- Coolest Thing Ever (so far this week) – PULP-O-MIZER: the custom pulp magazine cover generator: http://t.co/8qDX0BHgJa RT @channel37net ->
- Funny stuff: "Warning: Population of Content Marketing Experts Surging Out of Control" http://t.co/Nr5ScHXTlA ->
- More marketing satire from the Onion: Sponsored Content Pretty Fucking Awesome: http://t.co/Bu91XfEwpD ->
- Typing like it's 1969: Free typewriter fonts for your computer http://t.co/0Uz38tp9Cf ->
- Apple's web of tax shelters, empty "subsidiaries" avoid paying billions in taxes: http://t.co/0DkG2mnBIL Happy I use #Linux! ->
- Apple, Google, Coca Cola And 14 Other Companies Avoid Taxes By Keeping Billions Of Dollars In Cash Offshore: http://t.co/OkspbIITx6 ->
- RT @yvealexander: “You just don't know writers. They'll use anything, anybody. They'll eat their young.” Dennis Potter #amwriting ->
The Week In Tweets
The Freelance Writing Life As A Magazine Cover
(make your own at Pulp-O-Mizer)
To create your own Pulp Magazine cover (or coffee mug, or t-shirt, or…), head on over to the Pulp-O-Mizer.
The Week In Tweets
- Is the Internet destroying the middle class? Jaron Lanier's "Who Owns the Future" says yes. On my reading list. http://t.co/diUMpMTylz ->
- Uh oh… U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records – http://t.co/NcBaKqBses http://t.co/NjXNGU92gq ->
- Oh, Canada — Celtx Screenwriting Software Doubles User Base: http://t.co/PTXBCKDLLQ ->
- "The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults In History – Flavorwire" http://t.co/j5QuaEP6d6 ->
- Outrageous French copyright grab denies even current authors their rights: ReLIRE Goes Live http://t.co/xQKlaNSYHd ->
- Onetime "killer" spreadsheet Lotus 1-2-3 retired by IBM (which of you used it, and now feels old? [raises hand]): http://t.co/iroPnlSO7U ->
Extreme Geeky Writer Alert: The Star Trek For Writers Guide Online
Suddenly I’m in geek writer heaven; I stumbled across a copy of the original Star Trek Writer’s Guide
, which opens with a stern test of your science fiction writing skills and ends with the following question:
Q: Are you people on LSD?
A: We tried, but we couldn’t keep it lit.
In between, there’s plenty of interesting fodder for even today’s earthbound writers.
Keep writing (and live long and prosper), Tom Chandler.
The Week In Tweets
- The slow death of dedicated e-readers? Barnes & Noble turns its Nook HD line into full-powered Android tablets http://t.co/EdqFghiw5G ->
- RT @leegoldberg: The Author Exploitation Business http://t.co/GyntxT13l1 via @DavidGaughran ->
- Software developer shoots spot for new screenwriting software in… a typewriter shop (one I'd love to visit): http://t.co/xykkxqkHQF ->
- Ha! NASA drops Windows from International Space Station in favor of Linux: http://t.co/LibnWIyTbX ->
- I fail the geek test, but funny: Old Spock battles New Spock in the greatest car commercial ever http://t.co/1sazm4Tu52 ->
- 23 “ultraconserved words” that have remained largely unchanged for 15,000 years: http://t.co/g8koGo7zYt ->
- RT @activestate: #Komodo 8.0.2 is out! Download IDE: http://t.co/XY6dxOfXX4 and Edit: http://t.co/KTyWkfkzHh ->
- Mark Zuckerberg's Fwd.us PAC draws fire for its nasty political ads: http://t.co/RuFkm5GS8i ->
- Tom Albrighton writes a wholly dystopic view of a "hyper-social" future. You'll never log into Klout again: http://t.co/y98i5Mi3gY ->
Science Fiction Writer Charlies Stross Details His Difficult Path To Publication (And Eventual Success)
Most writers seem to come to the profession in a roundabout way; I was shooting PR photography and working towards my photojournalism degree when I was recruited to write by an ad agency.
Essentially, I took a great big sideways step into the writing world, and though I didn’t know it at the time, I was lucky to fall into the profession without much of a struggle.
Others have it less easy. Instead of randomly wasting time on Facebook, invest a few minutes reading how fulltime sci-fi writer (not too many own that title) Charlie Stross pursued his tangled path to publication.
Contemplating the smoking wreckage of my first decade of writing and selling SF, I concluded that I was Doing It Wrong. I’d been selling short stories to British magazines and anthologies, hoping to build a name and visibility and acquire an agent and a publisher for the novel manuscripts I was producing at a rate of, roughly, three a decade. But the British short fiction market was … well, nobody paid much attention to it. And my experiences with British literary agents were, shall we say, not terribly good. (1996 was the year my second agent fired me.) So: if one wants to write SF and do nothing else, it follows that one needs to be successful enough to earn a living at it, which means cracking the North American market, because as Willie Sutton said when a journalist asked him why he robbed banks, “that’s where the money is”. (Not that there’s much money in SF publishing anywhere, but there are more readers in the 350-million strong market of the USA and Canada than in the 60-million strong market that is the UK.)
So, I worked up a task list. Item: sell stories to the Big Three magazines (Asimov’s SF magazine, Analog, F&SF). Ideally get shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula. (Yeah, right. As if that’ll ever happen.) Write novels. Each novel must be #1 in a series in a different sub-genre, but don’t write #2 next — go do something different while #1 is slumbering in a cobweb-afflicted slushpile.
