November 9, 2009 by Wendy
…wants to automatically replace words in books with synonyms.
Amazon (for which Virago is a perfectly acceptable synonym, both having at least one sense referring to a large, agressive woman) has patented a ‘System and Method for Marking Content’. This “programmatically” substitutes synonyms into (electronic) text like books, reviews, news articles etc so that they can trace back the source of any illegally distributed material. I assume electronic text, anyway, unless they’re cracking down on the dastardly lending-printed-book-to-friend black market.
This is similar to the random pattern of dots overlayed on cinema reels to identify which specific reel was the one set loose as an illegal DVD copy or which cinema management was slack on spotting recording devices, except that instead of changing the movie-goer’s experience by irritating them with dots, they change the movie-goer’s experience by splicing in minute scene alterations – without even subjecting the process to a human eye to see just how annoying and wrong the change is.
Would a reasonable human say virago is an acceptable substitute for amazon? No, no way – the words may have the same meaning by a dictionary match, if you go down the list of meanings for each far enough, but they have substantially different senses in most people’s minds. Such a substitution would change the way the character so described is perceived.
Screw it, I shouldn’t even have to give an example of why this is so bad. I’m not making the claim that I choose every single word in my books with conscious care, but I certainly pay attention to nuances of meanings and to the rhythm of the sentences, and Virago (and not the perfectly well-behaved publishing imprint either) is tromping all over that with this system.
The patent also includes using “alternative misspellings for selected words”. Yes. That typo? That typo is not my fault. That was Virago the Giant Online Retailer.
If they’re that worried about pirates, why not adopt the system proposed by…that guy whose name I don’t remember…who said to flood the pirate market with error-riddled copies of whatever product, some only 10% different, some 90% different, so that people helping themselves to illegal material never know how true and reliable their copy is and it becomes easier to buy the appropriately priced legal material. That’s a system amenable to programmatic implementation.
That was the first time I’ve ever spelled rhythm correctly on the first go.
Posted in The philosophy of writing, Writing news | Tagged Amazon, copyright, synonyms | Leave a Comment »
October 30, 2009 by Wendy
Regular readers will notice I have skipped my regular blog posts this week. This is because I have been busy. Though not in the good Las Vegas way.
Which leads me to mention that The Australia Institute has declared November 25 to be national Go Home On Time Day. It is, and I quote, “in recognition of the more than 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime that Australians work each year” and “is intended to be a guilt-free way of raising awareness of the nature and extent of unpaid overtime in Australia and the important economic, health and social consequences it often has”. Check out the Go Home On Time Day website.
This has only the most tenuous link to writing, except that I will point out that:
- the more hours you work, the less productive you are,
- the more hours you work, the fewer hours you have to do your writing (no, really?), and
- work-life balance makes for happier person, which makes for more creativity, mental energy, focus and discipline left over for the things that really matter to you, like writing your novel.
Go Home on Time: try it sometime.
Posted in The philosophy of writing, Writing news | Tagged productivity | Leave a Comment »
October 25, 2009 by Wendy
The big news for readers is of course the B&N Nook, which so far sounds like it beats both the Amazon Kindle and the various Sony eReaders in some functions (and its price-to-benefit ratio too). This report goes through the major benefits of the Nook (which name, while logical, needs to grow on me) over its competitors, but is summed up with this line: “Barnes & Noble is really thinking about how people actually read…[not] forcing you to change your reading habits rather than adapting to them.”
This NYT article talks about how the ease of ebooks has made people read more. But then there’s the woman at the end who is reading more on her Kindle – but not buying more, because she’s “borrowing” them from her friend’s Amazon account. I find it hard to condemn her, since she could easily borrow a physical book, exactly as the Nook has acknowledged.
And here’s a beautiful list of reading-related apps.
Ok. Vooks. Blended book and video. Adding multimedia is meant to attract people who don’t normally read. How about thinking about the people who already read, and being very, very careful not to alienate them? As the November Good Reading Magazine issue points out, most books aren’t profitable enough to justify the expense of adding multimedia. Thankfully.
At last, a way to trade books online comes to Australia! They have a joining fee (I think because it’s for swapping books rather than selling them, and there’s no way to take a percentage of that), but it’s free to join at the moment. You earn points by swapping books, or if you see a book you want and don’t have enough points, you can purchase extra points. You can also sell books that are worth over $40. There’s different levels of membership, but the site’s a little unclear on costs (but the ‘bronze’ membership is free). Australian readers, give it a go just by signing up and entering the ISBNs of some unwanted books. Some aspects of the site aren’t great (Can’t browse, only search? Tags must be betwen 8 and 15 characters?), but should improve.
Or people in Sydney and Melbourne can take the higher moral ground.
Posted in Writing news | Tagged ebook readers, iPhone apps, used books | Leave a Comment »
October 22, 2009 by Wendy
There’s a couple of questions you hear often when people find out you write fiction, one of which is, “where do you get your ideas from?”. People, especially people who do not consider themselves creative, seem thrown by the very thought of making things up.
There’s two parts to the mystical Getting of Ideas: one is the initial story-spark, and the second is the plot ideas to turn an initial premise into an actual story with characters, events and outcomes. Many writers are great at that first part – the original story idea – and not so good at sticking with it and generating the ideas needed to write a rounded story. Others struggle with generating story ideas, but are better at coming up with plot directions once they have eventually come up with a solid premise.
