Two weeks away! I am SOOO excited to be going to the Indie Book Fest in Orlando. I am driving up from Miami, and my daughter is driving down from Tallahassee. Not only do we get to hang out together, we get to go meet some of our favorite indie authors.
It's kind of been an evolution over time for me as a reader, my indie author fandom. I have my daughter, "The Girl", to thank, although she tells me she has created a demon out of me. Hmm, demon book reader. Yes, I read about demons, ghosts, vampires, gods and goddesses, werewolves, and harpies. Just to name a few. So I am not insulted.
In 2011, we bought our first e-reader, a Nook. It's not that we were really interested in changing our book reading habits, but that was the year The Girl came back home after graduating college. We all were expecting it to be a short stay while she found her dream career. It was also the year of no jobs or job prospects in her selected field. So she joined the ranks of kids with a degree working at the local grocery store as a cashier. Ask her what code apples or bananas have. I dare you.
The Girl had always expressed the desire to be a writer since she was little. But, she thought she had to have a "real" job to support herself while she wrote. Ok, fine. Well, this didn't work out as planned. So plan B, she started to write, sent out her query letters, and waited. And waited. And... Excitement! Per agent request: send out the first three chapters! And waited, and waited... and "sorry, not at this time".
So, in between the whining, (Oh, my favorite line is "do you want some cheese with that whine?") job searching, working, moping, The Girl did her research. And with a mom's sage wisdom, I tell her to get off her ass and finish it. Yeah, Tiger mom parenting, I know. She tells me about Amanda Hocking, a self published author making substantial money from her books. She tells me about Goodreads. She writes some more, she reads, she creates a pen name, and continues to research how to be self published. So, in 2011, her first book came out. A paranormal YA book. And I would love to tell you more about that except that The Girl has told me I can't. Sigh.
Excitedly I started to "watch" her goodreads page. And I noticed that to the side where other books similar in the genre. With my new Nook, I started to download some of these books. And, wow! I was in book heaven. From there I started to follow author pages. From there I discovered more books, more authors, and book events like the Nashville UtopYA event, web sites like Ourbooksourvoice blogspot. And this in turn led me to the Indie bookfest in Orlando, almost in my back yard. WHOOT!
I love supporting Indie authors. As a group, they are also avid readers and get just excited and animated as I do about reading and book news. And, they are gathering in Orlando! I will be honest, I haven't read everyone's work, and I have about 80 books I have purchased and yet to read. I know, I shouldn't have looked. *bends head in shame* But, now I get to meet them in person! I plan to make a I Love YA pin to wear. I don't plan to embarass my daughter, but that will happen at least once. And we will be dragging her dad along. So they can roll their eyes at each other because of me.
So, if you are the rare person who has read my fledglng post and you will also be at the indie book bash, Hi! Dam glad to meet you! See you there!
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Sunday, July 14, 2013
What is writing?
"So, how much writing did you get done today?" I asked the girl while stretching my legs out on the couch in the living room. This was the first real question after the cursory "hello, how are you doing?" that never really needed an answer but was asked anyway, even of ones own daughter. I snuggled into the couch pillow just as I started my advance towards the real questioning.
"I haven't been very productive today, but I did update my website." She replied.
"Ok, going to it now." I open up my Kindle to the web search and press the first icon on the page. "Ah, I see it."
"I didnt' say you had to read it now." I can sense in her voice the border between annoyance and irritation. She didn't mean for me to go to her site. I don't care. I read what she wrote hoping not to find typo's or egregious running on sentences. So far so good. I tell her so.
"So, have you read my blog lately?" I ask her. What comes as natural as breathing to her is like plucking another grey hair to me. But as she is the only one besides myself that knows that my blog exists. I ask her to read it.
"Just a sec. Got it." She hesitates and I flip flop the cell phone to my other ear.
"And?" I query. "What do you think? I wrote this post with the changes in the sigh story from what Kim told me."
The girl starts to laugh.
"What?" Now my alarms are going off. I didn't think it was that bad. In fact I thought it was better than the previous post.
"This first part. It's like a book." She tells me.
"Ok, what does that mean?" I mean really, what did that mean?
"Well, you wrote it in first person. This whole post is a story." A simple answer. But I still didn't get what she meant.
"Where you wrote she looks over her magnified glasses and glares at me is first person versus writing in third person. This part is a story."
