Yes, TWIP on a Thursday because tomorrow will be devoted to the finalists of the SUFPCx2. I’m up to #1,000 and reading these has been a pleasure! Anyone have any favorites? Notice any patterns developing? Anyone plan to read them all? And remember, you have until 4pm Pacific time today to enter.
I tell you what, HarperStudio’s blog The 26th Story has been BRINGING IT lately. Completely indispensable. Anyway, HarperStudio editor Julia Cheiffetz has an awesome interview with former Random House Editor in Chief Dan Menaker, and Mike Shatzkin sent HarperStudio an interesting napkin graph to show what the Long Tail means for the death of the middle.
Also, Collins started their own blog, and Penguin launched a whole slew of new features with a Penguin 2.0 site, including an iPhone app, enriched e-books and more.
Legendary Jossey-Bass editor Alan Rinzler also has a terrific blog, and this week he provides the inside scoop on how publishers (and authors and agents) choose and argue over covers.
In this week’s depressing publishing news, Chronicle announced layoffs, while Macmillan and Perseus announced salary freezes. Let us all bang our heads on our desks.
Jeff Abbott has continued his awesome Organized Writer series with a post on his Trusted System for keeping track of ideas.
Over at Buzz Balls & Hype, guest blogger Anne Mini talks about… how to be a gracious guest blogger!! Sage wisdom.
And finally, reader Josephine Damian pointed me to a hilarious article in the NYTBR by Paul Greenberg about a bailout plan for writers that even Sean Lindsay would love: pay people to stop writing.
Have a great Thursday!
BTW, thank you for doing this.
Jake
I read about 200 of them last night and though I’d love to read more, I’m not as masochistic, I mean kind, as you are, Nathan.
I disagree about the first sentence contest. Paragraph is the smallest unit of storytelling, not sentence. There may be good first paragraphs where the first sentence is a brief lead on to the main thing, but a lead on without which the rest of the paragraph doesn’t pack quite the punch. So why penalize the author?
Can’t wait til tomorrow!!!
I think a competition for a single sentence would be fun, too. I’d rather be able to choose the sentence, though… my first sentence isn’t the greatest… but I love the fourth one… lol 🙂
Whoa. Tons of entries! A favorite? Hmmmm…I’m seeing loads of genre-generated cliches. But, hey, you can’t write a murder mystery without a corpse, you can’t write a thriller without either a corpse or at least one potential corpse, and you can’t write literary fiction without being quirky and/or pretentious.
Methinks that Me preferred the literary offerings that were structured like thought-through ‘graphs that set tone and hinted at what was to follow.
But that’s just Me thinking. 🙂
Hi Leo,
You wrote: “Paragraph is the smallest unit of storytelling, not sentence.”
I would say – the syllable is the smallest unit of storytelling – I might even go so far as to say, a single consonant or vowel is the smallest unit of storytelling.
But, that’s just me 🙂
LOL about already talking about another contest.
I love first line contests, I think they are fun. Used to be – but I think now people get in habit of posting hooky first lines that don’t support a story.
(I noticed a lot of the opening paragraphs were beautifully written and profound, but I didn’t really get the start of a story out of all of them)
so – how about a “first line” contest, then the finalists have to post and be judged on the first 250 words 🙂
Oh come on! Don’t confuse the smallest units of speech with the smallest units of storytelling. A syllable does not a story make, though it does make a sound. Can you express a coherent unit of a story in a single syllable? Sometimes, one can–but then, that syllable becomes a paragraph. 🙂
And speaking of sentence versus paragraph as the smallest unit of a story. Try this experiment. Go through the first paragraphs and only take the first sentence. See what happens to the meaning. Sometimes, it does survive. But, arguably, in such cases, the first sentence ought to have been a paragraph.
Leo –
You are arguing with a poet.
Wanda B.
Also, I think of the Chinese word for love – 1 syllable – “ai” (in pingyin).
Wait – love is 1 syllable in English too.
That’s the story of life on earth in 1 syllable.
**Back to regularly scheduled obsession with auto bailout**
Ah well, I concede. Syllable indeed is the smallest unit of poetry. 🙂
Wow, you had over 1300 entries?? Holy paras Batman! I’m sure you saw yourself on Galley Cat. Congrats to everyone who entered. It takes courage (if I recall my entries to the Crapometer, it takes alcohol too.)
I love Don Draper. My agent now represents Mad Men’s other dark haired hunk, “Salvatore Romano”, actor Bryan Batt. Maybe he can help announce the finalists!
Oops! I commented on the wrong post. I apologize!