“Judges were moved by Hollingshead’s evocation of “a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles.” His description of “bulging trousers” sealed the win, the judges said.” I won’t spoil the rest of it for you. (CNN)
Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion's Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook's Morin Oluwole, and bitly's Tim Devane. Register now.Having a reputation as being ‘the writer’ in your group of friends or family can cut a lot of different ways, one of them being that you might get called upon to come up with wedding speeches, toasts, or, sadly, eulogies. No matter how good a writer you are, a eulogy is not an easy thing to write or deliver. Thomas Bosch at Absolute Write has some words of advice since he has the dubious distinction of ghost-writing some eulogies himself.
That piece reminded me of something I read in Esquire a few months ago–further advice from Tom Chiarella, which provided not just tips on writing a good eulogy but how to deliver it like a man:
YOU MAY CRY. Accept it. But you should not let yourself be hobbled. A eulogy is not a chance to show off what you feel. Need I say this? It is not about you. That’s why you write it down. That’s why you read it aloud until you feel in yourself every response you might have to every detail. You want to get through the moments that will touch you. When my aunt Jane died, I read a catalog of truths about her in the middle of the eulogy. At one point I said, “She smoked too much.” I had read the thing to my dad in our hotel maybe six times. I’d read it the night before about fifteen more. I’d read it probably seven times that very morning, and I’d barely even noticed the line.
But in the church, on the heels of my father’s brilliant eulogy, with my mother not ten feet away from me, the line simply stopped me cold. I could see my aunt’s hands and the huge glass ashtrays she favored with three or four lipstick-smudged butts cocked in the ashes. I hadn’t expected to feel that. I started to cry. Later on, my brother said he hardly noticed it. Sometimes I think it must have been a gulp, but it felt more like an ax to the sternum.
I can recall, inside that moment, that the way I kept my composure was to say to myself, I owe her this much at least. It was a mantra I made up in advance. I said it to myself twice before I could go on. Make up a mantra to get yourself through those moments. Scratch it out on the top of every page.
Warning: reading advice on writing eulogies may not be the party you’d hoped it would be. But it might come in handy one day.
Working from home is awesome, as long as you don’t turn into Homer Simpson from the episode where he got morbidly obese. Working from home, without the obligatory walking-around that commuting requires and with the ever-present kitchen, can be tough when it comes to keeping fit. And during the holidays, it’s even tougher. Fitness expert Lynn Bode has some advice on how to keep fit for those of you with home offices.
And as a former fattie myself, I’d like to share some of my own advice on how not to let the holidays get to you. Allowing yourself to go to pot and telling yourself you’ll lose the weight in the new year is just setting yourself up for frustration. Start weighing yourself more frequently if you typically stay away from the scale. Keeping an eye on maintaining your weight over the holidays can save you a lot of frustration down the road–once you see yourself creeping up, you’ll know it’s time to get some extra exercise if you just can’t bring yourself to put down the gift tin of popcorn. And if you loathe exercise, you’ll know to switch to lite hot chocolate for a few days.
From Lit Agent X: “Humorous novels with male protagonists are harder sells than humorous novels with female protagonists.” Also, “I know it’s not fun to believe, but if you meet an editor at a conference, and they express interest in your work and invite you to submit it via an agent, this doesn’t mean they loved it and can’t wait to read it. It means they’re saying don’t send this to me unless you have an agent who has prescreened this to make sure it’s not terrible.”
From Le Snark: “POD is not Vanity is not Self Publish“, and also, “I think it’s imperative for a writer to have a web site. You don’t need to keep a blog, but you MUST have a site. These days not having a site is like not having a phone.”
From PubRants: “If you sell the e-rights to your project it can preclude a later print rights sale since most publishers often want to buy the print and electronic rights at the same time and if the electronic rights are tied up.”
And finally, this isn’t really advice but it’s possible you could learn something from Evil Editor’s forthcoming book.
