Goodreads
It’s taken me a bit, but I’ve finally signed up and am starting to participate at goodreads. I have my account, I have an author page (which is pretty awesome), and I’ve got a list of 60 books so far that I’ve read and 11 that I want to read. The bonus is that both books I’ve written happen to now be listed as well. Click on the images below to view the pages for each book.
Black Mask & Pale Rider
Canyons of Steel
And, if you ever wanna just drop by and check out my list of books, or suggest a few you’ve read, then by all means come on down.
The week in quotes
Not really, but I will end this with some of the more interesting quotes heard this week. Because it’s not over, really. For now, let’s begin with the usual lot.
English: Betty White at the premiere for The Proposal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Under everyone’s hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved. ~author unknown
Spend as much time on improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. ~author unknown
“It’s [old age] not a surprise, we knew it was coming – make the most of it. So you may not be as fast on your feet, and the image in your mirror may be a little disappointing, but if you are still functioning and not in pain, gratitude should be the name of the game.” ~Betty White, If You Ask Me
“The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end.” ~Benjamin Disraeli
“Never chase anyone. A person who appreciates you will walk with you” ~author unknown
“A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke” ~Vincent van Gogh
“The fact is that every time we open the pages of another piece of writing, we are embarked on a new adventure in which we become a new person—a person as controlled and definable and as remote from the chaotic self of daily life as the lover in the sonnet… We are recreated.” ~Walker Gibson
And, perhaps not ending off in the week in quotes, because a lot of the comments coming from the news blogs and current event news cycle is enough to make one want to gouge out their eyes with the incredible amount of hate and stupidity. I may sit down at some point and talk about that, but that is for another time.
Wednesday quotes
It’s another week, another round of Wednesday quotes.
English: photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles – it takes away today’s peace! ~author unknown
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant. ~Robert Lewis Stevenson
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour. ~author unknown
Throw out non-essential numbers. This includes age, weight, and height. Let the doctor worry about them. That is why you pay him or her. ~author unknown
Reach out in friendship and encourage the lonely; energize the weary. ~author unknown
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Money flows towards the writer
I found this at Neil Gaiman’s Tumblr, and it’s really good advice.
English writer Neil Gaiman. Taken at the 2007 Scream Awards. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Money flows towards the writer.
That’s all. All writers should remember it.
When a commercial publisher contracts a book, it will pay an advance against royalties to the writer. Money flows towards the writer.
Literary agents make their living by charging a commission of between 10 and 20% on the sales that they make on behalf of their clients, the writers. When advances and royalties are paid by a publisher the agent’s percentage is filtered off in the direction of the writer’s agent but the bulk of the money still flows towards the writer.
If a publisher ever asks for any sort of financial contribution from a writer, they’re trying to divert money away from the writer, in direct contravention of Yog’s Law.
If an agent ever asks for up-front fees, regardless of what they call them (reading fees, administration costs, processing fees, or retainers), then they are trying to divert money away from the writer, in direct contravention of Yog’s Law.
It’s a brilliantly simple rule. We should thank James D Macdonald for it in the best way there is. Buy his books
Money flows toward the writer.
No, that doesn’t mean that the author should get paper and ink for free, or that he won’t pay for postage. It does mean that when someone comes along and says, “Sure, kid, you can be a Published Author! It’ll only cost you $300!” the writer will know that something’s wrong. A fee is a fee is a fee, whether they call it a reading fee, a marketing fee, a promotion fee, or a cheese-and-crackers fee.
Is this perfect? No. Scammers have come up with some elaborate ways to avoid activating it. But it’s still a good and useful tool, and will save a lot of grief. Any time an agent or publisher asks for money, the answer should be “No!”
The quotes!
