My focus yesterday was on the Possible Third Book and shopping and I left a couple of other things out.
First off, the great state of Georgia has been added onto the list of states where Life As We Knew It is nominated for a young readers award. That brings the current total to thirteen states and one city in England. Well, two cities in England for the moment, but the Coventry Award will be announced tomorrow. My guess is they'll splat a ceremonial tomato on the First Runner Up (98% likely to be LAWKI), so that only the winner in each category remains pristine. Oh well. It's been remarkable LAWKI remained unsplatted for so long.
By the way, if my spelling of late has been off, it's because spell check has up and died. I think the last bleakity bleak did it in.
I'm about to set up a poll for all of you. The question before the house is whether you'd like me to post the outline for P3B on the blog, as I did the notes for the dead and the gone. If a majority says Yes, then I will; if No rules supreme, then I won't.
There will be one condition and that is no comments about the outline will be allowed (although you can certainly comment on whether you think posting the outline is a good idea or not). At first I thought I'd just say no bad comments, but then I realized if there weren't any comments, I'd figure everybody hates the outline. In theory you could post comments and I could not read them, but I don't trust myself that much.
If I can get the poll to end Sunday night, I will, and if the vote is Yes, I'll post the outline on Monday, before I begin work. I'm so crazed with desire to start writing P3B, that I'm hoping for a snowday tomorrow, so I won't have to do my volunteer work. Although a few extra days before writing isn't a bad idea. Last night I added a whole new scene to the outline. My traveling troupe of players is going to do the halftime show for a football game.
Okay. I'm off to set up the poll. I'll be interested to see what the result is.
9 comments:
Yeesh. I'm torn about how to vote! You couldn't ask us something easy, like which pair of red earrings we like better or whether we think Johnny and Evan should have shared first place?
Yeah. Plus, I'm confounded by the black or white nature of the choices. Like, I might should like to vote "post it some day, but not before you write it" or "let me read the second one first" or "my favorite blacklist icon is Jules Dassin, who, incidentally, I saw lobbying for the repatriation of the Elgin Marbles on generic Aussie TV in Hanoi a few weeks ago." Instead, I'm expected to go all either-or while seeing the value in each.
And as an aside: I was away for ten days on vacation, and that's my excellent excuse for my commentary silence of late. Apparently, we were sad and self-absorbed, too, because we certainly did buy a rug worth thousands of rupees.
Yeah!!! You got your snowday. I wish I could get one here in Texas. We've got our fingers crossed for Friday.
Hi Reading Fool and Mr. Cavin and Anonymous From Texas-
Yes! We do have a snowday! I'll get to stay inside and watch the ice melt off the branches.
I kept the poll options simple because keeping things simple is my mantra for P3B. Besides, one always has the option of not reading the outline, should I post it, or reading it at some faraway time.
The outline is an organic sucker; I already added the football game to it, and last night I came up with one definite change and one probable one. The book, regardless of whether it gets published or not, will not follow the outline 100%. As I'm writing, alternate solutions will reveal themselves to my magic fingers. But it does give me, and anyone else who reads it, a strong basic sense of what the book will be like.
On the other hand, it's quite possibly loony of me to post it. Which is why I'm leaving the decision up to all of you.
With no disrespect intended, I think you would have to be absolutely crazy to post the outline. Maybe I have lived in New York too long and am paranoid, but I see soooo many potential problems coming from this. People claiming the ideas were theirs, people actually stealing the ideas and changing the names, etc. This is probably only the tip of the iceberg. Does anyone agree with me?
As much as I would want to see the outline, I can wait for the book to come out. (Or at least the ARC.)
I truly think, no matter what the vote, you should not post the outline in cyberspace.
Regards from Anonymity
Glen
Hi Anonymous Glen-
I don't disagree that I'm completely crazy under any circumstance. But I think I'm okay on the plagarism issues.
It seems to me that anyone who accuses me of same would have to acknowledge the paper trail I've left, all that discussion in previous blog entries about carts and cholera and the suchlike. Not to mention two previous books that set up P3B.
As far as anyone plagarizing me, the same paper trail issue holds. I can say Ah Ha! in the courtroom and show printouts of the outline (assuming the majority votes that I should publish it), plus all the cart and cholera discussions.
I frequently fantasize about plagarism, by the way. I'll read an obscure out of print mystery and wonder if I could steal it, or if there's anybody else on earth who's read that same obscure out of print mystery. I've never done it (ideas come pretty easily to me), but I certainly have used other people's plots as starting off points. I wrote a book once called The Pizza Puzzle and got its basic plot from one of my favorite film noirs- Cry Danger. Except instead of a bank robbery, it was a phoned in order for pizza.
And there'd be no LAWKI or d&g if I hadn't watched Meteor one day.
I am not sure I would call this a snow day as much as an ice day.
I voted yes on the poll. I promise not to comment in print. I may whine in person.
And I read your blog, no matter what your blog counter might or might not say.
This is completely off-topic, but I just looked at what the Coventry Awards ARE, and was completely turned off. I think they have the value of a rotten tomato. Were I an author, I would not, in any way acknowledge their existence.
This may be somebody's 'real' world, but, reading the comments made for various books, including, Douglas Adams' The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it seems Coventry might better serve its stated mission by encouraging more discussion and writing about the books, than by encouraging mindless tomato-splatting vandalism, (and one can vote more than once), and adolescent virtual power plays.
The first kid who posted comments regarding Hitch Hiker's said "it was written in an odd way? Where's the teacher? I thought the Brits did a better job. No more, I guess.
One of the choices in their Polls forums is, "Fancy A Quickie?" Does that mean something different in the UK? UGH.
We need to invest more in getting good books into the hands of readers, and less in cutsey virtual claptrap.
That said - having "Life As We Knew It" up there with Hitch Hikers and Thomas the Tank Engine, is high praise.
Happy Valentine's Day.
I still say don't post it.
Glen
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