Daily Thoughts 7/22/2011

Daniel Webster, 1782-1852 Full lgth., standing, facing left; left hand on books on table. 

Daily Thoughts 7/22/2011

This morning, I checked the displays and updated the Twitter account.  I also added 18 more ebooks to the Ereaders from Sony.  I rather like the http://www.feedbooks.com site because it has cover illustrations that are decent for free material.

I also signed up for http://www.lucy.com which is a video tutorial company for computer training.  The Westchester Library System is making this available to staff.

On the train home, I worked on two poems focused on a color for August 18, 2011.  It is our writing exercise for the next Writers Networking Event at the library from 6:00-8:00 p.m. It is fairly easy to write on a notepad on the train.  There is another Writers Networking Event at the Association of Community Based Arts of Westchester from 6:00-8:00 p.m. on July 28, 2011.  I am thinking about going.

Writing That Works How To Communicate Effectively in Business, 3rd Edition by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson

Writing That Works How To Communicate Effectively in Business, 3rd Edition by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson





Writing That Works is an updated book on business writing that includes sections on email, presentation decks (bullet pointed lists often in powerpoint), and a reminder that computers are only as good as what you put into them.



The writers describe when it is appropriate to use paper memos and letters to add a personal touch or appear official. They also talk about how to give presentations to sell your product or idea in person.

The book covers written documents, presentations, and the internet. The chapters are short, clear, and present clear business objectives; getting a job with a resume, getting money for your ideas, saving time by managing email properly, and selling yourself in writing.



Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson open the book with a statement that the point of business writing is to get things done, not just to be clear.



There is a reminder to edit your work, be understandable, and write for a specific objective. Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson do this with ease. They make excellent use of bullet pointed lists, indented italicized text, and bold headings which catch your attention.



Kenneth Roman retired from being CEO of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide and Joel Raphaelson retired from being Creative Executive Director of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide. This makes them very qualified to write about business. This book is well worth reading.

Daily Thoughts 9/5/2010 (Book Reviews, Writing)

Cover composed by Mucha for the french literary and artistic Review La Plume, 15 January 1898
Daily Thoughts 9/5/2010

I took some more time to go back and add a few more reviews to my review list, I am now starting into 2008.  This has given me a little time to make some minor corrections and think about what I am doing.  I also learned something.  Whenever I write about classic and highly literary works, bloggers criticize my writing as not being sophisticated enough. 

I am finding that there is increasing tension between popular reviewers and academic reviewers.  This is partially because now most of the western cannon is freely available as public domain on the internet.  Many more people are reading and commenting on titles that were only available to academics for a long time.  The popular interpretations often do not match with academic literary criticism.  Academic literary criticism often does not reach the average reader.

This is further exacerbated by the new populists in literature.  Oprah Winfrey who does television shows and Nancy Pearl who reviews for National Public Radio do not approach classic literature the same way as the colleges do.  They are speaking to every person per se in a nonelitist manner.  I feel that I am doing the same thing.

I remember receiving a suggestion that I write more like the New Yorker magazine.  The New Yorker magazine has very high literary standards with a very different audience than I am looking for.  I am using the blog as a form of self expression with a unique voice.  This makes me free to follow my own rules and not use a stylesheet like a journal does.

I am trying to do a number of things with my reviews:

• Include my own personal opinion which is not neutral and not academic.  Have a unique voice.
• Describe both the good and bad parts about a book.
•  Write enough so that the reader of this blog knows I have read the whole book.  I find that somtimes reviews don't have a sense of completely covering a book.
• Describe the layout and  artwork of a book.  Things like screen captures, photographs, and recommended reading lists can differentiate a title considerably.
• I am aiming to be complete enough so that the reader can make a decision about whether or not they want to read the book. 
•  Sometimes journal reviews read like the dust jacket copy of a book.  This is annoying.  My reviews will try to avoid matching advertisements about a book or jacket copy from a title.  They will be a little different.

  

I think that my writing is about the reading level of an average adult.  This is about the reading level of 8th or 9th grade.  The point is to make my writing very clear, not to be too simple.  Maybe I am aiming too low. 

For my understanding of an authors work, I tend to go to biography or correspondence of the author, or books on wrting  by an author.  This is called biographical criticism.  I take it even further, I prefer to read autobiographical works by the writer themselves.  I often think the writers own words are the most accurate way to describe what the person is writing about.  The other context which I often use is understanding the historical time period of a writer.  It is a very concrete approach to understanding authors.  I think that an authors life cannot be separated from their writing.

