Ned Hayes's Blog, page 82

WRITE IN THE VALLEY - this coming weekend"Readers—and...

WRITE IN THE VALLEY - this coming weekend

"Readers—and writers—of historical fiction and true crime know capturing the essence of a time and place is the key to a great story.”

Sumner Pierce County Library »

"It is the sting of snow, the burning liquor ofthe moonlight, the rush of rain in the gutters..."

“It is the sting of snow, the burning liquor of

the moonlight, the rush of rain in the gutters packed

with dead leaves: go to sleep, go to sleep.

And the night passes—and never passes—”

- William Carlos Williams, from “A Goodnight” (via proustitute)

Publishing in an Era of Change

I have a publisher. I like my publisher, although they are smaller than the Big 5 publishers. We get along pretty well, and I’ve appreciated their work on my novel Sinful Folk, which has received great publicity from my publisher’s marketing department.

I’ve also self-published other material under the name Nicholas Hallum, and I’ve enjoyed that experience of working on material that I entirely control.

However, in this era of increasing chaos and change in publishing, it’s interesting to see some people — like publishing veterans Mike Shatzkin and Aaron Shepherd — fundamentally misunderstand the mind-set of the many authors (both traditionally published and indie-published) who signed the largest petition ever signed by a single group of authors (8,000 and still counting).

Fundamentally, I think most authors see themselves as a group united in their obectives of A) Making a living at writing, B) Telling a story to interested readers.

The world that currently exists in publishing — mostly comprised of the Big 5 — is enormously unfair to authors and is antithetical to both of the stated goals above.

Authors who some see as “attacking” publishers are asking for the rights of all authors — as a profession — to accomplish their goals.

Authors as a group — a profession — are finally feeling their power and are trending toward a unity against contracts and policies that will hinder their shared goals as a profession.

If you are a plumber, you tend to like things good for plumbers as a profession. The same is true for writers.

If you are a writer, you’ll tend to like the self-publishing clarity of monthly payments, control over rights, etc. — those writers who don’t like those things will be perceived as “scabs.”

That’s exactly the position Authors United is putting itself in right now.

Marc Cabot recently posted a precisely appropriate quote about the recent uproar:

“There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.”

— Robert A. Heinlein, Life-Line (1939)

Publishing in an Era of Change was originally published on NedNote

"Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included...

"Spring grew into summer, and the rhythm of my life now included Nell. I carried Christian with me as I gathered sticks, piling branches into the bundles I carried on my back to the village that night. Nell’s secret thyme beds and her mint were deep in the woods, out by the chuckling stream that disappeared underground. She danced in the sunlight and the shade."

— from the novel SINFUL FOLK

PHOTO: (via 35PHOTO - Александр Котенко - ***)

"When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child’s hands, you are bringing that child news..."

“When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child’s hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.”

- Paula Fox (via observando)

Michaelmas

 

(St. Michael the Arch-Angel’s Day — Michaelmas, Sept 29)

"Ten years ago, Michaelmas. Summer hours fading into dusk, day dying slow. I had fallen out of the straight path into a place of harsh rocks and broken brambles, like the legend tells Satan fell from heaven on St. Michael’s Day. But I had fallen from no heaven, and those who pursued me were no angels."
 
— from the novel Sinful Folk

"I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a..."

“I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love.”

- John Steinbeck (via writingquotes)

"Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. The day before...

"Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. The day before she died, my mother did something I still don’t understand. She took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea—the thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the rhythm never ceasing. Then she taught me something: strange words in a foreign tongue, a lilting singsong cadence to it.”

— from the novel SINFUL FOLK

"The idea of the humourless feminist is an incredibly potent and effective silencer. It is used to..."

“The idea of the humourless feminist is an incredibly potent and effective silencer. It is used to isolate and alienate young girls; to ridicule and dismiss older women, to force women in the workplace to ‘join in the joke’ and, in the media, to castigate protest to the point of obliteration.”

- Laura Bates, Everyday Sexism (via lovethyfemaleself)

Rosh Hashanah 2014 today…. "The fog swirls around us, and...

Rosh Hashanah 2014 today….

 

"The fog swirls around us, and now I feel so very far from Court and from my lands of Ashcroft. Against my skin, I can feel the lines of my rich clothes. Yet still, I sense that inside I am no better than these wretches. I can still feel the scars on my skin from my long winter journey. There are scars on me made from weapons and from fists, from fear and hunger as well.

….

As I tread the moonlit cobblestones, I find my way through the maze. Finally, I turn the last corner, and there ahead of me, they wait. I have found the place marked on the map. The Garden of my people. Leyrestowe.

I close my eyes here in supplication. I remember my mother’s face. She whispered to me, she begged for an oath from a child: “Promise me this. You remember the words I taught you on the water. It is Kaddish. Promise that you will say Kaddish for me.”

She held her hand out, grasped me tight.

“But you must wait to say them. You will go where there are other Jews, find them in London – you must find ten of them. Together, you must say Kaddish for me. It will save me, in the afterlife, these words will lift my soul to heaven.”

They are in front of me. My people have gathered here, the last remanent, altogether, in the Jew’s Garden at Cripplegate.

I lift my eyes to the distant moon that shines over our earthly sphere. I stare around at the field in front of me, the seven-branched candlelabraum etched over the archway, the dark gray stones ranked together in rows, the brambles that have overgrown this secret shadowed place.

— from the novel Sinful Folk

 

PHOTO:

somewhatvintage