A little more than a month ago I was a guest lecturer in a professional writing class at my local university. (To read how that went, read my last post because I'm not really on top of this 'posting in a timely manner' thing)

Today, the professor for that class forwarded me an email. If you recall, I broke the class into pairs and had them start their own fiction story. One group was so excited about their efforts that they interrupted the first group to read it.

Now one of the students in that pair has decided to write about his experience as a child in Sudan and asked the professor to help him edit the first few pages.

You know what feels better than knowing I just created more work for this professor? I got somebody interested in seeing things in a different light.

Yesterday, I was the guest lecturer at our local Community College and I got to talk to a group of people about fiction writing and publishing.  The students weren't interested in being writers, this was one of the core classes they had to take, and I found myself in a really unique situation.  Most people I talk to about this subject already have a good idea about craft and the workings of the publishing industry, but this group was really different.

They figured that writers made between $100k-$600k per book, that it took a few months to write and just a few more for the publisher to get a book on shelves.  They also thought that you just submitted directly to the publisher.  So when I walked them through the process and gave them the average figures they were shocked.  (that's always fun)

I had a ton of stuff to talk about, and we only made it through half of my outline, but the first question I asked was 'what was the last fiction book you read?"

The two women in my class were pretty good readers and one really liked Urban Fantasy.

All six of the men in my class admitted that they didn't read fiction and hadn't since the last book assigned in high school.  (okay, one of the men was a Lost Boy from Sudan, so I guess I can give him a pass for not having time/opportunity to read fiction) 

When I asked them why, they pretty much agreed on the answers:

1. They didn't like to read things that weren't true/felt they couldn't learn from fiction
2. They read a lot of non-fiction, magazines and newspapers
3. They didn't like the time investment
4. They didn't like that they couldn't multi task (one man pointed out that when he watches a movie online he can also be doing something else; email etc)
5. They liked pictures with their text

At first I was a little put off.  They knew the stereotypes of men an women and embraced them whole heartedly.  "We're guys, we're visual"  "Stay at home mom's usually have more time to read" "Women need more complicated stories to keep entertained" etc...

But overall, the main reason seemed to be that these people wanted to gain something when they read, and they didn't think fiction could provide that.

Looking around the class, I noticed that only one of the men present was white.  We didn't get to the section I had written about racism and it's role in fiction, but I wonder how many people don't read because they know the books written are not for them.

I had them critique the opening for Child of Fire and I saw the attitudes shift a bit.  They liked it and the first thing they brought up was the relationship between the characters.  Second was the mystery about the characters.  I asked if the book met their expectations for fiction or not, and all but one admitted to being surprised.  My one was still stuck on the fact that he couldn't learn anything from the book.

Then I had them pair up and make their own summary and first page for a book.  I was surprised at how much they struggled with this, they didn't understand what I wanted at all.  So I pulled up our local news headlines and told them to pick one as their conflict and base a character off that.  For example, there was a fire at a historic mall yesterday.  The fire could be the conflict and the character could be the firefighter, the arsonist, the shop owner, someone trapped by the fire ...

Not surprising, the broke up along lines of gender and race.  What was surprising was that my group with the man from Sudan got so excited about this that they actually interrupted another group so they could read their first page.  The second man in the group had been the one who wrote/read but the story had been about the first man's escape from the military in Sudan.  They had managed to combine the things they felt were important (truth, facts, personal experience and a story they wanted people to know) with fiction.  More importantly, they were so proud of their efforts.

That felt really nice.  I have no idea if knowing more about how the industry works will encourage these students to read more fiction, but they seemed to have fun learning about it. And really, it opened up a lot more questions for me about what the publishing world can do to attract more readers.  

Seriously, I wonder if that high school English teacher knew that the book handed out in class would be the last work of fiction 80% of their students would read?

Last night I was feeling a bit ... maudlin ... so I took The Book out to eat.  I tried to get bloody, hardly cooked, recently killed things, but I ended up with this:



Ahhh, it was so nice to have some alone time.

Yesterday when I opened my brand new copy of Child of Fire (on sale today!), guess what was inside?



A rainbow!



Rainbows on every page!  What are the odds of that?

I hope it's not some sort of mafia warning or something.

I know, surprise, right?  You, too, can buy one of your very own!  I heard that when you do, Del Rey sends you your very own pool boy!  And just to make sure the book made it home in one piece:



Safety first!  (My god, that seat looks clean!  I didn't know I was a master of trick photography.)