The title of this week’s quotes is something that came to mind while I began writing it. I usually will find something humourous when I begin setting up the post for interesting quotes, and in this case the first thing that came to mind was a line from a movie (or it could have been a book). Sort of goes along the lines of “My eyes, my eyes!” or some such thing. I’ll have to do some searching later on. But imagine if you will, someone looking to the heavens and crying out “The quotes! The quotes!” Do it out loud, it’s even funnier.
Image by cliff1066™ via Flickr
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. ~author unknown
The grateful heart sits at a continuous feast. ~anonymous
Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will. Stay in touch. ~author unknown
“Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.” ~Henry Ward Beecher
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Quotes for a Tuesday
I really need to come up with a witty sort of barb for this series of posts. I could use Quottables, but I think Reader’s Digest uses that. Quoth the Raven or some variant is too much of a rip off. And just saying Quotes is sort of lacking. I’ll come up with something for the new year, at least.
Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about. ~author unknown
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true. ~James Branch Cabell
If we all did things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. ~author unknown
Christians like pianos need frequent tuning. ~author unknown
A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows. ~St. Francis of Assissi
One way to be happy ever after is not to be after too much. ~author unknown
Image via Wikipedia
‘Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’ ‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’ What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. ~J.K. Rowling
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Female icons in fiction: why we need more of them
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Let me be quite frank about this. These are women who present a positive influence that not only women can look up to, but all genders. Characters that are not simply pretty delicate flowers that some male hero needs to rescue, not at all. Because these icons I speak of can rescue themselves. Sure, there’s women out there that have no problem with being rescued and they have lots of role models to look to, in books, television, comics, film and so much more.
But there’s also a large number of women that don’t want or need to be rescued. Believe it or not, guys, but not every woman wants to be rescued. And if you believe they do, then you’re not looking at the big picture.
Every so often, a female character comes along that breaks the boundary and is someone worthy of looking up to. There are many out there right now that I can name, beginning with Wonder Woman. She’s not the only one. It might surprise you to hear, but another would be Anne of Green Gables. Sure, you really can’t compare Diana, Princess of Themyscira with Anne of Green Gables, the two are worlds apart in what they do. But they’re still positive role models.
Image via Wikipedia
The list is extensive and includes, but is not limited to:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Zoe Washburn
- Xena, Warrior Princess
- Dora the Explorer
- Barbara Gordon, Oracle (before the DCnU reboot)
-
Image via Wikipedia
Captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager
- Kinsey Milhone of the Alphabet Crime series of novels by Sue Grafton
- Hermoine Granger of the Harry Potter books (and to be honest, most of the girls in the series were strong role models)
The list could go on and on. Already, I know the usual comment from detractors. “Isn’t that enough for women? Do they really need more?” For each strong, positive role model a woman has, there has to be about twenty positive male role models. Here’s the catch, though. A lot of those positive female role models can be good role models for men as well.
Women should never be used as sex symbols alone in fiction. This is dangerous because it sets up bad examples for men, and often times women in real life become objectified because of that treatment. Women are not simply objects to be compared to fruit or candy or some precious gem.
Fiction needs more strong female roles. And don’t confuse the term “strong female role” with something akin to a Boris painting. There’s a lot more to a strong character than just how badass or sexy they look. Some of the sexiest characters are the ones fully clothed and use a superior intellect and knowledge of their opponent than how to seduce or pummel into the dirt (see the afformentioned Janeway and Granger).
But it would seem that mainstream media, whether that be in television series, comic books, movies or even advertising, would rather portray a women in a certain aspect that they believe the public is comfortable with. That view gets worse when speaking about women of colour.
As a society, we need to utilize the medium of story telling, whether printed or digital, text, audio or visual, to tell more stories about women. Good stories that women of all ages can look up to, and that men can learn something from. Because right now, we aren’t treating women very well, which not only distorts the view of women currently living in this world, but also distorts how we view the history of women. History has a large number of women that achieved many great things. Marie Currie, Laura Secord, Irena Sendler, and many others made great strides in history.
It’s time we started treating women better. In our everyday lives as well as how they are viewed in fiction.
