http://www.waywordradio.org/

Strap on your dictionaries, and be there or be square. (Oh heck – do both. I know I will!)

[tags]A Way with Words, podcast[/tags]

Then I won a monumental stack of books, magazines and more in a giveaway at Lynn Viehl’s Paperback Writer blog.

And then, before I’d finished dancing about that book glory, I got a note from The Writing Show podcaster, Paula Berinstein, saying I’d won a signed copy of C.J. Box’s new novel, Free Fire, for several show ideas I submitted. Woo-hoo! Woot! This rocks! (Have I embarrassed my children enough yet with my lame execution of cool sayings?)

I’m awed at having so many great new things to read and very grateful for the generous gifts. When I’m not writing, I’ve been reading book after book lately like a desperately thirsty sot locked in a liquor store for the night. Or — a more familiar scenario — like a Weight Watchers member on the ice cream aisle the day *after* weigh-in. Romances and paranormals and gardening and literature, oh my. I wanna taste them all, and they’re all good.

Of course, my husband’s now starting to look skeptical when I squeal and yell out, “I won more books!” Pity he’s not more gullible … there are several items from Target I’d love to sneak into the house.

And now for something completely different …

I made it to my weekend goal already; I’ve cut down to 150 blogs in my RSS reader. *whew* That still sounds like a lot to my hubby, but it’s a sight better than the 262 I had gotten up to. Just 50 more snips to go before July 31, and I’ll be right on goal.

What are your best ideas lately for carving out more time in your life?

[tags]winning books, savage blog cuts, time management[/tags]

• There’s a difference between signed books and inscribed books. It inspired me to do a web search on the topic, and I found a thoughtful article on the topic here.
• There’s a free search engine called Bookfinder.com that is dedicated just to helping people find books. It searches more than 100,000 bookstores’ inventories to provide results. And it works; it turned up 12 copies of a rare book on crossword puzzle design I’ve been seeking for years.

Live and learn!

[tags]signed books, inscribed books, book inscriptions, book search engine, podcasts[/tags]

First of all, LOVE your questions. Really. The show wouldn’t be the same without you. But to avoid getting sand in anyone’s eyes, this sandbox has a few rules and reminders:

1. Don’t call in if you haven’t listened to the show from the beginning. You’ll inevitably repeat questions that have already been asked and answered. If you do, there should be a “D’oh!” stamp you’re required to wear on your forehead the rest of the day.

2. Don’t interrupt. You asked a question, so listen to the answer — the WHOLE answer. If the subject matter expert drifts off topic, you can follow up. You just might be surprised if you LET GO of the whole “control” thing and let some other people grace you with their perspectives.

3. It’s not your job to interview anyone. Ask one question — MAYBE two. Then haul your keister off the air and make room for someone else. If you were that entertaining or your questions that piercing, you’d have your own show. 

4. Pose your questions to the guests, NOT to previous callers or audience members. The subject matter experts are on the show for a reason. Don’t disrespect them for the time and advice they’re generously sharing with you.

5. Be succinct and stay on topic. You may find your personal quest fascinating, but calling in to a show with a tightly focused topic isn’t an opportunity to launch into your own life story.

And to keep things simple, I’ll boil the advice down to its essence: “It’s not about you.”

If you violate these guidelines, you deserve to be deposited a three-day walk into the middle of a desert with nothing but a GPS unit, good shoes, sunscreen (I’m not a total sadist), and a full spittoon as your sole refreshment for your trek home.

None of these rules apply to YOU, of course, Dear Reader; you’re far too well-mannered. What guidelines would you offer to call-in boors?

[tags]talk show etiquette, podcasts[/tags]

Her research helped her blast through writer’s block AND she also got a new book out of it, “The Mystery of the Cleaning Lady: A Writer Looks at Obsession, Creativity and Neuroscience.”

I love this author’s analogy, comparing writing fiction to building an igloo from the inside, out of odd bits of wood, metal, glass, ribbons, thoughts, and air –- and not knowing until the end of the first draft what it looks like. That’s when she emerges and takes an overall critical look from the outside. And she sees: ” … there are no windows but five chimneys, a staircase ending up in mid-air, doors that don’t shut, and the whole is a peculiar shape full of strange nooks and crannies. It doesn’t look like an igloo at all.”

