Britney Spears - The Lesbian Chronicles

Book reviews, scandals, uproar. The best kind of books are the ones which generate the most heated debate. If you were to name one person whose very name triggers heated, or hot, discussions, that would be Britney Spears. And her gold-digging ex-husband, KFed, is doing just that. He wants to publish a tell-all book about Britney's lesbian interludes. Wow! Must read.

Jimmy Carter's new mideast book has the pro Israel lobby up in arms. "Jewish groups have expressed outrage at the book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," arguing its comparison of Israel to the racist South African regime could undermine the perception of Israel's legitimacy." - Reuters

And the biggest ruckus, which is still sending out after-shocks, was raised by the ill-fated O.J. Simpson confessional. Seems the publisher, Judith Regan, was just sacked by HarperCollins. "Judith Regan's employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately," Jane Friedman, chief executive of the News Corp-owned imprint, said. "The Regan publishing programme and staff will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group."" - The Independant, UK

What's the common factor involving all three afore mentioned books? The authors writing them are celebs. If the same books had been written by some semi-famous, but respected authors or journalists or experts, they would not be generating half the noise that we see now. Which only underlines the importance of the writer, rather than the book. Wish it were not this way, but that's reality for you.

Adopt-a-Writer

First up, if anyone wants to adapt me, hit me up. I'm starving, my dog is starving and we're desperate. FYI, my dog used to blog with me, but he gave up blogging in favor of pointless, incessant barking.

"The contest will be run through the AllFreelancing forum, where freelance writers can enter by posting in the announcement thread. The writers will be narrowed down over the course of several weeks, until a winner is chosen.

The winner will be “adopted” by the Six Figure Challenge writers, who will work personally with them personally to help them set and achieve their writing goals for 2007, including helping them to improve their skills, teaching them how to break into new markets, and showing them how they can earn a higher income from their writing. The contest is targeted towards new freelance writers or those in low-paying markets who wish to break out beyond them." - www.sixfigurewriters.com

The field will be narrowed until "a" winner is chosen. Then the challenge writers will work with "them"?? Am I missing something here? How many winners are there going to be? One or more? And please don't tell me it was a typing mistake. These people are supposed to teach others how to write. Well, I suppose they could teach me how to make money by writing press releases, but I doubt the rest of it. Call me a cynic, but seems more like a money making stunt, than real altruistic intent.

This leads to something which I have been thinking of lately. Reality vs. writing.
What's the reality? That you and me are hack writers, and we'll write anything a customer wants, so long as we get paid for it. That's reality. There is absolutely no artistic element to hack writing. You optimise sentences to appeal to search engines and sell products. Is the product any good? Who gives a shit? That's reality.

And writing? See the Orhan Pamuk post. That's writing. How do you reconcile these two? Show me a site which features nothing but great writing - writing for the love of writing - and which is making money. I promise you, heart and soul, me and my dog will give up hack writing. Meantime, though, you can still adapt this writer.

Update here: As you can see in the comments to this post below, there's been some clearing of the air. On my side, I would like to stuff my hat into my mouth, hang my head in shame and apologise unreservedly for my mean and nasty nitpicking. Apologies to all parties concerned. It was wrong of me to make an accusation without cross-checking with the source. I've said before that blog writers have to behave like proper journalists, as far as possible, if they want to be taken as seriously as readers take print and MSM scribes. I forgot or ignored that rule. I wish the writers of www.sixfigurewriters.com the best in their efforts.

Freelance Jobs 16th Dec

Here's todays freelance jobs:

Flexible writing opportunity. 0.75 cents per 500 characters from www.searchsays.com. Seems genuine, though I have my doubts about whether it's going to 'take-off'. What the heck, money's money. So long as they're paying, write for em and pocket the dough. The minute they turn belly-up, move on to the next internet wannabe.

Art categorizer contractor needed for art search engine. Nice gig. If you know about the arts...Or whatever that is. Click here.

