Archives
Posted by Justine at 11:12, March 11th, 2008 under Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 11:24, March 10th, 2008 under Publishing business, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, February 8th, 2008 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Vainglory, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 0:04, January 28th, 2008 under Writing life, Zombies |
Posted by Justine at 0:00, December 31st, 2007 under First Kiss, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Last Day of the Year, Love is Hell, Magic or Madness trilogy, Writing goals & milestones |
Posted by Justine at 10:35, December 20th, 2007 under Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing goals & milestones |
Posted by Justine at 11:45, December 9th, 2007 under Unicorns, Vainglory, Writing life, Young Adult literature, Zombies |
Posted by Justine at 12:12, December 8th, 2007 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, New York City/USA, Scott's books, Writing life, Zombies |
Posted by Justine at 0:03, December 4th, 2007 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Whingeing, Writing goals & milestones |
This is the Brazilian version of Magic or Madness. Quite a contrast to all the other versions, eh? I likes it.
Here are the four other covers ((Apparently I'll be seeing the Thai and German versions before too long.)):
US & Oz; Italian; French; Taiwanese.
I'm not sure which ones I like best. What do youse reckon?
Posted by Justine at 13:28, November 21st, 2007 under Magic or Madness trilogy, Vainglory |
Posted by Justine at 16:18, November 20th, 2007 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Publishing business, Words & Language, Writing goals & milestones, Writing process |
is because all the other writers are cool and supportive and wonderful to hang out with.
New-to-the-genre writer Sherman Alexie has been finding that out. He told
galleycat that at every bookshop he went to on his YA tour, "two or three big-name YA authors have come to the reading. That never happened on my adult book tours."
I certainly felt that way last night at the
ALAN drinks hanging out with my peeps. Way too many to name. As well as the usual suspects were people like Lauren Myracle, Pete Hautmann, Sara Zarr and Kathleen Duey (who wrote the brilliant
Skin Hunger that I raved about earlier---yes I fan girled all over her). All of them fabulous people ...
Posted by Justine at 8:45, November 19th, 2007 under Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 17:08, November 12th, 2007 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing process |
My desk is not so small as you all think. It has two levels. Two! Look closely at this photo:
See the stuff below? It's not on the floor it's the second level of the desk.
I'm now curious about your working spaces. If you feel so inclined take a photo and link to it in the comments.
Posted by Justine at 9:44, November 9th, 2007 under Frippery, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Writing goals & milestones |
A friend will be in town next week to meet her agent and some editors who are interested in her writing. She is very nervous and asked me what to expect. I directed her to agent Kristin Nelson's blog where a while back she gave the
lowdown on the shennanigans that take place at agent-editor lunches. It's shocking stuff!
They eat food and gossip! Who'd've thunk it?
I then revealed to my friend that the exact same thing happens at editor-author lunches. Food is et and (rarely) wine is drunk, and the publishing industry, family, friends, mutual acquaintances, as well as Ugly Betty, and books just read are discussed and dissected. Much fun is had.
I found this all very ...
Posted by Justine at 13:25, November 7th, 2007 under Bloggery, New York City/USA, Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 20:34, November 6th, 2007 under Writing life |
It has come to this. I have the final round of edits on the Fairy book. They are in manuscript form. However, there is no room on my desk to put the manuscript. The towering piles of crap cannot stand any further weight, not even one small piece of paper, definitely not 264 manuscript pages. I know because I tried and there was much toppling of crap to the floor. It is now dumped back on the desk.
The desk must be cleaned in order for me to work.
I am afraid of it. It is now more like an archaeological dig than mere cleaning. I fear what I might find: I did clean away all uneaten food, didn't I? I fear ...
Posted by Justine at 10:44, November 4th, 2007 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Whingeing |
Posted by Justine at 22:08, November 2nd, 2007 under Bloggery, Words & Language, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 16:41, November 1st, 2007 under Bloggery, Writing process |
Posted by Justine at 1:11, October 29th, 2007 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Titles & names, Whingeing, Words & Language, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 18:32, October 22nd, 2007 under Praising, Reading |
Several people have been bewildered by
my enjoyment of
this article about the Frankfurt Book Fair. Don't you get depressed by how it's not about the authors? they ask. How it's about books as product? How there are so many, many, many books?
Nope.
Books are products.
That's not all they are, but it's a pretty bloody important aspect, especially for those of us who are trying to make a living writing (or editing or selling) them.
