New books.
In the afternoon I was at a bookstore wasting time.
I ended up buying three books. It was the first time (ever?) that I found books that happened to be surprisingly good matches to some of the kinds of things I've been thinking of. Not exactly or super-close to what I've been thinking but they were about the future.
One book was 2312 which was the thickest. I don't remember the details because the back jacket didn't really give me much information about the plot.
I forget the titles of the other two books (which are in the other room) but one was about (one-directional) forward-moving time travel which looked like a quick read.
The other was about a possible alternate version of the near-future. It's based on if we discovered a way to stop the aging process and it became legalized. I started reading each in the book store (I read the furthest in this one, I got to page nine.) and it sounded pretty interesting.
I think it was 2312 that was described as being very well, mm, realized? It sounded as though the reviewer thought that the author had done a very good job of thinking out the details of the story described in 2312. That resonated with me because of the level of detail that I've been thinking about for the various ideas about the future. I thought there could be something to learn.
Did I just buy a book in order to study it and learn from it?
That would be a first.
As a reader, that doesn't sound like me at all. I like to read books in order to enjoy them.
Studying it and learning from it sounds like an INTJ trait. Bah.
Anything to be a better writer.
I have to look into e-books and how to really take full advantage of the market. Balancing how much to give away in order to earn/build your audience and what the right price is in order to maximize your profit from an e-book. I remember seeing links to research people have done on matter (mostly from authors as I recall and their experience) but I don't remember the results. Something sticks in my mind about $0.99.
As an author what is the value of a blog? More specifically if a blog is valuable, what kind of content would best be suited for it, random ramblings, musings, et cetera? Or short story snippets? Freewrites? Or clips of freewrites if the freewrite goes beyond a certain length? Or becomes a segment of a larger continuing story from earlier freewrites then stop at a certain point so I can safely use the idea for a book?
I have a blog idea that I'd really like to develop that I came up with a long time ago which I could use and could be pretty cool if it is executed correctly.
Hmm. Maybe more interestingly would be two blogs with different points of view for two different characters that are both involved in the same story. If done right they could later be merged into a book (traditional or electronic) in the future and could also be used to hype up future works. Those blogs/pieces could serve as an initial introduction to my work as a writer and be used to build and develop an audience.
If I start building some of the sci-fi background into the stories that will/could be leveraged for future stories people could start to get familiar with the ideas and over the course of several stories/books see how the technology could be used for good, for evil, and see how it may have progressed over time. I don't always have to write about the same time in the future. I could write one set, I don't know, sometime far flung like five hundred years ahead. Another could be about things two hundred from now and so on.
I doubt that I'd write them in a chronological fashion, I might write the one set five hundred years from now first, then one that's in the middle, like the two hundred years from now, one three hundred and fifty from now...and just skip about in time.
I'm reminded of the identities of Ender Wiggins' brother and sister on the nets and how they manipulate people in the book Ender's Game. The story was okay (I've read things that were better written.) and then I learned that Orson Scott Card is pretty vehemently against same-sex couples/relationships/marriages. Like in a pretty extreme way and I immediately lost all respect for him.
It made me disgusted that I had actually paid money for books he wrote and that I had indirectly given him money when he holds such an appalling way about same-sex relationships, to the point that...I forget the quote but I think it was to the effect that he felt they were sub-human. That's pretty awful.
I haven't read anything he has written since. Part of me really doesn't want to. The books weren't that good to convince me to read them regardless of his views.
I ended up buying three books. It was the first time (ever?) that I found books that happened to be surprisingly good matches to some of the kinds of things I've been thinking of. Not exactly or super-close to what I've been thinking but they were about the future.
One book was 2312 which was the thickest. I don't remember the details because the back jacket didn't really give me much information about the plot.
I forget the titles of the other two books (which are in the other room) but one was about (one-directional) forward-moving time travel which looked like a quick read.
The other was about a possible alternate version of the near-future. It's based on if we discovered a way to stop the aging process and it became legalized. I started reading each in the book store (I read the furthest in this one, I got to page nine.) and it sounded pretty interesting.
I think it was 2312 that was described as being very well, mm, realized? It sounded as though the reviewer thought that the author had done a very good job of thinking out the details of the story described in 2312. That resonated with me because of the level of detail that I've been thinking about for the various ideas about the future. I thought there could be something to learn.
Did I just buy a book in order to study it and learn from it?
That would be a first.
As a reader, that doesn't sound like me at all. I like to read books in order to enjoy them.
Studying it and learning from it sounds like an INTJ trait. Bah.
Anything to be a better writer.
I have to look into e-books and how to really take full advantage of the market. Balancing how much to give away in order to earn/build your audience and what the right price is in order to maximize your profit from an e-book. I remember seeing links to research people have done on matter (mostly from authors as I recall and their experience) but I don't remember the results. Something sticks in my mind about $0.99.
As an author what is the value of a blog? More specifically if a blog is valuable, what kind of content would best be suited for it, random ramblings, musings, et cetera? Or short story snippets? Freewrites? Or clips of freewrites if the freewrite goes beyond a certain length? Or becomes a segment of a larger continuing story from earlier freewrites then stop at a certain point so I can safely use the idea for a book?
I have a blog idea that I'd really like to develop that I came up with a long time ago which I could use and could be pretty cool if it is executed correctly.
Hmm. Maybe more interestingly would be two blogs with different points of view for two different characters that are both involved in the same story. If done right they could later be merged into a book (traditional or electronic) in the future and could also be used to hype up future works. Those blogs/pieces could serve as an initial introduction to my work as a writer and be used to build and develop an audience.
If I start building some of the sci-fi background into the stories that will/could be leveraged for future stories people could start to get familiar with the ideas and over the course of several stories/books see how the technology could be used for good, for evil, and see how it may have progressed over time. I don't always have to write about the same time in the future. I could write one set, I don't know, sometime far flung like five hundred years ahead. Another could be about things two hundred from now and so on.
I doubt that I'd write them in a chronological fashion, I might write the one set five hundred years from now first, then one that's in the middle, like the two hundred years from now, one three hundred and fifty from now...and just skip about in time.
I'm reminded of the identities of Ender Wiggins' brother and sister on the nets and how they manipulate people in the book Ender's Game. The story was okay (I've read things that were better written.) and then I learned that Orson Scott Card is pretty vehemently against same-sex couples/relationships/marriages. Like in a pretty extreme way and I immediately lost all respect for him.
It made me disgusted that I had actually paid money for books he wrote and that I had indirectly given him money when he holds such an appalling way about same-sex relationships, to the point that...I forget the quote but I think it was to the effect that he felt they were sub-human. That's pretty awful.
I haven't read anything he has written since. Part of me really doesn't want to. The books weren't that good to convince me to read them regardless of his views.