Will E-Readers Soon Be Obsolete?

Clearly the only constant in the high-tech market now is change. What you buy today may be obsolete (or at least much cheaper) six months from now.

According to this article via the Wall Street Journal and Yahoo, e-readers are hot right now, but things may change fast - 8-tracks, anyone?

Another rant, from another trip to the library: there is now a huge shelfload of graphic novels. Are they literature? Or are we simply becoming a society that can't deal with a page of text, or don't have the imagination to envision stories for ourselves? I waver on this one, how about you?

Write or Die

After returning from a week of stuffing my face with, well, stuffing, as well as many other delicious treats, I am faced with the always-daunting task of getting back to writing. Since like many people I can procrastinate writing for as long as it would take me to actually write a novel, I was very interested to see the Write or Die website. Pointing out that "a tangible consequence is more effective than an intangible reward," it forces you to write according to your chosen pre-set parameters: your choose a word goal or a time goal, your level of consequences (gentle, normal, kamikaze, or electric shock mode) and a grace period ranging from "forgiving", to "strict" to "evil."

And for those of you who think this might be a bit extreme, well, clearly you've never had to deal with writer's block. 

Over on Read Roger (blog of Roger Sutton, editor of The Horn Book) there is an interesting discussion on the Coretta Scott King Award, and why certain books can't be considered. The question begins with the fact that Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice just won the National Book Award for YA literature but can't be considered for a CSK award because the author, Phillip Hooseman, is white; and the fact that Jerry Pinckney's book The Lion and the Mouse can't be considered because although Pinckney is African American, the characters in the book are not.

However, the award's purpose is "To encourage the artistic expression of the African American experience via literature and the graphic arts, including biographical, historical and social history treatments by African American authors and illustrators." So therefore they only consider books by African Americans, about African Americans. The crux of the issue is: while it is certainly the prerogative of those who establish an award to set the criteria to win that award, are they in this case too narrow, excluding excellent books either by African Americans or about them? 

There's a lively discussion over there about identity and representation and literature, and I encourage people to check it out.  

Off to Dad's for Thanksgiving week!

While at the library last weekend, shuddering at the sight of so many audio books, I perused the new YA bookshelf and came across Sacred Scars, the sequel to Kathleen Duey's Skin Hunger, of the Resurrection of Magic trilogy. I picked it up because I enjoyed the first one, and I flew through all 554 pages of this one (and people say I write long).

The thing about this series is, it's dark. And this book is even darker than the first one. There are two story threads that take place in different time periods, and the chapters switch back and forth between the two. One is about a kid who is attending a school for magic. Hogwart's this ain't, though: here, if you don't learn to make food magically, you starve to death. And that's just one of the really unpleasant ways you can die, or lose your mind. No kindly Dumbledore runs this school: in fact, the headmaster Somiss makes Voldemort look like a pretty decent chap. And he can do worse things than kill you, as Sadima, the protagonist of the other story thread, discovers. To say more would give too much away. For the most part, Duey does a great job of keeping up the pace between the chapters, and keeping up the tension. I only say "for the most part" because the book suffers a little from "middle-book syndrome" - since the reader knows the story isn't going to be resolved in this book, it can feel like it drags on a little. You're not heading toward a climax, and the part of the brain that wants "a satisfying story" feels impatient. However, the ending left me eager to read the next book, to see how the two timelines come together and how the protagonists defeat Somiss (or not - I'm not taking anything for granted). There is also an increasing thematic emphasis on the power of magic, and whether it can ever be used for good, or will always be abused or cause more suffering than it heals - an interesting metaphor for the use and abuse of power, period. When I finished, I felt frustrated because I wanted to read the next book NOW, which is always a good sign. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait a couple of years... 

For me, this was a nice break from all the Egypt-related works I've been gorging on lately. I'm not sure I want to drag all those tomes on Egyptian religion, mythology, magic, and history with me to Dad's for Thanksgiving week... maybe an Amelia Peabody mystery, to lighten things up figuratively as well as literally.

  

Improve Your Vocabulary

As part of the continuing exploration of the changing of language and usage, I came across an article in The Writer magazine that talks about websites that showcase newly-minted words, phrases, and slang: Word Spy and Double-Tongued Dictionary. I have no idea how many of these words will eventually become part of the language (or should) but it's proof that the English language is adding new words to express new concepts all the time. Some of my favorites:

peanut-buttering (v.)

Secret squirrel mission

functional food

grab-and-goer

Chimerica

friend-sourcing

Can you figure out what these mean? Find them on the sites and see if you're right! What are some of your favorites? Do you see any of them becoming part of the language?

And if you are looking for specific new vocabulary to express surprise, grief, anger, or appreciation, check out this article on boston.com.

NaNoWriMo?

Is anyone doing NaNoWriMo? (That's National Novel-Writing month, for non-writers out there). If so, how is it going? Send me an email or a comment. I've never done it, mainly because I never think of it until halfway through November, which makes the word-count goal a little - well, impossible. Unless I give up my actual paying job, which my landlord and various utility companies might object to. But I'm always curious, so drop me a line if you're doing it now, if you've ever done it, if you're thinking about doing it...    

After my post yesterday, I came across this article in the Wall Street Journal online: How to Write a Great Novel. It's interesting reading just to see how various writers work, and and also relates to the part of my post about the ways writers write, in terms of the tools they use. Sure enough, one writer does dictate his novels "while lying in bed, speaking to a laptop computer with voice-recognition software." He reminds us that storytelling was in fact an oral art form.

The fact that he spends "8-9 hours a day" like this also brings up another point demonstrated by several other writers, including the one who works from 11:00 pm - 4:00 am, and the one who does housework, answers emails, talks on the phone, and plays up to 30 games of solitaire before doing any writing: they have the ability to write (or not) for great swathes of time during the day. They either make enough from their writing (hmmm) or have a spouse or significant other who pays the bills.

My envy is tempered, though, by the fact that the gift of time can be a time-wasting curse (30 games of solitaire?). Most writers have those times of necessary daydreaming, "writing time" which is not necessarily spent writing, but is still productive. Most of us have had days where we wake up with every intention to write, feeling like we have "plenty of time" and then find at the end of the day we haven't written a word.

But when it crosses over to the dark side of unproductive procrastination, having the time isn't the problem. In some ways, then, I have the gift of constrained time. I know the hours available in my day to be "writing time" and the hours available to do other writing-related tasks that don't take the same amount of brainpower or creative energy. It doesn't mean that I never waste the time, but I am always aware of the constraints, and the choices I'm making, and it does kick my butt to actually do the work (sometimes).

Maybe I should try the method of the writer who writes for a couple of hours beginning at 4:00 am, then goes back to sleep and wakes up at 8:30 to revise. The only problem is, I'm afraid I'd skip the "writing" part and just keep on with the "sleeping" part...