Essays and travelogues about Medieval France and Italy, focusing on the legends of Charlemagne as well as an occasional post on anything else that strikes my fancy.
This humble blog has now surpassed 100,000 hits. Huzzah!
To celebrate this landmark I would like share a real landmark of France. There is an old saying that "all roads lead to Rome." In France, all distances are measured from a marker in front of
-->Nôtre Dame Cathédrale.
Here is a photo with my son standing in front of the disc helping to point out its location in front of Nôtre Dame.
And here is a close up of the marker itself.
Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope you will return again to enjoy my musings and pictures from my travels.
Douglas Gallagher, Professor Richard Scott Nokes, Linda C. McCabe, Alexis E. Fajardo, Brandon Spars
I have a quick announcement before I give my report on the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies:
I will be doing a reading and book signing at the English Bookshop in Milano, Italy on Monday, June 17th at 6:30 pm. The address is 12 Via Mascheroni (the store opens on Via Ariosto!). Please help spread the word to anyone you know who lives in Northern Italy and might be interested in hearing me speak. Note: I do not speak Italian, so they would have to understand English. If they intend on coming, please let Peter Panton know in advance to help him determine how many chairs to set out and how many books to order. Another way to RSVP would be to send me an email or to join the event on my Facebook page.
Okay, back to my report:
I recently returned from my first ever Medieval Congress held on the campus of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
To give you an idea of how large this gathering is, here are a few statistics:
There are approximately 3,000 medievalists from all over the world who attend this four day annual event.
It is so large that it not a conference, it is a congress. I do not know at what point the classification changes from conference to congress, but perhaps it is with the sheer number of sessions offered.
If you couldn't find something you wanted to attend, you didn't look hard enough.
I grew up in the state of Michigan, but it was only after I moved to California and started reading medievalist blogs that I learned of this annual event.
It took a fair bit of advance planning over a year ago for me to be a participant in this year's congress. Thankfully, I found some like minded people who all happen to live in Sonoma County to agree to join me in a panel. We all had adapted the legends of Charlemagne in the hopes of introducing these tales to twenty-first century audiences. I also approached a regular attendee of these congresses and asked if he would be our organizer and preside over the session.
Schmoozing with Professor Richard Scott Nokes AKA Professor Awesome.
We were session #402 out of 582 sessions. I think we were lucky in our schedule because it was Saturday morning at 10 am. It could have been an evening session after the wine hour or we might have had an 08:30 am Sunday morning session when people are recovering from the popular Saturday night dance.
I helped Lex Fajardo staff a table in the exhibit hall. We took turns staffing the table during meal times and when one of us wanted to attend a session.
Lex Fajardo and me at the exhibit table
There were several sessions I attended that I want to highlight. The first was "Constructions of Women Warriors in Medieval Eurasia 2.0." In particular, there were two papers that seemed appropriate to my interest in the women warriors in Carolingian legends.
Suzanne Hagedorn of the College of William and Mary gave a paper titled "The Amazon as Temptress: Thalestris in the Alexander Romance Tradition." I had never heard of Queen Thalestris and the story of her approaching Alexander the Great asking to bear his child since she regarded him as being the epitome of male strength, valor and prowess.
It was an interesting paper and it that reminded me of a portion of Orlando furioso that I did not use in my novel. Canto XX details the history of an Amazonian tribe that warrior Queen Marfisa came across during her travels. Men were scarce in this tribe and those who were allowed to live after venturing near their shores had to pass tests of surviving combat with ten men in a single day and then satisfying ten women later that night.
(While this passage is interesting and humorous, it did not further my plot of Bradamante and Ruggiero's love story and so it was cut by me.)
The second paper from that session that I would like to mention was delivered by Diane Wright of Grand Valley State University. It was titled "Early Iberian Models of the Female Warrior: History, Myth and Legend."
I look forward to corresponding with Diane in the future about those legends.
Schmoozing with Professor Diane Wright
Another session I attended was the French Cultural Traditions in Italy: The Era of Andrea da Barberino. I do not speak or read Italian, so I was unfamiliar with the source material mentioned in the various talks. However, I met scholars interested in the Matters of France and how they were disseminated into Italy and Italian literature. I anticipate having a good correspondance with those contacts.
On Friday I attended a panel regarding E-publishing and Medieval Studies. I wanted to show support for Professor Nokes as well as meet Peter and Sandra from the wildly popular blog Medievalists.net fame.
Peter and Sandra from Medievalists.net and Professor Nokes
Saturday was the day of our session and while I had been hoping for better attendance, those who came were enthusiastic about our topic.
I spoke about the challenges of adapting two epic poems into a novel suitable for 21st century audiences. This included correcting continuity errors with geography, culling extraneous subplots, and balancing the needs of drama vs. historical accuracy.
