Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Unto Zeor, Forever mentioned - LoveCats DownUnder: Rachel Needs Book Advice!

LoveCats DownUnder: Rachel Needs Book Advice!

I'm putting the link to this blog here because I keep losing track of it and it's a phenomenon and a half in a writer's life to see a book remembered exactly this way.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Monday, December 26, 2011

Dangerous Books For Girls Video Found Via Google+

Melissa Walsh pointed me to this video on Google+ and I need to save it and talk about it a lot on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com



Thursday, December 8, 2011

Pilot for TV Series "House"

I found this via a screenwriting Group on Facebook Rockett Writer Group a "closed" Group you must request to join. It was posted by
House_1x01_- _Pilot.pdf (application/pdf Object)

I'm putting the link here because I've been watching House recently with that dissecting eye which produces my long, boring essays on writing craft.

Now if I had a parallel source of the ratings for each episode, and a spreadsheet of the changes made after ratings variances, maybe I could learn something about the decision making process that the decision makers themselves don't know.

Here's the parent website with links to a number of scripts posted online for free reading.

http://sites.google.com/site/tvwriting/home

It has series "bibles" and as of Dec 2011, here's a list of recent additions:

Latest Scripts

  • Hell on Wheels 1x01 - Pilot
  • Breaking Bad 3x01 - No Mas
  • American Horror Story 1x01 - Pilot
  • Happy Endings 1x02 - The Quicksand Girlfriend
  • Happy Endings 1x04 - Mein Coming Out
  • Hidden Episode 1
  • Merlin 4x03 - The Wicked Day
  • The Office 2x19 - Michaels Birthday
  • Outnumbered 4x05
  • Torchwood 4x01 - Miracle Day episode 1
  • Last Man Standing 1x01 - Pilot
  • Man Up! 1x01 - Pilot
  • Grimm 1x01 - Pilot
  • Once Upon A Time 1x01 - Pilot
  • Beauty and the Beast 1x19 - Everything is Everything

Pendant Productions - Star Trek: Defiant MP3 and Podcast

Pendant Productions - Star Trek: Defiant MP3 and Podcast

As writers working toward a career in writing, you should seriously consider the market potential of RADIO DRAMA delivered via the internet.

There is an ever-growing number of such outlets.

Audio-only writing instills a story-discipline that will serve you well in a film career. If you combine that with a day-job in journalism, you train for the fast-paced, demanding, tailored-to-order world of Film Production (Hollywood or not, time is money is the prevailing adage.)

Journalism makes you fast and accurate with your words, and Radio Drama writing gives you drill in organizing a story.

In addition to this, I'd suggest you read the following e-book:



Those are short-stories from magazines published during the RADIO DRAMA ERA. Besides being interesting stories, and by the creator of the character ZORRO (one of my favorites), who also wrote for film, the underlying story-structure and thematic material are precisely relevant to today's web-based radio-drama world.

Put all that together, you will have a long and lucrative career.

But don't think it's easy money. This stuff is very hard work unless you're born with enormous talent.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Comment On Review Of Twilight Breaking Dawn


Take a good look at the following blog:

Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Why Do People Hate it So Much?

The author nails BREAKING DAWN and the whole Twilight thing both correctly and incorrectly.

a) correctly:
-----------quote-------------

From the very opening monologue it’s about some of the deepest things we have: what it takes to become an adult, and what falling in love can involve.

And it hits these concerns full centre, full power.

First of all it’s a neat dramatization of a Love dialectic. We get both versions. Classic romantic, an eternal truth (the vampires), and a more cynically deconstructed scientific notion of a gene-spreading imperative that deceives about its true nature (the imprinting of the werewolves).
---------end quote-----------

b) incorrectly:
----------quote-------------
Twilight asks How important is Love? How far would you go? Would you leave everything you value? Would you step into a dark unknown? Would you surrender to a far greater power? Would you dare to swap your soul for love of another? Would you? Would you really? And if you would, how incredible must the experience of that love be?

---and---

If you were a teenage girl wouldn’t you thrill to that idea?

