Here we are, already at Labour Day weekend. If you’ve visited the About page, you’ll know I live in Toronto. Last Labour Day weekend, someone named Dave shot a video of downtown Toronto from the top of a double-decker tour bus. If you’re in the mood for a tour, sit back and have a look. You can hear the guide describing the sights and almost imagine you’re there.
Dave sneaked in a political message around the 8-minute mark that gave me a laugh. If you blink, you’ll miss it.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I’d read a book published in 1904. I came across it on AbeBooks, and the description intrigued me enough to find it on eBay and buy it. It didn’t come cheap, but it was cheaper than the copy available on AbeBooks.
After reading it, I decided to give it a new title and publish it to the Kindle. You can find it here: A Tragic Romance.
It’s an interesting story for 1904, though I can’t tell you why without giving away the surprise ending. I set the Kindle price to $0.99, so if you’re so inclined, pick it up there. You don’t need an actual Kindle to read Kindle books. I use the Kindle for PC app, and there are Kindle apps available for other devices.
A Tragic Romance is approximately 8,000 words long and in the public domain. But it’s hard to find, because it was hand-sold by the author as a hard-cover, 40-page book. It’s not currently available on any of the well-known public domain sites, since few public collections have it. That’s also why it didn’t come cheap. Most existing copies are in private collections.
The Kindle book includes a foreword and afterword written by yours truly. In the foreword, I describe the physical book. In the afterword, I talk about my reaction to the ending.
I hope to make an announcement about one of my own books soon.
I finished reading Elizabeth’s Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped the Virgin Queen. If you’re interested in Elizabeth I or the Tudor period, definitely pick it up. It focuses on the women around Elizabeth, so even if you’ve read several books about Elizabeth herself, this one offers a new perspective. I learned more about Ann Boleyn and the other women in Elizabeth’s life than I have from other books.
Next up: Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky. This one looks like a fun read.
Rymellan
As I’ve said on the WIP page, my editor has the September story. I need some time with it when she’s done, to deal with her feedback and format it for the web. She plans to start it as soon as she’s finished with the fantasy, so I’m hoping to post it around mid-September.
Fantasy Novel
I spoke to my editor yesterday, and she may come back on the fantasy as early as next week, which would be great. She said she’s enjoying the novel, which I’ll take as a positive sign.
Patty Henderson and I spent most of last weekend working on the front cover. Patty has come up with a wonderful design. I hope to share it soon.
For reasons that I’ll make clear in a future post, I recently finished reading a book published in 1904. It wasn’t the first story I’d read from the early 20th century, so I wasn’t surprised at how many writing “rules” the author broke.
I come across a lot of sites and blog posts that talk about writing rules as if they were on the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain. I’m talking about rules like:
Avoid adverbs
Always use “said.” Any other dialogue tag is distracting
Don’t head hop
Don’t start consecutive paragraphs with the same word
Etc.
But those rules don’t describe good writing. They describe what happens to be in fashion today. And frankly, if every writer followed them to the letter, we’d all sound the same and pretty bland.
Oops, I started that last sentence with a conjunction. Hack! Or maybe not. That particular rule seems to be going out of fashion. And that’s a good thing. Not that I break it much.
I’ve read plenty of stories that broke all the rules and yet resonated with me and left me wanting more. It’s the story. It’s the characters. It’s not adherence to the rules. I treat the rules as guidelines. I sometimes break them.
In 50 or 100 years, people might read books from the early 21st century and marvel at how many writing rules we broke. But that won’t stop them from enjoying our stories.