Lex Fajardo discussed his approach to blending the Beowulf story with heroes of other legends in a graphic novel form. In his Kid Beowulf series, Beowulf and Grendel are twelve year old twin brothers and his stories are "prequels" to the classic legends.
Lex showing images from the prologue of his first graphic novel Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath
Doug Gallagher discussed how he and his students adapted Orlando furioso into a stage production using Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon as a soundtrack.
Doug showing a picture of the many visual elements of that incredible stage production.
Brandon Spars then talked about how he taught the Song of Roland to his class. It involved using a tin foil horn as a prop as he read the classic poem and then squirting ketchup on his face to simulate Roland's temples bursting. I am sure none of his students will forget that day's lesson.
Brandon Spars with "blood" on his face
After our session, I participated in a lunchtime roundtable discussion sponsored by Kalamazoo's local independent bookstore Kazoo Books. There were seven (or eight?) authors on the panel discussing writing historical fiction. Most of the authors were also professors, and I believe I was the only one whose genre extended into the fantasy realm. There was a good give and take between the presenters and the audience who asked some thoughtful questions. For the next two days I had people who recognized me from that talk and I was able to extend the conversation with them about our shared love of books.
Here are two other photos of people that I met who helped make this a special time for me.
Here I am with Medievalist blogger and grad student Jennifer Lynn Jordan
I had read Jennifer's Per Omni Saecula blog for many years and grew to appreciate her humor and love of all things medieval. It was even better meeting her in person. She's cool and I hope once her busy academic year is over that we can share a bad medieval movie mash up like she did once with Carl Pyrdum.
I had so many wonderful conversations with medievalists from all over the globe. I was thrilled to meet Italian and French medievalists so that I could talk about the legends of Charlemagne with them since it is a part of their shared heritage.
I also met a man who is descended from the Noble House of d'Este.
Yes, as I read his name badge, I asked James Estes if he was a descendant to the patrons of Boiardo and Ariosto. He admitted that he was.
This led to a spirited exchange with many laughs and this photo.
Schmoozing with James Estes, descendant of the patrons of Ariosto and Boiardo
How many times do I have the opportunity to geek out over the Noble House of d'Este?
More photos from the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies can be found on my novel's official Facebook page with this open link. (Meaning you don't have to be a member of Facebook to see this album.)
I plan on going back to the Medieval Congress again, but perhaps in 2015 to help spur on the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the original publication of Orlando furioso. Plus by that time, I should have my sequel published.
Please let me know your experiences with the Congress and any other pages with photos, remembrances, etc.
I apologize for the inactivity on this blog in the last few months. However, I was motivated to break this cyber-silence by wanting to share some news about the marvelous Ozark Medieval Fortress project.
For those unfamiliar with the OMF, think of being transported back in time and watching a medieval castle being built. You would see the quarrying of stone, stone masons shaping the stones, a blacksmith repairing the chisels used to cut the stones, a horse transporting the stones around the building site, a rope maker, a basket maker, a tile maker, etc.
That is what you will find in Lead Hill, Arkansas, not too far from the popular tourist city of Branson, Missouri.
Here is an architect's rendering of the site, (permission to use this image was to me granted by Noémi Brunet).
The site does not use power tools. They use thirteenth century technology. And that is what makes it so incredible. The process is just as important as the finished product.
The workers are not only engaged in construction, they are there to answer questions as well.
The OMF closed for the winter in November, but they are reopening for 2011 this Sunday, March 27th.
I was recently contacted by Canadian filmmaker Pierre Samuel Rioux who shared with me an excerpt from his forthcoming documentary The Beginning of Ozark Medieval Fortress...in America. The excerpt shows an interview with a Danish volunteer and you will see a few brief scenes of a stone tower being built. Should that link not work, here is another for the same clip.
I hope you will share this with others to help spread the word about the Ozark Medieval Fortress.
I have been extremely busy this last month and have not had much time for blogging.
I hope to remedy that soon by continuing my long drawn out travelogue series on my trip to France.
In the meantime, I wanted to share with my readers a blog by my friend Molly Dwyer who is doing research for her second historical novel and is living in Paris for three months.
She has far more energy than I did when I was in Paris for a week, because she has blogged every day. Molly gives her insights about the historical places she has visited as well as what it is like to be An American in Paris.
Check it out, I think you will be delighted.
I also wanted to let my readers know that the website for the Ozark Medieval Fortress has recently been updated. It looks wonderful. I am looking forward to when I can visit the site in person.
The rules of this award are that the recipient is to list seven things that they love and choose seven other bloggers to honor.
Here are seven things I love:
1. Chocolate. I prefer really good chocolate. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate covered almonds, chocolate covered strawberries, raspberries with chocolate. Mmmmm.
2. Wine. Especially wine that pairs well with chocolate. I also love big, bold red wines that taste of fruit and not filled with tannins. Zinfandel is my favorite varietal and Fred Scherrer is my favorite winemaker.