Come on. Don’t be curmudgeonly. What’s wrong with making films for teenage girls? Don’t they deserve a bit of the magic too? Especially when it goes so deep into what makes us human.

Genuinely loved it. Can’t wait to see what happens next time.

Oh, and if you want to get into another animated debate here’s another post about Lord of the Rings wiping the floor with Harry Potter. There’s a pretty lively comments section…
---------end quote----------

The error here is the "teenage girl" limitation.  Yes, the publishers and film-makers probably narrowed the focus to make it blatantly "teenage girlish" -- but no, that's missing an important point.

Like my Sime~Gen series, both Potter and Twilight are accessible to readers/viewers first in the pre-adolescent and adolescent stages of development.  But human nature, the nature of the adult, is  not to erase all trace of childhood and adolescence and become something utterly new and irrelevant in adulthood.  "Adult" means the product of all experiences back to birth -- and maybe earlier!  Maybe including prior incarnations, who knows?

So works such as Potter, Twilight, or Warhorse, "speak" to every human being at every age or stage of life because they have something to say about "who" you could have become had you made other choices, and they address the entire issue of whether you made an optimal choice and what you choose to do next.

The rejection of your "teenage girl within" (even if you're male) is a major issue, and may have something to do with the rejection of the Happily Ever After ending we've been discussing at length and depth on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com in my Tuesday posts.

This labeling of TWILIGHT as "teenage girl" material smacks of the labeling of certain science fiction works as "fantasy" simply because they included themes arising from an exploration of human psychology -- examples are Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern (science fiction about a lost Earth colony) and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels (science fiction about a lost Earth colony), Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels, (science fiction about an alternate Earth).

Today C. J. Cherryh is still writing very successful novels in her Foreigner Series, but now that science fiction background is allowed to include that human dimension once forbidden.

So I expect that "teenage girl" dimension will be accepted as adult fare by general audiences just as the "fantasy" dimensions are becoming accepted today (even or especially on TV Series).



Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Why Not Send A PDF Of Your Script First?


You know that this blog focuses on writing craftsmanship-- but keep in mind that this isn't the "old fashioned" or "trad publisher" type of writing.

The world is changing as much as it did with the deployment of the moveable type printing press.  The writer's business model has collapsed, and is being rebuilt along new lines.

The search for a new publishing model is thrashing through new territory.  Everyone who's ever considering going into "business" is searching for "talent" to "exploit".

You hear it on blogs everywhere -- "content" we need "content" -- what is that?  WRITING TO BE EXPLOITED.

Writers need to "search" for material as frantically as business folk are searching for a biz model.

BREAKING DAWN and HARRY POTTER films -- the new Spielberg WARHORSE -- they're hitting huge markets with common-denominator material, "Primal" material such as Blake Snyder teaches you to exploit in SAVE THE CAT!  Each of those films is a "Save The Cat!" example.

I found an interesting post on a new Facebook Group I joined (which I found via another blog which I found on the right margin of a LinkedIn page which I was on because of a comment that a LinkedIn writer had made on an update to my LinkedIn status ... whew!  The comment was from a screenwriter, and the blog on LinkedIn was about screenwriting, which cited this facebook screenwriting group on LinkedIn .... that's why it's called social networking!)

http://thebitterscriptreader.blogspot.com/2011/11/should-you-include-pdf-of-your-script.html

This is by a script "reader" (who makes a first judgement about projects) who is objecting to the amateurish over-eagerness of some writers attaching pdf files of an entire script to a mere first-query letter.

As you know, I watch the "Indie" markets -- film and publishing -- for what is being done with the new tools of this new world.  I'm aware of how much overflowing eagerness is driving young writers with a vision of what they could accomplish -- especially when these blockbuster films dangle vast sums of money before their eyes.

"I can do that, but I can do it "better"" they feel in every cell of their body.  Many, maybe most, are correct about that.  Nothing is being done to the fullest extent of the tools available (yet).

