“Gobsmacked”

Memories of editing Roald Dahl’s The Witches.

“I must keep reminding you that this is a book for children and I don’t give a bugger what grown-ups think about it. This has always been my attitude.” – Roald Dahl

(From “Publishers Weekly.”)

Neil Gaiman gets into gaming

Wayward Manor, coming out in December.

I’m not a big gamer, having mostly played the old Cyan games (Myst, Riven, and the sequels) but I appreciate the humorous, quirky stuff (“Monkey Island” anyone?”)

Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” also spawned a couple of fun and funny games, long “out of print” I’m afraid.  In this age of thermonuclear graphics and high-speed destruction, I’m not sure there’s a lot of room for dry wit, or even soaking wet wit any more.

“Book Places in the Digital Age”

Article here, from the Association of American University Presses.

The article explores one possible new model for bookstores that embraces the current technology and marketing environment instead of fighting them. The author, as you see toward the end, has a personal stake in finding new answers for old bookstores.

I don’t know if the future looks like this, but I predict something along these lines just might be making big money ten years from now. Or at least not losing it.

An Espresso Book Machine in action:

J. K. Rowling and “Real Writing”

I just read that J. K. Rowling has been “outed” as the author of a new mystery novel that she had written under the pseudonym “Robert Galbraith.”  I haven’t read the book (or her other new one) so that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the details, although she posted her own statement on it here.

What makes best-selling writers want to break free of their best-sellers?

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a writer trying to stretch her writing legs by trying to write outside her “field of expertise,” i.e. the kind of writing that made her famous. But is this really essential to be a proper writer? If you keep writing what you’re really good at, and it sells to many happy readers, are you stagnating? Or are you going with your strengths? Who decides?

I see some writers succeed wildly in some particular genre, and then spend the rest of their lives somehow trying to break loose from it, as though there was something wrong with their early work and now they have to try to go beyond it to some lofty realm where “real writing” hangs out. Look at Arthur Conan Doyle, forever trying to get Sherlock Holmes out of the way so he could do serious writing. His premise seemed to be that Sherlock Holmes somehow wasn’t “real writing.” That premise, of course, is a steaming load of horse apples. The same goes for the Harry Potter series, which I have read, and is very well-done.

I’m sure critics have some influence here. Popular writing is often relegated to lower tiers in the realm of literary criticism, while the “real writing” gets the awards and the accolades (if not always the sales). Small wonder even writers raking in the numbers can get infected with the idea that they’re just “commercial” or “popular” writers, without the chops to do the “real writing” the critics will laud.

It’s not just writing, either. We’ve all seen those popular actors with a dozen Emmies for comedy trying to do Shakespeare or “serious” roles. Some of them manage. Many don’t, and I guess I think they’ve failed somewhere.

So if Rowling’s new books don’t do as well as some people think they should, will she consider it some sort of failure?

Why? To paraphrase Clarence the angel, no writer is a failure who has readers. Especially if they have millions of them.

It sounds like Rowling did this for a lark, a “liberating experience” as she put it. I hope so. Certainly she doesn’t have anything to prove.

J. K. Rowling wrote imaginative and well-plotted books with characters that made us care about them. She wrote books that had children flocking to read them, many who had never been enthusiastic readers before. She wrote books that had mobs in bookstores screaming like rock fans when the new ones were rolled out to the shelves. She wrote books that still have fans living happily in the world she invented.  She wrote books that sold millions of copies and earned her a billion dollars.

If that’s not “real writing,” what is?

“Ten Easy Ways to Get Rejected”

From David Farland’s Writing Tips on his website.

Farland, a man of many talents, has lots of useful advice and services for writers. You can sign up for his “Daily Kick in the Pants” at the link on the article page.