3. Sunshine and warm weather. I grew up in Michigan which was cold and overcast most of the year, so I appreciate living in the wine country of Northern California and not having to worry about shoveling snow or wondering about wind chill factors.
4. The ocean. I live about a 45 minute drive from the gorgeous Sonoma Coast. I enjoy watching the waves crash on the shore and am reminded of the transitory nature of human existence. Mother Nature is far more powerful than Man's shelters.
5. Traveling. I love seeing new sites as well as taking friends to see some of my favorite places.
6. History. Pair that with my love of traveling and you have a research based trip to historical sites.
7. Entertaining. I love sharing good food and wine with my friends. Especially if it is food that my husband has created. He has earned quite the reputation for his cooking skills.
Now onto sharing the blog award with others. I will admit that I follow a lot of blogs. When I take the time to read blogs, I will come across links to other blogs that look intriguing and then subscribe to them. Subsequently I have approximately over 100 blogs in my Google reader. They are an eclectic mix of agent and author blogs, writing and marketing blogs, medievalist blogs, and well - miscellaneous blogs - to boot.
I am regularly overwhelmed by the number of unread blog posts waiting for me to read and so I wind up scanning the titles of the blog posts before reading or ruthlessly clicking "mark all as read" in my attempt to streamline the process. I dislike unsubscribing thinking that I will miss out on something really cool.
The bloggers that I have chosen to give this award to are bloggers whose work I admire.
1. One of the first Medievalist blogs I came across was Richard Scott Nokes' Unlocked Wordhoard. He is a professor of Medieval Literature at Troy University in Troy Alabama and his blog serves as a clearinghouse for medievalist blogs with his regular feature Morning Medieval Miscellany which provides links to posts he thinks are worthy of attention.
It is due to his blog that I have discovered many other Medievalist blogs, including
2. Jeff Sypeck's Quid Plura? blog. Jeff wrote the book Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad and the Empires of A.D. 800 which I found helpful in my research about the historical Charlemagne for my novel. Jeff's blog also includes helpful links, but his original posts about the nexus of Medievalism and pop culture are quirky and entertaining.
3. Erika Mailman. Erika wrote a wonderful novel The Witch's Trinity set in 16th century Germany focusing on one community's shared hysteria surrounding witch trials. Many of her blog posts deal with the historical aspects of superstition regarding witchcraft (including fabulous woodcuts), but many posts also concern current day persecution of people accused of being witches.
It is not just a horrible nightmare of our past.
4. C.W. Gortner is another historical novelist blogger. Christopher had a recent post "Don't Defame the Dead" where he passionately defended the medium of historical novels against criticism by some historians. I found that post to be thought provoking for me since I had taken some historical methods classes when I was in graduate school. I understand both perspectives, and recognize my own struggles with trying to adhere as closely to historical reality as possible while also having an eye to the needs of storytelling without boring the reader.
His book The Last Queen is about Juana of Castile, the last queen of Spanish blood.
Some late breaking good news for Christopher. His next novel The Confessions of Catherine de Medici is scheduled to be released on May 25, 2010.
5. Lee Lofland's The Graveyard Shift blog covers a wide range of topics related to law enforcement and regularly has guest posts from experts. His blog should be required reading for anyone writing mysteries, using any law enforcement characters or is interested in a career in law enforcement. Lee is a retired police officer/homicide detective, author of the Writer's Digest book Police Procedure and Investigation: A Guide for Writers and is an all around good guy.
Speaking of law enforcement and mysteries...
6. Tess Gerritsen is the New York Times bestselling author of the Jane Rizzoli/Maura Isles series. She writes spine tingling and multi-layered thrillers which resonate with her attentiveness to detail and a knack for taut storytelling. Tess is a warm individual and a generous author willing to "pay it forward" for other writers. Her blog is one aspect of her generosity because she provides insight about what it is like to be a full time author.
I was astonished to read the tone used in an email from a publisher to her when they were hoping she would provide a blurb for a forthcoming book for one of their authors. They seemed ignorant of concepts put forth by Dale Carnegie years ago in trying to win friends and influence people. I hope that most publishers who are seeking blurbs from famous authors would adopt a "pro-choice" attitude and offer options as to how galleys would be submitted to them: paper or PDF. Eliminating printed versions might lower the publisher's printing and postage costs, but it might also prevent their forthcoming books from getting some coveted blurbs which could help boost sales.
It would be well worth the tine and effort for aspiring writers to poke around through Tess' archives to discover other gems about the publishing industry. By the way, her latest book The Keepsake is due out in paperback August 25th!
John takes literary criticism to heart. His analyses of the Harry Potter series is among the best I have read. He looks deeply into the text and recognizes symbols of literary alchemy that I had never known before. I have garnered a new appreciation for the series due to his scholarship.
