No time for a review today, but if you have reviewed an audiobook this week, link it up below!
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You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing by John Scalzi
Published by Subterranean Press
If you want to learn how to craft a sentence, You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop (henceforth known as You’re Not Fooling Anyone) is not the writing guide you’re looking for. If, however, you want to know what life is like as a full-time professional writer, and how to actually accomplish such a life, You’re Not Fooling Anyone is a great guide.
The essays in You’re Not Fooling Anyone are culled from Scalzi’s popular blog Whatever. Scalzi is a well-known author of science fiction, but he writes on Whatever about a broad range of topics. He has a tendency to not categorize his posts in any way, so compiling so many of his pieces on writing into one place is very helpful, because if you didn’t know exactly what you were looking for you might not find them otherwise. There is some repetition occasionally between essays, but that is to be expected as they were written to stand alone and, frankly, sometimes the same question comes up more than once.
Perhaps the most interesting and refreshing thing about You’re Not Fooling Anyone is Scalzi’s willingness to detail what he makes (well, made, this book is nearly six years old and many of the essays even older, and in the meantime he has become an increasingly prominent and – theoretically – well-paid novelist) and how he cobbles together a living from his writing. Many readers have the idea that novelists have the ability to work solely on their fiction, but for most that is not true, unless they have a partner who basically makes enough for their whole family. Most authors have to keep a day job of one kind or another, but for Scalzi that day job is freelance writing, including ad copy. Scalzi encourages would-be writers not to be romantic about the writing life. Certainly there may be some projects with which you would not want to be associated, but by and large, if it will allow you to pay the bills and you can do it, Scalzi advises that you do so. That is, if you want to be a working writer and actually pay the bills. There is practical advice on the tools to help you find paying freelance gigs (although, again, they may be slightly dated), and the timeless advice about making sure you actually get paid for said writing.
You’re Not Fooling Anyone would be a worthwhile book for writers just for the practical and forthright information and advice, but when combined with Scalzi’s distinctive and entertaining voice, it becomes a must-read.
Buy this book from:
Somewhere online, it seems to only be available as an ebook at the moment.
Source: Personal copy.
Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2013 This summer, BOOK CLUB is going serial. We’ll be reading Denise Mina’s Alex Morrow books, a mystery series set in Scotland – tartan noir.
Here are the dates and times of discussion. Titles lead to Indiebound where you can read the descriptions:
Still Midnight - June 11th – Linus’s Blanket
The End of the Wasp Season – July 9th – Devourer of Books (here!)
Gods and Beasts – August 13th – Linus’s Blanket
Twitter chat: TBD
We have ten copies of Still Midnight to give away today, courtesy of Hachette Book Group. All three books are already out so copies can be purchased or obtained through your local library. Winners of the second book will be drawn first from among those who participate in the first book discussion (whether they won the first book or obtained it on their own). If more than 10 people participate, the winners will be drawn randomly; if fewer than 10 people participate, we may hold a giveaway for the remaining copies.
In order to enter for the first book, readers with a US mailing address can fill out the form below by noon Eastern on Monday, May 20th.
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The Smart One by Jennifer Close Published by Knopf, an imprint of Random House Okay, so, I love Jennifer Close’s The Smart One. In fact, it was my Bloggers Recommend pick for April. First, a little about the book (from the publisher): Weezy Coffey’s parents had always told her she was the smart one, while [...]
So, you guys know that Lauren Graham (@theLaurenGraham) wrote a novel, right? You know, Lauren Graham, Lorelei from Gilmore Girls? (And also Parenthood which evidently is quite good but which I’ve never seen). I was really skeptical about actors writing fiction until I read Molly Ringwald’s book last fall, but now I’m ready to give [...]
Do you remember D.E.A.R? At my elementary school that meant “Drop Everything And Read,” something we typically did for 10 or 15 minutes every day. Best part of my day, really. As my TBR and Library piles are battling for supremacy and trying to sneak in around the review copies who have staked out places [...]
Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight, narrated by Kristine Hvam Published in audio by Harper Audio, published in print by Harper Books, both imprints of HarperCollins Synopsis: In the middle of a hugely important client meeting, Kate gets a call about her daughter. Amelia, always an exceptional student and a good kid, has been accused of [...]
James MacManus’s newest book, Black Venus, focuses on the poet Baudelaire and Jeanne Duval, the Haitian cabaret performer who was his lover and inspired some of his poetry. This is just the sort of historical fiction I enjoy and I’m really looking forward to getting to read it. In the mean time, I have this [...]
Call Me Zelda by Erika Robuck Published by NAL Trade, an imprint of Penguin Like Therese Fowler’s Z, Call Me Zelda is a story of the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, perhaps best known as the troubled wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, although an accomplished writer and artist in her own right. Whereas Z focuses on [...]
The Other Typist by Susanne Rindell Published by Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, an imprint of Penguin As a typist in a Prohibition-era New York police station, Rose Baker holds a certain amount of power. After all, whatever is in the reports she writes up is taken as gospel truth in prosecuting criminals. It is about as [...]