Now, to start you off, here’s a post that I wrote about my review of Auralia’s Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet.  The link to the actual review is in that post, but the post contains a bit of overspill that I couldn’t put directly into the actual review. This is one of the most creative and well written fantasy novels that I’ve ever read. Period.

Anyway, so, the interview that I heard is with my favorite irreverent Reverend (former reverend, actually) Steve Brown. He interviewed Jeffrey Overstreet for his (J.O.’s) first book, Through A Screen Darkly- which is a non-fic about movies. See, his day job is being a movie critic. Fiction is what he does in his off hours.

Anyway, they get into some pretty interesting discussions, and, to Steve Brown Etc‘s producer’s incredible joy, brought up Empire Strikes Back. Seriously, the producer guy is a little disturbing in his devotion to Star Wars. Anyway, for those of you who enjoy talk radio, you might find the interview interesting, though my favorite parts are probably the “movie trailers” they interrupt the interview with. Such as “Nuns. With Guns.” and the touching story of a cross dressing lesbian trapped in a man’s body, and his struggle to understand why he prefers to wear men’s clothes and is attracted to women.

Now, I love that because of the interview with one of my favorite authors (it’s about 40 minutes long and about 30-35 minutes is the interview). However, Steve Brown had Jeffrey Overstreet back to discuss The Golden Compass back when the movie was still out and people actually gave a crap. Whether you care about the G.C. or not, if you’re into fantasy, it’s still pretty interesting to hear his take on it- being a fantasy novelist AND a movie critic. Really interesting combo for this type of topic. To be honest, this might have been the interview where they discussed Empire Strikes Back. It was yesterday that I listened to them, so it’s all getting a little jumbled now.

And, just because it’s easier to drop links here than to actually try to find mom’s email address and then convince her to actually read the email, I wanted mom to hear this interview with the author of What’s a Christian To Do With Harry Potter? and The Gospel According to Harry Potter. Since I’m an HP geek from way back and used to listen to MuggleNet’s weekly podcasts ALL THE TIME, I was totally into this interview and got shivers several times when Connie Neal made points that I’d totally missed in my own reading. I’d always focused on Harry as the savior figure rather than as the saved. Some of her insight totally blew me away, and made me just want to hook her up with the MuggleNet peeps just so I could hear it!

I’m not sure what’s been going on for the past few days, but lately I’ve been meeting more and more publishing industry pros and aspiring novelists on Twitter. And along with that comes the influx of linkage.

Ok, so the single most important website for an aspiring novelist is Miss Snark. That’s a given. If you’ve never read this viciously wonderful agent, you need to. Go back to the very first post and read all the way up to her last (she’s hung up her stilettos for good) post. Take notes. Bookmark the Crapometer for when you’re getting ready to query. Read through it again. Take more notes. Follow all instructions and consider all advice. Just do it. Besides, it’s fun!

Now, Miss Snark I’ve known about for years, and have read almost every post on her site. However, #QueryFail is brand new. And it’s not a site; it’s a hashtag. In other words, it’s a stream of tweets from Twitter that are all on one subject, specially marked out using a hashtag. You don’t need to be a member of Twitter to read #QueryFail, but you do need an account if you want to respond to any of them.

What QueryFail is, is a day set aside by agent Colleen Lindsay for all Twitter savvy agents and editors to vent their query frustrations in the form of a 140 character tweet. Many of the tweets are actual lines from queries that the agent/editor rejected such as “Like my protagonist, I definitely could be described as overachiever, and I naturally have hair like Lady Godiva.”, “My book is about a friendship based upon mutual vomiting practices in high school.”, and my favorite- “This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings.”

You’ll need to scroll through several days of tweets about #queryfail if you choose to follow the above link to access it, but there’s a downloadable file of the actual QueryFail tweets from the actual day at that link.  The agents are planning to make this a regular thing, but no schedule has been set. And by the way? #QueryFail even got attention from The Guardian. No joke! There’s also a #novelfail, but I haven’t had much time to check into that.

And the third page that you may want to consider, is a 25 point list of why your fiction is being passed over, courtesy of Andromeda Spaceways. It’s funny, but not hilarious. Dirty, but not filthy. But all in all, a pretty good list.

Thing is, the only pickles we have in the house are those sandwich stackers, right? And they’re just not the same. So I decided to make a grilled cheese and pickle sandwich for breakfast. And then I remembered that I had crumbled bacon for my salads….

So I thought “What a great opportunity to practice my video editing skillz!”. What I really should have thought is “What a great opportunity to practice my filming skillz!” But I didn’t.

So, even though I had the tripod attached to my Flip, I still held it by hand and gave you guys plenty of time to study my husband’s egg pan instead of the pan I was actually using. Aren’t I just so thoughtful?

1. I wasn’t going to do this, because I couldn’t even think of 1 thing that most people don’t know about me after all the memes I’ve participated in.

2. Until Jersey Girl mentioned having a crush on Kevin Smith (Silent Bob of Jay and Silent Bob). I’ve had a crush on him for years as well, so there ya go.