But when you have written the final scene of a story, you always feel it's the best thing that has been written ever -- (or sometimes the worst -- emotional "blow-off" is the state after finishing a draft).

The focus then shifts to either burying the thing in the backyard with a headstone, or trotting it out before the eyes of those who could get the film made, or the book published.

The "thebitterscriptreader" entry is about those writers who KNOW they've done something colossal, bigger than WARHORSE or POTTER, but either don't know what to do next, or don't know how to do it, or don't have the maturity to reign in their certainty and work through the next step.

What is that next step?

Well, this is depressing for some, but the next step is actually the FIRST step that should have been made on the project.  That's to articulate the CONCEPT in one line, develop it to a pitch, a paragraph, a page, 5 pages, synopsis.

If you develope a project from concept via those baby steps instead of leaping directly into writing the wondrous script, you can then tweak the statements in concept and pitch and construct your query letter/email.  And that query will indeed embody the essence of what you've written.

The reason people SEND that whole script when they should send only a query is that they don't know how to explain the driving essence, the true payload, the elegance, beauty and emotional PUNCH they have created in their script.  They can't "explain" it because it isn't clear.  It isn't clear because they wrote the project backwards, procedure wise.

How do I know this?  Been there, done that, got my head handed to me good and proper.  If you want the story, pick up a copy of UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER, or just peek "inside" on Amazon and read the introduction where I talk about how I learned.  ( find Unto on Amazon here
http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20 )

Years and dozens of projects after you've learned to think "concept" first, then "market" then developing the pitch to take to market, then writing the story -- then you will be able to have an "idea" and just write it.  When you come to an "unclear" section or a wrong-step in your procedure, you'll go write up the "outline" or pitch or back cover copy, re-focus and know the next scene.

Here's one important secret.  The reason you want "thebitterscriptreader" to read your script is the reason you want to write that script -- which is the OPENING SCENE and FINAL SCENE connected by theme and illustrated by action and symbol.  In other words, it's the theme explicated into concrete images.

Everything else in your script has to be pared away -- don't weep, use it in another project, but get it out of the way of this project and focus this project on that one thing that will make this "bitter" reader grab it out of the avalanche of half-baked projects sluicing down at him seeing $$$$ all over it.

Just remember, if you have to attach the script, you've made a major error in writing it.

Here is the blog post on this blog about how to create that cover letter, the concept, and all the way up to the pitch that can sell the project, script unseen!
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2010/03/ok-send-me-2-page-synopsis.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Night Shade Books’ probation has been lifted

Night Shade Books’ probation has been lifted

That link goes to an article on the Science Fiction Writers of America website where it says the committee which placed Night Shade Books "on probation" for violating contracts with authors has now lifted the probation because all the issues have been properly dealt with.

This is a great example of why authors need to belong to an organization of authors that works diligently to protect rights. All authors, even those who do not belong to this or that organization, benefit from this behind the scenes work.

The SFWA workers are unpaid volunteers for the most part, though outside accountants and lawyers are often hired in these cases.

This kind of work never makes the headlines, but it is responsible for bringing good product to readers. If a writer doesn't get paid, she can't write the next book. It's a business, and publishers have to treat us as business runners.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Slice of SciFi TV – The Slice of SciFi Live Video Show!

Slice of SciFi TV – The Slice of SciFi Live Video Show!

That link leads to an adventure in web-TV focused on science fiction. This is a NEWS SHOW format show, pretty much like a video of a radio show broadcast, but featuring guests, and news clips.

See how to subscribe free to Farpoint Media podcasts on iTunes
http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/farpoint-media/id155949012
You have to consider this venture in conjunction with Glenn Beck's web-Tv venture GBTV http://web.gbtv.com/index.jsp?gclid=CK6Ks8yjjqsCFewaQgodSykvxA

Whatever you think of Beck's attitude and opinions, you have to hand it to his business sense. Books he backs consistently hit #1 best seller on the NYTimes list and on amazon.com

There's a business reason he's trying this web-TV basis, and he is not a ground breaker by nature. See this slice of SciFi TV venture and note what the Star Trek folks have been doing with webisodes.

