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First up, some great causes in the publishing-o-sphere. Brenda Novak’s annual Diabetes Research Auction is in full effect, and I’m donating a partial critique with follow-up phone call. There are lots of other great prizes, including a partial critique from Kristin Nelson, a query/proposal evaluation plus conversation with Jessica Faust, and much much more. Also, authors Victoria Schwab, Amanda Morgan, and Myra McEntire are hosting an auction to benefit Nashville, so check that out as well.
Longtime reader/commenter and maven of the Public Query Slushpile Rick Daley is soliciting submissions for a cool experiment. He posted a prompt and is asking people to submit a query and first five pages based on the prompt. The questions under exam: is it really harder to write a query than the pages? How different will the resulting pages be? Can’t wait to see the result.
Some big news afoot as Google looks set to enter the e-book sphere very soon as they will start selling e-books under the banner Google Editions. Details (and pricing) are still being worked out, but it looks as if they’ll use a device agnostic cloud model, where you can access books from any device, sync up when you move from one device to another, etc. etc.
Word nerds rejoice!! The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary has been released, which has apparently been forty-four years in the making. Costing $422.75 and coming WITH AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL, the Historical Thesaurus is indispensable for tracking the history of the English language and when words entered the lexicon. If that’s the kind of thing you like to do for fun.
Meanwhile, in our coming e-book era VQR notes one of the things we might lose along the way: intriguing notes and inscriptions.
The Rejectionist has a hilarious day-in-the-life of a Rejectionist post, and if you want more Le R. head over to Tahereh’s blog for a hilarious interview.
In agent advice news, Mary Kole would like you to make sure you know the rules of your category before you break them, Roseanne Wells has some great advice on papering over plot holes with dragons (or any out of left field plot contrivance), and Agency Gatekeeper has some great dos and don’ts when it comes to writing your Acknowledgments.
There’s another book-related social networking site in the works, as Pearson in the UK is set to re-launch Spinebreakers, a site aimed at teen readers.
This week in the Forums, please remember that we have a dedicated forum for finding Critique Partner(s), Google is investing in an app that predicts the future, people discuss the strategy of testing an idea by writing a query before you start the book, and fess up about how long it’s been taking to finish their WIP, and…. well, now we’re just laughing about what’s happening on Lost.
Comment! Of! The! Week! goes to Sam Hranac, who has a great list of characteristics to know for each of your characters.
And finally, it’s not book related but anything Star Wars related will always get my attention: Lego Star Wars Trilogy in Two Minutes!
Have a great weekend!
Kara says
**Mary Kole!!
🙂
Nathan Bransford says
Whoops! Thanks, Kara. Brain freeze.
Josin L. McQuein says
Gah! Not scrambling! It's hard enough to read black on white with the words straightened out. My brain thought it went dyslexic!
Mean agent. Mean, mean agent!
A Paperback Writer says
Nathan, this has nothing to do with today's post, but you so often post on Kindle and other e-readers, that I thought you would get a kick out of this very tongue-in-cheek blogpost from feministmormonhousewives.
Check this out:
https://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=3088#more-3088
(Sorry I can't link in a comment.)
T. Anne says
Wow you're hauling in some serious ca$h for the partial critique! It's for a great cause. Is there a tax write off in there? Because if there is I'm mighty tempted to bid. Have a great weekend!
Faith E. Hough says
Wow, I NEED that thesaurus!
Lucy says
Oh, man, I WANT that thesaurus! Somebody let me know when the price drops to a range affordable to mere mortals. Groan….
Rick Daley says
Thanks Nathan. I'm curious to see the results, too, and eager to discuss them.
I know there are many talented writers reading this blog, I hope some of you can find the time to prepare a submission by May 28th…
Ms. C. says
Thanks for posting the Star Wars Lego movie! That was freaking awesome!
Margaret Yang says
The Star Wars lego in two minutes. Hmmm. Is that a synopsis?
ryan field says
I enjoyed the VQR piece. I hadn't though about it this way.
Ink says
Can't go wrong with Lego Star Wars.
Anonymous says
Lego Star Wars Trilogy in Two Minutes…now I know exactly how to write a query that'll blow yr socks off!
Matthew Rush says
Wow. Star Wars and Lego. Two of the very coolest things from my childhood.
AWE-SOME.
Thanks Nathan, you rock hard like igneous.
Kate Evangelista says
Gotta love Lego!
Pepper Smith says
Oh man, I'd love to have that thesaurus. And yes, I love to look up that sort of stuff for fun.
But not for over $400. Sigh.
Tahereh says
!!!!!
yayyyy thank you for the linkage!!
Le R is AMAZING!!
😀 😀
Fawn Neun says
Oh man! Screw the iPad I'm saving for – I want that Thesaurus!!1!eleven!!