Stross made a plan, and it worked out well for him.
Even if you haven’t faced that moment where you’re not sure if the rewards offset the hassles, the whole story makes for a great read.
The Week In Tweets
- RT @tommangan: Another totally excellent word: Boondoggle. Penultimate Word Blog says it also means "lanyard" – who knew? http://t.co/vShIg… ->
- RT @tommangan: good one from @bgindra "Life is a sexually transmitted disease that is always fatal. Great line by Tim Gehring " ->
- Orvis throws down a matching grant for donations to stop Pebble Mine (your $50 becomes $100): http://t.co/brlaObR9kq ->
Does Your Writer’s Office Look Anything Like These?!
Matthew Stibbe’s Bad Language blog posted a series of photographs of writer’s rooms, and while I’m always willing to peek into the life of another writer, I’m reminded why I close my eyes when I walk into my office, at least compared to most of these.
My office looks nowhere near as neat as most of these…
First, let me say I’ve got a great office; we live in a nice house on three wooded acres on the flank of a 14,000′ stratovolcano. The view out the window is just right; not the stellar vistas of the upstairs rooms, but a glimpse of the outdoors — enough to remind me I should finish work and go play.
The problem is that it’s been a long winter, and the office is in its pre-spring-cleaning state. If you photographed it for a post like Stibbe’s, you’d want to disinfect your blog after posting.
I’ve got three unused desktop PCs and monitors stacked in one corner, a wire document rack stuffed with fly rods in another. A rack of winter clothes is pushed up against the wall, and bookshelves (which attract clutter like politicians attract scandals) line the back.
Small stacks of paper, fishing gear, office supplies and other junk cover 75% of the floor.
And I can’t really see through the detritus to the top of my desk.
It looks like a sporting goods warehouse fell out of the sky and landed on a combination library/copier room/computer repair depot.
Still, there’s hope.
We’re in the midst of our first sunny, 70+ degree days of spring. Line up enough warm days end-to-end, add in a pinch of freedom from deadlines, and eventually even I throw open the windows, shovel out the expired paperwork, and store the winter clothes.
I don’t think I’ll ever quite achieve the stately, dignified writing rooms featured in Stibbe’s post (I just noticed the post was by Clair Dodd, the potential Dr. Who companion who writes for Bad Language), but then, they’re mostly British, and cleaning their writer rooms is just the kind of stiff upper lip kind of behavior you’d expect from them.
Keep writing (and try to keep up with the cleaning), Tom Chandler.
The Week In Tweets
- The downside of "Content Marketing — blurring the lines between news and somebody's paid-for "content": http://t.co/1jHizHDo7V ->
- Cynical, funny and (at times) cutting: "What Writing Programs Ought To Teach You When They Teach You About Writing" http://t.co/ALmhG06H09 ->
- Hiarious Mitchell & Webb video about the kind of advice every writer receives, but wishes he didn't: http://t.co/sEdUh7IqAa ->
- Funny stuff from McSweeney’s: A Field Guide to Common Punctuation. http://t.co/UbCcI9nSq3 ->
Write This. Or Not. (or, The Lighter Side Of People Telling You How to Write)
I’m on the home stretch of my annual report project, though falling a little behind on a client’s online work.
In other words, it’s business as usual here at the Underground, which means I need to deflect attention away from my lack of posting with bright, shiny objects like this funny bit of video (warning — will induce PTSD in most veteran writers):
I found this gem via screenwriter John August’s always interesting screenwriting podcast. This week they take on the subject of writing in odd environments. Enjoy!
Keep writing (or not), Tom Chandler.
This Blog Just Won An Extremely Prestigious Award. So Why Is This Person Yelling At Me?
In a clear (and successful) attempt to earn a link, Writer’s Digest has picked the Writer Underground as one of their Top 101 Websites For Writers — for the fourth year running.
For the record, we writers are fragile, egotistical creatures, and a little recognition feels pretty good. In fact, if I squint hard enough at the e-badge, I can make myself believe Putlitzer winners only dream about recognition like this.
Two hours after the happy email arrived and was instantly forwarded to my mother, I received a heated phone call from a marketing “guru” who was caught running a website security scam on my client. It was suggested I was delusional, uninformed and rude (no, no and yes, at least by that point).
That “feel good” stuff? Pretty much gone.
If the universe is listening, next time I’d prefer a little less Yin to go with my Yang.
Keep writing (and bringing home those heavy-duty awards), Tom Chandler.
they like us
linux is for writers
A Witty Short Film For Those Who Kinda Wish They (Occasionally) Wrote Witty, Short Films
One of this year’s goals was to play around with more audio and video projects — the kind of loose commitment you make when something seems fun and probably useful from a career perspective (stop learning, start dying).
So it’s the end of April and all I’ve done is write a handful of satirical commercial scripts which were never meant to see the light of day (OK, maybe just this inside joke).
Then I see something like this — a hilarious modern-day take on what I’ll call the Wile E. Coyote fable.
Witty and crafty, it’s so engaging I found myself wishing I’d written it before I was even halfway through (an autonomous robot pigeon?!).
A pizza delivery franchise should have produced a “branded” version of this short in lieu of another round of coupons.
Somebody would have won a bunch of awards.
Like the hugely successful Clive Owen “The Hire” shorts for BMW or the just released 13-minute long Jaguar F-Type introduction starring Damien Lewis (see below), it’s clear entertainment is not a bad way to sell.
Keep writing (maybe even a little of the stuff you want to write), Tom Chandler.