Writing about design and art. Articles for the 'Arts'. Looks like there's a baby-boomlet in the 'Arts'. Click here.

World class copy writer? Click here.
Calling magazine writers. 10 cents per word. Click me.
Transcription job. Transcript recorded audio into pdf. Click here.
Another transciption job. Click here.
Fragrance and beauty writers, reviewers, bloggers needed. Click here.
Proofreader needed. Click here.

Articles, content and blogs needed ( SEO writers ). And the subjects? The environment, recyling, and elephants. Hmm...Anyone know of a connection between these three? I mean, environment and recycling is okay. Whre does the elephant fir in? Should send him an email, just to find out. Click here.

Wanna research the life and times of an architect? $10 per hour. Click here.
Love politics, blogging and satire? Click here. Note of warning : The afore-mentioned topics never, ever end up as paying gigs. Still worth it, though.

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The Wall Street Journal ( subscription required ) has a section on "A Half-Century of Writers Thinking Out Loud"
"Why do we read author interviews? Is it not enough that a writer has told a story well, moving us or making us laugh? Must we also go snooping into his private life, interrogating him, picking over his 'stuff'..."

Yeah. Too right. Leave writers alone. BTW, the piece above in the WSJ was written by one John Freeman. He's president of the National Book Critics Circle. Has written a book or two...And this, "No hugging please" is one of his um.., famous book reviews. Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha. Sorry, Mr. Freeman. You're too juicy a target with your bloviating about leaving writers alone.

Mary Christmas

Article in OregonLive.com headlined "The Conspiracy of lesbian writers". The featured writer? Mary Christmas. C'mon. Santa's already limbering up for his annual moment of glory. It was too good to pass up.

"Is Mary Christmas really Mary McAllister, aka DJ Hotpants, and loving cohabitant to the famed Dr. Dresch? Or is she another of the queer music and club gaggle that adorn the PDX scene throwing us off with her clever pseudonym?"

You tell me. It's a fascinating mystery.

Also, this blog, for and by writers of horror stories and books, has an interview with Deborah LeBlanc, president of the Horror Writers Asociation (HWA).
"I think readers help define genres, especially genre subcategories. Take paranormal romance for example. Many romance readers prefer to stick to that particular genre and if asked, would probably say they don’t read much, if any, ‘horror.’ But somewhere between Anne Rice and Laurel K. Hamilton romance and horror mated, thus creating paranormal romance, something most readers of both genres enjoy."

Tell me about it. I could possibly write a romantic horror compilation of short stories based on my dates.

Here's another example of why it's necessary to live the story, i.e. to use the landscape of your mind, in order to put some heart and soul into your writing. Writers' block leads to Vietnam vet. What exactly is that you gain by writing about a subject without knowing squat about how it feels to be in the same situation? You live a situation, and if it's worth writing about, the book comes out.

The Hungarian writers' association is broke. Seems the Hungarian government, umm...forgot to throw out the annual scraps to keep the HWA alive. Read the sad story here.
"..the state did not pay the subsidy necessary for the association's operation until December, and did not even send a contract about it."
Tsk.Tsk. Hey! HWA - Horror writers' association. HWA - Hungarian writers' association. But judging from the sad state of affairs of Hungarian writers, it could well mean the same, huh?

Freelance Jobs 13th Dec

Been busy fiddling with the blog template. If it works in firefox, internet explorer has a problem, and if I get it working for internet explorer, firefox has fits. Why can't we all just get along together? Why does it have to be like "You're with me or against me"? Anyway, here's today's freelance jobs before this post turns into a political rant.

Need writer to publish pageant article. What the ad poster really needs is a writer cum publishing agent. Click here.
Creative copywriter needed for ad and content. Click here.
Chick-lit writer? Click here. $50 per story and $25 per review.
research and writing gig. Click here.
Tech writer? Can you write short articles, based on geeky stuff? Like the latest and ultra cool must-have gadget? Which will probably be outdated by tomorrow morning. Click here.
Research gig. Looks like a brilliant con job to screw some unsuspecting rural folks out of their money. Anyway, click here for the conjob, uh...job.

