Jamie Patterson's Blog, page 34

The Universe Doesn't Care

So last night I came home to an old toilet without a tank running its little heart out. The emergency plumber got there around 1:30 in the morning and ended up doing exactly what I had been doing except he turned the nut just that much farther.

I was making small talk while he cleaned up and (of course) apologizing for getting him out of bed, so I also mentioned I thought the universe was mad at me given the last few months. I started listing things off: stabbed myself, email hacked, credit card stolen, hospitalized with a bad back, and now no toilet until Tuesday.

Then my lovely emergency plumber, Scott, looked up and said "hate to break it to ya' but the universe doesn't care. Everything you said just now is just life."

He had a good laugh and I realized that--dang--he's right.

Secret is out: I Wrote a Book

I started the publishing process for Lost Edens in May of 2010 and have been working with a really fantastic mentor-publisher, Beaver's Pond Press, here in Minneapolis.

I didn't mention the book project to many people because I wasn't really sure of what I was doing and things were always changing. We first aimed at getting the book launched in January 2011, then it moved to March 2011, then April 2011, then June, and now it's August 23. It will happen August 23rd.

Why so many changes? Lots of different reasons but mostly because I'm a first time author. I don't think I quite got the amount of work involved. I've had really amazing help all along the way though (check out my acknowledgements page).

The website launched back in April, as did the goodreads author page, facebook, and twitter. Now, a few months later, it's getting harder not to mention the project and harder to keep quiet.

I think I've got one more month or so before my life moves from sleep, work, walk Huey, work, eat, sleep, to: sleep, work, book, Huey, book, work, book, work, eat, book, book, sleep.

Should be fun! Probably a lot more book posts to come.

Read and Return

The read and return policy at Paradies Shops caught my attention the last time I was through New York. I have a hard time parting with things and books are the top of the list. I love each book I have and can remember where I bought them, who gave them to me, where I read them, what I thought of them. I was curious whether people actually returned their books and started digging around. I found some people complaining that it's not really a good deal but that's about it.

In my digging around I found this little (now-defunct) bookstore called the Read and Return Bookshop in the UK. Operating since 1972, they just closed their doors this last spring. An excerpt from their last blog post:

But the book trade has changed drastically since then. Between the economy,supermarkets, the Internet and ebooks, it's become a very difficult thing to run what used to be so common - a simple, straight forward, dedicated 2nd hand bookshop.

I thought this was interesting because BEA week we were reassured over and over again that eBooks are a very small percentage of book sales and that actual, hold-in-your-hand books are still the main sellers. I suppose it could be different for the used book market? Kind of hard to compete with Amazon.

Regardless, I think the winds of change are blowing and no one quite knows in which direction. Will be an interesting few years ahead!

2004 James Frey Interview

This was the year after A Million Little Pieces published. Oprah would come two years later. Never wrote about the two days Frey was on Oprah a few weeks ago but I thought it was fantastic. From a reader's, and especially a writer's, viewpoint, it was so fascinating. As an aside, in that two-day interview Frey said it was Miller's Tropic of Cancer that turned him on to the idea of being a writer.

No need to really watch the entire video but the first segment is pretty interesting considering the scandalous scandal that was to come.

Nothing to do with Anything

This has nothing to do with anything, but I sure thought this was great. So why not repost, eh? Enjoy.

Final Edits for Lost Edens

Spent the weekend starting to work on final edits for Lost Edens (with thanks to the wonderful input from early readers).

Wondering how in the world we missed so many errant commas the first hundred or so drafts?

Also have decided to keep everything absolutely true to the events that happened and am only changing information that would identify the Ben character. This means, for instance, that any mention of Boston will be replaced with Annapolis. I had intended on protecting the Beth character's identity with this change and then realized that it would be ridiculously easy to discover that both of my brothers attended the Naval Academy (go Navy!).

Not to mention I just wrote a scene for the follow-up to Lost Edens (currently titled Dunloe Avenue) that takes place in Annapolis (I already ditched it, but still). How to explain the Boston to Annapolis shift? There was no way.

What a tangled web we weave and all that.

Should have been a novelist!

Hocking Under Fire

Just a quick post to note that the Twitter universe was alive this last week because Amanda Hocking had come under fire by people who were criticizing her writing. She hit back saying that there were millions of readers who would disagree.

It just struck me (not immediately) that she didn't mention her big-time book deal as proof of validation but pointed to her readers. I thought this was super interesting and gets to the point of what indie authors these days are after: readers. Period.

Which reminds me: can I start a movement to remove the term self-published from the writing community and replace it with indie author? I think we're to the point where it really doesn't matter who published, it matters who's reading. Don't you think?

If you haven't heard of Amanda Hocking and don't know what the fuss is about, check out the video below. Check out her blog sometime, too: http://amandahocking.blogspot.com/

The Chore of Writing

I've certainly had moments as a writer when I sat down and the words just wouldn't stop. Most of Lost Edens, actually, was that way because when I wrote it I was still fresh with the pain of it. Well, I like to think there was causation there. Pain equals art, right?

Now that I'm working on the follow-up to Lost Edens I've had a much, much harder time. I think the trouble is that I'm giving way too much meaning to the words and not paying enough attention to the bigger story. Or maybe I don't really know the bigger story just yet. Or maybe I'm just too darn happy.

In any case, I'm finding it's very, very hard to take my own advice and am feeling a good deal of sympathy for my students. Okay, I get it. I've been reminded: writing is really hard. I'm still hoping inspiration will hit, though, and I'll find the story in the last 5 years that needs to be told and that will be that.

Here's to hoping.

Since vs .Because

It seems that everywhere in my life but at work (I edit dissertations) it is acceptable to use since for causation. That is, showing why something happened. Here's an example:
I ate by myself since you didn't come home on time.
Believe it or not, though, this is incorrect per APA (p. 84). To show causation, APA style wants writers to be as specific as possible and use because instead:
I ate by myself because you didn't come home on time. Only use since in relation to time. For example:
Since you've been gone, I can breathe for the first time.
Open since 1987.

Does since make sense? Good!

When are you a PhD Candidate?

Hate to break it to all the CV writers of the world, but when you enroll in a PhD program you're just a plain old student--the candidate part comes much later.

You don't reach candidate status until you've completed your studies and have been freed to work on your dissertation. Being a PhD candidate is just a really lovely way of saying that you're stuck in the middle between being a student and being a PhD.

So how to show that you're in a PhD program? Just mark the name of your school and your expected graduation date. That's all there is to it.