He has several books exploring many different aspects of the Harry Potter series. One of his most influential books was Looking for God in Harry Potter which rebuts the criticism in some circles that J.K. Rowling's books are promoting witchcraft and are therefore worthy of being banned or burned.
John has now turned his attention to another series to analyze. It is the Twilight series and his blogging on that subject can be found at the Forks High School Professor blog.
Hopefully these links will help my readers discover and enjoy a few of my favorite blogs.
A few weeks ago I saw a guest post by Kamran Pasha on Christopher Gortner's blog. He discussed why he thought his debut novel Mother of the Believers would stir up controversy with Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
After reading Pasha's essay, I knew I had to read the book.
Here is the review I posted on Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com as well as Good Reads. Please note that I do not include any plot spoilers.
Good historical fiction transports readers to a different time and place. Wonderful novels immerse their readership in worlds so realistic that it is disorienting to stop reading and re-enter day-to-day life. Kamran Pasha takes his readers to the seventh century in the Arabian peninsula. It is an uncommon time and place for novels, but one that provides rich dramatic material.
The subtitle accurately describes this as “a novel of the birth of Islam.” Pasha tells his tale through the eyes of Aisha, one of Muhammad’s wives, who had been born into a family of believers. The followers of Muhammad and his faith were still quite small at the beginning of the story, but they were being watched closely by the powerful families in Mecca.
This small band of followers were viewed first as an amusement, later as an annoyance, and finally as a threat by the power elite. There were assassination attempts, plots to isolate and oppress them economically, and later outright declarations of war against the Companions of Muhammad.
Pasha wove a beautiful tale showing the humanity of these historical figures. This novel is designed to be enjoyed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike as the customs of Islam are subtly explained in the text. It is a wonderful story detailing the history and culture of one of the great religions of the world.
In these troubled times, it is important to remember that what unites us is greater than that which divides us.
The movie showed the Arctic, the Antarctic, forests, rain forests, mountains, deserts, savannahs rivers, waterfalls, and the ocean.
There were gorgeous shots that panned over vast expanses of land.
James Earl Jones provided the narration. He has such a wonderful voice and the narrative lines were at times very light and humorous. Other times the reality of the effects of climate change on the lives of animals caused a more serious tone to be adopted.
It was beautiful. Well worth the cost of admission to see areas of our world that unless you had aerial transportation and an unlimited personal budget you might not otherwise ever see.
One of my favorite parts was seeing various exotic birds of paradise in the equatorial rain forest and their mating dances.
It was spectacular to see slow motion photography of a great white shark jumping out of the ocean water and consuming a seal in one snap of his jaws.
There is also a slow motion chase by a cheetah and a night vision scene where a pride of lions goes up against a herd of elephants. I did not realize that lions working together could take down a full grown elephant.
Yikes. It serves as a reminder of just how powerful the Queen of the Jungle can be. (I say this because lionesses are the ones who actually do the killing. Ye Olde King of the Jungle is waiting until the food is brought to him and then he eats first.)
One more thing, be sure to stay and watch the credits. You will be rewarded by seeing some of the camera crews getting various shots. Some are in the Arctic, others in the ocean and one has a close encounter with his helium balloon and a baobab tree.
The movie is suitable for all ages. Even little ones.
And a quick announcement before I end this post. I am guest blogging on my friend Lee Lofland's blog again. Today's topic is gardens and art in Paris. Please feel free to stop by there, take a look at some beautiful travel photos and say hi!
My friend Lee Lofland asked me to share some of my France photos for his blog's regular feature "Weekend Road Trip." Today I have a few photos from my trip in Paris, including some from Notre Dame Cathedrale and the Louvre.
My friend Joan Price shared with me an article she wrote for the American Society of Journalists and Authors about online marketing. She thought that members of my writers club might benefit from this and she allowed me to share this with others as long as I kept her words and her links intact.
The only changes I made was to make some of her links into hyperlinks for this blog post.
Enjoy!
-Linda
What I've Learned About Book Publicity Since Wasting $1,000
By Joan Price
When Seal Press published my book, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, at the beginning of 2006, the small publisher could only allot $1,000 for a publicity budget. I had been invited to speak at woman-friendly sex shops in the Midwest and Canada -- I live in California -- and I thought, what a perfect way to get my publicity and book sales rolling!
It wasn't. Although I got some good newspaper publicity at several of the cities I visited, attendance at my events was pitiful, and sales were underwhelming. I returned home knowing I had wasted Seal's $1,000 publicity budget.
Seal’s publicist continued to assist me with her admirable skill and a portion of her time for the first few months after the book’s release. The Seal team explained that our goal was to position me as an expert on senior sexuality rather than just promote the book itself. The book would only be “new” for three months, but my credibility as an interview source would make me the go-to “senior sexpert” for months or years. This proved to be true, and I think it applies to all of us who write nonfiction. At three years post-publication, I’m still interviewed regularly on a variety of aging and/or sexuality topics, and each time my Amazon sales and blog traffic spike.
