WritingSucks

Dave Eggers Discusses the Writing Life

A Q&A with Dave Eggers.

Am I Worth $90,000?

According to Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner I've got to convince a publisher to invest up to $90,000 in my book. Everything from warehousing to packaging is covered by the publisher. Publishers want to make money, not go in the hole, or even break even, meaning your book better bring it.

Check out Rachelle's list of publisher expenses: Read more...

Juggling Different Duties

"Follow Lisa Black around on her workday and you might uncover the plot behind her next mystery novel. It might even be in the little notebook she pulls out to jot notes and ideas for characters or sequences."
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-The Miami Herald

Bookstore Celebrates Still Being In Business

"The seemingly endless recession, the growing attraction of Kindles and the steady shuttering of bookstores gave the owners of one bookstore in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, even more reason to celebrate today. They’re still open."
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-The New York Times

A Spot For Writing

My spot is the couch, in front of the TV, probably with a reality show on in the background. Watching A Real Chance At Love seems to be conducive for rewriting.

In On Writing, Stephen King suggests that there should be no distractions, and certainly no television. But VH1 was still playing videos when he wrote this, not trying to find Megan a millionaire. I can't slog on the computer all day at work and then come home and write in a white sterile room--I need a reward--write a few sentences--watch a few minutes of TV--repeat. When I've gone away to a hotel/motel to write for the weekend the TV is on the entire time.

Here is an enjoyable article, A Place For Writing,by Richard Nordquist, cataloging a few famous writer's favorite places to get the words down. How about a cork-lined roomed?

Naming A Character

The majority of my characters only have a first name. If I was doing this the proper way I would have a complete character profile with first and last name, mother's maiden name, shoe size, and topics this character would discuss in therapy.

But, most of my characters have one name, not like Cher, but like Susan. Except one. This character needed a first and a last name. I've been calling him something else the entire time I have been working on my book. A real name that everyone knows; someone this character resembles. So today that needed to change.

I Googled "Name Generator" and was pleasantly surprised. There is a generator for pirate's names, and quite a few for fantasy elfin druid characters. But I just needed a regular name, something special, but not something unpronounceable.

I found the Fake Name Generator, which supplies a full name, address, social security number, and credit card info for your fake person. I hope this is fake, if it is all real people's information for easy fraud transactions I apologize. I mixed and matched names, and no matter what I did there was a real somebody with a Facebook account and everything.

I finally gave up and just used a name I liked. So some guy in Botswana has the same name as my character, and so does a geneticist in Berlin.

Fonts Go Green

Recycle, reuse, and reduce...the amount of ink you print. Ecofont has developed a "swiss cheese" font, reported to save up to 20% of ink when printing your manifesto.  Save the ink! I guess the little things really do add up--less ink, less printer cartridges, less cursing when you have to pony up for a new ink cartridge, and less bulky things in landfills.

The font is free to download, and use.

Bubble Calendar

Christmas may be over, but I'm all up for giving gifts to help kick the New Year off right. You better be awesome 2009. This is what I want when I wake up on January 1: The Bubble Calendar. How satisfying would it be to pop one of these each day? Kudos to you bubble calendar dudes.

People--The Novel

"A tale of people that collide into each other. That fight with each other. That seek for acceptance, friendship and love."

Want to help write a novel? Want to throw your novel in the trash and feel the warm fuzzies of collaboration? Make Literature Online is giving everyone the chance to be a part of the big picture.

"Make Literature Online proudly announces the launch of New Collaborative Writing Project. Join us in creative writing adventure and magnificent reading experience. At the place where fiction reinvents itself, you have unique opportunity to create literature history with us ."

Everyone may submit a chapter of the novel, and then it gets added to a catalog, where other members can rank and discuss your writing. If they like it it becomes part of the new novel. I assume that means your name will be on the book somewhere and that you can quit your day job and tattoo "Novelist" around your left ankle in Old English font. Or you can sit in your library and drink Olde English and not feel guilty about that novel you were supposed to write yourself.

It's Called "Save As" For A Reason

This is a Public Service Announcement. It's about saving your documents, and it is brought to you by the I'm A Dumb-ass Research Council.

I keep my book saved in my email account. Then when creativity strikes, about once a month for three minutes, I open the document, type away, and then re-save the document and email it back to myself. This means it is always there, even if I don't have my laptop I can access it on a different computer.

Yesterday, I opened the document and began working. When you open a Word document from an email it opens in Compatibility Mode. Here is the PSA: At this point you should do a "SAVE AS" and save it to your desktop or into a folder on the computer you are using.

Don't get distracted and then forget to do this. You might forget that you are working in Compatibility Satan Mode and keep hitting the little save icon at the top of your document. You think you're being responsible and saving every few sentences. You are, but it is into some kind of ether, a ghost soup. Every time a save dings a ghost gets indigestion.

Long PSA short, I lost about two hours of work. The best two hours of work I have ever done I am sure. Now I have lost all motivation to recreate what I was working on. Save As, Save As. Happy Thanksgiving.