Cat Rambo ([info]catrambo) wrote,
@ 2007-07-15 08:37:00
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Current mood: busy
Current music:Nanci Griffith - Listen to the Radio
Entry tags:george r.r. martin, moon's accomplice, taos toolbox

Sitting on the Mountainside
Whoot, a day free for working - got four crits, a homework assignment, and my 2nd week submission to get through today.  Memories of the real world are receeding - surely I've always been here on the mountainside in a blur of crits and wrestling with prose. 

I have figured out the middlemost big scene of the novel, in one of those SHAZAM OF COURSE THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD BE moments, which is a tremendous relief, because I was starting to doubt that I had a middlemost big scene.  Today, I need to go through my submission to work on 1) suspense and stakes raising and 2) sentence-level stuff. Hopefully I can throw in a pinch of dramatic irony here and there too.

George R. R. Martin's visit yesterday was terrific - he talked about the purpose of fiction as well as some (depressing) industry news. Lots of funny stories and interesting insights. Afterwards we all caravaned down to Taos for splendid food. 

The sun is shining and from where I'm sitting, I can see a sweep of pines and aspens and mountainside. Time to work.


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[info]david_de_beer
2007-07-15 05:15 pm UTC (link)
>as well as some (depressing) industry news

could you give a quick summary of that, please? people keep hinting and muttering and no one really comes out and say why.

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[info]catrambo
2007-07-17 02:15 pm UTC (link)
It's mainly that the publishing scene has changed. Where once you had a large number of large publishers, many of whom were in the business because they loved books, you now have six major publishing houses who are being run by people for whom money is the bottom line. Fewer people read nowadays than in the past, and a frightening number of people have never set foot inside a bookstore.

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[info]david_de_beer
2007-07-17 02:34 pm UTC (link)
hmm, that's all very true, and it keeps coming back to a point/ worry that I'm a little obsessive about almost - losing readers, does that signify that writers have fallen behind the times? I struggle a bit to really get a grip on how to express that notion, but it's like instead of leading expression and communication of their generation and world, writers are sitting on the back seat, out of touch with the way the world is changing and the demands/ needs of a new generation. Like, instead of being the vanguard, we're playing catch-up. I'll have to think on this more, do a blog or whatnot when I have my thoughts more ordered.

Money has always been an integral part of publishing, or at least financial support of some kind has been. Love of it, and business are not two mutually incompatible aspects.
Granted, it does appear as if a belief is being fostered that they are, and maybe it has come to be. But, publishers have to make money, otherwise there will be no more industry.

No, I'm not going to lay the blame on them, at least not all of it. Writers have to be able to find and bring in, the readers. It's a bit of a hard one; and also, we may not be able to really have a grasp on what could be a natural cycle. Boom followed by bust followed by boom, etc.
That also needs to be considered.

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[info]countesslovlace
2007-07-17 03:30 pm UTC (link)
I worry about this too. As a writer, am I trying to give people the best darn stagecoach ride they've ever had in their lives, when instead I should be learning how to design cars?

Stories do not go out of fashion. Humans have a natural craving for them, and those people who don't go into bookstores are getting them from TV shows and movies.

And yet, here I am revising my novel.

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