If you're launching a screenwriting career, you need credentials in this kind of venue before it gets beyond your reach.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20 -- for list of currently available novels

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Gender Gap Vanishes in Female-Empowered Cultures | Wired Science | Wired.com

Gender Gap Vanishes in Female-Empowered Cultures | Wired Science | Wired.com

Is an item on gender differences as a function of culture. This is just the kind of news item writers of fantasy must absorb and retool into worldbuilding.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Top Dating Sites » 10 Unrealistic but Common Romance Novel Storylines

Folks:

Here's a blog entry on 10 "unrealistic" Romance Novel Plots.

Top Dating Sites » 10 Unrealistic but Common Romance Novel Storylines

My entries on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com on Tuesdays are focused on the puzzle of why most people don't believe the HEA or Love Conquers All thesis of the Romance Genre.

There's much to discuss in this post, but it will reference many of the posts I've already done.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Monday, May 9, 2011

Zondervan Launches 'Story' Campaign with Lucado

Zondervan Launches 'Story' Campaign with Lucado

That headline leads to a blog post on Publisher's Weekly
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/47129-zondervan-launches-story-campaign-with-lucado.html?utm_source=Publishers+Weekly%27s+PW+Daily&utm_campaign=2b9449fdee-UA-15906914-1&utm_medium=email
about a 2005 publication called THE STORY which is a chronological retelling of The Bible.

Pastors and Churches picked this up and now it's generating more stories that are being published.

The popular writer teamed with church Pastors is stirring up the world.

I haven't read their THE STORY or dug deeply into this movement, but writers could learn something from it about how the new business model of publishing connects to existing communities or philosophical alliances.

There's a new social dynamic driving the entire "communications" component of life, all related to Social Networking.

A new writer just launching a career will not succeed at all without a thorough understanding of how all these new tools of communication link and inter-link.

Note Barak Obama won office by launching his campaign online, collecting money online. It probably worked because he was one of the first with the right skilled people to do that, and he had a message that resonated with the demographic that was involved in social networking.

The world has changed again, and yet again since then. Wednesday May 11, Newt Gingrich is to announce his online campaign for President via Facebook etc.

Tuesday May 10, 2011, my blog entry on http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com is about Mass Market writers providing their own (often best selling) titles for you via eBook publication - all formats.

What has all this to do with a group of Pastors supporting a chronological retelling of The Bible?

These are connecting trends that are re-enforcing themselves. The Internet shattered society as we know it. Now something new is forming, trying very much not to look too new.

THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT.

That's the Hollywood mantra for a reason. Think about that.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
http://astore.amazon.com/simegen-20

Friday, April 15, 2011

‘Game of Thrones’ Begins Sunday on HBO - Review - NYTimes.com

‘Game of Thrones’ Begins Sunday on HBO - Review - NYTimes.com

Is the kind of condescending review we would ordinarily expect for an SF Romance, and it's the attitude I've been dissecting and analyzing in http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com

I don't get HBO so it'll be a while until I see the TV version of George R. R. Martin's GAME OF THRONES, but I like Martin's writing (he's fun to do panels with, too).

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Friday, March 25, 2011

Kindle Author: Kindle Author Interview: Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Here is an interview where I detail the origin of my award winning Dushau Trilogy, and why it's now on Kindle.

Kindle Author: Kindle Author Interview: Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Friday, March 18, 2011

Kaye Manro Romance Author: Aliens ~ Soul Mates ~ and Sex

Kaye Manro Romance Author: Aliens ~ Soul Mates ~ and Sex This is a Guest post I did for this blog based on a previous Guest post (with a link to it). On #bookmarket chat on Twitter yesterday someone asked how to find really good blogs about BOOKS. Well, Kaye's is one, and you can find many more listed on the side of her blog page.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Writing Student Here Makes Good

Folks:

I have mentioned Kimber An's first novel being published because she's one of the most dedicated writing students reading my Tuesday posts on Aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com  -- here's the item.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/teens-trekkies-and-heroic-ideal_22.html

Now her second publication is coming out, and it's publication date is my birthday, March 25th!

