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That was a funny review. Glad that wasn't one of my books. LOL
"I mean, Jar-Jar Binks suddenly appearing in this book would've been a drastic improvement..."Ouch.
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I hated Jar-Jar Binks, too. He was too close to a racial steriotype from my childhood.
I stopped laughing at that review when I started wondering when it would happen to one of my books.
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Not until you get to be old, rich, slack -- and a brand, when your publishers no longer care whether who writes your books, as long as they can slap your name on them.
My rule of thumb is to pretty much only review "big" books by traditionally published superstars... I'm way too paranoid to review other indies.
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K.A. wrote: "I can understand that."I got burned badly by a fan of another indie writer due to a bad review. Heck, I didn't even write the review, but the reviewer mentioned one of my books in the context of slamming the other writer. Nothing at all to do with me, but the fan then came after me with an avalanche of bad reviews.
The internet breeds trolls like cowpatties breed flies.
OTOH - I had a fan who flew in from California buy 'Swallow the Moon' today. He told me how much he enjoyed 'Let's Do Lunch' so I autographed his book.He came down to the Farmer's Market just to tell me how he liked the book.
Made my day!
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Yes - clone themselves so we can spread them around.
Oh God, I needed to laugh, and that review did it for me. Thanks for lifting up my spirits a little, Christopher.
Andre Jute wrote: "Dakota wrote: "I stopped laughing at that review when I started wondering when it would happen to one of my books."Not until you get to be old, rich, slack -- and a brand, when your publishers no..."
So it's not just me! I've picked up a few big-name authors (Cornwell and King come to mind) recently, only to set the books down and wonder, "Does anyone bother editing these anymore? Or are they just too big to bother anymore?"
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Some of those writers are mortally tired. Cornwell, for instance, was fresh and new -- when? Twenty years ago. I stopped reading her when she started recycling psychopaths whose sole focus now the investigator, over and over and over again. An editor should have stepped on that a long time ago. But the editors have all turned into deal-makers. Some people labelled "senior editors" can't even manage to get the apostrophe in the right place in -- its and it's, tomato's and tomatoes, and so on. It doesn't inspire confidence.
By contrast, people who volunteer to help me in the Editorial Menagerie http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5... don't make stupid mistakes like that. It's a matter of caring more than education, I think. Big publishing has stopped caring.
Perhaps that's why so many indies think they can get away with it. Present company excepted, of course. I have yet to read a ROBUST author who has not put effort into editing and copy-editing (even if it is self-done).
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Ain't that the truth! I have seen more well crafted books in this group than on most of my indie purchases on Amazon.
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Still, it is very odd that people who want to so very much to be "authors" display nothing but contempt for the most basic tool of a writer, words.
Craftsmanship is too large a word to be taught in modern schools.
"I is a college student and gots me a degree."That's typical since the US Department of Education screwed up everything since 1980. People forget that every politician with enough wrinkles to make a face-map back to their home century, got their education before there was a DOE anywhere in sight. They pass it, then moan and groan that education has gone downhill.
If the government does anything well, it's screwing up. We should have never allowed them to start that mess.
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Andre Jute wrote: "I am a firm believer in the tradional practice of making English and Math compulsory through matriculation (graduation from high school)."They are not now?
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They are not now?"
It was a subject choice I could make way back in the day. I dropped maths because I am mathematically challenged. I'm just no good at it. Nowadays, here especially, there's a push to take it seriously especially amongst girls. It's compulsory at the primary school level, still a choice all through high school. Except now, they've dumbed it down here to numeracy literacy, where you are taught the basics and would end up knowing things like how to run a household budget and maths on a higher grade to get you into varsity.
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They are not now?"
A lot of places English and Mathematics been made optional on the spurious grounds that they discriminate against the underprivileged, immigrants, those whose first language isn't English, for maths against kids who aren't too bright. It's nonsense. An inability to speak standard English and to do basic math just handicaps them further by guaranteeing that they'll never get any job above the most menial.
It's the simple things that matter. A late mate of mine talked some ex-pupils, now partners at one of the world's great audit houses, into giving his school their surplus PDP-11 computers, huge, complicated, specialized things. He used them primarily with the dullest class in his school, not even to teach computer literacy but simply to teach keyboard skills. It was a stroke of genius. All those kids found jobs. A hardware store owner told me he gave one of Noel's dumb kids a job after asking only one question: "See that monitor. Find the part 16 stroke 90 3169 B." Seconds later the kid had the row and shelf number. One kid, one job.
