February 2011
27 posts
3 tags
Misadventures in Handiwork
Poor Blobby thinks this new desk set-up is for him.
I fancy myself a bit of a fix-it girl. A do-it-yourselfer, for sure. I pride myself on not needing help reaching, drilling, sawing, spackling, hanging, or lifting things.
But, to be honest, sometimes I get in a hurry or the instructions get the better of me and I find myself in a fine mess.
I just hung a wall-mounted bookshelf at home that is...
January 2011
16 posts
3 tags
“I sold my NaNoWriMo novel!” A Q&A with Elizabeth...
Elizabeth Haynes lives in Kent, South East England, and works as a police intelligence analyst. The role involves looking at crime to establish patterns in offending a criminal behavior, and making recommendations for enforcement to enable the best use of available resources. Her experiences in the police force have not directly inspired Elizabeth’s plots—although it definitely made it...
2 tags
Mike Birbiglia: My Girlfriend's Boyfriend
This past weekend, I headed into San Francisco to see My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, the new feature-length show by Mike Birbiglia. A traditional comedian for many years, Birbiglia has recently shifted his focus to (and found quite a bit of success with) a sustained, personal storytelling style. He’s honed those skills as a contributor to This American Life and The Moth, and through Sleepwalk With...
2 tags
Pick your pep!
Perhaps my favorite pre-NaNo task is requesting pep talks from staff- and participant-favorite published authors.
This year, we’re starting the process earlier than ever before, with high hopes that we’ll get the best line-up of guest author pep talks yet. (I say this while fully recognizing that the bar has been set outrageously high by our cast of past pep talkers.)
Here’s the...
2 tags
It's Oscar season!
Tomorrow is Oscar nomination day! There will be endless predictions and discussions and talk of snubs all over the internet, but for me, it means time to really start hitting the theatres. I don’t generally manage to see all the nominations (especially now that Best Picture has ten), but I do try to see enough of them that I have opinions on every category and a vested interest in my...
2 tags
What We're Reading: Indie Books
One of my new year’s resolutions was to save money by buying fewer books. Well, that was a terrible idea, which lasted approximately three weeks. I just can’t give up my books. I’m so lucky to live in San Francisco, where we have an abundance of local bookshops. My three favorites (Booksmith, Green Apple, and Browser) are all within walking distance of my home, and I usually...
3 tags
Tips from Revisionland
So I’ve been spending the past few years revising a Young Adult novel I first wrote in NaNoWriMo 2005. The story is about a teenage boy and his older sister who discover something beneath their town that—cue ominous movie voice-over—WILL CHANGE THEIR LIVES FOREVER.
Yep. Pretty exciting. It’s kind of like The City of Ember meets A Different YA Novel About People Who Suddenly Become...
2 tags
Pitchapalooza comes to NaNoWriMo
You’ve finished your novel (or maybe not—that’s okay, too). What’s next? You gotta have a great pitch. Now you have the chance to test your pitch on The Book Doctors, aka, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry, authors of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, who are holding a Pitchapalooza for NaNoWriMo participants only. Pitchapalooza is like American Idol for...
2 tags
“I sold my NaNoWriMo novel!” A Q&A with Júlia...
Júlia lives in Braga, a small city close to Porto, one of the biggest cities in Portugal. Júlia’s fantasy book, Segredos do Submundo: A Herdeira, was published by Minerva Coimbra when she was twelve.
Júlia, tell us more about yourself!
I started writing when I was around ten years old, with a friend of mine who was twelve. She was the first one to think about publishing (to...
2 tags
Book logging for lazy people
I’ve always really liked the idea of new year’s resolutions. New year, fresh start, clean slate—it’s all very appealing. Despite my good intentions, though, my follow-through is always kind of… lacking.
So this year, I decided to make small, manageable resolutions that I might actually keep. One of them is to get up ten minutes earlier in the morning, and that actually seems...
2 tags
An excellent read for an excellent cause
For Christmas this year, I was lucky enough to receive The Tiger by John Vaillant. I immediately abandoned the book I was reading at the time (which, in my reading practice, is poor form and almost never done) and took up immediately with this new work of nonfiction.
If you like books, reading, tigers, history, suspense, ecology, conservation, animals, human beings, snow, politics, geography,...
2 tags
Where We Read: El Ateneo
I spent some time in Argentina over the holiday break, and discovered this amazing bookstore in Buenos Aires. El Ateneo was originally a theatre, and it still looks like one—compete with chandeliers and a ceiling fresco—except that it’s filled with books. The stage area has been turned into a little café, and everything feels warm and whimsical. The majority of books are in...
2 tags
Books on the big screen
I am very fond of books, and I’m also very fond of movies. It is no surprise, then, that I tend to see a lot of movies based on books. The transition from a book to the big screen seems like a very tidy way to start making the switch from NaNoWriMo to Script Frenzy season, so let’s talk adaptation. It always surprises people when they learn that I’m not a visual reader. That means I...
2 tags
What's your birthday book?
I have long known the Billboard #1 song for the week of my birth (“Centerfold” by the J. Geils Band, which is fairly awesome), but it wasn’t until today that I knew the New York Times bestsellers. Enter your birthdate into the BibliOZ search tool, and you’ll get a list of the top fiction and nonfiction books for that week. Chris Baty, for instance, was born under the auspicious sign of Kurt...
2 tags
My book pile needs your help!
Wrimos, I have a problem. I’ve been reading more than I have in years, and buying more books than ever. (Somehow, working for a creative writing organization will do that to you.) That’s not the issue, though. It’s my book pile. It’s very heavy.
Although my shelf is sagging a bit, I’m not talking about the physical weight. I’m talking about the number of nonfiction and Serious Literature tomes...
3 tags
Holiday Entertainment
I spent my “winter vacation” in Atlanta with my family. I thought I had a pretty good idea of how we’d spend my ten-day visit: Scrabble, a viewing of The King’s Speech, and maybe taking in a few episodes of As Time Goes By.
As it turned out, we did none of the above. Instead, I saw two stage productions, both Christmas-themed but very different in their target demographics.
The first was a...