Maree Anderson says
How about Star Wars in 30 seconds…with bunnies?
https://www.angryalien.com/1205/starwarsbuns.asp
Enjoy!
Leila says
LEGO Star Wars – what can I say? The perfect verbal synopsis! Lol.
Kristi Helvig says
The LEGO Star Wars movie rocked! I'm showing it to my 6-yo Star Wars obsessed son tomorrow. Happy Friday!
J. T. Shea says
My WIP just happens to be a three part SF/Fantasy series. I never thought I'd learn something about synopsizing from Lego! Regarding the $422.75 Thesaurus, I'm waiting for the $2 E-book version…
D. G. Hudson says
Loved the Lego Star Wars video, Nathan. The storyline hit all the high points, but the characters seemed a bit flat.
Rick Daley: Good Luck in your experiment.
Marilyn Peake says
Looking forward to reading the links. Loved that STAR WARS video, especially since it involved STAR WARS Legos which made it extra awesome in my opinion. 🙂
Emily White says
There's something super creepy about seeing lego Leia wearing that outfit in Jabba the Hutt's lair.
Claire Dawn says
So I'm totally a Trekkie (lol) but I loved that Star Wars vid!
J. T. Shea says
Right! Random House were/are the BAD guys regarding E-books in the Rosetta case, but are now/also the GOOD guys regarding E-books and Amazon. Google were/are the BAD guys regarding E-books in the Google Book Settlement, but are now/also the GOOD guys regarding Google Editions E-books. Apple were/are the GOOD guys regarding the I-Pad book store, but are now/also the BAD guys regarding censoring E-books.
I miss the Cold War. It was simpler.
A Day in the Life of the Rejectionist? Great! Particularly when she asks that age-old question:- 'WHY HAS NO ONE MADE MY COFFEE!?' I ask it all the time, AND NEVER GET AN ANSWER!
And Roseanne Welles is wrong. Adding dragons ALWAYS helps! I never read a book that couldn't be helped by dragons, or MORE dragons if it already has some. JACOB WONDERBAR AND THE COSMIC SPACE KAPOW AND DRAGONS. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND DRAGONS. My WIP has sea monsters already. Must add dragons.
Marilyn Peake says
Rick Daley,
Your experiment looks very cool. Kudos to you for making time in your very busy schedule to do that.
Meghan Ward says
Can't wait until the Historical Thesaurus for the OED has an iBooks version!
Elliot Grace says
…my final act in E-Lit class…smuggling my professor's thesaurus out the door, under my textbook and crammed to my thigh. Evil, I agree. But all in the act of future literary prowess:)
Holly says
embrdSacl
Okay, it's driving me crazy. Can you translate, please?
Nathan Bransford says
Holly-
Scrambled
Holly says
Arrrrrgghhhh, thanks. I feel one cell short of a brainstem.
Susan Kaye Quinn says
LEGO + Star Wars = awesome. And pretty much describes most activities in my house. 🙂
Dawn Maria says
Loved the Star Wars clip. Did Han shoot first?
Jessica Peter says
Oh, I think I need that thesaurus too. I can imagine how fabulous it would be for writing historicals. . . or just for checking out words for fun.
Mira says
Great links, Nathan. Thank you.
I think it's wonderful that you're donating for the auction, and I think the auction is wonderful as well. That follow-up phone call is a great touch. And them's some pretty big bucks that are going for you, Mr. B. – over eight hundred dollars right now. Wow.
Rick D. – good luck with your contest! 🙂
So, sometimes the Rejectionist is really funny. When you put that together with her commenters, it's like performance art. That was a hilarious comment by Ink about the t-shirt slogans. That type of whip-smart, fire-cracker, cynical New York brand of humor is great fun to read. I can't write it, sadly, but love to read it. That group should think about putting something together.
So, I was extremely depressed to read that I only get three pages for acknowledgements. Like all good writers, I've written my dedication and acknoweldgements numerous times, even though I haven't written a book yet. And I'll need way more pages than three. For example, the trees. I want to find out how many trees were used to produce my book, give them names and then thank them. I'll write: "To Bob, Jennifer, Rhonda, Bill, Alexis, Donte, Pam and Michael who lost their lives in the making of this book. Bless you. Rest in peace."
This is a long post.
Great comment by Sam, and I have never seen a lego video I didn't like.
Hope everyone is having a great weekend. Kudos to all the mothers on this site! 🙂
Julieanne Reeves says
So what does it say about a person, if they read the title and just kept going because they understood it???
Great info.
Miranda Neville says
The Thesaurus should be wonderful but, having ponied up the big bucks, I find it almost unusable. You look up a word in the index and get a reference number like 01.06.06.05.01.01. It takes me an average of 5 minutes and several false starts to find the section I want, by which time I am ready to throw the book out of window. Whoever came up with the system should be shot. So wait until it's available in electronic form. It cries out for it.