Here's the message I just got from Kimber An
------------
Crushed Sugar, a prequel novella, by Kimber An will be released on March 25th. It is a short tale of a faint heart, a fair maiden, and a blood-sucking dead guy. Pop over to
http://www.facebook.com/l/a68cbJznbIxDOdZiWgMjHVl0R4Q/www.kimberan.com/aboutcrushedsugar to learn more!
.
Thanks again, Ladies! Couldn't have done it without you, especially Jacqueline, who taught me so much. If you haven't already, the rest of yous should pop over to her page.

-------------

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

On Genre - A Lucrative Topic

Folks:

I've been writing long series of long posts on aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com about how we, as Science Fiction Romance writers, can bring Romance and its cross-sub-genres Paranormal and SF, into the high level of respect among the general public that we think it deserves.

This is a topic Science Fiction fans and writers spend a lot of time on.

Here is an article for you to ponder as you decide how to launch your own career.
One Genre to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them --

Remember bylines become associated with genre, so you may need several bylines in genres to make a living, and another one to gain prestige, if that's what you want. But if you do that, there will come a day when you have to pretend to disparage your genre books, or pretend they aren't yours.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Using Twitter and Klout

To get a grip on "why" the @twittername mention is important in a RT, go sign up (free) for klout.com  --

Or just look at my name there http://klout.com/JLichtenberg  (I made 57 once)

Klout.com is a "service" that rates "reach" (i.e. how important you are on the internet) via twitter responses and it accesses some other social network activity metrics too.

The number klout.com comes up with is used by search engines to suggest you as the answer to various questions, (or at least it was last I looked).  There's a whole lot of reasons why your klout number is the key to selling books.

There are probably other such services out there -- but your Klout number comes up on hootsuite.com window when you click on the @person name on a tweet.

It's all about "who" you are to "the world" -- as writers, we gather followings.  I think most of us have READERS following us, and "readers" as a group tend to be more "influential" in the world -- so if we team up and RT each other, expanding the "klout" "reach" we each have, we can become the answer to search engine questions, and sell books.

Roundabout, but it's not much effort to put an @person in a tweet if you use hootsuite -- it auto-completes the @ if you remember the first couple letters.

Twitter itself is not much use for anything.  To "work it" you need "tools" -- Tweetdeck and Hootsuite seem to be emerging as top favorites of those serious about mastering social networking. (try free versions)

Jacqueline Lichtenberg (freebie enthusiast)
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Folks:

I belong to a group of mass market writers who have posted their own backlist as e-books. I've posted my award winning Dushau trilogy to Kindle, but Wildside's Borgo imprint is doing my Sime~Gen novels, and already has Molt Brother and City of a Million legends on Kindle and other e-book formats.

Over 70 authors belong to this Group - called Backlist Ebooks. Here are a few who have blogs you can learn from.

Gerald M Weinberg - http://secretsofconsulting.blogspot.com/ (http://www.geraldmweinberg.com )

Doranna Durgin, http://doranna.net/wordplay

Marsha Canham, http://marshacanham.wordpress.com

Jacqueline Lichtenberg, http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com
(where I post on Tuesdays)

Jeffrey A. Carver, http://starrigger.blogspot.com/

Jill Metcalf, http://jillmetcalf.wordpress.com

Terry Odell, http://terryodell.blogspot.com

Maryann Miller, http://its-not-all-gravy.blogspot.com/

Patricia Rice, http://patriciarice.blogspot.com

Pati Nagle, http://patinagle.livejournal.com/

Lorraine Bartlett or Lorna Barrett, http://www.LornaBarrett.blogspot.com

Karen Ranney, http://karenranney.wordpress.com 


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com (slowly being updated with NEW Sime~Gen releases)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Script page from White Collar (a real one)

I found this posted on Twitter by Jeff Eastin via twitpix

#WhiteCollar script page from What Happens in Burma airing to... on Twitpic

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com