Geez, it must be the angle of the sun or something. Last year it was Garrison Keillor who took writers to task for whining about their Very Hard Lives and how creativity, just squeezing out a sentence a day is the Hardest Work, Ever.
It was a well-needed and not well heeded piece of advice. GalleyCat informed us of the latest Oh The Strain Of Writing whine from the peanut gallery, and Chasing Ray has made a few pithy statements. Read and enjoy.
I’m sure everyone else who keeps up knows this by now, but I am still …torn between amusement and alarm at the idea of a Meg Cabot graphic novel?! Erm… Meanwhile the GalleyCat also has the news that Penguin Books UK is spending a huge amount on a new site run by teens and for teens called Spinebreakers. People: this is not your mother’s …uh, book club. Wait. I seem to have heard that somewhere before… All right. Let’s just say this is not your mother’s cyber book club. Apparently, the larger percentage of frequent visitors to social networking sites are readers, so Penguin thinks this will light a fire beneath a whole new generation. Should be interesting, in a FaceBook kind of way…
Also, okay, so my new novel is a cooking novel. This does NOT mean that I watch The Food Network. Much. Except for entertainment purposes…
Cynsations has an update on what’s going on with Nancy Garden, the very famous author of the often banned and very beloved Annie On My Mind, which is twenty-five years old this year.
YPulse has a piece today on the decline of BFF’s. That makes me a bit sad, but, as an introvert, I tend to think that the fading of close-knit friendships is inevitable as people get older *(Yes, I am a pessimist. Sorry). The reason is, among other things, that technology has in some ways robbed us of our social skills in the real world. That, and the fact that our society seems to encourage people to be Center Stage, the main contestant in their very own reality show seems to discourage realistic interaction, selflessness and actual listening skills, and those are a few important things for real friendships. However, I’m sure the majority of teens are savvy enough to figure that out and get those friendships back!
I’ve been bummed since everyone in my Cybils Sisters group has already read the last Magic or Madness book (and the latest Holly Black, and the latest Laurie Halse Anderson – life is so hard for mere writers when compared with booksellers and librarians! ) (Ahem!). I still haven’t read the last book but I am excited to have heard by way of Shaken & Stirred that Ms. Larbalestier not only has a new book coming out, it’s being released next autumn from Bloomsbury USA. Another congratulations for jumping the …pond? Or the land mass in between us. Or something.