Some days, you get the noir, and some days the noir gets you.
Filed under Friday the Thirteenth, noir, Photo by author
I hardly know ya, /
Triskaidekaphobia. /
Afraid to hold ya. /
It's Friday, Friday the Thirteenth. Just the facts, ma,am.
I have just told ya, /
Triskaidekaphobia. /
I hardly know ya. /
Just the facts, you say, /
Triskaidekaphobia./
Will make you go away. /
But you’re here to stay. /
triskaidekaphobia. /
For the entire day. /
So I might just play, /
Triskaidekaphobia. /
On this fine Friday: /
Triskaidekaphobia
Filed under Friday the Thirteenth, haiku, poem, poetry
[Editor’s note: This is a follow up to an article posted on this blog on 12/18/2011. Click on Category listing “e-book” below to bring up that article by Tom Dupree.]
By Diane Bartz and Poornima Gupta
4/10/2012 8:17 PM (Eastern Time)
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO, April 10 (Reuters) – The Justice Department could sue Apple Inc as early as Wednesday over alleged electronic book price-fixing, while settling with several publishers as early as this week, two people familiar with the matter said.
The Justice Department is investigating alleged price-fixing by Apple and five major publishers: CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc; HarperCollins Publishers Inc; Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group; Pearson and Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH.
A lawsuit against Apple, one of the parties not in negotiations over a potential settlement, could come as early as Wednesday but no final decision had been made, the people said.
Apple declined to comment. The Justice Department and the five publishers could not be reached for comment.
The Justice Department is investigating whether deals Apple cut two years ago with the quintet of major publishers – when the consumer electronics maker launched its iPad tablet computer – were done with the intent of propping up prices for digital books, sources have said.
As part of those agreements, publishers shifted to a model that allowed them to set the price of e-books and give Apple a 30 percent cut of sales, the sources have said.
Talks between the Justice Department and some publishers had been proceeding, with settlements expected as soon as this week, one of the two sources familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity, because the discussions were not public.
A negotiated settlement is expected to eliminate Apple’s so-called “most favored nation” status, which had prevented the publishers from selling lower-priced e-books through rival retailers such as Amazon.com Inc or Barnes & Noble Inc , sources had told Reuters last month.
But the situation was fluid, those sources said at the time.
Filed under e-book, publishers, publishing
She threw the book at me!
I’m a writer and I don’t get no respect. Just the other day I hired an editor to help me with my manuscript, and the first thing she did was throw the book at me! The unabridged book at me. The one that defines words. You know it. D-i-k something something something.
Filed under Cartoon, cartoon by author, no respect, writing
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need
So goes the chorus from The Rolling Stones song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
Those are perfect lyrics in which to briefly discuss the three elements that can help a writer build a character.
When creating a main character, ask yourself three questions:
1) What does your main character (protagonist) want?
2) What does your character need?
3) How can these two things be brought into conflict?
Despite what advertising might try to convince about having hunger pangs that only a certain hamburger can cure, there is a difference. Hunger is a need. The body needs food to live. The hamburger (Or whatever other food you wish to insert) is a want. Hunger can be alleviated by a wide range of foods, not just the one being advertised at the moment you feel hunger.
What a character needs is often more important than what she wants.
You can also think of this way: want is often an external thing; need an internal thing. The hamburger is an external manifestation of something that is an internal need: hunger. They come into conflict when you find out you don’t have enough money for that hamburger, or if having that hamburger will cause you to break out in hives, due to an allergic reaction you may have recently developed to ground beef.
The same is also often true of your story’s main character. There is something he wants. There is something he needs. The want and the need to come into conflict.
Take for example, Huckleberry Finn in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What is it wants: to escape his alcoholic father who has kidnapped him and locked him in an old cabin in the woods, because the father wants the money that Huck is entitled to. He escapes from his dad and hides out on an island as part of his plan to keep from being kidnapped again. What he needs, though he is not willing to even admit it to himself, is an adult who will accept him for how he is (and won’t try to civilize him), but still be willing to take care of him, even guide if not raise him, and love him. Huck finds that in the runaway slave Jim, and at the point of the novel where Huck should turn Jim in as runaway slave, Huck decides not to do what society wants him to do, he sides with Jim because Jim is somebody whom Huck needs, and who also needs Huck. Much of the rest of the novel from that point on is about handling the consequences of that decision and the temptations to still turn Jim in.
There are many other examples in fiction and in film, on the stage and even sometimes in long story poems.
You can have your protagonist side with what he wants over what he needs. This often leads to more trouble or even tragedy. You can have you protagonist win by losing. He loses what he wants, but wins what he needs and is the better for it. He can find a way to make the two work together, with the want being a true outward manifestation of the inward need.
So, decide what it is your character wants (that job promotion, the girl next door, the pot of gold) and what he needs (validation of his self-worth, love, money to buy the thing he always wanted), and then bring those two into conflict.
[Editor’s update/note: click on “building a better story” in the Category listings to find several other blog pieces of information I have put together from classes, books, and other sources (including my own experiences).]
Filed under building a better story, cartoon by author, character, writing tip
No April Fool this philosopher.
Filed under aging, Cartoon, eight year old philosopher, growing older, humor, word play
Corner in a corner of his mind
He painted himself in a corner in a corner of his mind. His first brush with “success.”
What do you mean you don't have a cat? Aren't you human?
Overheard conversation at a cat show where there were over 250 cats representing about 40 different breeds.
Cat fancier to an eight-year-old girl: “Do you have a cat?”
Eight-year-old girl: “No, but I have two guinea pigs.”
Cat fancier: “Cats and guinea pigs can get along.”
Girl: “I also have two dogs.”
Fancier: “Cats and dogs can get along.”
Girl: “I also have two birds.”
Fancier, frowning slightly: “Well, maybe sometime in the future you can have a cat.”
I wonder if Noah had the same problem.
Night available.
One per customer it read.
Sleeper of a deal.
Booker's Blog 