meet an author who kept quoting their own work in support of their arguments. Seemed to me they were writing tickets. Um, really you're quoting you to prove your points? Isn't that redundant? Oh, look, I agree with me. How surprising!
But mostly I was weirded out because I couldn't quote anything from any of my books even if you threatened to kill me if I didn't start reciting stat. Who memorises their own books? I mean other than the writer I just met who does.
I put it to the test and asked a bunch of my writer friends if they could quote any of their work. Cassandra Clare and Robin ...
Posted by Justine at 18:23, April 9th, 2009 under Writing life |
I wasn't going to mention Maureen Johnson's
Blog Every Day Month (BEDA) thingie because I already blog every day and think those who don't already are losers lucky not to be addicted to blogging the way I am. Seriously I shake if I don't blog once a day. The only days I miss are when Scott drags me away to some benighted place without intramanet access. He claims these are "holidays" and I should be having "fun" on them. Where is the fun without my blog?
*Heh hem* I digress.
The point of this post is to publicly admit that what Maureen is doing this month is pretty amazing. See, Maureen doesn't blog the way I do. Her shortest posts ...
Posted by Justine at 10:58, April 9th, 2009 under Bloggery |
Some of my writer friends are going barking mad waiting for their books to come out. Especially the newbies. I have decided the only solution is for the world's mad scientists to drop whatever they're working on ((Turning us all into twitttering pod people, taking over the world's supply of mangosteens, turning the lakes of Canada purple etc. etc.)) and instead invent a brain patch that stops the thinking-bout-next-book-coming-out part of the brain.
Could you do it now-ish, please? Some of my friends are OUT OF CONTROL.
I, of course, am completely sane and rational as I wait for Liar to come out.
Posted by Justine at 17:15, April 8th, 2009 under Frippery, Liar, Science |
Posted by Justine at 0:02, April 8th, 2009 under Liar, Praising, Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 13:32, April 7th, 2009 under 1930s NYC novel, New York City/USA, Research, State of the World |
I am extremely happy to let youse all know that I just said yes to a joint offer from
Bolinda in Australia and
Brilliance Audio in the USA to produce audio versions of How To Ditch Your Fairy and Liar.
This makes me especially happy as it guarantees an Australian actor will read How To Ditch Your Fairy. Yay! It will sound the way it's supposed to and not like Dick Van Dyke doing a cockney accent in Mary Poppins. ((Yes, I might possibly be referring to the audio version of the Magic or Madness trilogy. I might even be implying that it's unspeakably bad. Maybe.))
Will let you know as soon as I hear when the release dates will ...
Posted by Justine at 0:02, April 7th, 2009 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Liar, New York City/USA |
Posted by Justine at 16:45, April 6th, 2009 under Bloggery, Publishing business, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 9:14, April 6th, 2009 under Bloggery, Frippery |
I just finished going through and answering all your letters. *mops brow* Thanks so much for writing to me. I hope my responses arrive okay. But alas there were some bounce backs.
Because the volume of letters has been going up in the last few months, and I'm not getting any faster at answering, ((Unfortunately, writing my books and responding to my publishers has to be the top priorities.)) I've decided I'm going to respond to questions asked on this website first. Especially the questions asked on the
FAQs. That way the answer will be available for everyone and not just the people who email me. That's fairer, right?
Currently I have four FAQs:
There's the
Personal one: Where you ...
Posted by Justine at 0:01, April 6th, 2009 under Admin, Fans & readers |
Posted by Justine at 8:43, April 5th, 2009 under Food, New York City/USA, Praising, Young Adult literature |
So now Massachusetts, Connecticut and Iowa ((At least I can spell "Iowa" without having to look it up!)) have legalised same-sex marriage. Hurrah for all three states!
Which state will be next? I hear that Vermont's governor is all set to veto the pro-love bill there. Which is weird, I honestly though Vermont would be one of the first states to give the green light to same sex marriage. Because I live there half the year, I'm hoping New York will be next, but the forces arrayed against love in my US home state are pretty strong.
Any of you got any bets on which state will be next?
I wonder too how long it will take before same-sex marriage is legal throughout ...
Posted by Justine at 9:25, April 4th, 2009 under New York City/USA, Praising, State of the World |
Posted by Justine at 11:00, April 3rd, 2009 under Liar, New York City/USA, Sydney/Australia, Titles & names |
Yesterday and today at TLA (Texas Library Association) I signed 200 ARCs (advance readers copies) of Liar. That's right, there are now copies of Liar out there in the wild.
This is a little unnerving. I've been thinking about Liar since I first got the idea in February 2005. Here it is just over four years later and Liar is almost a real book. Which other people will be reading soon.
Gulp.
I was not feeling at all nervous about Liar being read by people who aren't my agent, publisher, or friends until I started signing the ARCs. Suddenly it dawned on me that my book---the actual solid paper thing---is now going to be read and thought about, or put ...
Posted by Justine at 17:52, April 2nd, 2009 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Liar |
I've been writing stories since I first learned how to write a sentence. But I did not become a full-time writer until 1 April 2003. ((Wow, this is my sixth anniversary. How bizarre.)) In those many many years before I became a full-time writer I wrote in between doing other things. In between going to primary school, high school, university, and my various jobs. I'd always have at least two documents open when I was at uni. One was the essay I was supposed to be writing and the other was the story or novel I was writing on the sly. When the going got tough with one I'd switch to the other. Writing was something that I snatched time ...
Posted by Justine at 0:12, April 1st, 2009 under Publishing business, Writing goals & milestones, Writing life, Writing process |
