Posts

Showing posts from August, 2014

Because ... Outlander

Image
I read Outlander in 1991, just after it was published. I'd wandered into a bookstore after reading Jack Finney's Time and Again, and asked the girl behind the counter about time travel books. She'd heard great things about Outlander, so I bought it. I was just out of college then, so buying a new paperback instead of trolling the used bookstores was a big deal. My bookshelves were full of mysteries and spy novels, fantasies with dragons and white gold rings, all with beaten spines and dog-eared pages. So I took my sparkly new red paperback and I went home to read. I didn't leave the couch. I read. I didn't answer the phone. I read. I didn't eat or sleep or sometimes even breathe. I read Outlander. And then I recommended the book to anyone who would listen. Anyone looking for something to read. Never mind if they only read non-fiction, or espionage, or picture books, this book - THIS BOOK was amazing. Impeccably researched. Beautifully written. Character

Amazon / Hachette

I generally don't speak my politics out loud, especially as I live in an area of the country where my personal politics definitely don't match the vast majority of my neighbors, other parents at my childrens' schools, and even many of my friends. Political conflict just ends up being conflict, and frankly, life's too short to lose friends over their voting preference. I do, however, have strong opinions. And when I'm asked about them, well, then, all bets are off. Amazon recently sent an open letter to all the authors who publish through them, discussing the Amazon/Hachette Publishing conflict. I've been following it through the opinions of various authors I admire, and had formed my strong opinion well before I received the letter from Amazon asking for support. But since they asked... My letter to Hachette: Dear Mr. Pietsch, While I understand you’re in the business to make money for your investors and your parent company, I don’t appreciate

Inspiration

Image
I'm not particularly crafty, but I dig decoupage and mod podge is my best friend. I made an awesome chessboard once, with Elvis and Elizabeth Taylor as the black king and queen, and Martin Luther King and Queen Elizabeth as the white ones. Batman was a dark knight, of course, Elton John a white one. And so on. My collages used to be painstakingly cut and pasted from magazines and stamp collections, but with improved skills in computer paste-ups came much more efficient art. Not less time-consuming, but now I don't need to take out my contacts to make the tiny corner cuts. So, turning my collages into covers for composition notebooks was a logical step in my creative outlets. I love composition notebooks. College ruled are my favorite, though my obsession began with soft-cover graph paper books I used to buy with money I'd earned cleaning my dad's office. I was half-way through writing Marking Time when I finally designed an inspiration collage to cover the not