Month: March 2005

On The Plight of the Editor

Joel Miller--senior editor at Nelson Current--just posted an entry called, “Book Publishing and the Market.” In it he says,

Because I have so few publishing slots, I’m supposed to be the king of cynics, the Simon Cowell of books, e.g.: “I’m sorry, but it’s really bad. Really, really bad. Honestly.” Sentiments to that effect are communicated all the time. I’m nicer than that, of course. But book proposals are many, actual slots on the list are few. My job is similar to Cowell’s; I’m supposed to filter through the many to find the few. But it’s right at this point where everything gets difficult.

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Use “Offset Phrases” for Emphasis

Movie makers have many cinematography options available to set mood and tone -- from the tight camera angle used to create fear and suspense, to the musical score playing in the background, to other elements such as lighting and cross-dissolves.

In writing, you're usually restricted to black characters on a white page, with only bold and italic characters to highlight your phrases. There are many other elements the writer can use to set tone and mood, and to convey to the reader the emotion you want to represent on the written page.

One technique is something I call the 'offset phrase.' Imagine having the page queue a dramatic crescendo of music, or adding a yellow highlighted underline to a word or sentence. We don't have those elements, but we do have the ability to offset a phrase.

Like this.

When you want to make a point or highlight words, don't let them dangle, lost at the end of a lengthy paragraph. Add in the paragraph break and put the few words, often a sentence fragment, all by themselves on a new line that is a standalone paragraph.

Take this phrase from my short story, "The Glass Kiss":

Even after identifying the body and fighting the shock and tears, she couldn't come to grips with the awful truth. Kevin was dead and wasn't coming back. Ever.

So she'd thought then.

At which point the reader's imagination cues the Norman Bates' shower scene shrieks made famous by Alfred Hitchcock.

Critique Groups: Life or Death to a Writer

Vickie McDonough on the value of critique groups:

I can say without a doubt that I'm published today because of the help I've received from my critique group partners. They've encouraged me when I wanted to give up on writing. They taught me to show, not tell. I learned point of view from them, and they've become my friends. Most of my experience with critique groups has been positive, but that wasn't always the case.

Especially helpful are Vickie's list of the key things you want critiquers to look for in your manuscript.

Read full article at the Spirit-Led Writer

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Why We Write

A couple of great quotes from The Master's Artist:

Henri Nouwen writes this in Reflections on Theological Education: "Writing is a process by which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware of before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know."

And a quote on writing to process and understand from A River Runs Through It.

"Later, when you're ready, tell the story of our family. Perhaps then you'll understand what happened."

Programmers bypass Red Hat Linux fees

From CNET News.com:

The clone is from a project called CentOS--Community Enterprise Operating System--one of several "Red Hat rebuilders" that have partially nullified Red Hat's business decision in 2003 to stop giving away its supported and certified product for free. CentOS and others--Lineox, White Box Linux, Tao Linux, X/OS Linux and Scientific Linux--all rebuild a copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux from the source code components Red Hat releases.

IE’s market share has dropped to 87%

From OneStat.com:

OneStat.com ( www.onestat.com ), the number one provider of real-time web analytics, today reported that Mozilla's browsers have a total global usage share of 8.45 percent.

Also we find that IE's market share has dropped to 87%.

Bottom line -- if you're writing web applications, targeting only IE is probably a bad bet.