Seems short-sighted to me. Mind you I always loved school (even though the Principal at our Junior High (middle school) pulled me aside the first week I was there and reminded me the Tillotson name was a lot to live up to, and he expected me to rise to the occasion - I later discovered the reason I got the job for which 100+ students applied was at the recommendation of the Principal). In those days doing well in school did not necessarily brand one a nerd. Thing is, I didn't mind arithmetic in grade school, but it was when I was introduced to physics and other concepts that I really began to enjoy mathematics; they were creatively satisfying somehow. We are doing a disservice to our young folk if we don't at least introduce them to the concepts.
English is a no-brainer, of course...
Ha, Sharon, we have so much in common! I had two older sisters, both of whom were extremely bright. When I chose my subjects for Yr 11 and 12 I was called to the Principal's office for a lecture on wasting my life - because I'd chosen French, German, History, English, Maths 1 (the 'easy' one) and Biology instead of Physics, Chemistry etc like my sisters! Fortunately we were leaving anyway, and the new school I went to had no preconceptions about what I should be doing. As a result of that move, I fell into doing Art because the new school didn't do German. I'm reading 'The Element' by Ken Robinson at the moment and finding myself agreeing with a lot of what he says. Yes, the basics of English and Maths are good to have, for any job, but so many kids think they're dumb because they were not good at Maths and English, when in fact they might be brilliant at something they never got to do at school. Look at Paul McCartney - no one at his school ever picked that he had a talent for music.
When we first brought our son home from Korea, we were accosted by someone in a shopping centre trying to sell us a scheme where you put money by for a University education for your child. I told him that I had no idea if my son might want to go to university and didn't want to lose the money if he didn't. His answer was that if I had this account for him, he'd feel obliged to try harder. What a load of ****. As it turns out, he's not academically inclined, but he's incredibly practical and artistic. We need to show kids what they're capable of, not set them up for failure.
On the other hand, for those who are academically inclined, a good grasp of English is a must, whatever subject they're inclined to. At the University my son goes to, English is a required unit in the Engineering course and failure in English means failing the whole year...and a good thing, too!
We do have so much in common, Katie. For me it was 4 older brothers and one sister. Good points about not setting kids up for failure, and I sooo agree it is most important to be aware and discern and encourage their skills and talents.
I love that you approached your son's future with an open heart. That is the most valuable thing a parent can do. So many parents push their kids into an education to which they are neither suited nor desire for themselves.
At the same time, lots of kids don't like math or English because they are bored with learning the basics. For some, it is not until they are introduced to the 'higher' maths and literature that they become inspired. It would be a shame to not give them at least a taste of them.
Deborah wrote: "Andre Jute wrote: "Dakota wrote: "I stopped laughing at that review when I started wondering when it would happen to one of my books."Not until you get to be old, rich, slack -- and a brand, when..."
Seriously, no big name writer gets developmental edits. That's great for their ego but it means that after a certain point in a writer's career, they stop producing quality and start churning out junk. Or at least that's my theory.
In about ten more books, I hope to test it, LOL.
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I've long since passed the point where the editors I deal with are so senior that they're dealmakers, often illiterate, or, if they're actually literate, in awe of me. You overcome the temptation to regurgitate stale bread by finding your own editors. What a development editor does (more precisely, used to do, because these days there are none in the major publishing houses) isn't difficult. Your middle-class housewife with a quality reading habit can do it very well indeed after a little practice.
Andre Jute wrote: "I hope you get the opportunity, E.L.!I've long since passed the point where the editors I deal with are so senior that they're dealmakers, often illiterate, or, if they're actually literate, in a..."
My editor is amazing, Andre. She makes me a much better writer, and I will never give her up. I joke around a lot, but I will never be satisfied churning out crud, you know?
LOL re editors who are illiterate. Add to that ones who think there's one right way to achieve greatness and we could concoct a nice mediocrity stew.
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It seems extremely unlikely that the great editors will be back in the major publishing houses. Writers who have the nous to seek them out will have to find them among the small publishers and the freelancers, and they aren't all that many.
I think the future of trad publishing lies in the growth of the small and tiny publishers newly arrived with literary dreams, not even the hidebound medium-sized houses which haven't yet been consumed by the conglomerates.
