Midge Raymond's Blog, page 55

More fiction posing as nonfiction

I suppose it was only a matter of time before it happened again — publishing drama in the form of a publisher pulling a nonfiction book because significant parts of it are, in fact, fiction. This NY Times piece offers details: Charles Pellegrino originally claimed he'd been duped by a source while writing The Last Train From Hiroshima, and then the book's publisher later learned that other people in the book may not exist, and that the author's Ph.D. may not exist either.

This is certainly...

Can fiction ever be entirely fictional?

Victoria Patterson, author of Drift, wrote in a recent article about autobiographical fiction for The Millions that her writing group would call her by the name of her protagonist, despite her assertions that her character was fictional — and that she endured a "condemning two- to three-month silence" from her family after her book was published.

One of the most interesting things about Patterson's article is a conversation she had with her father, who brought up an event that he said he...

Doing the math with e-books

This New York Times piece outlines the costs for both traditional paper books and e-books, and helps show, in numbers, what the issues are — and why we're all better off with e-books priced higher than $9.99.

The article outlines who gets what slices of the hardcover and e-book pies — money goes toward not only paying authors but to copyediting, design, marketing, printing, storage, shipping, and, for e-books, converting to and typesetting in digital format. After all the math is worked out...

Stuff for writers

I enjoyed seeing this LA Times blog post about England's new American Idol of publishing: TV Book Club. Perhaps one day, like other British programs, an American version will make its way across the pond. How great would it be to see an entire show dedicated to books?

And I've been following William Boot's "Do I Have To Read…?" series for the Daily Beast on reviewing commercial books. In Boot's opinion, only 44 of the 279 pages of Elizabeth Gilberts's new book, Committed, are readable. The...

On e-books, promotion, self-publishing, and avoiding submission mistakes

I always enjoy presenting at the Southern California Writers' Conference in San Diego, in part because it's a great excuse to travel south from Seattle in February (it was not only sunny but in the 70s!) — and also because it's an exhilarating, exhausting-in-a-good-way weekend. Even better, I get to see old friends and meet amazing writers.

Among the friends at this year's SCWC were Clare Meeker, who presented on creating commissioned stories (she's in San Diego all week promoting her book

Confessions of an old-school reader

As someone who loves traditional books — the look and feel and weight of them — I have a confession to make: I really like using the Kindle.

I am the co-owner of a Kindle; I probably wouldn't have bought one on my own, but my husband is a geek (though he prefers the term "early adopter") and got one right away. It's mostly his, and I've only used it a couple of times … until this week, when I brought it with me on a solo trip. And I have to admit, the Kindle makes an awesome travel...

The physical act of writing

I can still remember the first story I ever wrote, when I was maybe eight or nine years old, on school notebook paper in what was then my fairly neat, legible handwriting. I think it may also have been illustrated. Perhaps because, back in my day, we still wrote high-school English papers by hand (I had a word processor in college but didn't get my first computer until graduate school — and yes, that does make me feel old), I still often write out scenes by hand. I find writing longhand...

More drama in digital publishing

Last week, when Macmillan announced it would begin setting higher prices for e-books, Amazon reacted by removing access to the publisher's Kindle editions as well as its printed books. As you probably know by now, it's Amazon, not publishers, that sets the prices for e-books — and at $9.99, which includes new releases and bestsellers, publishers and authors worry about books being devalued (not to mention pirated).

But on Sunday, as the New York Times reports, Amazon agreed to Macmillan's...

On writing routines

I recently did a guest blog on writing routines (specifically, on my very random writing routine, along with a few tips for similarly scattered writers) for Seattle's Crab Creek Review.

Check it out here.

A writing exercise, or two

This one comes thanks to the American Short Fiction blog, on which I discovered artist Mark Menjivar's intriguing photo project: a collection of photographs of what's in people's refrigerators, appropriately called "you are what you eat." From the freezer filled with nothing but meat and tequila to the fridge containing only two items, it's an interesting look at the way people live. And it's definitely thought-provoking for writers.

So here are two exercises for you to do after you've...