I was lucky enough to get both these great writers to come to my Pack Meeting this last week.
It was a great event.
Jessica emailed me the next day and said she had a great time, and Brandon stayed so long he missed his writing group meeting.
We had about 50 people there (adults and children). Each of them talked for about 20 minutes on their books and how they got the ideas and why they wrote them. Interestingly, the girls were more interested in Jessica’s work (she has female protagonists) and the boys were more interested in Brandon’s (his youth book has a male protag). I guess it is true about boys not wanting to read female protags. I must have really been a weird kid, because I didn’t mind at all when I was that age. I loved to read anything.
Interestingly, Brandon talked about how he hated to read, up until about the 8th grade because all the books he was given to read all seemed to be about boys who have dogs or moms who die at the end. And he just didn’t want to read that stuff. Then, he was given a nice fat epic fantasy and he loved it.
Jessica talked about how here parents didn’t let her have a really big dog, a sword, or a horse, and those are the things she likes and wants to read, so she writes about them.
The kids asked them some good questions, like how they get their ideas and how to make characters more interesting and real. I’ve heard the answers before (they are the basic stuff we all know already), but it was good for the young’uns.
Several people bought books and had them signed, so I think they both found it to be well worth their time (or at least, I hope they did).
I got this email from Edmund, and wanted to share. IGMS is a great online magazine with incredible stories (one of my favorites so far is Tabloid Reporter to the Stars):
To Readers of Science Fiction and Fantasy everywhere,
When you have something great, you want everyone to know. So you tell people about it. You share it. You pass it along to friends everywhere. Well, that’s what we’re doing with InterGalactic Medicine Show. We want to make sure everyone has had a chance to check out what we’re doing, so we’re offering up a sampling of our stories – for free.
During the month of February we are going to make one story from each of our first four issues available at no charge. Two stories will be set free on February 1st, and two more on February 15th. Just visit www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com and explore the table of contents; the free stories will be clearly marked.
Issue one’s free story will be “Trill and The Beanstalk” by Edmund R. Schubert, issue two’s will be “Yazoo Queen” by Orson Scott Card (from his Alvin Maker series), issue three’s “Xoco’s Fire” by Oliver Dale, and issue four’s “Tabloid Reporter To The Stars” by Eric James Stone. Each story is fully illustrated by artists who were commissioned to create artwork to accompany that tale — as is every story published in IGMS.
“Tabloid Reporter To The Stars” will also be featured in the upcoming InterGalactic Medicine Show anthology from Tor, which will be out this August (we wanted you to get a sneak peek of the anthology, too). However, the other three stories aren’t available anywhere except the online version of IGMS.
It?s really quite simple. Great stories. Custom illustrations. Free. We’re pleased with and proud of the magazine we’re publishing; now we’re passing it along to our friends and telling them about it. We hope you’ll enjoy it and do the same.
Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com
I attended a lecture at Brigham Young University (BYU) today at which Orson Scott Card spoke. He titled it: I just make this stuff up, how seriously should a fiction writer take his own work.
He talked about lots of different things, but it was mainly about archiving records, since the reason he was speaking was the 30th anniversary of Ender’s Game and the unveiling of the OSC exhibit with lots of first printings and original manuscripts and such.
He mentioned about the importance of keeping artifacts of our lives. He pointed out that this is especially important for our descendants (genealogy, in other words). He talked about how important it is to save these things for our children so we (or others) can see why they became the person they did. In fact, he said that his writings and artifacts are more a statement about his children than about him.
Someone asked him what the most important thing in writing is. After a wisecrack about words, he replied “clarity”. Several people around me were trying to guess what he was going to say, and they were all shocked at his response.
He talked about when his fiction is worthwhile: a person reads it and then applies the lessons to their own life.
It was a very enjoyable couple hours. I didn’t even care that I was supposed to be at work. :-}
OK, so this may not actually be the extreme beginning of my writing career, but I’ll get to that. This is the beginning of my blogging about what I’ve done and where I want to go.
It’s also the beginning of starting this website up: Dedicated to giving part-time, beginning writers all the information they need to make it along the path to publication.
Why now?
I got back from Orson Scott Card’s Writing Boot Camp a little over a week ago, and it really changed my perspective on writing and the whole process. So, this seems like a great time to jump in and get started!