"Oh, really. Hmm. So you like the story?" I ask her.
"I am so not the girl. Really mom, you had her say masterbation!"
"Yes sweetie, you are not the girl. You would never act like that. Like, ever. This is just writing."
Sigh
"I haven't been very productive today, but I did update my website." She replied.
"Ok, going to it now." I open up my Kindle to the web search and press the first icon on the page. "Ah, I see it."
"I didnt' say you had to read it now." I can sense in her voice the border between annoyance and irritation. She didn't mean for me to go to her site. I don't care. I read what she wrote hoping not to find typo's or egregious running on sentences. So far so good. I tell her so.
"So, have you read my blog lately?" I ask her. What comes as natural as breathing to her is like plucking another grey hair to me. But as she is the only one besides myself that knows that my blog exists. I ask her to read it.
"Just a sec. Got it." She hesitates and I flip flop the cell phone to my other ear.
"And?" I query. "What do you think? I wrote this post with the changes in the sigh story from what Kim told me."
The girl starts to laugh.
"What?" Now my alarms are going off. I didn't think it was that bad. In fact I thought it was better than the previous post.
"This first part. It's like a book." She tells me.
"Ok, what does that mean?" I mean really, what did that mean?
"Well, you wrote it in first person. This whole post is a story." A simple answer. But I still didn't get what she meant.
"Where you wrote she looks over her magnified glasses and glares at me is first person versus writing in third person. This part is a story."
"Oh, really. Hmm. So you like the story?" I ask her.
"I am so not the girl. Really mom, you had her say masterbation!"
"Yes sweetie, you are not the girl. You would never act like that. Like, ever. This is just writing."
Sigh
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Digital dementia
When I was a kid, mom would send us out to play in the rain and mudpuddles out front of the house by the driveway. We would toss in sticks, dead leaves, stones into the water as if the result would be different. The stones would sink, and the sticks and leaves would catch in the spiky yellow grass like a fly in a web.
Our world was tiny but our imaginations were large. We learned by doing, seeing the consequences of our actions. Then we would throw our imagination into our play. The water was a sea. The leaf was a boat. The stick was a whale and the stone a meteor from the sky.
When my kids were small, we wouldn't let them play in the rain, or with dirty sticks and leaves. We wouldn't let them feel what it was like to get their rainboot stuck in the mud or hear the sucking sound they created as they tugged their tiny foot up. We denied them the sudden separation of their foot from their warm boot and the splash of white sock into grainy wet sucky muck.
We let our kids play with the newest technology tools. They needed to be competitive. They learned the way the technology trained them. When you push this key, that page pulls up. Every time. This leads to this, then that, every time. We wanted them to develop their analytical minds. They weren't afraid of the next generation phone, tablet, video console, computer.
Our brains are wired differently from our childrens. Our experiences built our brains, neuron upon neuron, synapse upon synapse. We share the same template, but not the same thought processes. And yet we are the ones who provided this clean, precise, neat world.
What have we created?
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/26/new-digital-dementia-plaguing-young-tech-users/
BTW, if you write science fiction this is the science that can be a fiction theme. (this is a blog about books, right?)
Our world was tiny but our imaginations were large. We learned by doing, seeing the consequences of our actions. Then we would throw our imagination into our play. The water was a sea. The leaf was a boat. The stick was a whale and the stone a meteor from the sky.
When my kids were small, we wouldn't let them play in the rain, or with dirty sticks and leaves. We wouldn't let them feel what it was like to get their rainboot stuck in the mud or hear the sucking sound they created as they tugged their tiny foot up. We denied them the sudden separation of their foot from their warm boot and the splash of white sock into grainy wet sucky muck.
We let our kids play with the newest technology tools. They needed to be competitive. They learned the way the technology trained them. When you push this key, that page pulls up. Every time. This leads to this, then that, every time. We wanted them to develop their analytical minds. They weren't afraid of the next generation phone, tablet, video console, computer.
Our brains are wired differently from our childrens. Our experiences built our brains, neuron upon neuron, synapse upon synapse. We share the same template, but not the same thought processes. And yet we are the ones who provided this clean, precise, neat world.
What have we created?
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/26/new-digital-dementia-plaguing-young-tech-users/
BTW, if you write science fiction this is the science that can be a fiction theme. (this is a blog about books, right?)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)