By Dave White
Yeah, you can go to Crimespot and check out all the new posts that are up there. Of course you can. And that's fine and dandy, I love the site.
But if you do go there, you're actually going to have to read the blogs. And, as I've riffed on before, blogs really only have a few repeatable topics... So, instead of shooting on over there, I'll give a rundown of what you can read on blogs almost every day. (BTW, on my blog you can probably discover that I've written about 90% of this topics as well.... except the first one.)
HOW TO WRITE A SEX SCENE:
My favorite. This one ALWAYS shows up. And it always starts off like this, right after the "SEX" subject line: "Well, now I've got your attention, right?" HO HO! Wink Wink Nudge Nudge. That's right folks. Writers who read blogs for advice are really just a bunch of adolescents walking into their first sex ed class.
SO AND SO IS AWESOME:
He is. I love his books. He's been really helpful in my career. He's a really nice guy. In fact, he's awesome. And you can read about it on at least one blog each day. So, instead of reading each post... just read it here and remember it... SO AND SO is awesome.
SELF-PUBLISHING
If you've ever self-published a book, you know how FREAKING AWESOME it is. HOW MUCH BETTER IT IS than publishing in New York. I mean, you can SPEND YOUR OWN MONEY to put a shabbily edited book out there. And it's so much better than big publishing because, I mean, you wrote the book and you published it, and you're not biased at all right? I mean John Grisham sold his book out of his trunk and look at him now...
BIG TIME PUBLISHING IS THE DEVIL
Nevermind the fact that they paid you money to put your book out there. And edited it to the finest detail. And gave you a great, professional cover. And you can find it in REAL bookstores. They really screwed you over because they didn't give you co-op. They didn't send you on a national tour. And they didn't take an ad out in the Sunday Book Review. Hence publishing is the devil.
KINDLE vs. REAL BOOKS
KINDLE is awesome. No REAL BOOKS are awesome. No KINDLE. No REAL BOOKS. Either one is going to RESHAPE AND FIX PUBLISHING.
WHAT IS NOIR?
This is a 45,000 word essay about the intracacies of a noir novel and how the word translates into black so it must be a DARK book. And everyone is screwed. And honestly, deep down, does it really matter? Because there will then be 400 comments and no conclusions will be made. Except someone will decide this post is actually about "What is hardboiled?"
WRITING IN THE OPPOSITE GENDER
It's so hard. I can't think like a woman. No wait, I can. But I can't think like a man. Women are crazy. Men suck.
THRILLER WRITER SO AND SO SUCKS
James Patterson sucks because his chapters are short. Dan Brown sucks because he writes in italics. Let's face it, the writer of this blog (even me) is jealous because they sell millions upon millions of copies and the writer doesn't.
LITERARY VS. GENRE
GENRE is a red headed ugly step child that deserves to be chained up to a rusty radiator in the basement. OR But LITERARY, why won't you appreciate meeeeee???
PROMOTION
TWITTER WORKS HERE'S HOW! FACEBOOK WORKS HERE'S HOW! BLOGS WORK HERE'S HOW!!! I know how to promote and it's all I'm going to talk about...ignoring the fact that an average reader doesn't care about promotion and my book only sold 1,000 copies in the first year it was out.
And finally:
BARRY EISLER or JASON STARR or JASON PINTER have really nice hairdos. And SARAH WEINMAN is a DEITY from CANADA!
And there you have it.
There are a lot of good blogs out there... and a lot of good topics to read through.
But sometimes it feels like this is all there is. So, maybe, before you sit down to write your own blog post... think and see if what you're writing about has been talked about ad naseum. Can you say something new about this topic?
24 comments:
AWESOME summary! Thanks.
I pretty much avoid those topics, both reading and writing them. It's much more fun to heckle John Boehner.
I agree and want to know how I can subscribe to your memo graphed newsletter? (Very funny and very true. Great way to start off my morning.)
And all scandinavian crime fiction is about depressed characters being depressed.
Hah! Interesting to consider how other genres tend to have the same (and similar) tropes. Good observation!
And self-published writers should be on panels like all those other authors! No, panels should only allow authors published by "real" publishers!
Also, deity, no. Tin despot, absolutely.
I think you mistakenly put me in there with Jason and Barry. I'm just happy to have hair.
Oh, and DAVE WHITE IS AWESOME!
Oh, and make sure to check out my blog post today on self-published sex scenes on the Kindle.
You forgot to mention Paris Hilton.
So true... who reads blogs anyway? Oh, and one more: how to get an agent.
Wow. Sarah Weinman's Canadian.
I gotta read more blogs. I'm missing a lot of stuff.
Is that what's out there? And here I was, blogging away about the craft of fiction.
Character creation, motivation, and development, action scenes, tight dialog, plot structure, revision, being a writer, revision, why be a writer, revision, despair, what happens when you're done with despair. More character development.
I used to blog all this free until one of my posts got lifted. Now I charge a nominal fee just to screen out the sticky-fingered. Pulp Rag magazine. Cheap.
I still blog about the industry free. Feel free to drop by.
best,
Victoria
Getting Sarah Weinman makes putting up with Celine Dion worth it, doesn't it?
Yeah, but are they Mystery Writer Awesome???
And Bill, there's no such thing as too much Paris Hilton!
Dave, I totally missed the point I was going for with Mystery Writer Awesome. Yecch.
Dave, just having some fun. We're all allowed to hit a few off the fairway now and then. But you forgot to mention what's going to be on a lot of people's blogs in the next couple of weeks--how much the Yankees + A-Rod suck after get knocked out of the playoffs once again, and this time with a $200+ payroll, and of course how AWESOME the RedSox are after winning their 3rd World Series in 5 years.
Ah. Now that Dave Z has invoked the Yankees with Dave W, Charlie Stella will be along any minute now to to rant on the Pats in three... two... one...
Thanks for shortening my day. Now I have to scrub the toilet instead.
There should be more crime blog posts on sheep-herding and ventriloquism. After all, they're fundamental to the craft. Take them away and what do you have? Empty fucking fields and a dummy that can't speak. And who wants that?
All i know is that a writer from Nigeria just emailed me. He's written the best crime novel of all time, and i can have the rights to it if i just wire him six thousand pounds.
Al, I'm not sure about sheep herding. Goat farming, otoh, definitely, especially goat farming where the goats howl (see Jim Thompson's Savage Night). And you're right about ventriloquism. You can never have enough of that, just like you can never have enough Paris Hilton coverage. I think crime blogs have also been sorely lacking on South Park episode analysis, and I'll be trying to rectify that in the near future, at least with my blog.
Dave, this post was pretty smart(for a Rutgers guy). But you forgot about...
GUEST BLOG FROM AUTHOR NO ONE CARES ABOUT.
Oh, wait, that's gonna be me in a few months. Never mind.
Brad,
That's for the sequel to this post.
I just want to know why bloggers aren't covering the elephant in the room.
Briefs or boxers?
Oh, Lord, doesn't anyone have some good street drugs that'll help Zeltserman deal with his sports delusions...
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