I've become an eager student of book publicity and author self-promotion, reading the most recent books (because they give full attention to online opportunities) and attending conference sessions. I'm convinced that self-promotion in this new world has to be targeted at the Internet first. That’s the fastest, easiest, and most efficient and far-reaching way to get in front of readers, and it doesn’t cost a thing… except, of course, time, at least a few hours a week.
Here are some tips from my experience and that of other ASJA authors that can help you jumpstart your own book publicity and keep it alive for years.
1. Aim your efforts at pumping up your online presence. Have an attractive, professional looking website for the important information about you, your book, and particularly how readers can benefit from your expertise. Also create a dynamic blog filled with compelling information on your topic. Don’t fall into the seductive trap of using it for random ramblings about this and that – stay on topic, and make your blog the place your readers will want to keep visiting because the quality of information drives them there.
2.Be sure your blog is topical to attract media, and make it easy for media to find and contact you.When ABC Nightline was seeking an expert on senior sexual health, they Googled the topic and found a blog entry where my readers and I discussed this controversial topic in detail. This led to my appearance on the showand in fact I was shown blogging and reading readers’ comments, my book strategically placed by my computer.
3.Find the other experts in your field and treat them as your valued colleagues and allies, not your competition. When I find an expert in an area of senior sexuality that would interest my blog readers, I ask for an interview, include a photo and bio, and link to the person’s website or blog.
4.Review other books on your topic on your blog. When I hear about a book that might interest my readers, I request a review copy (publicists are eager to provide review copies for active, on-topic bloggers, I’ve discovered), blog about the book, send a friendly note to the author with a link. Frequently this leads to a link to my blog from the author’s website, or a reciprocal review. Even when it doesn’t, my blog becomes a better and more credible resource for my readers because I’m not just promoting my own book.
5.Read other blogs and websites on your topic, and contribute thoughtful comments. I find most bloggers welcome comments and don’t mind that I identify myself with my book title and blog URL, as long as my comments are specific to their topic and beneficial to readers.
6.Increase readership of your blog by finding major sites that already attract your potential readers (in my case, http://www.SuddenlySenior.comand http://www.ELDR.com) and offer them a column or the opportunity to co-publish your blog. Be sure they agree that you retain all rights to your content, and each entry they publish will carry your bio and byline and link back to you.
7.Subscribe to HARO (Help a Reporter Out, http://www.helpareporter.com ), a free service that emails summaries of reporter needs to publicists and experts.
8.Subscribe to several Google Alerts: your own name, your book title, and your topic and its variations. You’ll get emails with links to any online mention of whatever words you selected. You’ll find out, for example, when an interview with you was syndicated in another newspaper, or when your book was reviewed by a freelancer, or when someone blogged about your topic (when that happens, do #5 above).
9.Even if your book release was long ago, let your publisher’s publicists know whenever you score any publicity.They’ll be grateful, and might be open to small requests from you, like continuing to fill review copy requests so these don’t have to come out of the books you’ve purchased.
10.Read books about book promotion, particularly those written or updated in the last few years so that they cover online strategies adequately. Here are some that have helped me particularly and are filled with Post-Its for future use:
d.John Kremer http://www.bookmarket.com, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, 6th ed. Although this 700-page book has only 80 pages specifically about online marketing, it is so full of helpful information that you’ll find plenty of tips that apply to your book.
e.M.J. Rose and Angela Adair-Hoy, How to Publish and Promote Online . Although the authors both insist that this 2001 book is outdated, I found plenty of marvelous strategies that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.
More tips for online publicity from ASJA authors:
·Tina Tessina (http://www.tinatessina.com) gets good results by listing with PRleads ($100/month) and ProfNet, which have led to “a whole lot of press,” several paid columns, and free PR by answering questions on Yahoo!Personals dating site, and being a Redbook Love Network Expert. Tina has a huge online presence, including her blog, website, advice columns, psychotherapy and author listings, Amazon Connect, Facebook, and LinkedIn. She recommends several books that have helped her develop her promotion strategy: Author 101 by Rick Fishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman; The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson; and Blogwild! by Andy Wibbels.
·Jean Fain (http://www.jeanfain.com ) reports that her YouTube videos, especially her "Why A Twinkie?" video and a press release about it to her favorite editors got her coverage in her local newspapers, including the The Boston Globe , which then got syndicated nationwide. “From that, my audio CD sales increased, and I had to start a waiting list for my private psychotherapy practice,” says Jean. “And The Twinkie video keeps on giving. The Globe is making a video about my very interesting job as a hypnotherapist and including footage from the Twinkie video, which I expect will do more of the same to my burgeoning business.”