 I especially like The Reader Over Your Shoulder A Handbook For Writers of English Prose by Robert Graves for understanding his style.  It is the same reason that I think reading The Elements of Style by E.B. White gives an understanding of E.B. White's style. I also like The Letters of John Fante and The Diaries of Anais Nin. 

I am also interested in how to advise people what to read.  This is different than crticising a work.  Readers advisory in librarianship follows a very different pattern than academic reviewing of fiction.  The library patron is asking why should I read this book?   How about its characters, plot, setting, pacing, and tone? Did you like and read this book?  What is it about?  In bookselling this is very similar to handselling.  The bookseller is recommending material in person to an interested customer.

I seem to get no negative feedback when I am writing about mysteries, romance, science fiction,business, popular fiction, but when it comes to quality literature or classics there are different expectations.  

I toned this article down because a few of my subscribers left today.

Hopefully, since the last time I wrote about classic literature, my writing has improved considerably.  I have spent time learning about writing.  I added a few authors to my sidebar who helped;  http://www.artplotnik.com/ , Arthur Plotnik who wrote Spunk and Bite, http://www.laraineherring.com/ Laraine Herring who wrote Writing Begins With The Breath, and http://www.davidhenderson.com/ David Henderson who wrote The Media Savvy Leader.

Daily Thoughts 8/3/2010 ( Librarians Social Networks )

Copyright catalogs at the Library of Congress. Located in room LM-404 of the James Madison Memorial Building, Washington DC. The pre-1978 indexes to the copyright records were manually entered on 3 by 5 inch (76 by 127 mm) cards that were stored in file drawers. 30 April 2009, Michael Holloway, Public Domain.  Card catalogs drawers which are emptied of the cards are the perfect size to store audiocasette containers.  These of course are also obsolete.  Now they make nice places to put items in for art projects.  They use card catalogs drawers to put items in the childrens room of Poets House in New York as part of an art display.

Daily Thoughts 8/3/2010

I am reading The Yahoo! Style Guide The Ultimate Sourcebook For Writing, Editing, And Creating Content For The Digital World by Chris Barr and The Senior Editors of Yahoo.  It is also available online at:
http://styleguide.yahoo.com/




Someone asked about social networks for libraries on Fuelmyblog.  Here are a few which I have seen librarians use. I am on Twitter with many library connections...




http://www.twitter.com/bookcalendar dig around you might find a few. Anyways here is a bit more...






http://connect.ala.org/

ALA Connect-- Social Network. The main use I've found for this online classes...





http://nylibrariansmeetup.blogspot.com/

New York Librarians Meetup Blog






http://www.facebook.com/#!/urban.unite?ref=ts

Urban Librarians Unite





http://bookblogs.ning.com/

Book Blogs on Ning





http://bookbloggerconvention.com/ 

Book Bloggers Convention



http://www.goodreads.com/ Goodreads





www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=40592

Linkedin American Library Association

Booklife Strategies And Survival Tips For the 21st Century Writer by Jeff Vandermeer

Booklife Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer by Jeff Vandermeer

Booklife is about the process of becoming a better writer. It is not as focused on how to write, although there is an essay called How To Write A Novel In Two Months. The author suggests
you should have a blog, be part of social media, and participate in online activities.

The language is very clear and concise. We learn about what an agent does, the process of how a book goes from a submitted manuscript to a published book, how book public relations and marketing are done, and many other skills a writer needs to understand to succeed.

The book is not just about the public aspects of writing. It is also how about how to manage your time as a writer, keep healthy and focused, and have good relations with other writing professionals like librarians, booksellers, editors, and agents.

I enjoyed reading the book. For those interested in learning what a writer does, or who are seeking a better understanding of how social media and new media changes a writing career this book would be a useful tool.

In order to get the full benefit of the book, I think it is necessary to take a little time to look at the blog as well, Booklife Now, http://www.booklifenow.com . Jeff Vandermeer includes many useful tools which are not in the book in the associated blog including a blogroll and numerous additional essays on writing.

The main complaint I have about the book is that there is no index in the book. This made it hard to backtrack to find certain subjects. The layout of the book was excellent. It had wide paragraph breaks, bolded headings, and many bullet pointed suggestion lists.

Jeff Vandermeer invited a variety of guest writers for the appendices. The two essays which I liked were Marketing Versus Publicity by Colleen Lindsay and Additional Notes on New Media by Matt Stagg.

This is well worth reading. Jeff Vandermere has a blog at http://www.jeffvandermeer.com . He has written many fantasy novels including Finch and edited a variety of anthologies including Steampunk which he co-edited with his wife, Ann Vandermeer.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus... Not so Much

The differences between men and women are huge fodder for discussion, especially where relationships are concerned. Books upon books upon books are written around interactions between men and women, with everyone beating the dead horse about how we are so incredibly, fundamentally, different.

