Redroom.com Announces November Novel Writing Contest

Here's an email I got from Ivory Madison, founder and CEO of redroom.com -- an author/reader website to which I belong:

Whether you’re a successful author about to miss your next book deadline, an aspiring author who’s been “meaning” to write a novel for years, or a non-writer who wants to do something crazy, have I got the month for you: November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! I’m encouraging all of my friends and colleagues to join me and write a novel between November 1st and November 30th.

Can I Really Write a Novel in 30 Days?

Yes. Really. That’s all it takes—Stephen King does it. And, before I founded Red Room, I was a writing coach (named San Francisco magazine’s “Best Writing Coach” in 2005), when I realized that most people type about 1,000 words an hour and can write a first draft of a short novel of 50,000 words in about fifty hours.

But How Do I Win?

All it takes to “win” NaNoWriMo is for you to write a novel. Another way to win: We’ve added our own contest. Red Room will randomly select one NaNoWriMo winner of a one-hour coaching call with me after I personally review his or her manuscript for a few hours. I used to charge $2,000 for this, but it’s actually “priceless” since I don’t coach writers anymore. Now I only do it for good causes, like getting you to do some writing in November.

I Love Winning! How Do I Enter?

It’s easy to participate — just write a novel in November and blog about it on redroom.com. I look forward to finding out who’s joining me!

If you've been thinking for the longest time about writing a novel, it's time to do it! Go to www.redroom.com and join now for free and hit those computer keys! (And if you're already an author, apply to be a Red Room author.)

And if you do write a novel in November, I hope you'll check out my new website whose launch I'll be announcing in a few days -- www.queensofbookmarketing.com -- because strategic book marketing should start when the novel is finished and not when the novel is published.

Technorati Tags:
Do-Gooder Scrooge, Red Room, Ivory Madison, novel writing, novel contest, Queens of Book Marketing

Google Deal Will Bring Us Millions More Books to Add to Our Reading Pile

The October 29th Wall Street Journal article by Jeffrey A Trachtenberg and Jessica E. Vascellaro announced “Google Deal Opens Web to Millions of Books.”

This deal is the result of a large settlement between Google and the publishing industry and will “make many millions of digital books available on the Web, with payments to authors and publishers for their use.”

I had mixed feelings when reading the article. As an author, I thought this sounded like a good deal to possibly have an additional revenue stream for one’s books. As a researcher, I thought this sounded like a good deal to have the contents of more books available at the click of one’s computer. As a reader, I thought “oh, no, more books to read.”

I recalled to mind a New Yorker cartoon showing a man sitting in an armchair surrounded by his bookcases. On the floor stands a single book facing the man and saying “Read me.”

Now there will be “many millions of digital books” at our fingertips saying “read me.”

Read the whole Journal story at http://snipurl.com/googlebookdeal.

Technorati Tags:
Do-Gooder Scrooge, Wall Street Journal, WSJ, Google, digital books, New Yorker

CDC Votes Unanimously to Recommend Pneumonia Shots for Ages 19-64 with Asthma

At the doctor’s office today I asked the doctor about pneumonia shots for young people with asthma. (I already knew that pneumonia shots were recommended for people 65 and above.) My doctor carries his laptop from examining to examining room and here’s what he pulled up dated a few days ago:

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted unanimously yesterday to recommend that adults ages 19 to 64 with asthma receive pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23), known as PNEUMOVAX® 23 (Pneumococcal Vaccine Polyvalent). Merck & Co., Inc. is the sole supplier of PNEUMOVAX 23 in the United States. The ACIP based this recommendation on study data that showed an increased risk of pneumococcal disease among people with asthma.

My doctor was pretty impressed that he had this info literally at his fingertips. And I was pretty impressed to have such a timely answer.

And now I’d like to pass this timely info on to you, with the hope that you will pass it on to people with asthma whom you know. We all don’t see the same news releases, so most of us depend on the kindness of friends to keep us in the loop on important info that can impact our lives. Be a good friend and pass this info along because pneumonia can be a life-and-death matter.

Here’s the link to the whole article: http://snipurl.com/pneumoniashots

Technorati Tags:
CDC, Do-Gooder Scrooge, pneumonia shots, asthma

Ode to the Lowly Quotation Mark in Literary Novels

I very much enjoyed Lionel Shriver’s essay “Missing the Mark” in the October 25th Wall Street Journal. Shriver bemoaned the fact that several current literary writers have given up using quotation marks, thus making it even harder than ever to read literary fiction. He says:

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, nearly half of Americans do not read books at all, and those who do average a mere six a year. You’d think literary writers would be bending over backwards to ingratiate themselves to readers – to make their work maximally accessible, straightforward and inviting. But no.

