Harry Potter is in the building!

On the Music Player: Spiralling-Keane

A while back I participated in a contest on Donna’s Bites blog (my entry is in the comment section under the name ralfast). Then she emailed me saying that I won and that the books were en route. Well they arrived today, Books 1-5 (UK adult paperbacks editions). I read the books too many times to count, but I could not stop myself from reading where Donna had stuck a bookmark.

I have to say to things. One, the adult covers are not as impresive as the YA versions. I find the coverart on the North American versions to be more atractive. I know they wanted to tone them down to appeal to older audience but I doubt I would have pick them up in the bookstore if I had never read any of them before. The photographs make the books look cheap. That kind of marketing mistake could have cost the publisher dearly if it not for the fact that the children/YA version had already taken off. I hate to say this but the Twilight books have more appealing cover art.

On the other hand I am now the proud owner of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, not the Sorcerer’s Stone (which a friend of mine borrowed and then lost, the bastard)! I never understood why Scholastic pushed for the change other than to appease religious conservatives. That didn’t work, especially when you have a series that has tons on magic and questioning of authority as principal themes.

Both of these are just cosmetic differences in nature and really have no impact on the works themselves. I am not less of the books and having new editions gives me an excuse to read them all over again!

Thanks Donna!

Oh and an interview with Rupert Grint just for kicks:

If only life came with a monster truck option

Good news….

I got the first of my Beta back!

Bad news….

I got a cold!

I find myself reading and rereading the assesment and while I can not find any fault in it, I do have to fight the urge to “defend” my work. I am grateful to the person who wrote it (a published author) and the positives outpace the negatives my a mile and a half, but I guess I wanted to be perfect, but alas, the Oprah Book Club will have to wait.

At least my life doesn’t suck as bad as Faye’s!

I want that option too!

Click on the link. It will take you to a most excellent webcomic. Oh and thanks to all the commenters for your support.

I’m about to hit the panic button.

I just checked and it has been a month since I sent out my Betas and no answers. I’m beginning to freak out. Is not that long of a story. Could be so bad that people are having such a hard time reading it? God I hope not.

I’ll Tell You Why…I Write

First of all a few blog news:

Congrats to WendyCinNYC on getting an agent! Go over to Writes in the City and congratulate her. NOW! I’ll wait….

OK, you’re back. Good…where was I. Oh yeah, Donna Duck has added a few new features to her review blog Bites. Wait…where are you going? Come back here, you can see it later, OK?

Now for an apology. I promised that I would write a roundup post for the February blogroll. I have yet to write it but I will. I’ll like to thank everybody for participating.

Also Neither Here nor There…. is on its Beta phase. So far no one has wrote me back, which I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not. Crossing my fingers here.

Oh, and before I forget I won a contest on Bites for a stack of Harry Potter books! Huzzah!

Now for the main event. Janna wrote a recent post on her blog titled Tell Me Why where in she explores three questions posed by Donald Maass in his book Writing the Breakout Novel. Like Janna, I’m a slow reader of non-fiction and my copy of the book resides in a basket beside the toilet in my bathroom. It is a good book, not as great as On Writing by Stephen King, but not bad either.

Janna concentrated on three questions posed by Maass and I thought this would be the place to place my answers. The questions are:

• Why tell your story?
• What does your story offer? What would one gain by reading your book?
• Conversely, what would happen if you didn’t write the book?

Why tell your story?

Because I am a storyteller. Always have been. Stories pop into my head, begging to be shared. I want to see the reaction to them, I want to entertain and make people think. Why should I keep my stories to myself? I also like the act of creating a story, the crafting of it. A story in my head is just neurons firing away, but a story on the page is something concrete, tangible and whole.

I also want to turn writing into a career so that I do what I love and get a chance to do more of it.

What does your story offer? What would one gain by reading your book?

Entertainment, excitement, a reflection on life well, at least my life. Maybe it will also be a reflection of your life as well. How many of us have faced heart ache, death in the family, conflict, war, fear, love, hatred, etc.

Conversely, what would happen if you didn’t write the book?

I would never know if my ideas, if my stories are any good. Without an audience a work of art is incomplete. I want to create a complete work. Thus I write not only for my pleasure but for the pleasure of others as well. When they read it the creative cycle is complete. Its stops being just my thoughts and it becomes a shared experience, a story with a life of it’s own.

I hope that answers those questions. I’m sure I’ll come up with better answers latter.