Publishing is an industry. Part of what it's about---and has always been about---is making money. For most of its history most of that money has been made by people other than writers. ((Most editors and publicists and sales reps and booksellers don't make ...
Posted by Justine at 0:09, October 18th, 2007 under Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 9:34, October 15th, 2007 under Publishing business |
Posted by Justine at 13:26, October 12th, 2007 under Ranting, Reading, Travelling, Young Adult literature |
One of the fabulous things about this tour is seeing how popular so many of my friends are.
At a book shop on the outskirts of Chicago I saw this:
I pointed it out to Scott. "Look! Someone here loves Cassie's book. And they have a tonne of copies!" (There were more in piles above and below this book shelf.)
The bookseller who wrote that shelf talker overheard me:
"You know Cassie Clare?! Oh. My. God. I LOVED that book so much!!! She is a genius! I have loved her ever since I read her Secret Diaries!"
At a school in Walnut Creek, California lots of the kids had painted posters of their favourite books. The room was full of ...
Posted by Justine at 2:21, October 9th, 2007 under Bloggery, Book tour, Cons & Other Gatherings, New York City/USA, Praising, Travelling, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 11:33, September 20th, 2007 under Bloggery, Whingeing, Writing life |
A warning: this is one of those stumbly thinking out loud posts.
I just read a dead interesting essay by
Jim Huang reflecting on twenty years of selling books. Most of his comments have to do with mystery books but a lot of it applies to other genres. I've been thinking about this comment:
When I think about the center of gravity of the mystery genre, I still believe that it lies in series. Seventy percent of the titles on the bestsellers lists of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association in 2007 year to date are part of a series. Seventy percent of these series titles belong to long-running series of five or more books. Sales in IMBA member stores ...
Posted by Justine at 11:45, September 11th, 2007 under Bloggery, Manga, Praising, Reading, Viewing, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 13:53, August 9th, 2007 under Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 14:36, August 6th, 2007 under Bloggery, Publishing business, Ranting, Writing life |
I am in crunch time. I am in crunchy crunch time. The busyness I have been complaining about has rebounded on itself and leapt to a whole new level of busy. In a word: Aaaarggghh!!!!
I'm going to keep blogging. I made a little bet with myself to see if I could blog every day of July and so far so good. I hate to lose bets with myself. Especially fun ones. Also blogging kind of clears my head. Dunno why but when I'm deep in writing, blogging really helps me to unwind---that and a glass of wine.
However, I'll no longer be replying to comments as much as I have been (which I know has been down on what it used ...
Posted by Justine at 11:44, July 28th, 2007 under Bloggery, Excuses, How To Ditch Your Fairy, Whingeing |
Marrije asked over on insideadog if I'll be following the Tour de France this year. Sadly, I will not.
This year has gotten out of control. I cannot afford to spend hours every day watching the Tour and following it online. I am incapable of following the Tour non-obsessively. So for the first time in years I'm not following it at all. (No spousal pressure was brought to bear in the making of this decision. Well, okay, just a little bit. I am not husband-beaten! I am not!)
Waaaahh!!!!!
The New York Liberty (10-8) will have to sustain my sport-following needs this northern summer.
And now I go back to the myriad tasks that confront me. At this point it's so bad I'm resorting ...
Posted by Justine at 12:02, July 9th, 2007 under Basketball, Sport, Tour de France, Whingeing, Writing goals & milestones |
David Levithan's speech at Reading Matters inspired me to put together a list of Australian gay and lesbian young adult books.
I could not do this on my own. Thank you Lynndy Bennett, Kate Constable, Susannah Chambers, Pamela Freeman, Simmone Howell, Judith Ridge, Penni Russon and Ron Serdiuk for all your help and suggestions.
This list is definitely not complete and is not annotated. It's just a start. If you can think of any more titles, please let me know! And if you've read any of the books on the list and can say a bit more about them that'd be great too.
Lili Wilkinson has said that the
Centre for Youth Literature will give the list ...
Posted by Justine at 12:06, July 1st, 2007 under State of the World, Sydney/Australia, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 1:02, June 30th, 2007 under Excuses, Whingeing |
The
wonderful speech that
David Levithan gave at Reading Matters is now
available as a podcast. You all should listen to this passionate, galvanising call to arms that left most everyone wanting to go out and slay vampires right that very minute. Or, you know, get the books that kids need into their hands.
I'm still mulling over my response to David's call to arms. On the one hand, I think he's totally right. On the other, it's so annoying to have a foreignor come in, spend a few minutes in the country, and then tell us Aussies what to do! We hates it, we do. Especially when they're right . . .