Too many ideas in either area requires a special sort of ruthless discipline to finish a manuscript, but what about when you can’t come up with anything? For those who are feeling the dearth in one or both areas, the good news is that creativity can be trained and developed.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Writing tips and techniques | Tagged creativity, ideas, writing genre fiction | Leave a Comment »
October 20, 2009 by Wendy
I started to read the sequel or second volume, or – maybe – second half of this book in the form of Ink: the book of all hours, the first part of which was available as a sample read via Stanza. I was so lost and yet so intrigued that I sought out of the first, Vellum so I could start from the beginning.
The plot, once you work through the myriad iterations and time-twists and exuberant use of language, is simple enough. One set of stories revolves around Phreedom, her brother, and her mentor and sometime-lover, and the eternal story of betrayal they must play out with each other across time and epochs. The other set of stories centres on the brother, Thomas, and his lover, Jack, and another two men. It runs across multiple universes or worlds; sometimes Jack is driven mad by Thomas’s death, and sometimes he is the agent set to capture him. Around all this is the battle of heaven and hell, with angels on both sides determined to recruit Thomas and Phreedom into their epic battle.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Book reviews | Tagged books, fiction, literary fantasy, review | Leave a Comment »
October 18, 2009 by Wendy
Vaguely relevant to my recent post on Andrew Burt’s analysis that relationships elevate standard SF books into stand-out SF books, some guy over here bemoans moronic relationship drama in space. And how this means boys won’t be scientists anymore. Ah yes, men are the rational, logical ones in the oh-so-over-it gender wars, as his post eloquently demonstrates. Candy at Smart Bitches says more.
Completely out of the blue (for me, anyway), Australia is getting the Kindle. And paying more for it and for the Kindle-format books. And Google has another go at books, by planning the launch of an ebook store.
Nick Cave’s new book, The Death of Bunny Munro is out as an iPhone/Touch application, published by Enhanced Editions, for $29.99. Usually there is just no way an electronic version of a book is worth hardback price (not when they so easily be lost due to format changes or computer crashes; plus DRM issues), but here the publishers have actually put some thought into it: the edition includes the ebook; an audiobook synchronised to the text and read by Nick Cave, with an original soundtrack; and videos of him reading the book. In other words, it incorporates multimedia without being overly gimmicky about it.
Let’s play Google bomb with Scott Baio (aka Charles in Charge, to my generation), who is acting like a chachbag.
Posted in Writing news | Tagged ebooks, women in genre fiction, writing genre fiction | 5 Comments »
October 18, 2009 by Wendy
My book, The Frog Prince’s Daughters, has been on Amazon for a while now in Kindle edition format, but it’s just come out in hardcopy for those who are still attached to the printed word. Buy the print edition here.
Or if you’d like to listen to it being read by yours truly for free, you can find out more here.
Posted in Writing news | Tagged ebooks, fantasy fiction, free audiobook, shameless plug | Leave a Comment »
October 15, 2009 by Wendy
I had little idea what the point of it was, but it was a trick that I could do.”
So John Sulston writes in his book, co-written by Georgina Ferry, The Common Thread, about the international scientific effort to map the human genome (and how private interests sought to sabotage the government-funded collaboration for their own gain; if anyone thinks the private company Celera in any way lived up to their hype that they would do it cheaper and faster, and wouldn’t try to patent genes or hold back information for profit, they need to read this book for the insider view).
Sulston is talking about the Baconian approach to science: gathering data without a hypothesis. He came up with a technique based on a new technology or method, and applied it just for the sake of it, with no preconceived notions in mind. In his case, it led fairly directly to sequencing the genome, quite the payoff.
Payoffs come in writing, too, when we are prepared to follow leads without worrying about other people’s expectations, what we thought we were writing when we started out, how commercial or mainstream the work is, and so on: when we write for the sake of writing, not to meet our preconceived ideas.
Continue Reading »
Posted in The philosophy of writing, Writing tips and techniques | Tagged creativity, writing genre fiction | Leave a Comment »
October 13, 2009 by Wendy
With the new ABC (US) series of the same name and premise, I thought I would put up the review I wrote when I read the book years ago. It’s taken directly from my personal book journal (notes to self), so it’s a little disjointed:
Interesting time travel book – the consciousness of all people in the world is flung forward 21 years into the future. Some people glimpse their own future lives, some are reading newspapers or watching TV about others, some see nothing – because they’re dead.
The book is an examination of how people react to knowing their futures, and if the future is immutable or not…but this is quite quickly resolved (yes, it can be changed), which was disappointing. And the ending, to do with the second flash forward 21 years later, is also disappointing.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Book reviews | Tagged books, fiction, review, SF, TV | 3 Comments »
September 25, 2009 by Wendy
Andrew Burt, the captain over at Critters, a very well-organised critique site, has re-published an article he wrote for the SFWA Bulletin, about the statistical difference between great SF and mediocre SF books in the way they use relationships, as worked out from a semi-scientific survey he’s carried out.
In summary, the better SF books pay more attention to relationships than the forgettable ones, though only slightly approaching how much attention mainstream books tend to pay. We’re not talking about romantic relationship melodrama here, but characters who actually have family and friends rather than existing in a vacuum.
Continue Reading »
Posted in Writing tips and techniques | Tagged character development, writing genre fiction | 3 Comments »
