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Camille Paglia, Word Ninja
I think I must disagree with half of everything Paglia says (I’m a Republican, she’s a Democrat). But when you can write like a kung fu master, you have to be read:Advanced whack-a-mole is clearly needed for that yammering smarty-pants Newt Gingrich, who is always so very, very pleased with himself but has yet to produce a single enduring thought.
Holy schnitzel, that’s what words are for. I’m still laughing and nodding my head. Can I be Camille for a while?
The fact is while Paglia is clearly liberal, she’s not a party lemming. This is one of the things that is so refreshing about her. She’s not afraid to call ’em as she sees them, even if that means roasting her own party or praising the other.
And here: Paglia page.
All you need is a little beating and robbery
Mrs. Brown, my wife, teaches language arts for the 7th and 8th grades as well as reading comprehension. She’s big on reading. She wants to provide every opportunity for kids to not only get good at it, but also learn to love it.
And so her walls are lined with bookshelves full of awesome books teens love. She reads the first chapters of books to her classes to let them sample various stories. She features their book reports. She has them paste the covers of the books they’ve read on pages displayed around the classroom. And the school’s awesome librarian supports with her own programs.
The 7th and 8th grade students at Rich Middle School are marinated in a big celebration of reading.
In Mrs. Brown’s class, it’s fairly straight forward to get an A on reading, which is a huge part of your grade—all you’ve got to do is read.
But how much reading do they need to do? How do you track it? And what books should they read?
Check this out.
First, she tests each student to see what his or her reading speed is.
Next, she takes the number of hours they’re supposed to be reading each week for homework (I think it’s 2 or 2.5), then does the math to get a feasible reading word count for the trimester for each student. She may adjust it a bit, depending on the student’s ability.
Third, she presents that number to the student, and the two of them set a word count goal for the trimester. Talk about an individualized goal.
If you want to get an A in reading, all you have to do is reach that word count goal.
How do you know how many words a book has?
The Accelerated Reader program provides that information.
But how does she know that they’ve read the books?
She uses the Accelerated Reader tests. And if there isn’t one, the student can write a report.
And what books do the students read?
Any dang book they like.
I love this. The kids get to select their own books and just read, read, read.
Another part of this is that she pings each student once a week to ask them what book they’re reading, what page they’re on, and what they think of the book. This weekly check-in provides the more frequent accountability students of that age need.
Yesterday, she received this report from one of her 8th grade boys who is reading Prey, the first book in The Drovers series.
Oh, yeah.
I’ll take that any day (grin).
Rock on, budding reader.
Presentation for Brandon Sanderson’s class
Here is the PowerPoint that I used in my presentation for Brandon Sanderson’s class at BYU, March 23, 2017.
2017 Sandersons Class indie vs publisher
And here’s the Excel spreadsheet you can use to compare revenue numbers.
Author earnings as Indie vs working with Publisher
Enjoy!
Awful Intent Cover Reveal
For Awful Intent, I looked around at different cover design shops and decided to use Damonza. I sent over the brief, and we began. What I needed was a cover in the same style of Bad Penny. A match. I also told Grady, the designer, that if he did something new with Bad Penny, I might consider it.
He sent back these.
I loved what he did with Bad Penny. But it was nowhere near what we’d done with the original. And none of the others matched either. And that was a problem. I need all of the covers in the series to look like siblings.
We went back and forth with a number of iterations. Then decided to focus on Bad Penny.
And then I realized that I was falling prey to shiny object syndrome. It’s the bane of my life. There were all sorts of great ways to approach the cover, but I had already spent hours sorting through all that with the Bad Penny original. And the cover must be doing okay, because we sold lots of copies last year. I decided for everyone’s sanity to stick with the original decisions and parameters. That meant:
- Bold, action-thriller colors
- High contrast
- Big fonts
- Some texture
- And some small element over top
But I was still having a hard time clarifying in my mind something that was eluding me. Luckily I was in Cedar City for the Shakespeare Festival at the time and having lunch with Dixon and Linda Leavitt. Dixon pointed out that I was waffling between a literal and symbolic approach. Once he said that, I could see exactly what he meant. For example, the Bad Penny in the first batch was painted on a board. It was more realistic. The red Awful Intent was more symbolic. He also pointed out that I had used a small element in the original. With that clarity, we went back to work.
I’m very pleased with the finals (BTW, I’ll be tweaking the text above my name in Awful Intent; so that one isn’t final-final yet).
I think they say action thriller loud and clear and will easily stand out in a line-up.
Awful Intent Update 11/7
Today was awesome for writing. First, I got five hours in, and I was in flow the whole time. When you’re in flow, you’re in the scene, seeing it, smelling it, experiencing it. It’s awesome.
Second, during my review of the first draft, I came to the final battle scene and realized I’d made it much too convoluted. Way too convoluted. When I wrote it, I thought it was great, but coming to it fresh, it was just too much. So I drew a big red line through all those pages and made a note to rewrite it. Today I got to rewrite that section plus a bunch before and after it.
I have to say I love sheriff Hood, the female character who is teamed up with Frank. The woman is spectacular. And I love this fight scene. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read a thriller fight scene like this one. Sorry, won’t tell you what it is (no spoilers), but I can tell you I can’t wait to get this out to readers. I’m as pleased with this as I was the snow mobile sequence in Bad Penny.
Have a great weekend.