He then goes on to give several examples of dialogue passages without quotes from bestselling authors – passages that make very little sense. In one case I thought a sentence was a description of the weather when it was actually dialogue from one of the characters.

As the author of a (non-literary) novel with quotation marks, I was upset to learn that several bestselling literary authors are making it harder for readers to enjoy novels, thus perhaps discouraging reading of all novels.

I hope that all of these authors are shown this essay by Shriver. And that they then make a pact to use quotation marks in their next novels.

And, oh yes, I love these sentences of Shriver’s:

Reading heated dialogue without quotes is like watching chase scenes in “The Bourne Supremacy” with the sound off …. Surely most readers would happily forgo “elegance” for demarcation that makes it easier to figure out who’s saying what when their eyelids are drooping during the last few pages before lights-out.

Do you have any opinion on the use of quotation marks in novels?

Technorati Tags:
Do-Gooder Scrooge, Lionel Shriver, Wall Street Journal, WSJ, literary novels

USO Revisited: Supporting Our Troops

Here's how my Mrs. Lieutenant blog post begins today:

I have to admit that the first thought that comes to my mind when I think of the USO is scenes of USO-sponsored dances in World War II films. So I found the email from the USO asking for a donation particularly moving as it included the text of a letter from a wife whose husband was deployed to Iraq:

I hope you'll find the rest of the post interesting -- read it at http://mrslieutenant.blogspot.com/2008/10/uso-supporting-troops-every-wife-dreads.html.

And if you're a celebrity performer, please consider performing for our troops.

Technorati Tags:
Do-Gooder Scrooge, USO, Mrs. Lieutenant

Bike Helmets: Adults and Children Should Wear Them

Have you ever noticed a young child riding a bike and wearing a bike helmet followed by an adult riding a bike WITHOUT a helmet? It always amazes me for two reasons:

• Doesn’t the adult realize what behavior he or she is modeling?

• Doesn’t the adult realize that he or she can also fall off a bike and break open his/her head?

Several years ago my father was riding a bike in Santa Monica and was hit by a car coming out of an alley. Luckily he was wearing a helmet when he was sent flying to the ground.

And it’s not just bikes. Anytime a child or adult is on anything with wheels a bike helmet should be worn. That means when on a skate board or scooter, too.
Of course, it’s important to wear the helmet correctly. It can’t be pushed back off the forehead but must come down firmly over the forehead to protect that forehead.

If unsure whether your bike helmet fits correctly, ask for guidance at a good bike shop. Or check out the info of the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute at www.helmets.org.

You know the old saying “better safe than sorry”? When it comes to protecting your head and your life, a bike helmet should be an absolute necessity.

Technorati Tags:
Do-Gooder Scrooge, bike helmets, Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute

The Email In-Box: How Many Emails – Let Me Count the Ways

Last night I deleted approximately 950 messages from one of my email accounts. Some of these messages I had clicked on and then saved for later reading. Others I hadn’t opened yet.

What made me take this drastic step? In recent days I had repeatedly reached 1000 messages, in which case my email account bounced back additional messages.

Therefore, I bit the bullet and said to myself: “You will never give your full attention to those 950 messages. Just delete them and take the risk that you’ve deleted something important.”

Most of the time I can’t understand people who don’t use email at all. Yet sometimes, such as when I force myself to delete 950 messages, I ponder how much simpler life was before the advent of email, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Friendfeed (the most recent social media platform for which I’ve signed up), etc.

In a nod to fair disclosure, I have also been unsubscribing to all the email advertisements for which I usually just click delete. I’ve decided to take the extra time to click on the unsubscribe buttons, some of which work and some of which don’t. I’m not at all sure I ever agreed to get many of these emails. So now I’ve taken the active step of getting rid of them.

Recently I got two different emails announcing a new book. Each of these emails was quite long, going on and on. I skimmed the emails, then decided to do a good deed:

I replied to these emails suggesting in each case that the person write a much shorter email with a clear headline and bullet-point benefits as to why we should act on the email. I explained that we are all so very busy that long emails are just way too much. Both people responded with thanks, so apparently PZ the Do-Gooder Scrooge didn’t step on any toes those times.

But, honestly, that’s why Twitter with a maximum of 140 characters is so great – it keeps all of our tweets short. Who’s the famous writer of the 19th Century (or 18th Century) who apologized for writing a long letter because he didn’t have time for a short letter? It’s true that I often have to rewrite my tweets to stay within 140 characters. And I’m grateful for that limitation.

If only email had a limitation of 140 characters – or I’d even settle for a limitation of 280 characters.

Technorati Tags:
Do-Gooder Scrooge, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Friendfeed