The topic of his discussion was "Why I will not write today" and dispeled several myths about the writing process and how writers allow impediments to interfere with their writing. He tossed out that question to the room and there were numerous replies from being too tired, too busy, and nothing to write about. One woman, who was a first time attendee of our meetings, said, "Because I'm afraid of writing crap."
I was not running the meeting and so I had to restrain myself from trying to take the reins of the meeting and interjecting my thoughts to her in response.
The first draft is important to get your thoughts down on paper or in your computer screen even if it is crap. I remember Gillian Roberts saying in a keynote address that writers should not worry about "writing it right, you need to write it down." Later you can fix it.
Anne Lamott has said on more than one occasion that she has never writes anything but "shitty first drafts."
Hallie Ephron said at the recent East of Eden Conference that she hates writing, but loves re-writing. Only after the first draft will she have something to work with and to perfect.
I wanted to share those accumulated bits of wisdom I had heard from other writers over the years and reassure this woman that she should not her first draft. She may find that the first words written are indeed crap, but that in the creative process she might also come up with something inspired. The first she needs to do is get it down on paper and she can fix it later.
However, I was not the guest speaker and did not want to interrupt in order to interject a point because when it comes to writing I have many opinions and insights. Unfortunately, after the meeting I did not get the chance after the meeting to schmooze with her convey my thoughts in response to her statement.
It was an enjoyable meeting and I found this statement by Guy Biederman to be profound: "writing is not therapy, but it is therapeutic."
Onto the subject of guest blogging. My friend Erika Mailman will be guest blogging at Lee Lofland's wonderful Graveyard Shift blog on Wednesday, October 8th. His blog normally deals with police procedurals and anything law enforcement related. This time the subject will be expanded to look at historical interrogations in the form of witch trials and the Malleus Maleficarum which Erika used as inspiration for her novel The Witch's Trinity now available in paperback. Here is a direct link to her post which is chilling.
She will be there all day answering questions, so if you have any in regard to the tests used to determine guilt or innocence of those accused of witchcraft, be sure to post it in the comment trail.
Erika has other events associated with the launch of her paperback including other guest blogging stints, public appearances and a radio interview planned for this month. You can find a list of them here.
Now to book trailers. I wanted to share a wonderful book trailer that I saw yesterday that makes me want to read about a woman from history I had not heard about before. She is Juana of Castile also known as Juana la Loca. She was the sister of Catherine of Aragon (Henry the VIII's first wife) and the mother of the Emperor Charles the V. She was the last queen of Spanish blood and is said to have gone mad over love.
The Last Queen has made the Marin Independent Journal's best seller list and the rights have been sold in nine countries.
Christopher Gortner will be our guest speaker in December for my writers club and I am excited to hear him speak. His topic will be his path to publication which took thirteen years, four agents, and included self-publishing a novel that was later republished by a large publisher.
Women such as Mary Ann Evans hid behind the masculine pen name George Eliot in order to be published and now a man has been told he needs to hide his true identity in order to be published.
GAH.
That is why Christopher uses the name C.W. Gortner.
J.K. Rowling had been told that boys prefer male authors and so she was advised to hide her sex behind her initials. As it turns out, I do not think that boys really care if the author is a man or a woman as long as the book is enjoyable.
I feel that women are the same. Write a book that takes me away from my own day-to-day life and I will not care if it was written by a man or a woman.
I feel insulted that such a suggestion was made to an author, especially since we are told time and again that writers must actively promote their books. No writer cannot depend on reviews causing books flying out of the bookstores without working to make sure people know about the book in the first place.
One cannot sit back and depend on the publicity department of a publisher to do that for you.
Nor can you simply hire an independent publicist so they can handle those pesky matters to generate sales while you can devote your time and attention to writing your next book.
Not in today's publishing world.
It is up to the author to push their product.
How is a male author supposed to do that if he has a female pen name?
Guest blogging with a picture of some hot chick might work, but what about when you are scheduled for personal appearances? Do you hire someone to play the part?
And isn't that what made all kinds of people upset with J.T. LeRoy?
I am glad that Christopher has achieved success without having to follow such a suggestion.
:head on desk:
...
Now onto a subject that disturbs me and I find myself continuing to think about days after first reading it.
Gil Mansergh is another one of my writing friends and among his many talents he reviews movies. He views over three hundred movies a year and he found the movie Towelhead so disturbing that he felt compelled to write an open letter to Alan Ball the screenwriter and director.
In part, Gil wrote:
What were you trying to accomplish when you made this film?
Because whatever you intended your message to be, the inclusion of voyeuristically graphic sex scenes between the dad-next-door and the thirteen-year-old girl make your movie into a pedophile's fantasy come true.
