Odds & Ends

Okay, it's 2009 now. That means... it's Derby Trail Season. Yipee! I love the three-year-olds. Mary Forney's Blog http://maryforney.blogspot.com is doing a good job of keeping me updated on the west coast contenders. Thanks. :) I'm growing fond of The Pamplemousse despite the name.

Sorrow: Curlin is retired. So is Big Brown. Hopefully in a few years we'll be seeing their colts on the track.

In a complete change of subject: The Holy Revision of the Dark Servant continues. If anyone is interested in proof-reading the ms, let me know. My eyes are starting to cross when I stare at it for too long, and the Workshop is sooo slow.

Someone suggested I go ahead and write the Hybrid as YA and someone else that I write the Dancer as erotica. That made me wonder... YA and Erotica in the same series?! With a murder-mystery in the middle?! Am I insane? Is that how I've managed to come up with this stuff?

The Future of Bookstores

"In looking over the F&SF shelves, there was a very clear pattern. All that was left were the most recent paperback releases of name authors." L. E. Modesitt, Jr. http://tinyurl.com/2f9wdd

I've seen this pattern in most bookstores myself, including independents, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. I've even told management in these stores that I would have bought more if they'd bothered to stock Books 1 & 2 of so-and-so's trilogy. But they probably lack the power to change that. By not stocking the backlist, they reduce their own sales. But if they did stock every author's backlist, arguably, they'd soon run out of space.

Because of this trend, however, I am buying more and more books online. Amazon has better prices anyhow, and I don't have to spend another $25 for their discount membership. I've never quite gotten how I save money by spending the amount of a hardcover to get a savings club membership card. Waldenbooks Otherworlds Club discount card was free. With Amazon, I not only get a free discount, I can be pretty sure that they'll have the author's backlist.

The downside to Amazon is that there is far less impulse buying. The consumer is far more likely to only buy the book by the author that they're looking for and not pick up the book on the next shelf because it looks interesting. Amazon doesn't have shelves. And sometimes I wonder who decides on the books that show up at the bottom of the screen that proclaim "People who liked X also liked A, B, C, D."

But I remain aware of new and mid-list authors, and I look for them a couple of ways.

The used bookstore is my first stop there. I don't spend as much on the book, so I'm a lot more willing to take a chance. If I like the book, I'll add the author to the list of who I'm looking for at Amazon.

Another method is to read the reviews on Locus. Not 100% foolproof, but they have turned me onto some great books over the years.

I don't know what the solution is for the brick and mortar bookstores, but if I had to guess, it's going to be POD. Problem is, there's not much difference between shopping online and browsing POD titles. You can't pick up the book and skim a few pages. I've heard that it will soon be possible to have a POD kiosk inside a bookstore. You select your book, pay for it, and the machine prints and binds it while you wait.

This might be the solution for backlist. Put the newest offerings on the shelves to attract customers, then have the other books obtainable through the POD. One stop shopping that's actually competitive.

ICU eavesdropping

Our redoubtable night shift charge is fond of challenging us to think outside the box. On the question of patient/family complaints about noise, he had this to say:

Pretend you're not a nurse. Walk down the hall, stop and listen outside of each room for a moment, then move on.

Some results:

1. "Don't put that thing in there!"
2. "Squeeze!"
3. "Work it!"
4. "Suck it in harder!"
5. "Blow blow blow blow blow!"
6. "Yes, you do have to do that."

There was nothing inappropriate going on in any case, but feel free to guess what the actual situation is. I'll post the real answers tomorrow.

Works in Progress Eternal

Works in Progress (as of 1/8/09)

Fantasy

Ydron Chronicles (510,549)

1. Dancer (Rak 1) (55,098)

2. Novice (Rak 2) (55,726)

3. Priest (Rak 3) (33,405)

4. Dark Servant (Rak 4) (210,474) (Complete, in revision)

5. Thearch (Rak 5) (87,062)

6. The Hybrid (Stand alone) (68,784) (Complete, in revision)

7. The Temple (Stand alone) (Outline only)

Science Fiction

Rovanis Chronicles (61,648)

1. Yeri 1 (10,650)

2. Yeri 2 (15,919)

3. Yeri 3 (8,491)

4. Yeri 4 (6,404)

5. Yeri 5 (20,184)

6. The Forest (Stand alone) (Outline only)

Dark Star Chronicles (157,051)

1. Razorback (39,000)

2. Ghost Fleet (Outline only)

3. Last Stand (66,513)

4. Masquerade (86,638)

Total Word Count: 729,248

Happy New Year

Courtesy of the night shift ICU charge nurse comes the best New Year's resolution I've ever heard.

"This year, I resolve not to make any resolutions."

This is originally from The Big Read - they think most people will only have read 6 out of the 100 books listed.
Instructions:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read.
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’dolin - Louis De Bernieres Mans
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Publishing vs Nursing

I freely admit that I am an aspiring author who would very much like to leave my current career to write full time. But isn't that the dream of every aspiring, unpublished author? I am at least realistic. I know the odds are against me.

And after today's news of publishing houses laying off, restructuring and possibly placing freezes on acquisitions, now is clearly not a good time in the publishing industry. Publishers Marketplace dubbed it 'Black Wednesday' and bad news seemed to come from every direction.

Agent and editor bloggers that I follow and admire seem beside themselves as they worry about what's going to happen next. My heart goes out to all of them, and I hope they all weather this crisis in good form with their careers intact.

It's at times like these that I reflect upon my day, er, night job. As a Registered Nurse in a cardiac ICU, I don't have to worry about lay-offs. I have to worry about mandatory overtime and whether or not I'll get Christmas off.

There's a nursing shortage. If the hospital I worked for went under, I could find a job within days if I wasn't picky, a month at the utmost if I was picky. And given that sort of job security, I'd be crazy to want to leave the field.

And yet, as an author, I'd be able to set my own hours, eat like a normal human being, use the bathroom on an as needed basis, and see more of my family. But I'd be at the mercy of the economic climate and how well my books sold.

For now, I shall remain a CVICU RN. Yes, it means I'll have to work Christmas and New Year's, but at least I'll get holiday pay on top of the overtime.