Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 271

Good News Tuesday

Let me see, I’ve gathered up a few nice developments in health and medicine recently . . . Okay, let’s start with this one.

Doctors Now Have Permanent Cure for Sickle Cell Anaemia

“With this chemotherapy-free [bone marrow] transplant, we are curing adults with sickle cell disease, and we see that their quality of life improves fast within just one month of the transplant. … About 90 per cent of the approximately 450 patients who have received stem cell transplants for sickle cell disease have been children. Chemotherapy has been considered too risky for adult patients, who are often more weakened than children by the disease. Adults with sickle cell disease can now be cured without chemotherapy — the main barrier that has stood in the way for them for so long. Our data provide more support that this therapy is safe and effective and prevents patients from living shortened lives, condemned to pain and progressive complications.”

That would be very good, as I believe the absolute numbers of people who have sickle cell are pretty large . . . yes, looks like millions worldwide. A real cure would be wonderful.

Here’s another medical trial that looks good:

Treatment Has Saved 77% of Cancer Patients Needing Amputations

Patients with a form of advanced malignant cancer in their arms or legs have typically faced amputation of the afflicted limb as the only treatment option. However, these researchers have found a technique that limits the application of chemotherapy to the cancerous region which preserves limbs in a high percentage of cancer patients.

The researchers used the treatment technique, known as regional chemotherapy with isolated limb perfusion (ILI), in 77 patients with treatment-resistant, locally advanced soft tissue sarcomas, and were able to salvage limbs in 77.9% of the cases.

The study, conducted over a 22-year period from 1994-2016, is the largest one to date of limb preservation using ILI for sarcoma.

I’m kind of shocked that trying to target only the affected limb with chemo is a new thing. Definitely, onward! Targeting only the affected area with all kinds of treatments seems like it ought to be a good idea.

And here’s something interesting:

B vitamins reduce schizophrenia symptoms, study finds

A review of worldwide studies has found that add-on treatment with high-dose b-vitamins — including B6, B8 and B12 — can significantly reduce symptoms of schizophrenia more than standard treatments alone.

A good many vitamins can cause problems if you take them in excess. But quickly googling around suggests that the B vitamins are pretty darn safe. It says here, “Water-soluble vitamins, such as the B vitamins, are excreted from the body daily in urine, so excess consumption of these is generally not toxic.” Well, good, because then anybody who wants to try adding vitamin B to the treatment regime for schizophrenia can probably do that.

And one more:

Rubbery, multifunctional fibers could be used to study spinal cord neurons and potentially restore function.

Implantable fibers have been an enormous boon to brain research, allowing scientists to stimulate specific targets in the brain and monitor electrical responses. But similar studies in the nerves of the spinal cord, which might ultimately lead to treatments to alleviate spinal cord injuries, have been more difficult to carry out. That’s because the spine flexes and stretches as the body moves, and the relatively stiff, brittle fibers used today could damage the delicate spinal cord tissue.

Now, researchers have developed a rubber-like fiber that can flex and stretch while simultaneously delivering both optical impulses, for optoelectronic stimulation, and electrical connections, for stimulation and monitoring.

Very good. Always happy to see progress in treating spinal injuries and conditions. Onward!

Please Feel Free to Share:

Public service message: How to make sure a dog breeder loves your family

I get contacted about puppies pretty often. Not as often as if I had puppies available every year, but still, pretty often.

Messages that just ask, Do you have any female puppies and how much are they? get short answers. The implication that I would just hand over a puppy to anybody who handed me cash is pretty insulting. It also shows they haven’t looked very carefully at my website, where I explain about the kinds of things serious hobby breeders want to know about you. I like a message that gives a little information about the person and the family and what kind of home they would provide for a puppy and what kind of puppy they especially have in mind, and personally I like someone to ask about MVD and SM, thus showing they’ve done some homework about Cavalier health issues.

Give me some indication you’re educated about the breed and seriously looking for a nicely bred puppy, and I’ll write back a much more helpful response, including pointers to other reputable breeders when (as is generally the case) I have nothing.

But whoa, anybody looking for a puppy (or a young adult) could take lessons from this wonderful family that visited me yesterday. They wanted to meet Jos, a 15-month-old boy who for various good reasons I’ve decided to place as a pet. Here’s what they did:

First the mother contacted me. We had a nice exchange where I suggested a breeder close to them, but we also discussed Jos. Clearly she had read my description of him on my website because she addressed my concerns about Jos needing a lot of attention, plenty to do, and another playful dog in the family.