Gil then mentions that he is also a "psychological educator who uses movie clips to teach thousands of teachers, psychologists and other licensed mental health professionals in seminars like 'Sex, Trust and Intimacy,' 'Parenting Teens.' And 'Spousal/Partner Abuse.' "
In these seminars. I use carefully selected clips from some quite controversial films (i.e. Larry Clark's "Kids," Alexander Payne's "Election," and Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed's "Thirteen,") to focus on important topics for discussion including sensuality, sexual identification and sexual abuse.
Gil goes on to describe how in this movie a character methodically ingratiates himself with the teenaged girl until she sees herself as his girlfriend and submits to his sexual advances so that force is unnecessary.
Gil's description of those scenes make me ill.
Movies are powerful because they project images that resonate with our subconscious and their influence can last for years.
I do not think that I could stomach watching such a movie. I like Aaron Eckhart as an actor, but I will not subject myself to watching him play the role of sexual predator of a child.
I would not be entertained, I would be sickened.
I trust that Gil's assessment of the film is spot on and shall spare myself from needing to take a long, hot shower after going to the cinema.
I hope that mentioning this on my blog will spare others from seeing a movie whose content you might not be fully aware of beforehand. Consider yourself forewarned.
The prices for the various raffles are reasonable at only ten and twenty dollars depending on the raffle you enter. The contest runs from today until next Tuesday, October 7th at 8 pm (Eastern Time I assume.) Check out all the rules and such here and be sure to pass on word of this to all your writer friends.
Becky has other good news that a book she and Lee Lofland have been working on is now listed on Amazon.com even though it is not due to be published until July of next year. Cool. Another reason to celebrate.
Onto other news, I wanted to mention that Blogger has a shiny new gizmo that I added to my blog. It is the Java script for Followers. This allows other Blogspot users to display their icons on their favorite Blogger sites as well as have those feeds accumulate in the Blogger dashboard. (You can also still follow those feeds in your Google Reader as well.)
I have been slowly adding myself as a follower for the various Blogspot blogs I follow - even those ones who have not added the "Follower" code yet on their pages. So if you notice on your dashboard that you now have "followers" - one of those might be me. To make your followers visible on your blog you simply have to add that code to your template.
I think this feature is just one more way to share links in the interwebs.
Another recent addition is theBlogrush bar. My friend Ann Wilkes added one several months ago and said
"(i)t helps generate more traffic to your blog. Like Google's Adsense, it looks for similar products. It's like swapping links without doing a thing. If you sign up, be sure to use the link below because I get even more traffic for referrals. It's easy, free, and so far, I've seen no downside."
I have now had Blogrush installed since about June and frankly it has not done much for me at all. Perhaps my titles just are not pithy enough to make many people go, "ooooh, I gotta see that," but I am not ready to jettison the code from my blog either.
Here's the direct link to Blogrush if you would like to test it out on your blog as well and in turn give me a little more referral traffic.
On the last topic of the day, I recently received an email suggesting that I would receive payment or a sample product for posting on my blog an unbiased review of a website. I was curious, especially when I saw the URL.
I clicked on the link and laughed. The URL was www dot UTI dot biz. See I am not even going to put a link to them. I looked at it for about two seconds before shutting it down.
Yes, the UTI stands for "urinary tract infection."
Ahem.
Here's my review:
If you have a bladder infection you should go see a doctor and not a website.
The other day I started working on the next installment of my France travelogue and realized that I have so many good pictures of Carcassonne that I should split my discussion into two posts. One for the city, the castle and its ramparts and another for the Basilica of Saint Nazaire. I have started cropping and resizing the photos, but those posts will have to wait until another day when I have time to chronicle it properly.
Until then, I thought I would bring up a topic about self-promotion and online social networking since it is something I have been involved with recently.
Trying to follow literary blogs, write my own blog as well as write my novel has been challenging to find enough time, but I knew there would come a day when I would join one of those social networking sites.
I had gotten repeated invitations from several of my friends to join LinkedIn and Bebo, I had not responded.
I joined that morning. Because, well, I wanted the opportunity to write to Aaron. For those scratching their heads and going "Aaron who?" - he wrote the play and then screenplay for A Few Good Men, The American President, Malice, and Charlie Wilson's War.
However, I first took notice of him with his television series Sports Night. That was such a great series. It was only on for two seasons, but I loved it and own the boxed set of DVDs. If you have never watched SportsNight, rent a disc from Netflix and enjoy. His comic timing is excellent and then there is a depth to his stories that make them rise above his contemporaries.
Sorkin is truly an amazing writer.
And well, I could not pass up the opportunity to write to Aaron. I had been wanting to do so for a few years over a nitpicky thing from an episode of The West Wing that I wanted to write to him about for years, but had never done so because I did not want my letter to become lost in the NBC mailroom.
So I joined Facebook and posted my message to him on his group Aaron Sorkin & the Facebook Movie. He didn't reply to it, but then again my post was more of a statement than a question.
Either way, that was the nudge that made me join Facebook.
