Let’s face it, readers and writers essentially fall into these categories:
1. Readers
non-writers;
fellow writers who read widely.
2. Writers
serious [published; unpublished];
occasional.
Somewhere in this mix is the vast number of “I have a novel tucked away I’ve always been meaning to finish,” who tell you “Some friends told me I should get it published.” More rarely, there is the writer with both the means and the perseverance to get published – who has people behind him/her to accomplish just that.
L’Ombre, in the first part of this mini-series, stated the pitfalls and the meagre earnings involved, even if you do get past those initial hurdles but he also held out hope that e-books, using POD selling are a way forward, once the DRM problem [the control by the providers of the equipment and lists] is overcome. I’d say the dead-tree version is always going to be around, on a 50-50 basis with e-books.
MPs at the centre of the expense claims scandal have been warned not to use Parliamentary privilege to avoid court proceedings by the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg.
One answer, if it’s correct syntax you be wantin’ [highlight below]:
MPs at the centre of the expense claims scandal have been warned by the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, not to use Parliamentary privilege to avoid court proceedings.
Of course, there may be, in the statement, issues at stake other than grammar and word usage.
When writers write about writing (and even worse writers writing about writers writing about writing) often gets self-indulgent and makes one want to find them, break their keyboards and burn their Writers and Artists’ Yearbooks in front of their eyes.
No one asked us to inflict our golden numbers on the world and whenever I read another whining unpublished writers blocked author I want to tell them to thank their lucky stars they’re not living in Ethiopia and walking five miles to get a container of hookworm infested water every day while thinking it normal you’re been peeing blood since childhood.
So, just to court fate, I’m going to address the question of getting published.
L’Ombre goes into the stark reality of getting published today, what it takes, how the market is changing and how much one can expect in return.
It’s a pity there’s no tradition of military songs in our country, apart from WW2 numbers like Lily Marlene. We’re not a militaristic nation, we don’t fly the flag on holidays and we we don’t have a “Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland” which the Russians have on February 23rd [also my birthday celebration].
There are plenty of songs about war and the military but they tend to be negative and even the great Eric Burdon got into this with Sky Pilot [good though the music itself was]. There are plenty of anti-war films, such as Twilight’s Last Gleaming but not much in the way of celebrating what our military do on our behalf.
On December 10, 1963 the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite ran a story about the Beatlemania phenomenon in the United Kingdom. After seeing the report, 15 year old Marsha Albert of Silver Spring, Maryland wrote a letter the following day to disc jockey Carroll James at radio station WWDC asking “why can’t we have music like that here in America?”. Read more…
Patrick Timoney, a 9-year-old student at PS 52 in Staten Island, N.Y., was in the school cafeteria Tuesday playing with LEGOs when he was taken to the principal’s office and threatened with suspension. One of his toys was a LEGO policeman that holds a 2-inch plastic gun. The school has a no-tolerance policy when it comes to toy guns.
It seemed like such a practical and good arrangement, the kind that moms have been making with each other since the beginning of time: One woman would watch her friends’ kids while they waited for the school bus so the other women could go to their jobs.
And then the Michigan Department of Human Services stepped in to tell the Good Samaritan mother that she was facing fines and possible jail time for running an illegal day care center.
I wonder how many will read this post through.
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We all seem to be going round in circles. The Albion Alliance is trying to get two things:
1. Accountability to the people from MPs;
2. An agreement to push for a referendum on EU membership.
Now, on the first one, not only are MPs largely not playing ball but they’re also coming out with this sort of thing, which is precisely what we’ve been talking about. This requires many, many letters to said MPs and we have the mechanism at our site to help write to them. Yet there are far fewer doing that than should be whilst at the same time, people are moaning about MPs not being accountable.
Added to that is that we are in a constitutional mess and this was illustrated in the Human Rights fiasco:
“The devolution statutes and the Human Rights Act are legally and constitutionally tied together,” said Qudsi Rasheed, legal officer at Justice.
Against that:
“Disentangling the rights from the devolution states would be a very difficult thing to do,” said John Wadham, legal director of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. “You would have bizarre situation where there was different set of rights in devolved matters and non-devolved matters, and people in England would have fewer rights than people in the devolved jurisdictions.”
Add to this the jurisdiction of the EU over the 12 regions of the former United Kingdom and their way of making policy, let’s take security as an example: Read more…
1. In which Buster Keaton film did an entire wall fall on him, with Keaton only saved because an upstairs window happened to be open?
2. The script for ET was written during shooting breaks for which film?
3. In which film was a house, which had previously served as the family home in “The Partridge Family” and the Kravitzes’ home in “Bewitched”, firebombed?
4. Name the film: “No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”
5. Who said: “Come with me, if you want to live” ?
Answers
Steamboat Bill Jr, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lethal Weapon, Gone with the Wind, Arnie in Terminators 2
The clip above is on the teen end of the scale and touches on the practical side of the matter. It’s an American clip and so doesn’t take into account the dole culture over here of getting pregnant and going onto welfare .
The Telegraph is running an article on the other end of the scale – how eggs dry up for women by 30. It still doesn’t prevent women conceiving – it just reduces the chances somewhat. Also:
“These warnings presume an awful lot – that a woman has a fantastic career and has made a conscious choice not to have babies because of her lifestyle. But usually a woman is childless because she hasn’t met the right man, because she’s not in a financial position to have a baby, or she’s just not ready.”
Getting published 2
Syntax corner
Getting published
The British Invasion
Salvador
The quality of sanity is not strained
Going round in circles
Where do you hide your money?
For film buffs
Steamboats