She asked for more pictures and I sent her several. We emailed back and forth about Jos some more, and about her husband and everyone’s work schedule, and about her kids, and about the remodeling project that will keep them from taking a new dog until June.

Then we had a chat on the phone.

Then they drove more than six hours just to meet me and Jos and the rest of the dogs, even though they won’t be able to actually take a new dog home for two months.

They came with the whole family so I could meet their children. The children were very nice, polite, and good with the dogs.

They brought me a little bag of gourmet dog biscuits. (!)

The little girl had drawn me a wonderful card with a spaniel’s face and many little hearts. (!!!)

My website made it clear that price was not the primary concern with Jos; that placing him in a really good home that truly suited him was by far the most important issue. (I had already turned down other families who seemed perfectly nice, but not right for Jos.) (I have other dogs who would be easier to fit into more homes.)

They didn’t ask about price at all, but without discussing it, they did everything right to make me willing to drop my normal asking price significantly.

Barring disaster, Jos will be leaving me in June. It will be hard for me to let him go. The only reason I can do it is that I’m confident he will love his new home.

That’s Jos on the left

If you want a nice, well-bred young adult dog (or a puppy, for that matter) from a reputable breeder, well, I recommend that you set out to make this kind of impression. You can start by raising wonderful children and teaching them to bring little gifts when they visit someone. Showing that you’re willing to drive six hours or more just to meet a dog, yep, that is also impressive.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Pride and Prejudice and Dragons

So you may recall that this cover caught my eye a while ago, and then the other day I stumbled on this review by Thea James of The Book Smugglers:

They say a Rider in possession of a good blade must be in want of a monster to slay—and there is no shortage of bloodthirsty monsters in the countryside estate of Merybourne.

Well, that’s unexpected. I saw this and thought: fantasy, with dragons! But I didn’t guess about the Pride and Prejudice thing. In some ways that could be a plus, in some ways a minus. For me, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was unreadable. The joke was stale by the end of the first chapter. This dragon one might be fun, though.

The cool thing is, Heartstone manages to break with Austen in a few key areas: the addition of mortal peril … and the incorporation of sentient dragons. Yes, you read that correctly: sentient dragons. Easily my favorite addition to the P&P-world, talking, reasoning, regal-and-slightly-terrifying dragons play a pivotal role in this story. I love the choice to involve the dragons as characters (as opposed to magical non-talking beasts without will or say) and was very pleased with the ways that Elle Katharine White manages to change the Austen-analog with the incorporation of these magnificent beasts.

Of course, the other thing required of any novel trying to mimic Austen’s most beloved classic is nailing the Elizabeth Bennet-Mr. Darcy romance—and on that front, I’m happy to report that White succeeds. Aliza and Daired are true to their namesakes, and their chemistry is volatile and powerful. I can’t complain.

I don’t know. I SO disliked P & P & Z, but maybe I will give this one a try, in the hope it is a real book that tells a real story, rather than one endless joke about dragons. It does seem like dragons probably lend themselves more to telling a real story than zombies might, given you’re starting with a P & P homage.

If any of you have read this, what did you think? And if you decide to go check it out, it’s “Heartstone,” one word, despite how it looks on the cover, so keep that in mind when you search for it.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Here’s an item of historical interest

Via The Passive Voice blog, this: A Time Capsule Associated With Jules Verne Has Been Discovered in the French Pyrenees

A multidisciplinary team of archaeologists and historians from the Paris Descartes University and The Explorers Club NYC have made an extraordinary discovery close to the French Pyrenees in the Occitaine region. Work started in September, and using drones and ground-penetrating radar they have been able to find a metal container dating from the end of the 19th century….

At first I thought this might be a creative way of setting up some kind of homage to Jules Verne, but the press release makes it seems to be real.

Preliminary x-rays have revealed some clues about the items inside the box: they have shown documents, books and metal objects of different sizes and shapes. The conclusions of these studies, therefore, indicate the existence of new works or new evidence from that time period.

For the moment, it has not been possible to prove conclusively that the box and its contents belonged to Jules Verne or someone close to him. However, everything points to the possibility that they may discover unpublished documents belonging to the writer.