Looking for more gifts for writers this holiday season (maybe even self-gifting?) The Renegade Writer’s Query Letters That Rock: The Freelance Writer’s Guide to Selling More Work Faster is now out, written by Diana Burrell and Linda Formichelli. Learn by doing with this book, which provides real examples of, yes, query letters that rock.
Over the past decade, Scripps Networks has built a cable television empire on its “lifestyle networks.” As it acquired channels and perfected TV shows such as Food Network’s 30 Minute Meals with Rachael Ray, HGTV’s House Hunters, and Fine Living’s What You Get For the Money, Scripps launched sites corresponding to each channel to complement and flesh out the on-air content. Though each site works in conjunction with its eponymous TV network, they don’t rely on the stations for content, according Leanne Potts, director of original content for Scripps Networks. In other words: There’s plenty of room for interested freelancers. What not to pitch: Don’t bother with personal essays or standard travel stories. Find much much more here, including a breakdown of what to pitch per site.
The excellent Allison Winn Scotch is about to give birth (huzzah!) so if you read her blog and have been meaning to ask her a question, do it soon! In the meantime, she answers a reader’s question about how to break into the trades, especially if you’re a newbie and unable to get too familiar with the publication.
Ok, authors, I admit it — the editor/author relationship is a weird one. I mean, there is something inherently . . . intimate about working together closely on a book, especially when it’s a novel or a memoir. In a way, it seems natural for us to be pals. Maybe we even have some things in common! I mean, we both sure like words. But there’s a thin but absolutely necessary line between professional and personal. And the thing is, editors and their authors should pretty much NEVER be Real Friends.
More tough love from Unsolicited at Gawker.
New writers want to get their name out in the public eye, but also don’t want to waste money on scam contests or competitions unlikely to get them noticed. I posted the question on Ask Metafilter: How do you choose a writing contest? Some of the advice:
Entering contests actually takes a lot of logistical effort and money, so I think you should think about four things: (1) difficult of contest (i.e., chance that you’ll win); (2) the degree to which the contest is worthwhile (here, look at award money or prestige); (3) the cost of entering (most poetry book contests require you to pay $15-35); and (4) fit. Categories 1 and 2 are contradictory: prestigious contests are generally recognized to be lotteries. If you don’t have very much experience, you might want to just try middle tier contests that few people will be entering. I think the publisher is important: there are a lot of prestigious contests with fat purses that I think are not worth entering: when’s the last time you’ve seen any of the winner’s in bookstores? I usually only enter “prestigious” contests if I’ve heard of people who’ve won it before.
Fit – This is very important. For lower level contests, it means that you are a black skateboarding doctor and that’s what the contest is asking for. For higher level contests, it means that you google the publishing house, journal, judge, and past winners and see how close you come to their aesthetic. If you don’t like the stuff they publish, don’t enter.
I didn’t get tons of responses so if you have your own two cents on how you know what type of competition to enter (and this is open to all kinds of writers: fiction, non, screenwriting, poetry, etc), please share.
The Hollywood Reporter lands on the desk of just about every executive and producer in the entertainment industry each morning. Its pages report the day-to-day business of Hollywood, as well as feature longer, more insightful stories that highlight trends in the world of film, television, music and new media. What to pitch:Because all of the daily hard news and reviews are done by in-house reporters and stringers in international territories, the best place to pitch is the features department. This is where all feature stories and special single-topic issues originate, and about 75 percent of the copy is written by freelancers. Editors are open to a variety of approaches and ideas, but everything that the Reporter publishes needs to come from a Hollywood insider perspective. What not to pitch: This definitely isn’t the outlet to pitch celebrity profiles or stories centering around the culture of celebrity. Editors want writers who know the names and roles of executives and producers who are usually behind the scenes, as well as the business, financial, and technological aspects of how movies are made, marketed and distributed. Etiquette: The best way to contact The Hollywood Reporter is by submitting a query and clips first, then following up via email. More here!
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