3. And then I remembered that I haven’t seen Airplane yet. Husband bought it for me for Christmas, but I promised a friend of mine that I wouldn’t watch it until we see it together.

4. It took me something like a month to figure out how to use Twitter. Now it’s taking me longer to figure out how NOT to use it.

5. I’ve only read two books by Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park), but own 3 movies (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion).

6. I was humiliated in the 6th grade when despite having the highest reading comprehension in the class (well, in the top 3), and regularly enjoying books written around, oh, 1900, I failed miserably to comprehend Sense and Sensibility and gave up after 20 pages. And then was further humiliated by 3 other girls in my class “loving” the book.

7. Gurinder Chadha wrote, directed, and produced the original movie Bend It Like Beckham, one of my all time favorite movies. It’s my dream to work with this woman. However, she also wrote, directed, and produced Bride and Prejudice- a modern Indian version of Pride and Prejudice, and I hated it! This, despite the fact that I’m a devoted Bridget Jones fan. Then again, Bridget Jones had Colin Firth, so, yanno…

8. I consider Space Balls to be high art.

9. I got my mother hooked on listening to sermons online- and introduced her to one she’d never heard of before. She now calls me almost every day to tell me what she heard, and how awesome it was, and to be ecstatic over having something to do while daddy watches the news ALL DAY LONG.

10. I actually WANT to go to church, like, all the time now. That’s sooo different from how it used to be.

Now, I’m supposed to pick out several more people to tag, but I won’t.  Partially because the one that I’d like to tag the most, a brilliant writer,  has just lost his house in a fire. Somehow, I don’t think fulfilling memes will be at the top of his list right now.

Now, a few months back, maybe even a year ago, Simon posted a gif that his kids made. It beat the pants off most of the animated ads you see on MySpace.

Today, he posted this video, that his 10 year old made. I’m not kidding. Watch carefully, because I didn’t at first and had to rewind (is that word still applicable?) to see the beginning again. I only wish there’d been dubbed in music.

That’s just too awesome. I keep replaying it and laughing my butt off.

So, that was my work space. The sheets are very useful for covering the mattress. The pillows are great for sleeping, cuddling while reading, or propping up my back after marathon sessions of playing online or building websites. I hate that comforter, but hubby hates the red sheet, so I figure we’re even as long as the bed isn’t made. And I love, love, love that slanty laptop support thing. If my laptop were just a smidge smaller, I could even slide it inside for safe keeping.

If you look closely, you’ll see Darren Rowse’s face on the screen since I was on his website at the time.

I use a laptop, so I can work anywhere. And I do. When hubby’s doing bills, I plop down on the sofa in the office. When I plan to be on the ‘puter all day, I take the laptop down to the living room. Sometimes when I’m cooking, I take it into the dining room just to squeeze a little more work or play in.

But, for the most part, I sit on the bed when I’m online, and lay across it with my notebook when I’m working on my WIP.

But for the past few days, I’ve been day dreaming about my ideal writing room. After all, I day dream about my dream house often enough- so the specific rooms have to get dreamed in at some point.

But you know what’s weird? I don’t want a big, bright, airy room. I don’t want a dark, warm, library-ish room.

I want a closet.

I’m serious. I want a small, walk-in type closet, or broom closet, or whatever size room. Something, maybe 3X5? And I want to paint it pink inside. Hot pink. Keep the shelves though. I’ll need them for my research books. Just enough room for a chair and table with my laptop. Even one of our folding tables would work.

I think it would work best for me. A room that small wouldn’t have room for distractions. I tend to feel more secure in smaller spaces which would free up my mental power for concentration and creativity. And, of course, claustrophobic husbands won’t be popping in just to tell me about the new GM concept car.

Of course, I’d want a seperate library, and maybe even a regular office for non-writing computer work.

WIP update: I wrote 2 1/2 pages last night. I think I know the next scene, so I should be able to get some more done tonight.

Ahem. Anyway. Wanna see a gorgeous library- but not in the traditional sense? Seattle’s Central Library is a gorgeous confection of contemporary design and books. Yes, despite all that glass, metal, and artsy fartsy, urm, everything- there are, indeed, books in that library.

I can’t see myself appreciating such a modern library for long, but boy- would I love to go exploring for a few days! I’ll need to set a future novel in Seattle, so I can write it off my taxes.

So what do you guys think? Sleek and modern? Or historic and cozy?

Miss Snark said:

First, authors aren’t paid based on where their books are sold, they are paid on the basis of cover price OR net proceeds. Net proceeds is used when big volume retailers (think BN, Borders, WalMart, Costco) buy the book at a steep steep discount (often 60% off cover prices). Author royalty rates for those buys are less than they are for other buys made by people who get a smaller discount (ie indie stores, libraries).

Same for online preorders – from whom you order is the key.

Ahah! So, my favorite authors will benefit more from orders placed elsewhere than they will if I buy from the convenient source. But, I don’t have to feel guilty about not buying in a brick and mortar store (as we don’t have any indie book stores around here). Yay!