Ruth Nestvold's Blog, page 35

Facing the enemy for #WIPpet Wednesday

I’m crazy tired right now — watched the US – Belgium game last night, which went late, and I have only just now finished packing for my flight to London tomorrow. But at least I *am* done now, and since I know I will not be posting next week — Wednesday is the Wedding! — I figure before I trundle off to bed for my much deserved rest, I will post another snippet from A Wasted Land for WIPpet Wednesday. My math for today, 7/2/14, is to add up all the digits, giving me 14. So here are 14 short p...

99% of what Writers are hearing in terms of advice comes from 1% of Authors.

Ruth Nestvold:

Great article about the difficulty of taking advice in this rapidly changing publishing world — my own or anyone else’s, since within a few months, it could be obsolete.

Conclusion: you have to keep reinventing yourself. In the writing life, there is no such thing as making it (except perhaps for a fraction of a second, or a fraction of us writers.) Dream of resting on your laurels? Plant some bay. :)

Originally posted on Write on the River:

So how much actually applies and is u...

Slowly getting back to writing: My quarterly accounting post

Those who follow this blog will know that I took some time off from writing the last couple of weeks to give my mourning brain a break. When the mourning seemed to be going on a bit to long, I remembered the letter from Clarion West in my inbox and signed up for the Clarion West Write-a-thon again this year. That started on Monday, and I haven’t quite reached my goal of 500 words a day, but almost: 400 a day on Monday and Tuesday, and 500 on Wednesday. At least it’s helping with my main goal...

Singing a song of Arthur for #WIPpet Wednesday

I skipped #WIPpet Wednesday entirely last week, knowing I just didn’t have the energy for visiting lots of blogs. I think I’m slowly shaking my lethargy now, and I will try to be a good fellow blogger this week. :)

For this excerpt, I’m returning to A Wasted Land and Kustennin, the new Dux Bellorum of Britain. When I last posted an excerpt from his story, he and Taliesin were posing as minstrels to scout out Venta / Winchester, the capital of Cerdic, their enemy in the recent wars. This snipp...

Fake Bestsellers, Concern Trolls and Hidden Agendas

Ruth Nestvold:

Last week, I read the original article by Tony Horowitz claiming he was a digital bestseller and was particularly irritated by his claim that digital publishing was the problem — *and not that he had given his rights away to an incompetent e-publisher*! I could only shake my head that this was published in the NYT, arbiter of American culture. David Gaughran’s analysis of the “bestseller” status is once again illuminating.

Originally posted on David Gaughran:

Last Friday we were...

Clarion West Write-a-thon to the rescue!

I continue to be extremely listless writing-wise since Jay Lake’s death. I’ve been keeping busy, though. I finally organized my trip to Britain for a friend’s wedding the beginning of July. I’ll be staying a couple of extra days to research some sites for A Wasted Land.

This weekend, we also went to the Bodensee / Lake Constance, with a short jog into Switzerland to see the Rheinfall, the Rhine Falls. That was a lot of fun.

It inspired us to promise each other to get away a bit more again. Si...

The last excerpt from Island of Glass and a request

First off, I want to apologize for being such a bad blogger-friend and WIPpeteer in the last couple of weeks. Normally, I always try my best to at least return the favor and post on the blogs of those who posted on mine. But since my dear friend Jay Lake was admitted to hospice and died only a few days later, I haven’t even managed to respond to the comments on my own blog. I hope you will all forgive me.

For over the last week, I haven’t been doing much new writing, allowing my creative brai...

Who’s Afraid of Very Cheap Books?

Ruth Nestvold:

Interesting post by David Gaughran, reviving the 99c price point for ebooks.

Originally posted on David Gaughran:

A common meme in publishing is that cheap books are destroying the world or literature, and that low prices are undermining the viability of publishingor writers’ ability to make a living.

I’ve long thought this position is nonsense – a narrative which plays on misplaced fears of change and a confusion of price and value, whichis also based on flawed assumptions and an...

Looking for feedback on map and description for Island of Glass

As I’ve mentioned in my last couple of posts, I have once again switched from creative, “new words” mode to editing and formatting mode. But I think once I have Island of Glass published, my brain will be out of mourning enough that I can I can get back to creating new words on a fairly regular basis. On Saturday, I woke up dreaming about the story I want to write in the Villa Diodati shared world that I mentioned here. That inspired me to call up the file, and I added nearly 500 words to my...

Amazing deal on Amazon.de: Get Almost All the Way Home From the Stars for under 1000 Euros!

Once again, a vendor on Amazon has outdone itself, and is offering my collection of SF short stories with Jay Lake, Almost All the Way Home From the Stars for only 999,11 Euros! Since I don’t know how long this incredible deal will last, I took another screen shot:

I only wish I could sell it for that …

I wonder what bots were at work this time to come up with such an incredible opportunity.