Andre Jute wrote: "I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I have worked with some great editors, for instance John Blackwell and Shirley Jones, but I've also worked with some of the best dealmakers of all time, Pete..."I love the image of an editor who carried a slushpile home with home to find the next star. I agree, I think, about the large publishing houses. I got lucky finding my editor. I knew I had the right one when she called me up and said, "El, I can tell you got too much advice writing this. You had too many cooks in the kitchen. We're going to have to strip it back down so only your voice is in there." She was brutal; the process was brutal, but the product is good.
As far as the future of publishing--again, I think I agree with you, but I base that on my intuition and not on any actual publishing expertise.
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This. So much this! I spent my childhood escaping into books but not because of a love of English. I just loved reading. I was and still am a loner and books have in the past been a serious escape. Something I constantly work on not to lock myself away. No man is an island and all that stuff.
Over the past few months my son has blossomed from having no interest in reading much of anything beyond the next comic to begging and pleading to be let loose in a book store. In just the past 6 months he's read the Percy Jackson series, started on the Harry Potter books, reading the Skullduggery books, the Captain Underpants series and a host of Afrikaans books for kids. His TBR pile is starting to look as bad as mine does. Where this sudden interest comes from, I'm not sure but I'm encouraging it all the way. His grasp of English has improved 1000%, his confidence in having and holding a conversation with a total stranger has improved just as dramatically and he's even willing to tackle things he previously had no liking for outside of reading. The new school they're attending has a wonderful reading policy - no comics and each child has to have a book in their backpacks. There's no pressure to read it which I think goes a long way in encouraging kids to read.
His interest in anything to do with any mythology has encouraged his reading even more and he's talking seriously about doing a university course in the field of archeology, anthropology and other related fields. I'm hoping this sticks. At one point he wanted to grow up to become the person who tosses the bricks up to someone on a higher level on a building site!
I love that, Claudine, both the innovative approach of the book-in-the-backpack, and that your son's horizons are expanding through reading!
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Most novices don't want to believe me that I can't give them a style of their of own. When I say, "Just try to write simply and clearly, eliminating all unwanted subtexts, and what remains will be your style," they look at me like I'm trying to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge. It can't be that simple, they think. It is. For a writer, nothing succeeds like writing.
Andre Jute wrote: "E.L. wrote: "'...you got too much advice writing this'"Most novices don't want to believe me that I can't give them a style of their of own. When I say, "Just try to write simply and clearly, eli..."
Even though my blog went down a much different road than I anticipated, I'm grateful to have followed it. I found my voice, and--although that voice is often hidden in my first novel--it will be strong in the next one.
I'm glad to have blogged, and to have learned to be comfortable with my own voice instead of trying to make it be someone else's.
Andre Jute wrote: "E.L. wrote: "'...you got too much advice writing this'"Most novices don't want to believe me that I can't give them a style of their of own. When I say, "Just try to write simply and clearly, eli..."
Yes! And I get irritable and sound irritating no doubt when asked yet again what my secret is, and honestly, I have none. Just write. Lots.
Deborah wrote: "Andre Jute wrote: "E.L. wrote: "'...you got too much advice writing this'"Most novices don't want to believe me that I can't give them a style of their of own. When I say, "Just try to write simp..."
Deb!!!! Hey dear friend!! I still think your first novel rocks, love. And this next one is going to be that much better.
E.L. wrote: "Yes! And I get irritable and sound irritating no doubt when asked yet again what my secret is, and honestly, I have none. Just write. Lots.The question I'm often asked is slightly different, yet so hauntingly familiar as yours. "Where does all of this come from? How do you think this cool stuff up?" They are usually holding one of my books if in person, or linking me the ebook they're asking about in the email.
I usually hear or read their irritated responses when I merely reply, "I sit at the computer, write, and it flows." If I'm talking to somebody who is a Star Wars fan and it's obvious they are one, either in clothing or nickname, I make sure to end that with, "...and it flows, like the force."
Hi-5 there, E.L. As of now, I know I'm not alone. ^_^
Back atcha Daniel! I also take shamelessly from the world around me--I see someone do something, or hear my kids say something funny, or catch the glint of the sun on the edge of a door handle--well, there's no end to what inspires me. But really, the key is to sit your butt down and write. Grins.
...don't send your book to Christopher Bunn to review!
Especially if it is bad!
See http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89... for one of the most entertaining reviews I've read all year -- and this year is nearly over!
This is what I started ROBUST for, as a filter to connect people who know their own minds and aren't afraid to speak them.