How about that?

Please Feel Free to Share:

The 7 Stages of Being a Writer

Here’s a post by KM Weiland: The 7 Stages of Being a Writer (How Many Have You Experienced?)

Catchy! Let’s check those out.

Okay, first, it looks these aren’t stages-stages, like infancy-childhood-adulthood-old age. No. These are stages that mark obstacles. I would have chosen a different title so as not to be a touch misleading, but okay. Obstacles. Seven of them.

1. I am a writing genius!

Okay, yep, I can see that attitude would be a problem. I wonder how many writers have this feeling? I think the Impostor Syndrome types of feelings are probably more common. You do see agents and editors write posts about how they can’t or won’t work with people who feel it’s an imposition to be asked to change a word of their deathless prose. That would be this feeling, but I bet it is rare. Weiland puts a more positive spin on this mindset, suggesting that although it had better not last, the optimism it encompasses is a good thing.

Next:

2. I Feel Guilty for Taking Time to Write (and Then I Feel Guilty for Not Taking Time to Write)

I imagine this is for parents. I get only a pale, attenuated version of this when I write instead of taking some of the dogs hiking, or vice versa. Actually I see Weiland refers to horses here, so I guess it’s the same for her. Except she sets up a firm schedule. I don’t, really. Unless I have a dire deadline, I let weather rule my decision making about this, since hitting the hiking trails or going to the park is out of the question if it is too wet, too cold, or too hot. I guess it’s good I live in MO where one of the three conditions often applies. I would get less writing done if it were balmy and beautiful year round.

3. Maybe Writing Really Isn’t Worth It and I Should Quit

I haven’t had enough of a dry period to encounter a full-blown version of this. I can see how it would happen, especially if life events interrupt your writing career.

I do think this attitude: I believe this is an important question for every artist to ask themselves at some point in their journey. Creating is about sticking your fist down deep in your soul, ruthlessly clawing at whatever you can find, and then dragging out to be shared in the shocking light of day.

Is a little overblown. Seriously, I don’t know that most of us need to take ourselves or our writing quite that seriously.

4. I Can’t Read Other Writers Because They’ll Influence My Voice

Ooh, ooh, yes, I hit that one. It was very specific writers with particularly invasive styles that did not go well with what I was trying to write. Even today, I tend to read books in a style similar to what I’m working on. And I still do a lot of reading when I’m *not* working on something of my own. But that is mostly due, today, to time constraints rather than invasiveness of an author’s voice.

I do agree with Weiland here basically: The problem here is that reading other writers is, in fact, the single most valuable way to find our voices, to absorb the rhythms of great storytelling, and to learn by example from the best of the best.

The problem comes when you know you are reading something that does not suit your personal style and the work you’re reading is invasive. By which I mean, you find yourself thinking with that author’s cadences, emphasis, word choices, etc. For me CJ Cherryh’s style is very invasive.

5. I Must Religiously Follow All the Rules (Except That’s Too Hard, So, You Know What?, the Rules Are Obviously Formulaic Cockamamie Created by Talentless Hacks, So I’ll Just Ignore Them, Phew!)

I never went either way here. Fortunately.

6. Other Writers Are Getting All the Breaks—And It Makes Me Sad/Depressed/Jealous/Angry

This one is a constant struggle. The best antidote is to (a) celebrate other writers’ successes, cheer each new title they produce, and push their books on all your friends. Also to (b) rationally notice that other writers don’t really get all the breaks and that you’re not necessarily being passed over for everything yourself, but rationality alone won’t do it, so I recommend investing heavily in option (a) unless you’re keen on living in misery and bitterness.

Weiland sums this item up this way: Don’t worry about what others are doing. It truly has nothing to do with you or the possibilities for your future.

Good advice.

And here’s the last one:

7. I’ll Never Be a Good Writer

I don’t care much for this comment: We don’t need any help doubting ourselves—but we get plenty of help anyway. Brutally-honest critique partners and editors leave us sitting dazed and wounded, staring at the litter of Track Changes in our manuscripts.

Honestly, if that’s your experience, I think either your critique partners and possibly your editors are being a little too brutal; OR you are being a little too sensitive.