Posted by Justine at 0:12, June 20th, 2007 under Cons & Other Gatherings, Praising, Ranting, Reading, Young Adult literature |
Posted by Justine at 18:14, June 4th, 2007 under Publishing business, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 13:05, April 1st, 2007 under How To Ditch Your Fairy, Magic or Madness trilogy, Sydney/Australia, Writing life |
Posted by Justine at 9:56, March 6th, 2007 under Best of Blog, Bloggery, New York City/USA, Publishing business, State of the World, Writing life |
I am so proud that my
serious, soul-baring post about the trials and tribulations of blurbs wound up turning into a
debate about whether unicorns or zombies are better. Sometimes I just love my genre people.
This response to
Scalzi and me on blurbing also made me smile. I am, indeed, very proud of this sentence:
"How do you tell someone you shot their dog cause you really hate unicorns?"
The writer of that post suggests that it would be amusing to just blurb everything and if you don't like a book give it an ambiguous blurb of the "I cannot praise this book too highly" variety. Clearly they meant it in jest, but it reminded me that ...
Posted by Justine at 0:26, February 16th, 2007 under Bloggery, Publishing business, Unicorns, Writing life, Zombies |
John Scalzi has a post up explaining
his blurb policy. He even kindly explains what blurbs are.
I think his policy is so spot on that I've adopted it (slightly amended) as my own:
1. Yes, I am happy to look at books and if I love them I will blurb them.
I adore reading my peers' work and getting to read them ahead of publication is particularly exciting. It makes me feel like I'm really part of the Young Adult publishing world with my little ole finger right on the pulse. Not to mention that being asked for a blurb is an honour. ((Though who gets asked is a mystery to me, seeing as how I get asked to ...
Posted by Justine at 9:02, February 15th, 2007 under Bloggery, Publishing business, Reading, Unicorns, Writing life, Zombies |
Scott just hit his
tenth anniversary as a freelance writer. Congratulations, Mr Hardest-Working-Writer-I-Know.
He shares some cool statistics. Here's two:
in that time he's published well over one million words (gulp!),
and it took him eight years---that's right---eight years (!) before he was earning enough from writing under his own name to support himself.
Eight years is a loooong time and yet most writers don't ever earn enough to (comfortably) quit their day job. Scott has done very good indeed. I'm so proud.
Posted by Justine at 20:36, June 4th, 2006 under Praising, Publishing business, Scott's books, Writing life |
Look at me! I have worked so hard that I've managed to get myself back on target for my Friday deadline! Yay me! And as a reward
my tyrant husband is letting me have internet access this evening. How kind and good you are, dear sir.
There's been
some lively debate over this way. I confess that I was surprised by the force of
Garth (author and ex agent),
Patrick (editor) and
Sharyn's (editor) response to what I thought was an innocuous post (stupid me). Fortunately
Teresa (editor)
explained the reaction (thank you).
In the end we all agreed: the writing is the most important part, as well as the second most important part, the ...
Posted by Justine at 18:54, April 10th, 2006 under Bloggery, Magic or Madness trilogy, Publishing business |
Samuel R. Delany's book
About Writing will not get out of my brain. I keep thinking about his concept of the usefulness, no, the essentialness of doubt (good! I got plenty of that), about how slavishly following the rules and working hard leads to aesthetic banality (the rules of good writing, not the rules of how-to-get-an-agent/editor---
you have to follow those). And about being a hack.
Delany's book made me feel like one (in a good way). His description of his own writing process, of how to write the absolute best you can, is a recipe for books that go through many, many drafts and take a long, long time to write, books that delve down into every doubt or ...
Posted by Justine at 9:44, February 1st, 2006 under Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction, Daughters of Earth, Magic or Madness trilogy, Reading, Writing life, Writing process |
So apparently it's
de rigeur for the first entry of a brand new blog to feature the cover of the blogger's latest book. I mean, if the blogger in question happens to be a writer with a brand new cover to display to the masses, which this particular blogger does. To wit the cover for the second book in the Magic or Madness trilogy:
Colour me very happy indeed. Aside from anything else, that photo of the tree there? I took it! It's a moreton bay fig. In fact it's the fig tree just past the front gates of Camperdown Cemetery in Sydney, which cemetery makes an appearance in both Magic or Madness and Magic Lessons. The photo on ...
Posted by Justine at 0:09, May 25th, 2005 under Admin, Bloggery, Magic or Madness trilogy |
