A Contest for Writers

To all my writing friends with WIPs (Works in Progress to my non-writing friends) I’m passing this along,Nathan Bransford – Literary Agent is holding his 2nd Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge (SUFPCx2).

Nathan’s “Rules”(he reserves the the right to be capricious, arbitrary, and whatever, he is, after all, a literary agent):

1. Please post the first paragraph of any work-in-progress in the comments section of THIS POST. The deadline for entry is THURSDAY 4pm Pacific time, at which point entries will be closed. Finalists will be announced on Friday, at which time you will exercise your democratic rights to choose a grand prize super awesome winner.

2. You may enter once, once you may enter, and enter once you may.

3. Spreading word about the contest is strongly encouraged.

4. I will be sole judge this time. Bwa ha ha.

5. A word on word count: I am not imposing a word count on the paragraphs. However, a paragraph that is too long may lose points in the judge’s eyes. Use your own discretion.

THE PRIZES:

The grand prize super awesome winner of the SUFPCx2 will win their choice of a partial critique, query critique or 15 minute phone conversation in which we can discuss topics ranging from reality TV shows to, you know, publishing. Your choice. Runners up will receive query critiques and/or other agreed-upon prizes.

I’ve already entered my WIP’s first paragraph. How about you? Are you game?

AlphaSmart Keyboard and Battery LIfe

I got a question about my AlphaSmart 2000 the other day from a writer who owned “the older AlphaSmart Pro…”  He didn’t like the action of the keys (he had to “really pound on them and half the time you have to hit them twice”) or that “every time you touch the shift key it automatically locks.”

The keys on the 2000 have a light touch (My wife says the 2000’s keyboard feels much like any other desktop keyboard) and there is a Caps Lock Key (which I manage to hit almost every time I mean to use the shift key) rather than some odd double-tap on the shift key.

My problems with the 2000 were transferring files and the lack of copy/cut/paste features. Even though the 2000 has two ports for  computer interfacing (Mac and PC), I had trouble getting anything that I’d written to download to a computer. Out of the seven (Mac and PC) computers we had, I found one–my wife’s computer–that worked with it. Now, she uses it for taking notes at meetings.  On the plus side, you can buy the 2000 for a tens of dollars on eBay.

I prefer the Dana. Which I wrote about here.

While the Dana and the Neo are more expensive and harder to find (at least on eBay), for my money, they are the better bet. AlphaSmart claims 700 hours for the Neo with three AA batteries and 24 hours for my Dana, (though it lasts days since I don’t use it 24 hours straight with the backlight on). If the Dana’s rechargeable battery gives out, three AAs will also power it. I also like AlphaWord; it’s is a decent word-processor and the interface is simple. Word files can be transferred to and fro at Rich Text Files (.rtf).

Citigroup? What About the Huddled Masses?

The discussion I hear (when bailout funding to states is mentioned) centers around infrastructure–bridges, highways, etc. What about education? California’s train wreck of a budget will crush a lot of college dreams.

Robert Reich says it much better than I can. Money quote:

Education is largely funded by state and local governments whose revenues are plummeting. As consumers cut back, state sales and income taxes are shrinking; three quarters of the states are already facing budget crises. On average, state revenues account for half of public school budgets, and most of the funding of public colleges and universities. On top of this, home values are dropping, which means local property taxes are also taking a hit. Local property taxes account for 40 percent of local school budgets.

The result: Schools are being closed, teachers laid off, after-school programs cut, so-called “noncritical” subjects like history eliminated, and tuitions hiked at state colleges.

It’s absurd. We’re bailing out every major bank to get financial capital flowing again. But we’re squeezing the main sources of our nation’s human capital. Yet America’s future competitiveness and the standard of living of our people depend largely our peoples’ skills, and our capacities to communicate and solve problems and innovate – not on our ability to borrow money.

I hope President-Elect Obama hears this.

Apparently Atlas Shrugged Because He Didn't Understand

New York magazine has posted personals ads from TheAtlasphere.com. The Atlas in Atlasphere alludes to Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s 1000 page Magnum Opus. Magnum opus is Latin for “doorstop.”

The Atlasphere’s mission is to “bring together admirers of Ayn Rand’s novels, from around the globe, to network both personally and professionally.” After all, Ayn Rand’s novels ennoble the human spirit, right? They “provide the framework for a unique moral vision…” Rrrrright.

Such as this guy’s unique moral vision:

[I am] short, stark, and mansome.

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link.

Apparently Atlas Shrugged Because He Didn’t Understand

New York magazine has posted personals ads from TheAtlasphere.com. The Atlas in Atlasphere alludes to Atlas Shrugged, Rand’s 1000 page Magnum Opus. Magnum opus is Latin for “doorstop.”

The Atlasphere’s mission is to “bring together admirers of Ayn Rand’s novels, from around the globe, to network both personally and professionally.” After all, Ayn Rand’s novels ennoble the human spirit, right? They “provide the framework for a unique moral vision…” Rrrrright.

Such as this guy’s unique moral vision:

[I am] short, stark, and mansome.

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link.

Lynne Viehl's Devil's Writing Dictionary

S. L. (Lynn) Viehl over at Paperback Writer has a nifty Devil’s Writing Dictionary. I love her definition of novel:

Novel: a rambling, proportionally disorganized fictional prose narrative of considerable length (usually 60,000 words or more) that typically possesses some semblance of a plot (unless literary, see Literature) that is presented in between sequences of pointless actions, boring speeches, and unconnected thoughts of a cast of characters who bear a striking resemblance to those individuals in real life who have pissed off the author of the work.

I’m going to start rewriting my story today.

Lynne Viehl’s Devil’s Writing Dictionary

S. L. (Lynn) Viehl over at Paperback Writer has a nifty Devil’s Writing Dictionary. I love her definition of novel:

Novel: a rambling, proportionally disorganized fictional prose narrative of considerable length (usually 60,000 words or more) that typically possesses some semblance of a plot (unless literary, see Literature) that is presented in between sequences of pointless actions, boring speeches, and unconnected thoughts of a cast of characters who bear a striking resemblance to those individuals in real life who have pissed off the author of the work.

I’m going to start rewriting my story today.