Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 742
July 21, 2009
More praise
Another anonymous friend sent along a couple of positive reviews of SOMETHING MISSING from readers on LibraryThing.com.
Appreciated as always!
To write or to revise?
My manuscript for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO arrived in the mail today along with a letter from my editor, Melissa, detailing her suggestions for edits and revisions. Some are broad and will be difficult to manage and others are small and simple.
Overall, I agree with Melissa's assessment of what needs to be done to improve the book, but much of it involves "killing my darlings," which is never easy for me.
As a writer, I have learned that the struggles with my writing center upon my tendency to
July 20, 2009
News on SOMETHING MISSING
My author's website, where you will be able to access this blog, will be up shortly, but until then, here's the latest news about SOMETHING MISSING.
First, a few appearances at local, independent bookstores and libraries have been scheduled, including:
Sunday, August 2: Words of Wisdom Bookstore in Shelton, CT (time TBA)
Thursday, August 13: RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT (7 PM)
Thursday, August 27: Wilton Library authors discussion in Wilton, CT (7 PM)
Also, I learned that the audio
July 19, 2009
Front page day
It's been quite a day. The Hartford Courant ran an article about SOMETHING MISSING and my life story on the front cover of today's paper, above the fold, and alongside stories about the death of Walter Cronkite and the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 missions.
It's an enormous story that carries on for two pages and offers details about my life, the writing of the book, and my future projects. Overall, I'm pleased with the results. What began as a small story intended for the Lifestyle se
July 18, 2009
Amazon sales ranking
My wife found an article that tries to explain the inexplicable means by which the Amazon sales rankings are calculated.
Confused? Me too.
Is SOMETHING MISSING a bestseller yet?
A lot of people, friends and strangers, via email, Facebook, Twitter, and in person, have been asking me how the book is doing in the bookstores. Unsure myself, I asked my editor, who explained it to me that it can take a while to find out how a book is doing. "Right now we're very happy with the number in-print and out to stores, but it's sort of in the consumer's hands at this point."
As the book sells, she explained, bookstores will place reorders, and if the book does not sell, the bookst
Favorite words
Inspired by the Guardian's piece of words that poets hate, I posted my own list of words, along with my wife's least favorite word: moist
Apparently, she's not alone. According to a follow-up piece asking for the reader's most beloved words, moist received quite a bit of attention in the comments to the Guardian's post, from both supporters and detractors, enough to get mentioned in the deck of the story.
None of my words received mention, though the words crotch and pustule were included in t
Is there an aesthetic to the written word?
Bonnie Trenga, guest-writing for the Grammar Girl podcast, recently asserted that the standalone use of a which clause is acceptable when the author is attempting to slow things down and create emphasis. The example she provides is this:
I stepped onto the train. Which had finally arrived.
While I'm not about imply that this is wrong (as a novelist, I use sentence fragments all the time for a variety of reasons), I must say that I find this particular use of a sentence fragment to be ugly and
July 17, 2009
Skipping his best material
And while I'm on the subject of the Dylan concert, can I also add that I did not appreciate John Mellencamp's set list, which did not include Jack and Diane, ROCK in the USA and Hurts So Good, which are his first, second, and fourth most popular downloads in the iTunes Music Store, and dare I say, three of his most famous songs of all time.
What was he thinking? Though I enjoyed his new music quite a bit, he can't just ignore the fact that almost everyone in the audience grew up listening to hi
July 16, 2009
Inaccessible and annoying
My wife and I went to see Bob Dylan a couple nights ago for our anniversary. As he stepped on stage, a booming voice declared him to be "the great American storyteller" among many other praiseworthy monikers. While this may have been true at one time, this is simply not the case anymore as far as his live performances go. Try as we did, my wife and I couldn't understand most of what the man was saying. His voice is completely ruined, so much so that the majority of the words that he sings are cr
