Sean Ferrell's Blog, page 6

The Man in the Empty Suit

I'm Soho Press's problem now. I sold them my next book, The Man in the Empty Suit.

Read about it Publisher's Weekly, here (scroll down).

I couldn't be happier and I'm thrilled to be working with the overwhelmingly brilliant Juliet Grames. She's moderately able to stomach dealing with me, so it's a match made in publishing.

Flash Mob the Rapture.

Some suggestions on how you can turn the Rapture into a Flash Mob event similar to the video below:

At 6PM have everyone start shaking as if experiencing an earthquake.
Pretend that you can no longer see the Rapture believers.
Leave the room at 5:59PM, return at 6:01 in tattered clothes, weeping and moaning.
Change your voice mail at 6:01 to "Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but I have ascended."

Flash Mob the Rapture.

Some suggestions on how you can turn the Rapture into a Flash Mob event similar to the video below:

At 6PM have everyone start shaking as if experiencing an earthquake.
Pretend that you can no longer see the Rapture believers.
Leave the room at 5:59PM, return at 6:01 in tattered clothes, weeping and moaning.
Change your voice mail at 6:01 to "Sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but I have ascended."

Writing on an ereader.

So I am currently working on a new book, and I am writing it on an ereader. Whether it will ever be read on an ereader is for others to decide. But it is definitely being written on one.

As you may or may not know, I write on the subway. At one time this involved getting on the train at the second stop on the F line (so many seats, so much time) opening a journal, uncapping my pen, and letting my shaky hand scratch indecipherable marks on the page. Years pass, times and needs change, agents use epithets to describe your process, and soon enough I was fighting for seats at a different station (still the F, but the train is "more crowded" i.e. Full) and using a laptop (goodbye journal, goodbye chicken scratches, goodbye months having to transcribe with a netbook on one knee, a journal on the other). But the fight wasn't easily won. I often couldn't get a seat and my writing time was thin and getting thinner.

Enter the Nook Color. Just a few weeks ago the Nook Color firmware was updated. The ereader now has built in email, an app store, and online browsing. After a visit to a Barnes and Noble and a test run on their floor model I went home and googled "word processing Nook." Guess what. There's an app for that. Low and behold some eager beaver has written an app that allows for creating and editing Word documents. It even syncs with DropBox or Google Documents. I bought one, installed the update to the firmware and realized with a grin that the Nook Color is basically a tablet pc.

Now I don't worry about getting a seat. I can stand anywhere and work. My thumbs do my talking for me, and I'm back to getting my words in daily. Is it perfect? No. I would like a healthier autocorrect (how about a period when I double space?) and it would be nice if it remembered how large I like the font to appear, but no system is perfect. You only have to look at my handwritten and untranscribed third novel for proof of that.

Why I hope the world doesn't end on 5/21/11.

Because these guys simply must be allowed to survive.

What is a writer?

From A.O. Scott's excellent review of the apparently banal "Something Borrowed:"

[John Krasinski] plays Ethan, Rachel's confidant, whose vocation as a writer is signaled by his taste in shirts and his habit of sarcastically pointing out what is already obvious. So when Darcy hogs the spotlight at the surprise birthday party she has organized for Rachel, Ethan astutely remarks that Darcy always has to be the center of attention. He will explain a lot more as the movie progresses, none of it especially surprising or mysterious. But I suppose that's just what writers do.

Write Place, Write Time

Not sure how I neglected to post a link to my essay for Write Place, Write Time. I blame old age.

An excerpt:

For as long as I can remember I have been a find-solace-in-a-crowd sort of writer. Give me an isolated room and three uninterrupted hours and I will remove the nails from the floorboards with my teeth, but I won't write a damn word. Give me a Crowd. Give me Music or Noise. Give me Elbows bumping in a crowded coffee shop, or on a train, and I'll give you 1500 to 2000 words a day.

Happy Birthday to me.

From India, With Love.

Need proof that chicken curry is amazing? Here's a sample of some James Bond fan fiction, with the name "Bond" replaced with "Chicken Curry," and it still makes perfect sense.

He went back to studying the building, "Now, getting in shouldn't be a problem. After all, I'm Chicken Curry. 007."

"That name rings a bell," I mused just to irk him.

"Humor won't get you on my good side."

"There's such a thing?" I asked innocently.

He ignored me and cocked his gun, "Alright," he opened the door and got out; I followed, "Just follow me, don't tarry or you'll throw me off my game."

"Not a problem."

The inside was like a museum; marble was apparently the chosen material for the rich. It made the floor, ceiling, walls and the pillars that supported the ceiling. People milled around, withdrawing and inputting their money in safes, I suspected.

Chicken Curry ignored them all and strode over to a little five foot desk where a man that could have been a waiter at an expensive restaurant pondered over an open book.

"Name?" he asked us without looking up.

"I belong here," Chicken Curry answered confidently.

"That's all very good, name?"

"You don't seem to understand," Chicken Curry leaned forward, resting an arm on the desk and giving a predatorial smile as the man looked up, "I belong here."

The Importance of Being Snooki.

Jersey Shore, in the style of Oscar WIlde.