Mirror Mirror on the Net, Who's the Fairest Writer Yet?

[sartorias]

bittercon is open for business this weekend--clicky and check out people's topics

Comments

[burger_eater]

*Bad books that get tons of award nominations, because the authors write popular blogs

I need to get me one of those popular blog thingies. I'm thinking of starting one called "Pictures of my Butt." It'd be the new rick-rolling, but with a link to my novel in the sidebar.

[sartorias]

Whoa, dynamite idea!

[burger_eater]

"Dynamite" as in it might explode all hopes I could turn this into a career? You may be right!

[sartorias]

Hey, if it's funny enough, I think anything goes.

[kalimac]

Alison Uttley has cause to be bitter. She may be a famous writer, but I'd never heard of her. (The person who comes to my mind when her name is mentioned turns out to be Alison Lurie.) I have heard of Enid Blyton, though not during my childhood, when she too was completely unknown to me. Beatrix Potter, on the other hand, I not only know but have read.

[sartorias]

I read one of Alison Uttley's books as a kid, and liked it, though not phenomenally. But she too wrote a hundred books, according to the article.

[green_knight]

*Writers who are mesmerized by their own brilliance ("My book is just what I want to read, but I can't find among the crap on the bookshelves at B&N") but money-grubbing agents and editors don't dare give them a chance.I'm having a problem with this - I am one of the people who don't find many books they want to read on the shelves right now. (I'd never have thought ten years ago that I'd visit four bookstores with middling-to-good SF sections and leave without wanting to buy a single book

[sartorias]

Yeah--these days the cards are kind of in the air, and a surprising number of people are looking at alternative publishing.

Including me!

[green_knight]

Oh drat. I am entirely unsurprised, unfortunately. You write the kind of books I like, which right now just don't seem to be what publishers are buying.

Unfortunately, the kind of book I love is the only kind of book I know how to write. I am very happy to learn how to write them better, but that's as far as I can go.

Right now, I am slightly distracted by work and the wholesale destruction of my garden, but I think I'm going to do a more detailed post on that topic. Or maybe two.

[kateelliott]

[madrobins]

Oh, I'm sorry. I borrowed it and it got dirty, so I'm having it cleaned. You can borrow my scepter if you like.

[sartorias]

With the seven league boots, of course!

seven league boots!

[mojave_wolf]

oh! Peter -something, from a German writer . . . heh, I read a story about that dude and his seven league boots for a World Lit class back in college and quite liked it . . .

[madrobins]

*Bad books that get tons of award nominations, because the authors write popular blogs.
Wow. Before there were blogs, how did anyone ever get award nominations?

*Bad books that get tons of attention because the writers are running with the "right" crowd in New York.
But which right crowd? The geek-right crowd? The left-right crowd? The right-right crowd? No wonder I never got tons of attention.

*Writers who claim to be writing literature (unlike the rest of us) who are bitter because they aren't getting the sales and attention they deserve.
They have to wait until they're dead and can be studied in depth by professors of literature. They could speed up the process by dying, of course. (Hostile. Sorry.)

*Writers who are mesmerized by their own brilliance ("My book is just what I want to read, but I can't find among the crap on the bookshelves at B&N") but money-grubbing agents and editors don't dare give them a chance.I sometimes write what I want to be reading because I can't find it at the store--but I don't have the patience

[sartorias]

The weirdest part is, a couple of those posts sort of cross circuited--one of the so-called "in group" posting about not being able to get an agent, and a popular blogger about not being able to get a contract.

Maybe there's a large case of grass is greener going around.

[asakiyume]

(Actually, belay that comment; it *was* dark mood talking...)