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AN ORIGINAL RECIPE
Jul. 15th, 2011 11:06 amWriting
Busy working on the outline for the sequel to The Shard Axe. (Such a pretty cover! Go look at it again. I'll wait.) But I wanted to take a quick minute to point you all towards "How to Sell Your Fantasy & Science Fiction to Editors and Agents," a Writer's Digest webinar being held by fellow WotC alum, Phil Athans. Learn about log lines, query letters, synopses, cliches to avoid, which agents are buying what, what your most valuable skill as an author is - the whole shebang. If you're a beginning writer (or even a more experienced one who is struggling), this would be a great investment in your career.
Speaking of careers, I've been pondering (uh-oh, heh). Phil is a NYT Best-Selling Author. No one disputes his worthiness to bear that title - after all, it's a pretty easy thing to track, and to prove, if one is interested. But the NYT isn't the only Best Seller list out there - I swear there are more every day, especially when you throw ebooks into the mix. A month or so ago, The Shard Axe hit the Top 100 (in its category) in the Amazon Kindle store. It spent about a week there, getting up into the 20s (maybe higher; I was not, amazingly enough, refreshing every hour to keep track), but mostly hovering in the 50s-70s. Does that mean I now get to call myself a Best-Selling Author? I mean, it's true, right? I did hit a Best Seller list. Does it really matter which one? With so many lists out there, some folks argue that the phrase "Best-Selling Author" means about as much as "original recipe" does on a jar of pasta sauce, and they certainly have a point. Regardless, I don't think I'll be calling myself a BSA anytime soon. An original recipe, on the other hand.... (Heh.)
Everything Else
We got the results of Max's allergy testing back. As I mentioned before, he has an off-the-charts allergy to mustard (the spot on his back where the mustard was applied looks like a burn and will probably scar). He is still reacting to milk, egg, wheat and soy. He had an irritant reaction to peanut last time and had the same this time, so I tend to think he's got an issue there, as well. Also a very slight irritant reaction to sunflower seeds. The big shocker was a strong allergy to bananas - the food he eats every single day for breakfast. That one's going to be hard to work around. He's also developed an allergy to sweet potatoes, but he doesn't have those all that often, so that one's not as big a deal. And he seems to have outgrown the beef, tomato and melon allergies, so that's good.
So we've (seemingly) identified the culprit(s) now and can modify his diet accordingly, so hopefully his little digestive tract will be back to normal soon. Yaay!
And now back to playing DDO...er, doing research. (I love my job, heh.)
Busy working on the outline for the sequel to The Shard Axe. (Such a pretty cover! Go look at it again. I'll wait.) But I wanted to take a quick minute to point you all towards "How to Sell Your Fantasy & Science Fiction to Editors and Agents," a Writer's Digest webinar being held by fellow WotC alum, Phil Athans. Learn about log lines, query letters, synopses, cliches to avoid, which agents are buying what, what your most valuable skill as an author is - the whole shebang. If you're a beginning writer (or even a more experienced one who is struggling), this would be a great investment in your career.
Speaking of careers, I've been pondering (uh-oh, heh). Phil is a NYT Best-Selling Author. No one disputes his worthiness to bear that title - after all, it's a pretty easy thing to track, and to prove, if one is interested. But the NYT isn't the only Best Seller list out there - I swear there are more every day, especially when you throw ebooks into the mix. A month or so ago, The Shard Axe hit the Top 100 (in its category) in the Amazon Kindle store. It spent about a week there, getting up into the 20s (maybe higher; I was not, amazingly enough, refreshing every hour to keep track), but mostly hovering in the 50s-70s. Does that mean I now get to call myself a Best-Selling Author? I mean, it's true, right? I did hit a Best Seller list. Does it really matter which one? With so many lists out there, some folks argue that the phrase "Best-Selling Author" means about as much as "original recipe" does on a jar of pasta sauce, and they certainly have a point. Regardless, I don't think I'll be calling myself a BSA anytime soon. An original recipe, on the other hand.... (Heh.)
Everything Else
We got the results of Max's allergy testing back. As I mentioned before, he has an off-the-charts allergy to mustard (the spot on his back where the mustard was applied looks like a burn and will probably scar). He is still reacting to milk, egg, wheat and soy. He had an irritant reaction to peanut last time and had the same this time, so I tend to think he's got an issue there, as well. Also a very slight irritant reaction to sunflower seeds. The big shocker was a strong allergy to bananas - the food he eats every single day for breakfast. That one's going to be hard to work around. He's also developed an allergy to sweet potatoes, but he doesn't have those all that often, so that one's not as big a deal. And he seems to have outgrown the beef, tomato and melon allergies, so that's good.
So we've (seemingly) identified the culprit(s) now and can modify his diet accordingly, so hopefully his little digestive tract will be back to normal soon. Yaay!
And now back to playing DDO...er, doing research. (I love my job, heh.)
