Hello, friends! Just dropping by a quick note to let you know my dear friend,
T. Z. Wallace, has managed to earn a spot in a contest, and I want to shout about it a little. It is
Miss Snark's First Victim's
Secret Agent contest, and our lovely Ms. Wallace is
May Secret Agent #3. If you click on that last link (the red words saying "
May Secret Agent #3" just to your left . . . I've linked them again in case you missed them the first time), it will take you to T. Z.'s entry, at which time you may find yourself drawn into the first scenes of a rather riveting story. Once you've feverishly read through every word, you may then find yourself compelled to comment about this story, to say how it made you feel, why you kept reading, and maybe even a little constructive criticism (writers do like feedback, after all). This would be the desired effect. If even one of you first read this, and then read
that, I'll have done my job.
For the record, I do love her opening ever so much. But I won't try to sway you with my own opinions, however weighty they may be.
Happy reading!
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10 comments:
As always, I am amazed by how generous you are. You are the best midwife EVER!!!
Being a book midwife is hard work, but somebody's gotta' do it. ;)
(Besides, the pay's good - free fiction and all the brainstorming sessions I could ever want. What's not to like?)
I REALLY like the term book-midwife. WOW.
The pain is comparable to childbirth and drugs don't help things any. At least a human gestation is only nine months, but a BOOK gestation....(sigh) those can take YEARS!
Hopefully the book doesn't whine at you all the time once it's been published for a few years = P
Haha, that would suck! But you know it might... it really might. Either way, I'm just midwifing - I figure once it's born out into the world, that's TZ's problem. ;)
I take "write what you know" from a different direction. Write about people.
Whether you're writing YA, children's, SF, fantasy, they all have people in them. Most of us know a lot about people, whether we want to or not. Interactions.
It doesn't mean you need to write about the street you grew up on, and your high school, and the squabbles between you and your siblings--can you imagine a book world filled with that? Yuck!
But we know how siblings interact, we know what it's like to be in a grocery store line. About half of us know what PMS stands for (Post-man syndrome) and it's relatively simple to stick those things into a book that's entirely different from what we "know."
As for writing about a nation corrupted and laid waste...look around you. :) Exagerate a little and no one will ever know the difference.
Lol, Lauren! "look around..." oh yes... real life is always the inspiration in one form or another.
Isn't it OK to MAKE IT UP?
After all, it's FICTION, right?
Why not leave it up to the reader to figure out what's real and what isn't? Kind of like a Where's Waldo of another reality, embedded in all of those Wiki facts.
And then, before you know it, a reader will write an entry into Wiki about your road, and it will become fact! Ha! Turn the page!
Wanted to email you the Nat Geo travel photo of the month, but have to settle for link:
http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/photo-of-the-week/#/japanese-maple-tree-portland-japanese-gardens-oregon_54603_600x450.jpg
I like the way you think, Rusk... and yes, I think that's perfectly valid to make it up. ;)
that photo is AMAZING! Thank you! :D
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