Finally. A real blogger job. Every time I see a bloggers wanted ad, I know for sure there's going to be some catch. Either it's revenue share, or pay based on performance, or some shit like that. Not this one. Pure and simple video blogging. Get paid per video blog post. Cool, huh? Click here.
Freelance magazine writer needed for article. How do I apply? Click here.
Ghost writer needed. Click here.
Another ghost writer needed. So click here too.
The Vagrant Literary Quarterly looking for submissions ( short stories ). Click here.
Copywriter extraordinaire needed. Huh? I thought the use of French was considered 'uncool' after French fries became freedom fries. Seems there's a revivalist movement going on. or maybe this giy just woke up...Click here.

In news for writers and freelancers, here's a few which caught my eye:

Womanhood, between the covers. To be honest, I didn't read the piece, but great title.
Spy writers say Litvinenko case stranger than fiction. True. True. And you ain't seen nothing yet. It's going to get a lot stranger before it starts making sense. Best to churn out a book now, while it's still nonsense...
Fox hiring freelance fact checker.
"Publication or Company: Fox News Channel
Job Requirements: Freelance Fact Writer"
Amazing what losing one election can do to alter your perception of reality, huh?

Words Without Borders

"Words Without Borders undertakes to promote international communication through translation of the world's best writing—selected and translated by a distinguished group of writers, translators, and publishing professionals—and publishing and promoting these works (or excerpts) on the web. We also serve as an advocacy organization for literature in translation, producing events that feature the work of foreign writers and connecting these writers to universities and to print and broadcast media." - www.wordswithoutborders.org

Very noble. Only one question. Do they hire translators? So I click on their search button. Turns out their search is meant for literature which they already fed through the translation machine. Has options for search based on the orginal writer, the translator, the title....Hold on. I thought I'd check up on the titles, to see if there's any famous works of art here. And this is what I get:

"I am like an offer"
"I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left"
"I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf"
"Big breasts & wide hips by Mo Yan"
"Ahem"
"Ahlem"
"Five poems"
"Four poems"

All right. All right. I'll spare you the agony. To see the full list, click here, and browse through the full list under "search by title".

Fun and games apart, they do have a point. "Today, 50% of all the books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6% are translated into English."

What this means is that the western world is living in a bubble. Struggling and talented writers in the non-english speaking world languish in obscurity despite producing magnificient literature. If you're white, female, blonde, attractive and you run away from your own wedding, that's a sure lock on a million dollar book deal.

Orhan Pamuk - My Father's Suitcase

• October 12, 2006 - Orhan Pamuk is awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature.
• December 7th 2006 - Pamuk gives his nobel lecture called Babamın vavulu ( in Turkish ) meaning My Father's Suitcase.
• Books by Orhan Pamuk - 'My Name is Red', 'Snow', 'The White Castle', 'The Black Book', 'The New Life' and 'Istanbul: Memories and the City'. Click here for the full list of Orhan Pamuk's books.

Following is an excerpt from the english translation of My Father's Suitcase by Maureen Freely.

"As you know, the question we writers are asked most often, the favourite question, is; why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write! I write because I can’t do normal work like other people. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at all of you, angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. I write because I want others, all of us, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at all of you, so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page, I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all of life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but – just as in a dream – I can’t quite get there. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy." - Hurriyet, Turkey ( Emphasis mine )

Why did I make bold that one line from a speech full of great lines from a great writer? Because Orhan Pamuk deserves another Nobel just for that one line. I'll write it again, just to seperate it from all the others. "I write not to tell a story, but to compose a story."

What does it mean? He does not write with the intention of having a finished book in his hands. He writes to enjoy and cherish the minutes and hours that he spends writing the book. That's like going out onto the water just for the joy of fishing, and not for the fish. This is why Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel. He loves writing, every minute and every second of it.