How Politically Correct Should Writers Be?

Thank you, Jo Robinson from Lit World Interview, for your great and clear opinion about us writers and political correctness. What an impressive blog post!

Lit World Interviews

A while ago a well-known author published a book about a rich, handsome man who pretty much had anything anyone could wish for becoming paralyzed in an accident. He and the woman hired to care for him then fell in love, but at the end he chose to commit suicide rather than carry on. This caused quite a few disabled people to be deeply offended, and this was pretty obvious in the reviews. Several suggested that she hadn’t done her research properly, or she would have realized that it was very insulting to those in similar circumstances in that it suggested that living in that way was so unbearable that death was preferable. Most of those real, live people strive for the best lives that they can. They don’t generally give up, and I’m sure that they have just as much joy during the course of their lives as anyone…

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Language Generator for Fantasy and Sci-Fi

Kristen Twardowski informs us with an exciting blog post about “Vulgar”, a language generator for Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers. Thanks so much Kristen.

Kristen Twardowski

I’ve talked about my fascination with language before, but sometimes writers need a little help creating words that make sense in their nascent worlds. I recently found something that streamlines that process.

Vulgar (pardon the terrible name) is a constructed language generator. The generator creates fully realized languages; if you were truly ambitious you could learn some of them. The program attempts to mimic real languages, so there are patterns to the words that develop. For instance, in 50% of generated languages, the word for “tongue” is the same as the word for “language”, and words often share roots as is the case for:

pson /pʂon/ n. paint; v. paint
psopru /ˈpʂopru/ n. painter

I’ve played around with the generator quite a bit and am highlighting a few sample languages below.

via Vulgar

via Vulgar

The above screenshots simply capture the summaries for the languages. The full pages, however…

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A Simple Guide to Book Advances and Royalties

A Writer’s Path’ Ryan Lance has written a very informative and simple guide to book advances and royalties. Thank you very much!

A Writer's Path

by Gary Smailes

When a book publisher offers a book deal to a new author, the contract will talk about ‘advances’ and ‘royalties’. These can be a little confusing to new authors, though a little bit of knowledge will go a long way to helping you fully understand what you are being offered.

In this article, you will learn about royalties and advances, you will discover what is usual for a book publisher to offer and you will find out how the publishing world is changing the way it provides advances and royalties.

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Throwback Thursday: How to Get Your Novel Made Into a Film

Ryan Lanz provides us with great information about what’s happening when our novel will get made into a film. Thank you Ryan.

A Writer's Path

Throwback Thursday is a series where we take a look back at some of AWP’s most popular posts. Enjoy!

by Gary Smailes

In this article you will discover the steps a novel must go through in order to be made into a film; you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the process and discover the elements that you, as an author, can control to have a positive impact on the chances of seeing your book on the big screen.

This article will focus on the period of time before filming begins, since this is when an author has the most impact on the project. Once the cameras start rolling, the author’s role lessens greatly.

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Public speaking tips for writers (putting a bag over your head is not one of them..)

Graeme Cumming published a guest post on Louise Jensen’s blog. Thank you very much Graeme about your tips and tricks on public speaking.

fabricating fiction

I am a writer. I am an introverted writer. The thought of public speaking makes my skin prickle and my head swim and yet it is something writers are often expected to do, and to be honest, despite the fear, it is something I am eager to do. The chance to meet readers. To talk about my books. A couple of weeks ago, on World Book Day, I gave my first ever talk to 250 primary school children on reading, writing and following your dreams (you can read about that here.) Beforehand I was lucky enough to get some tips from my good friend and fellow author Graeme Cumming who is so adept at public speaking he belongs to a Speakers Club (for fun!!!). Thankfully I got through my own talk without fainting/vomiting/crying/all three and I’m delighted to welcome Graeme onto my blog today to share his wisdom with you. 

Getting…

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Author Myths: Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

Hope Ann has provided us with an excellent article about author myths and has done an excellent job. Check it out and see if you find the one or other that sounds familiar to you.

A Writer's Path

by Hope Ann

The writer’s life is surrounded by myths, both inside and out. ‘Oh, you are a writer? You must be rich?’ ‘A writer? Are you a starving artist? I didn’t think you could make any money that way.’ ‘Just write a book and put it out there, it will take off.’

So…yes. Lots of myths. So I decided to collect a few; some from Facebook, some from articles I’ve read, some from things I’ve heard or heard of so much that they are now stuck in my head.

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Top Publishers of 2016

The Write Nook

A few weeks ago, Publisher’s Weekly came out with a ranking of America’s top 20 publishing houses for 2016. It’s no surprise who the top 5 were, but what’s really important is what came after.

The sixth and seventh publisher were both that of children’s books- Scholastic and Disney came in right under the ‘Big Five.’ It’s quite a refreshing thing to see. Children’s literature has always been a tough genre to crack because the audience is smaller, the interests change rapidly, and the surge of technology has threatened to turn some children away from reading and the love of books. Nevertheless, books sales for 2016 has proved that there is still so much to love about children’s publishing. For Disney, Star Wars and Rick Riordan books led the way.

Houghton and Workman come in next, showing us that non-fiction titles still have a big impact on our consumption market as…

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