Celebrating our own…
We have some news to share from Scribes member Richard Barber whose short story “Visiting” has just been published in Midnight Echo IV. It may be the magazine of the Australian Horror Writer’s Association but never fear, they’ll post it to you if you ask nicely enough and you can also buy an electronic version. Couldn’t be easier eh!
Richard also recently made the short-list of Brit Writers 2010 but unfortunately didn't make it to the final, we're all mighty proud of him.
Chris
‘Perfectly Formed’ – Waterstones Short Story Competition
By all accounts this would be a good competition to enter, deadline is 1st July 2010.
Follow the link for more details :
WATERSTONES SHORT STORY COMPETITION
Interesting – Kurt Vonneguts Eight Rules for Writing a Short Story
This is nothing new but a great little list to muse on, according to Wikipedia, these are KV’s eight commandments:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O’Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.
Interesting – Cory Doctorow Talks Publishing Economics at Bloomsbury
Interesting viewing fro anyone interested in the future of publishing or Creative Commons.
Cory Doctorow - ebooks from Bloomsbury on Vimeo.
Earlier this month, the UK publisher Bloomsbury (best known for having struck gold with the Harry Potter books, though also a real leader on the use of Creative Commons in publishing) invited me to give a talk to its staff over the lunch hour at its London office. I gave a talk about the theory and practice of book pricing in the age of the Internet, talking about the way that strategies that are focused on maximizing revenue from existing customers can cost you access to new markets. I got into the economics of distribution channels, DRM, lock-in, and talked about what I see as the top priorities for publishers looking to continue with their success in the Internet age.
Interesting – The Next Big Thing : Literary Scholars Turn to Science
Interesting article over at the New York Times, a bit outside of the box but a snippet and link are provided below :
"The brain may be it. Getting to the root of people’s fascination with fiction and fantasy, Mr. Gottschall said, is like “mapping wonderland.”
Literature, like other fields including history and political science, has looked to the technology of brain imaging and the principles of evolution to provide empirical evidence for unprovable theories.
Interest has bloomed during the last decade. Elaine Scarry, a professor of English at Harvard, has since 2000 hosted a seminar on cognitive theory and the arts. Over the years participants have explored, for example, how the visual cortex works in order to explain why Impressionist paintings give the appearance of shimmering. In a few weeks Stephen Kosslyn, a psychologist at Harvard, will give a talk about mental imagery and memory, both of which are invoked while reading."
FYI : Changed some dates in the Scribe calendar.
Right guys and Gals,
I have changed a few dates in the Scribes calendar and thought it best to post here also.
April 5th 2010 is the first Monday of April but it is also easter, as such we will be holding the meeting in a venue yet to be decided (most likely a pub in the City Centre). The session itself will be light on actual writing but will be a chance for us to plan and take feedback for the year ahead.
This is your chance to influence Scribes, to request specific sessions and help drive us to be a better group.
More info on the venue as the time approaches.
Secondly, for those wishing to contribute to the Scribes Anthology this year the deadline for FIRST DRAFTS is now 19th April 2010, this session will be used to go over our submissions and to get feedback from other members on them where needed.
That's all for now, any questions send us an E-Mail : derbyscribes@googlemail.com
Cheers,
Chris
Another ‘blog-as-I-write’
Following on from the previous post on Graham Joyce's blow-by-blow blogging of his writing, 'friend of Scribes' Conrad Williams is doing the same with his latest novel 'Loss of Separation'.
His blog 'Black Notes from a Dark Building' can be found HERE.
Does anyone know of any other published authors bloggin their novel writing?
Graham Joyce blogging a day-by-day account of writing his new novel
I try hard for this blog to be somewhat interesting for all you lovely Scribes and non-Scribes people but in this case I'm going to point you onwards to the wonderful Graham Joyces site where he is blogging each day about writing his new novel.
Definitely something I'm going to be reading each day. :)
Here are the previous day's entries :
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3
DAY 4
DAY 5
DAY 6
Cheers,
Chris
Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity – a TED talk.
A really great funny lady talking about 'Creativity', a must watch.
STEPHEN KING on Writing, Scary Stories and more.
Interesting video, worth a watch.
This isn't the full video but if you like what you see the rest can be found on the Borders website :