As far as I can tell, Editing For Dummies cautions as rule one: Say something nice and sound really sincere about it before you get into what isn’t working. I think it’s important for the writer to then believe the nice part and possibly re-read that bit a couple of times before tackling the revision. That should help with this issue.

As far as bad reviews go, it helps to specifically notice how reviews of your own and other books totally disagree with each other. Take any book you like and read the reviews and you will find: Style too literary and flowery . . . style too plain and boring . . . style elegant and beautiful. Pacing super fast and exciting . . . pacing so slow I almost died of boredom. I fell in love with the beautifully drawn characters . . . the characters are so flat and one-dimensional they might as well have been drawn on paper.

And so on.

So, seven stages, not really. Seven obstacles, could be, but lots of people aren’t going to encounter most of them. A take on one author’s experience of writing, definitely.

Please Feel Free to Share:

When to toss an agent’s response to your manuscript in the circular file

Interesting and useful post here from Janet Reid, in response to a question she got at her blog.

Yesterday I received the most heartbreaking rejection, and find myself again questioning how to know when to take an agent’s feedback to heart. … The most difficult part was when she said that regardless of that, it needs “a lot of development work,” including “worldbuilding, plot, and pacing.”

Whoa. So, that’s basically the entire manuscript. …

My question is, when you’ve worked with this level of workshopping and critiques and feedback that makes you feel overall pleased with the pillars of a manuscript, do you take a rejection like this to heart or not — if no one else has ever said similar? My heart says no, but my brain whispers, “What if this is the reason you haven’t been offered rep yet, and she’s the only one who’s shared the secret with you?”

I just wish she (or her assistant) had offered even one concrete example from my story to link to these problems.

There is a lot more to the letter, which does give me a firm feeling that the hopeful author has probably written a pretty good book. Here’s the red flag Janet point out:

Frankly this kind of criticism shows the agent doesn’t know how to talk about writing very well. If a manuscript needs world building, it’s much more helpful to say “I need to smell the horse manure on the streets in Helena Montana in 1878.” (Say what you will about Helena Montana, back when gunslingers lit agents rode horses to the negotiating table there was a certain olfactory signature to most towns.)

If someone tells you the plot doesn’t work, it damn well better be accompanied by an example of a plot hole or two.

If the pacing is off, you say why: nothing is at stake by page 50; or, the ending of this short story happens too quickly. Absent that kind of concrete suggestion or example, it’s just yammer.

Again, there’s a good deal more in the post, so if this is something that interests you, click through and read the whole thing.

I believe, thinking about it, that my agent does give me very clear examples of problems when she is pointing out some kind of issue. I know that she fairly often says something like: this scene and that one seem repetitive, I wonder if they could be combined? Very specific.

Anyway, good post, especially if you happen to be querying agents, or planning to.

Please Feel Free to Share:

How to cope with the series award

I’m not voting this year, but still, it’s a good question: how can a voter possibly approach the series award?

Here’s a good post about that.

Eight possible approaches are offered, one of which doesn’t count:

1. Just vote No Award on the principle that the series award is crazy anyway.

Hah, obviously I wouldn’t go for this option after cheering on the concept from the beginning.

2. Just don’t vote, at least not for things you haven’t read.

This is a lot like handling novels or movies by just not voting for things you haven’t read / haven’t watched. I think it’s kind of a cop out.

3. Vote for whichever series had the best 2016 novel.

Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the series award.

4. Vote according to reviews.

Oh, please.

5. Sample.

At last the technique that I’d use. I would read Book 1 of any series I hadn’t yet encountered. If that didn’t grab me, I might well stop right there. I say that knowing full well there are series I grew to love where the first book was just okay for me — Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series didn’t really take off till Book 3, for example, and I’ve heard the same about the October Daye series. In fact, the first book in CJC’s Foreigner series is pretty much an intro and I don’t know that it would tend to grab most readers.

Still, this seems like the fairest method to me, other than reading the entire series of all the nominees, which does seem . . . less than realistic.

Maybe for the really fast readers among us, the first book and then the book with the highest rating on Goodreads. That would be just two books per series. Still a lot, but maybe manageable?

6. See what’s in the Hugo Voter’s Packet.

Actually this will be very very interesting. Shoot, if the packet contains all the books of all the series, I guess I’ll buy a voting membership after all, because whoa.