Child of Fire comes out tomorrow.  First in a series.  Debut author.  Awesome cover.  What more could you want?  Go, run and get it!

from abandonedplaces



http://community.livejournal.com/abandonedplaces/1918757.html?nc=20&style=mine

I agree with what varookamcsalt said, what a great setting for a story.  Her idea was a modern day Sleeping Beauty.  I'm amazed at how the plants are still alive. 

From her flickr set:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/trepan8/sets/72157622093418895/

This morning I saw the trailer for the movie The Blind Side. And I was left with this kind of uneasy feeling. Forget for a moment that it is "based on a true story/inspired by true events" that's a post for another time (I'm looking at you, The Strangers).

After thinking about character archetypes I had this question, if Secret Life of Bees got into a fight with The Blind Side, which race stereotype would win?



vs



On the one hand, we have the Magic Negro(s) helping out whitey when no one else will. On the other, we have the Great White Redemption when a white family takes in and raises a homeless black kid. Look at me, you can flip the situations and I'm still not satisfied!

Putting aside that "hey, I think I've seen that movie before ..." feeling, I can't get over the fact that the entertainment industry can't seem to get past the same 6 black/white race character interactions they started with. You know, good for them for trying, for portraying people of color in positive roles. But still!

I've run across a phenomenon in publishing, where there is a big disconnect between the average agent/editor and reader. The first group tends to read more books a year than most people do in ten. So common archetypes and plot lines quickly become old and tiresome for agent/editors, though they are still new to the readers.

With race, though, the problem goes beyond familiarity. No matter how many times we've seen these characters and these situations, it seems we are unable to progress past them. They are "safe" when America's racial conscious is rippling with anger and violence. The larger tragedy is, that without pushing through what's known, we don't open ourselves to new avenues of thought and action.

from On Scene


from peggydaly's photostream :





from Edward the Second's photostream




(Pan Am Highway)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2404/2081957261_466cc4ff1e.jpg?v=0








(San Francisco Shrine)



fromDesertfox (lot of good ones here)


From colinjreed's photostream





Swindon Ocotal Link (some info on town)







From DownTheRoad.org




 (downtown park/plaza)





From laurendick's photostream







from david2004



Clearing landmines, from



from PURA VIDA

from the travel blog A funny walk home in Ocotal


Río Coco cerca de Ocotal, Nicaragua from http://www.xeologosdelmundu.org/files/images/Río%20Coco.preview.jpg

But in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, the Christmas trees along the downtown streets are lit festively every night of the year ... an eternal celebration of the Sandinista government's victory

Funafuti island would be a great (or fun) place to set a story.  Especially one that touches on global warming:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globalizepeace/223745053/


Right on the border of Nic and Hondura, still has landmines in the highlands

http://www.shorpy.com/node/5867

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Coleman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells

This is my favorite photo of her:



Man, I want a mug shot like that!

I stole this from a locked entry on my flist because it's too good to pass up!

'Stoned wallabies make crop circles'

And as noted before, the comments make the article even better.  Boy, some people just can't take news seriously.  Kind of reminds me of Amazon's Bic Pen.

After finishing Godzilla vs Mothra and getting my agent's notes back on the Angola Affair, I decided that I would set the Bee Book in 'present day' and try really hard not to commit to a year.

But I'm reading Blood of Brothers by Stephen Kinzer



and there is so much crazy stuff that happened in the country during the 70s and 80s.  (I haven't gotten much further than that in my research, but it seems things slowed down).  Bad for Nicaragua, a gold mine for me.  I mean, the country ran out of cans and boxes and had to resort to drinking juice out of plastic bags.  Come on!  How could I not find a way to use that?

Then I thought, well I could just up the POVs to three people, set one in the 70/80s and have their story conflict with the other two right at the climax in a way that would be both shattering and logical .... oh right, I'm trying to get away from that 3 person POV thing.  Nuts. 

Or maybe I could cut the character based off Thomas Edison and replace her with a disillusioned Sandinista ... ah, but I really liked that backstory and the whole conflict with the other protag.

What to do, what to do.

How could a book this cherry ever go out of print?



Clearly, this represents the start of the end for us.

for me, anyway.

A novel idea: The machine that can print off any book for you in minutes