AncestralStars.com
 Laura E. Reeve, Science Fiction and Fantasy Author

 

A Writer's Life

Jan
16

For Writers: New Models in Publishing (Tomorrow Night)

If you’re a writer who’s published or close to publishing, and if you’re in the Colorado Springs area, check out this Pikes Peak Writers presentation (“Write Brain”) tomorrow night.

Join the Pikes Peak Writers for a FREE Write Brain session on new models in publishing.

Presenters include Deb Courtney of Courtney Literary, and authors Robert Spiller and DeAnna Knippling, both of whom have books that are traditionally published, self-published, and published in ebook formats.

ANNOUNCING THE ADDITION OF A BOOKSELLER FROM BLACK CAT BOOKS, NATALIE JOHNSON, WHO WILL SHARE WHAT ALL WRITERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW BOOKSTORES TREAT SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS.

Panel discussion will cover indie-publishing, managed self-publishing, traditional publishing and self-publishing in its many incarnations. Hear what options are available to you, learn the pros and cons of each, and find out why one traditionally published author has turned to managed self-publishing for his next book.

Panel will also take questions from the audience. A great way to start your writing year!

When?

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
6:30 – 8:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:00 p.m.)

Where?

Celebration Place in the Citadel Mall

Cost?

FREE and open to the public

Nov
14

Thermodynamics of Magic Systems

Magic, by Laura E. Reeve

When I was at a writer’s conference in Denver, I pitched to a science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) editor for a NY publisher. After expressing disappointment that I wasn’t pitching an SF manuscript, he brightened and said, “But I usually like Fantasy written by SF authors.”

“Because their magic systems make sense?” Being an avid reader of SF/F (and all sub-genres), I knew exactly what he meant.

He agreed.

Later I heard several writers at that same conference express why they liked to write fantasy (“It’s so easy, because you don’t have to do research,” “You can make everything up,” and “Readers don’t expect accuracy”). I decided I’d have to counter these misinformed ideas.

There are fundamental scientific laws and logic most readers understand intrinsically. If SF/F world-builders address these laws, the realism of their worlds will be enhanced and their readers won’t be getting that nagging feeling they’re reading a puffed-up idiotic Hollywood script. So, the first subject we’ll tackle is the laws of thermodynamics as they apply to magic systems. Read more »

Nov
09

B&N Signings This Weekend to Benefit the Pikes Peak Writers

I’ll be participating in two booksignings this weekend to benefit the Pikes Peak Writers (PPW), and I’d love for you to stop by:

  • Saturday, November 12th, from 4 to 6 pm, at the Boulder Barnes & Noble. This will be the first time I’ve signed in Boulder, my home town. (Why? I don’t know—just never got around to scheduling anything there.)
  • Sunday, November 13th, from 4 to 6 pm, at the CO Springs Citadel Barnes & Noble. This store is real SF/F-friendly, having the biggest SF/F selection in the city.

Barnes & Noble Fundraising Bookfairs

How These Bookfairs Work

To help PPW continue in their support of writers, Barnes & Noble is hosting a benefit bookfair (12 – 17 Nov) and multiple signings. If you shop at B&N –whether in a store or online–during the benefit period, a portion of what you spend goes to PPW. This works for anything you buy, provided you mention the bookfair at the register or on the checkout page. It costs you nothing extra, and you can even use your B&N member discount. I hope you’ll join me at the signing, but if you can’t make it I invite you to shop BN.com/bookfairs between November 12th and 17th, and reference bookfair number #10553048. I have PDFs which have instructions and the bookfair number (for Boulder or for COS Citadel, both have same bookfair number). What could be easier? Read more »

Oct
28

QQ: 2B R N2B?

As a purveyor, buyer, and all-around user of the English language, my attention was caught by The Telegraph article “Ralph Fiennes blames Twitter for ‘eroding’ language.” The headline pointed at Twitter but Mr. Fiennes, an English actor, blamed social networking and our society, as a whole, for dumbing down the English language.

Speaking at the BFI London Film Festival awards in Old Street, London, the actor said that modern language “is being eroded” and blamed “a world of truncated sentences, soundbites and Twitter.”

“Our expressiveness and our ease with some words is being diluted so that the sentence with more than one clause is a problem for us, and the word of more than two syllables is a problem for us,” he said.

Fiennes, full name Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, said that students at drama schools were especially suffering thanks to social networking sites.

“I hear it, too, from people at drama schools, who say the younger intake find the density of a Shakespeare text a challenge in a way that, perhaps, (students) a few generations ago maybe wouldn’t have.”

The ramifications here are more than the drift of “the written word” or the incorporation of slang (which both American and British English seem to embrace). His comments about drama schools indicate that current students cannot read or comprehend Shakespeare enough to deliver their lines effectively—and actors have ways to memorize soundbites if they must (when using foreign languages beyond their ken, such as the cast of Firefly having to deal with proverbs and curses in Chinese). Does this mean these students can’t even read Shakespeare aloud? I don’t know about you, but I suddenly get a picture of my first grade teacher patiently saying, “Sound it out if you don’t recognize the word.”

Should We Blame The Communications Medium?

Read more »

Oct
05

Here Come the Ambulance Entitlement Chasers

The Ambulance Chaser

By KeithBishop, iStockPhoto

I didn’t hear, initially, about this suit filed against Apple and New York Publishers in early August of this year (bold-facing emphasis is mine):

This evening, Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and five of the “big 6” publishers claiming that they illegally fixed e-book prices (through the agency model, in which book publishers set their own e-book prices) in order to “boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing.”

The defendants named in the case are Apple, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins and Penguin. The sixth “big six” publisher, Random House, which also uses the agency model but was the last to adopt it, is not included.

What I did notice was the big pile-on, what often happens when sharks—er—lawyers start circling an embattled industry (emphasis is mine):

Read more »