(Perfect capturing of that first dismayed look at your pages, isn’t it.)

The interview segued into discussing the theory that intelligence and ideas are rooted in the emotions. Sue said, “… I started to think well when you’re writing characters are ideas in a way, they’re emanations of ideas, you know you put faces on them and give them a handbag. But they’re really ideas, you know, so all these things really are ideas although they’re parading as everything else. … [S]o by the time you’ve got this great cloud, this big, billowing thing of emotions, that starts to make the ideas come together. And so there’s this extraordinary process … where at some stage in the writing you get this critical mass of ideas, emotions, characters, whatever together, then somehow the thing seems to form itself. As if it knew all the time what it was going to do.”

It’s a brief, fascinating glimpse into another writer’s world. I recommend checking out this particular interview — as well as Natasha’s whole podcast archives. You can read transcripts online if listening to audio clips just isn’t your bag, baby. (Natasha, I *love* the courtesy of having transcripts to refer to — thank you!)

* FYI: Listening to this podcast is just part of my insane curiosity about the world; it’s not a “writer’s” podcast usually. Their tagline explains it’s about “the mind, brain, and behavior.” I enjoy it because it has quirky topics and a confident, intelligent, well-prepared journalist behind the mike.

[tags]writer’s block, DropsofBlood.com, Carolyn Bahm, inspiration, where writers get ideas[/tags]

Sorry for the half-year hiatus; I’m back on track. I’ll soon be moving this blog to WordPress since Blogger just will NOT add categories to their functions, but for now I’ll start posting again regularly. I’ll start off the new year with a link to a writer’s website and podcast, and a quote from the latter that still has me snickering.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the new Dean Koontz podcast of writerly anecdotes and gentle reminders about his website and latest book. His style is a little more reserved than the casually gabby podcasters who usually fill up my iPod, but he’s personable and charming as he talks about handling butchered movie scripts, editorial eccentricities, a hurricane-tossed cruise with his wife, and his amazing dog.

My podcast quote of the day comes from how he dealt with an editor who kept pushing a particular revision. A less self-assured novelist might have caved. A less courteous novelist might have ranted. Dean Koontz dealt with the editorial blip in grand style.

The book’s setting included a furnace in a garage, and the editor suggested moving it to the more customary basement locale. Mr. Koontz explained that in southern California, few homes have basements, and the garage location for a furnace is quite common. The editor remained troubled, saying this would be a stumbling block for readers. He fixated on this issue, returning to it at each stage of editing, moving his “suggestion” well into the territory of “urging.” Finally, when he told Mr. Koontz that the typeset proofs of the book were here but it still wasn’t too late to move that furnace, Dean Koontz made his move.

Here is the author’s measured response. You’ll have to hear his dry delivery for yourself; check out his first podcast. But here’s a peek:

“All right, I’ll deal with your concern, but I won’t move the furnace. I’ll deal with it in a different way. I’ll explain to the reader about the furnace in the garage. And here’s the paragraph we can insert.

‘In the garage was a furnace, but not just any furnace. An immense furnace. A huge bastard of a furnace, so enormous that the natural gas needed to operate it could have heated the homes of 1,236 families. A furnace of such flagrant excess and ungodly dimensions that no room was left in the garage for cars. A furnace so complex in its engineering and so formidable in its mechanisms that three repairmen had been killed while performing routine maintenance on it. A furnace into which a clever murderer could jam the body of his editor, with every confidence that no speck of evidence would survive the flames.’

His response to that was,’Point taken,’ and the furnace stayed in the garage.”

Love it! In that tongue-in-cheek story about deflecting an editorial annoyance, I hear a writer who has respect for his own abilities but enough humility not to take himself — or life’s little tempests — too terribly seriously.

I recommend checking out the author’s podcast, which has 11 episodes so far, ranging from 6 to 15 minutes each, as well as his website. (Yeah, yeah, and his books too!) (Update: He has since provided another episode … I hope he continues!)

[tags]Dean Koontz, editing, pushy editor, DropsofBlood.com, Carolyn Bahm, editorial discretion[/tags]