I discovered as I joined that I had many email addresses in my Gmail account of Facebook members. I wound up sending out invitations to them and within minutes I had received confirmations from several people to be my friends. Truly the first few people who replied were my friends.
I also started feathering my online nest with interests and joined other groups. I know this could be a major time sink, but I wanted to spend enough time so that it was more than just the bare minimum of a page.
As I accumulated friends I would look to see if I recognized any of their friends and if so, I would send a notice to add them as a friend. Soon I had a few dozen friends on Facebook. Most I know, but there are others whom I really do not know.
Some were undoubtedly email addresses that I culled from positive reviews from my Harry Potter fanfiction. I am hoping those who liked my past writing will be interested in purchasing a book once I have one published. So this is one of my attempts at cultivating a fanbase.
It was fortuitous that I joined Facebook prior to attending the East of Eden Conference for I wound up adding more friends to my profile from those I met and schmoozed with in Salinas.
One aspect that I found interesting about this social networking thing is that some of my writing colleagues who have belonged to Facebook far longer than I, have only a few friends. Some have only a handful or so.
There is a button to suggest friends for others. My ingrained networking instinct kicked in again as I would suggest those who I thought might know each other already, but were unaware that the other one was also a Facebook member.
Just spreading the love.
Then this past weekend after my writers club meeting I was chatting with Ann Wilkes and she strongly suggested that I join LinkedIn as well.
So I did.
I now have quite a few friends on Facebook and contacts on LinkedIn. If you are on either and would like to friend me, my contact name on both sites is Linda C. McCabe. Be sure to use the middle initial C. or you are likely to meet up with other Linda McCabes. One of which is my cousin Al's wife.
I uploaded the same picture from my blog taken by Cindy Pavlinac, so it should be easy to identify me.
I feel like such a newbie about these things and would love to hear people's thoughts or feedback on these and other social networking sites.
Also, does anyone Twitter? Does anyone follow Twitter? If so...why? Just because it is there does that mean that we have to avail ourselves of it?
I had become a fan of hers via her blog, and enjoyed reading her perspectives on writing, publishing as well as realities full time authors face. A few months ago, Tess quit blogging due to flak generated by some trolls who were not followers of her blog and were alerted to one of her posts. They did not understand her humor and they hounded her.
I unsubscribed from the offending blog community which was one that I read casually, but was disgusted at how they treated her. I do not wish to have anything further to do with them.
Anyway, I am glad Tess is back and I look forward to reading her posts once again as well as her future novels. By the way, her book The Bone Garden is now out in paperback and is ranked #11 on the New York Times Bestseller list. If you have not read any of Tess Gerritsen's work before, that is a wonderful place to start as it is a stand alone book.
It deals with the gruesome medical history of "resurrectionists" who trafficked in human cadavers for medical school students and the contributions of Oliver Wendell Holmes in treating the epidemic of puerperal fever. The book is a murder mystery/thriller/historical novel and I highly recommend it.
For some reason, Googlemort did not alert me right away when she began posting again. Instead my Google Reader for some reason kept those posts in a cache and then eleven unread posts appeared all at once making me think she went on a blogging spree.
Speaking of medievalists...I did not realize that medieval astrolabes were all that rare until I saw an article posted by the News for Medievalists blog which said in part:
A "calculator" used in the time of Geoffrey Chaucer and described as one of the most sophisticated such tools before the computer is to remain in London.
The Canterbury Astrolabe Quadrant is one of only eight instruments of this type known to have survived from the Middle Ages, the British Museum said. The museum tried to buy the object last year but was outbid at auction.
But it has now been able to acquire it for £350,000 due to a £125,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, £50,000 from The Art Fund and £175,000 from British Museum Friends and other sources. It will go on display in the museum early next month.
Had I realized astrolabes were so important, I would have posted a picture of one in my write up about the Institut du Monde Arabelast year.
So here is a picture of a Carolingian era astrolabe in that beautiful museum.
And here is its label showing that it is of the Carolingian era, even though its origins are from Spain.
The term chivalry has come to mean many different things over the years, but to me it is a sense of fairness rather than the pervasive "win at all costs" mentality. This pre-occupation with winning has caused many to bemoan if there is any sense of sportmanship anymore and whether or not we would recognize it if we saw it.
A friend of mine, who is an ethics practitioner, is planning a speech entitled "The Ethics of Sport....Does Anybody Still Play Fair?" and offered a link to an amazing story of a college softball conference championship where fairness ruled the day over the attitude of wishing injuries to your opponents if that might lead to your side winning.
These women did the right thing, and the story warms my heart. It is truly the lesson of not whether or not you win or lose, but how you play the game that is important.
(Blogger created new gadgets, so I am experimenting to see if this is a better use than the embedded video. Please let me know if this is something you prefer. Also your thoughts on the chivalrous act done on behalf of an opposing player.)