In my humble opinion, people are, at their core, very similar. We all have the same wants, the same basic needs. What makes it interesting, and what makes us unique unto ourselves are the things that make up our past history, everything from how our parents treated us, to who we're friends with, to what adventures or experiences we have.

It's these things that influence our choices, and are the nuts and bolts of our characters in writing.

~*~

Heather S. Ingemar has loved to play with words since she was little, and it wasn’t long until she started writing her own stories. Termed “a little odd” by her peers, she took great delight in exploring tales with a gothic flair, and to this day, Edgar Allan Poe continues to be her literary hero. To learn more, please visit: http://ingemarwrites.wordpress.com/ or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heatheringemar

Buy a story (or two or three): Heather Ingemar in the Echelon Catalog

Daily Thoughts 5/27/2010 (Book Expo America)

Burgundian scribe (portrait of Jean Miélot, secretary, copyist and translator to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, from a copy of his compilation of the Miracles de Notre Dame, 15th Century

Daily Thoughts 5/27/2010 (Book Expo America)

I took a short break in the morning and finished reading Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. It is an excellent fantasy novel set in ancient China. I'll probably write a review later this week.

I found out to my amusement that I have been comped as a journalist because I write this blog. This is the second time that I have been comped as a journalist with a byline. The first time was at O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing in 2009. It is a very different experience. Right now, I am sitting in the Press Office writing on this blog. I did not expect this. I have two badges, one as a librarian, and one as a journalist because of this blog. I paid for the librarian badge. Right now, I am carrying both.

The Bookcalender badge will be of use for tomorrow for the Book Bloggers Convention at the Jacob Javits Center in room 1E15. It is the kind of thing which I have to just "go with the flow."

I spent a little time walking the floor of the convention. I did find Fantagraphics at a booth. I didn't think they were at the convention earlier. They had an interesting portion of a galley of a short story prose collection, What Is This All? Uncollected Stories by Peter Dixon. This was surprising because Fantagraphics is known mainly for its graphic novels. However, I have seen other novels being published recently by comic book publishers. DC published Peter and Max, A Fable by Bill Willingham.

Dalkey Archive was right next to Fantagraphics. Dalkey Archive is one of my favorite presses. I am familiar with them because at one time, I used to visit Small Press Distributors in Berkeley, California, http://spdbooks.org/ . They have a new line of english translations of literature from Catalan, Slovenian, and Hebrew. Dalkey Archive prints very high quality literary works. http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/

I also picked up a practical book for our Job Information Center, Military Education Benefits for College by David A. Renza, M.A. and Edmund J. Lizotte, Lt. Col. Ret. published by Savas Beatie.

While I was walking around, I saw that Housing Works was at the convention. They have a very nice used bookstore in Manhattan which supports providing shelter for homeless people who are HIV positive or have AIDS. They are a social enterprise. http://www.housingworks.org/social-enterprise/bookstore-cafe/

After finishing walking around, I went the Fall Hot Graphic Novels For Libraries in the conference area from 2:00- 3:30 p.m. I especially liked the title Archie Marries... which has two stories, one where he marries Bettie, and one where he marries Veronica. The other graphic novel which intrigued me which they talked about was Ghostopolis by Doug Ten Napel. I plan on giving the list to our young adult librarian to look over. There are also a few childrens graphic novels.

The final librarian session was the 2nd Annual Librarians Shout and Share from 3:30-5:00 p.m. in room 1E16. It was a panel of eight collection development librarians sharing their picks from the show. They basically showed forthcoming books which they had collected. It was interesting hearing which books they liked. Certain books were repeated several times. The titles which I remember that more one collection development librarian mentioned were The Passage by Justin Cronin, Cleopatra: A Biography by Stacy Schiff, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Nora Rawlinson, The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman, and The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Bailey.

It was quite interesting hearing the librarians book talk their choices in very short presentations. Barbara Genco announced that they would have a complete list of all the books mentioned published in Library Journal. I look forward to seeing this.

After the collection development book talk, I went to the opening reception for the Book Bloggers convention. They served cookies and coffee and met in a large meeting room. There were over a hundred people in the room. I recognized Natasha of Maw Books who has a very nicely designed book blog. http://blog.mawbooks.com/ Also, I had a chance to chat with a couple different different people. Christopher Herz told me about his book, Last Block In Harlem. He is an interesting website on the book http://herzwords.wordpress.com/the_last_block_in_harlem/ It is being picked up by Amazon Encore which is the new publishing house attached to Amazon.