7. Read the series until you think you’ve got a feel for it.

I agree with Camestros Felapton; this would be a useful technique for clearing the ones you hate out of the way. For me this would mean reading about 100 pages of the first book. That would probably do it.

8. Read all the books in all the series.

Again I agree with Camestros Felapton: Hah hah hah not likely. Some of you may read fast enough to actually do this! Not me. Of course no one would read eight or ten or eighteen books if they didn’t like the series at all, so this method would certainly be combined with (7).

Please Feel Free to Share:

Dune is going to appear on the big screen, again

Here’s an interesting tidbit: The New Dune Movie Is Being Written By the Man Who Wrote Forrest Gump

Eric Roth, who won an Oscar for his adapted screenplay for Forrest Gump, has been hired to adapt the Frank Herbert novel Dune for director Denis Villeneuve. Roth also wrote The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Insider, Munich, Ali, and many, many more. …The novel was released in 1965 and was famously adapted into a 1984 film by David Lynch. …

Oh, was that David Lynch?

IMO, the 1984 film was terrible. It could very reasonably have been titled “Great Moments from Dune,” because if you hadn’t read the book, I don’t see how you could have followed the story just from the movie. Comment if you remember the movie and agree or disagree.

The modern trend is to take any longish SF novel and turn it into a movie trilogy. That would be a great idea for Dune. I don’t see any other way to do the story justice; it’s just too big.

Here’s more about the new Dune movie if you’re interested.

Also, sentimental as it was, I liked “Forrest Gump.”

Please Feel Free to Share:

I want this guy’s grammar-correcting kit.

Have you heard of this “Grammar vigilante”?

For more than a decade, an unknown corrector of poor English has been venturing out in the dead of night and tidying up the punctuation on Bristol’s shop fronts and street signs. … The man said he began by scratching out an extraneous apostrophe on a sign but had since become more sophisticated and has built an “apostrophiser” – a long-handled piece of kit that allows him to reach up to shop signs to add in, or cover up, offending punctuation marks. “This is a device that enables you to plant an apostrophe quite high up and get over any obstacles,” he said.

My hero! He should make those devices and sell them!

Among the signs he has corrected in and around Bristol – the home town of the street artist Banksy – is a nail shop that used to bear the “gross” sign “Amys Nail’s”. “It was so loud and in your face. I just couldn’t abide it. It grates.”

Hah! I love this guy.

I’m trying to remember the apostrophe error I saw on a business’s truck the other day. Maybe something about getting rid of termite’s. I think business owners owe this guy a debt of gratitude for fixing their signs. Apparently he’s careful and neat about it.

Please Feel Free to Share:

Freado giveaway coming up

Are you all familiar with Freado? I wasn’t until a couple days ago. It’s a website that evidently seeks to winnow through the vast ocean of self-published titles and draw readers’ attention to better titles.

Freado was founded in 2009 with a goal to help readers find best books in innovative ways.

One of our biggest learning over the years is that the ebook explosion has increased the amount of noise (i.e. mediocre books) and decreased the signal (i.e quality books.) There are thousands of books competing for your attention and most of them are not worthy of your time.

Our solution is to have humans inspect the books for quality and ensure that the books we put in front of you are only those that are worthy of your attention. Our editorial team will ensure that the books you get in your inbox are at the intersection of high quality and low price or even free.

We don’t sell books here. We screen through top retailers sites and curate the books that are likely to be enjoyed by our reader community.

I heard about this site somewhere or other as a platform that can work for some authors to increase their visibility. Hmm, I said, and checked it out. In order to list a book for a giveaway — in order for Freado to touch your book — it needs to have at least 10 four- or five-star reviews on Amazon. That is actually a pretty high bar.

Um, which does mean you might leave a review on Amazon for any less-visible titles you really enjoyed.

Um, so might I. I’m starting to catch up with putting reviews on Goodreads (still behind, sigh), but then I really should copy a lot of those reviews over to Amazon as well . . . Fine, it’s been on my To Do list since last fall. Hopefully I will get to it by the end of the year.

Anyway, I’m going to give away two copies of Black Dog on April 20th and just see how the process works. And then list it there under their Book Deals section because it’s priced low enough for that as well. And the next time I make it free for a limited time, I’ll list it there as well.

Freado does look like a potentially good resource for readers. Especially those who don’t feel they have enough books on their TBR piles…

Please Feel Free to Share: