Rosina Lippi's Blog, page 26

story prompt: bully

Source An Ohio judge came up with a unique punishment for a 62-year-old man who was found guilty of harassing his neighbors over the course of a 15-year feud. As a punishment, Edmond Aviv will be forced to stand outside on Sunday for five hours with a sign that reads: "I AM A BULLY! I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in." South Euclid Municipal Court Judge Gayle Williams-Byers came up with the sentence. In addition to the sign, Aviv was also sentenced to 15 days in jail, seven months on probation, 100 hours of community service, anger management classes and personal counseling. Aviv allegedly did some awful things to his neighbors, the Prughs, who adopted two black children with developmental disabilities. Okay so, where does this story start? I'm thinking the judge might be the central character, but maybe it's one of the adopted children. Or the bully's 15 year old son.

how published / published how?

I'm cross posting this to FaceBook because I'm hoping to get some real feedback. All in all I think the huge jump in self publishing is a good thing, but at the moment it's a little bit like the wild west: lawless and unpredictable. There are self published books that are very good and that deserve to have found a traditional publisher, but there are also many, many pretty awful self published novels. Now here's the problem: It's my sense (and correct me if I'm wrong) that self-published people don't make a point of that in their bios or blurbs. So when I come across a blurb about another author that reads: author of x novels, or published x novels, I now have to stop to wonder about the how.  Are we talking Norton or Penguin or Tor, or is this Amazon self-publishing? Further complicating the matter, there are some trends I've noticed about self publishing on Amazon  that I don't know how to interpret. If a novel  out for less than a year (especially a romance novel) has 5,000+ comments and 96 percent of them are 5 stars, that novel is very likely to be self published, as far as I've been able to determine. I'm not sure what this means; I could make some guesses, but only guesses. At this point when I come across a new novel, again, especially on Amazon, there's no way to know if this novel is self published unless i go look at the details and dig deeper.  Of course, I'm free to do that or not; it's my loss if I pass up a good novel. So now, I find myself worrying about my own blurbs. If […]

California Digital Newspaper Collection

This online collection of newspapers is  an excellent resource for historians and writers of historical fiction, especially — even if you're not writing about California. It's the most accessible online newspaper archive I've ever come across. Searchable, image size can be adjusted, and the text of whatever you're looking at shows up on the left via OCR — granted, lots of imperfections, but still legible enough to know if the page is worth downloading. You can clip articles or columns of ads, or grab the whole page as a pdf.  And best of all: if the article is spread out over columns or even pages, when you clip it, the whole article shows up, each piece appearing in its proper place. Here's a small clipping from the Sacramento Bee in March 1883: From the front page: This collection contains 61,412 issues comprising 545,955 pages and 6,364,529 articles. The California Digital Newspaper Collection is a project of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California, Riverside. The CDNC is supported in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. It occurred to me just recently that I should post information when I come across resources like this that would be useful to writers of historical fiction.  Let me know if you find something you can use, I'd be interested.

good words from readers

I'm not sure why, but just recently I've had a big bump in email and on-line notes about the Wilderness series, some really heartfelt and very kind responses. This is a general thank you to everybody for your support. Writing is a very solitary and often lonely way to make a living. Positive feedback from readers goes a long way to balance that out.

Top 20 — almost top 10 for Sara Donati

M.K. Tod has put up a survey on favorite writers of historical fiction — and I made the number eleven slot in some really excellent company. I didn't know this survey was running and I didn't send anybody over to vote, so I can feel good about this without reservation. It's a lovely boost when I'm trying to pin down information on the Staten Island railroad circa 1880. Very exciting chapters I'm working on, despite how that sounds. M.K. Tod's primary interests are WWI and WWII — an interest we have in common (ala Homestead, in particular). She's got a novel out (Unravelled) that I just ordered for my Kindle. The description: In October 1935, Edward Jamieson's memories of war and a passionate love affair resurface when an invitation to a WWI memorial ceremony arrives. Though reluctant to visit the scenes of horror he has spent years trying to forget, Edward succumbs to the unlikely possibility of discovering what happened to Helene Noisette, the woman he once pledged to marry. Travelling through the French countryside with his wife Ann, Edward sees nothing but reminders of war. After a chance encounter with Helene at the dedication ceremony, Edward's past puts his present life in jeopardy.

Even Book Size is Relative (& Relevant)

(cross-posted to the weblog)

I had an email from a concerned reader here on Goodreads. Polly is a bookseller with a valid worry:

Hello there, so sorry to bother you, but I just had to voice my concerns over the recent transition of "Into the Wilderness" from a mass market paperback into trade paperback format.

I've been a small bookstore owner for 22 years and have sold a lot of your books, because frankly, I love them (it's easy to sell something you love!). I keep the full set available at all times on my shelves and recommend them often. So when I attempted to reorder "Into the Wilderness" a few weeks ago from Ingram, I was informed it is now only available in a $16.00 trade paperback. I doubt very seriously it will keep a place on my shelves, especially now that the first book does not match the other books in the series in size, and it is a considerable increase in price for the first book – the one that gets the reader hooked on the series. I expect this is a publisher decision, but I'm so disappointed to see this wonderful series disappear from my shelves.

Polly's impressions and experiences are to be taken very seriously, as she is at the heart of the business, but (and you knew this was coming) I have no control over the format of the novels.

The increased cost is the biggest issue, of course. I haven't seen any figures from the industry, so I can't speak to trends more generally and I don't know where ITW fits into the larger scheme of things. I do know that sixteen bucks is a chunk of money to pay for a novel. The long-term result is going to be some combination of 1) fewer sales of new books and 2) increased sales of used books. The other complicating factor has to do with ebooks. The whole Wilderness series sells really well on Kindle, but I'm not sure how that's relevant to the changed format for ITW.

And again, there's nothing I can do about any of it.

I will say that I really like the cover art for the trade paper edition of ITW, far better than I liked the original. I would hope it would draw in potential readers. Is it possible that a person would decide to buy ITW in trade paper and then give up on the series because of the change in format — that is, the difference in size and how that looks on the shelf? Anything is possible, I guess. Can I do anything about it? Not a thing, of course. People are by definition idiosyncratic, and make decisions based on all kinds of things that can't be anticipated or controlled. Given the current state of flux in the industry, very little can be predicted. The only thing I can do is strive to write a really good story. And that's what I'm doing.

Even Book Size is Relative (& Relevant)

I had an email from a concerned reader through my Goodreads page. Polly is a bookseller with a valid worry: Hello there, so sorry to bother you, but I just had to voice my concerns over the recent transition of "Into the Wilderness" from a mass market paperback into trade paperback format. I've been a small bookstore owner for 22 years and have sold a lot of your books, because frankly, I love them (it's easy to sell something you love!). I keep the full set available at all times on my shelves and recommend them often. So when I attempted to reorder "Into the Wilderness" a few weeks ago from Ingram, I was informed it is now only available in a $16.00 trade paperback. I doubt very seriously it will keep a place on my shelves, especially now that the first book does not match the other books in the series in size, and it is a considerable increase in price for the first book – the one that gets the reader hooked on the series. I expect this is a publisher decision, but I'm so disappointed to see this wonderful series disappear from my shelves. Polly's impressions and experiences are to be taken very seriously, as she is at the heart of the business, but (and you knew this was coming) I have no control over the format of the novels. The increased cost is the biggest issue, of course. I haven't seen any figures from the industry, so I can't speak to trends more generally and I don't know where ITW fits into the larger scheme of things. I do know that sixteen bucks is a chunk of money to pay for […]

prequels, sequels, alternate realities and the wilderness series

There's a page for the Wilderness series on Facebook, but I don't often check it. Supposedly I get email notification when someone posts something on that page, but that doesn't always work. Today I went over there to see if there were questions to answer, and found about ten of them dating back to the summer. The common question I get — on Facebook or anywhere else — is about Ethan and Callie, but second most common are requests for new novels about specific characters. I've had people tell me they'd love to hear Blue-Jay's story, as well as Wee Iona's, Robbie's, Nathaniel's parents, even Jemima's story. I am truly touched by these requests.  I take them as evidence that my characters live on in the minds of the readers, which is a great compliment. The series has been very successful over the years which isn't so much about me writing as it is about you reading. Here are the reasons I can't just sit down and write (for example) Blue-Jay's story. 1. Characters are not always forthcoming, If I can't get into the head of a particular character, it is next to impossible to write a story focused on that person. 2. The biggest road block has to do with the nature of publishing. Authors who produce true best sellers — books that top the NYT charts — those are the writers who have clout.  In this context, clout means the freedom to write the book you want to write and to know that it will be published. Most writers, even those of us who have had good, long-term success, don't have this kind of clout. We have to submit proposals to the publisher […]

Off to San Diego: Linguistics

I leave tomorrow to give a paper at the University of California/San Diego. Two or three times a year I get invited to come tell people about my work in linguistics, and I always accept because it's a way to stay in the academic loop and talk to people with similar interests and new perspectives. This particular talk is about the way children learn stereotypes from animated film, but I've talked about a lot of different areas of my research, from legal issues to real estate. Really.  To give you an idea of what I'm doing this time, here's a chart from the first edition of English with an Accent based on an analysis of characters with speaking roles in Disney animated films that came out before 1998.  Proof positive: I am an academic nerd. Click for a somewhat less fuzzy image.

Kindle Paperwhite Drawing: today

Molly Hoffman suggested The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian, and her name jumped out of the hat. Molly, please contact me so I can arrange for Amazon to send your Kindle.