I thought one of the attendees was the librarians blog Stacked http://stackedbooks.blogspot.com/, but it turned out to be a different blog, Stacked Attractively Well Read http://stackedbooks.blogspot.com/ run by Christina R. Oppold. It has a different style.

I had a brief conversation with a gentleman named Simon Van Booy from Harper Collins. It was interesting.

The day was a very productive day. I did get a similar question thrown at me to the one about bloggers being journalists. Am I a reviewer? I am really not sure how to answer this in a traditional sense. I do review books regularly and recommend books, however I am not being paid to do it for a magazine like Library Journal or Choice. This would beg the question of are bloggers really reviewers. Do I need to be a reviewer to ask for a review copy. I know that librarians regularly get review copies as selectors of materials. In a way this makes me both a reviewer and a selector of materials.

It adds to another question. Are bloggers writers? Do I get paid for this. Maybe, I don't get paid in dollars, but I get some social capital (look up whuffie if you want to be a bit science fiction oriented) or if you are old fashioned brownie points, as well as free stuff, or comps to events occassionally. I enjoy it anyways. I still haven't figured out quite where it will lead, good or bad. What seems to be the best thing to do is if someone decides I am a reviewer is to go with the flow. Maybe I don't need to decide that I am a journalist, reviewer, or writer, someone else will just say yes. What I do know is that I am a librarian and a blogger.

Picking a genre is like picking a single crayon

At my heart, I'm a non-conformist. Sure, I follow the rules -- but only long enough to get the rule-makers to give me my space. Then it's Watch Out! I color outside the lines. I mix and match my algebraic variables. I ask questions teachers don't want to answer.

Not that I'm a mischief-maker -- I'm not. I'm just... different. (This is probably why I have such a hard time pigeon-holing my work into a genre.)

In publishing, it's easier if your work fits tidily into a box. Mysteries are marketed to demographic A, and romance sells best among women. Horror goes another place entirely -- let's call it demographic C -- and the opposite for sci-fi and fantasy. Each type of work has its own little niche to fill.

Remember I said I color outside the lines? Same thing here.

Don't ask me to pick just one genre. I'm a fan of all of them.

~*~

Heather S. Ingemar has loved to play with words since she was little, and it wasn’t long until she started writing her own stories. Termed “a little odd” by her peers, she took great delight in exploring tales with a gothic flair, and to this day, Edgar Allan Poe continues to be her literary hero. To learn more, please visit: http://ingemarwrites.wordpress.com/ or follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/heatheringemar

Buy a story (or two or three): Heather Ingemar in the Echelon Catalog

Fast and Foreign Fiction Writing Contest (June 2007)

As writers we have a wonderful array of locations to set our fiction in. This month Echelon Press challenges you to step outside your comfortable neighborhood and take us to someplace foreign. We want you to send us your stories of the unique and exotic, the bold and adventurous, the mystical and romantic. Take us far away. We want to read your stories that take place anywhere outside of the United States. For some this may mean where you live, but not where live!

Every author at every level should be committed to keeping their name in front of readers. Are you looking for your first publishing credit? Are you between books? Looking for a way to revive characters from books that have been out for a while? Want to introduce new characters for upcoming books? Looking for a way to build your readership? Have we got a promotional opportunity for you!

Echelon Press would like to publish your "Fast and Foreign" June story. The fast part means you have until June 11, 2007 to submit your story of 3000-6000 words. The winner will be notified by June 12, 2007 and have 5 days to edit/revise the story. Echelon Press will publish your story in its e-book division on June 18, 2007. Simple!

Send your submissions as a Word (doc) attachment to contest@echelonpress.com. Your cover letter should be in the body of an e-mail. Cover letters that do not adhere to professional standards will disqualify the submission from further consideration.

Our only real request is that the setting, anyplace outside of the United States be the catalyst for your story! You pick the genre. Stories must adhere to the following guidelines.

Standard Manuscript format:
 File saved in Word format (.doc) or (.rtf)
 8 ½ x 11 page
 Times New Roman 12pt font/black
 1-inch margin on all sides/ 1.5 line spacing
 Align text left, do not justify (aligning text both left and right)
 Header containing title, author name, and page number
 Capital letters at the beginning of sentences and proper nouns
 Indent new paragraphs .3. Do not add blank line between paragraphs.
 Show scene breaks with * * * * centered in the appropriate line.

All cover letters must include:
 Name (and pseudonym if applicable)
 Mailing address
 Phone number
 E-mail address (required)
 Web address (required)