#also lots of less-published/new authors and artists which is good but can sometimes be rough. so francavilla on one of the arts was nice

[the-batacombs]

I wasn't going to read the Christmas anthology but I flipped it open and...John Stewart Green Lantern? Hellblazer? Robin!Jason? The SECRET SIX?!?

SECRET SIX IN MY DC CHRISTMAS ANTHOLOGY?!?

[backofthebookshelf]

Book Recs for Magnus Archives Fans

I was just rambling in tags the other day about how my avatarsona was "the Archivist, but a public librarian: Oh, you like dirt?? Let me tell you all the dirt stories I have!!!!" so, uh, here I am I guess.

I'm gonna spare you all the M.R. James and Algernon Blackwood and House of Leaves and Blindsight; you know all that already. These are my horror backlist recs.

The Bone Key by Sarah Monette Y'all. Y'ALL. Kyle Murchison Booth was absolutely the Archivist before Gertrude. He was poached from the Parrington by the Usher Foundation and the Eye glommed onto him at once, because the Eye loves disaster queers who can't people right (and also Gertrude). This I believe to be true, and so will you.

Kyle Murchison Booth is an archivist at the Parrington Museum, which is somewhere in New England, sometime in the early twentieth century. He also has a lifelong entanglement with the supernatural which is almost entirely not his fault, and he would very much like it to stop, but he also feels responsible and he can't just let evil mirrors and cursed necklaces and possessed dressing gowns randomly eat people who have no idea what's happening. Even if it means he's going to suffer for it.

(This collection doesn't contain all of the Booth stories, so here I am going to link to "White Charles", which happens to be my very favorite Booth story.)

For you if your favorite part is: honestly everything about MAG, from the modern sensibilities about early twentieth-century-horror, truly eerie ghost stories, to suffering eldritch librarians (thanks to whoever tagged my most recent fic with that you're so valid), monsterfucking and soft gay pining. No happy endings here, sorry.

Bedfellow by Jeremy C. Shipp You may or may not have heard that Macmillan-Tor is launching a horror imprint, and I don't know how long it's been since a major publishing house has had a horror imprint, but I am EXCITE. This book is part of the trend that's the reason why: Tor.com has been publishing these kickass novellas for a couple years now, and their horror books are top notch.

One night a stranger knocks on a family's living room window and asks to be invited in. They ask him to stay the night. He's an old friend, after all, he needs a place to stay. You can't kick out your twin brother when he's just gotten divorced, no matter how much Gatorade he spills on your two-year-old hardwood floors.

For you if your favorite part is: the Stranger, this is all Stranger, it's terrifying and good.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll A graphic novel, some of these were originally posted as webcomics (have you seen His Face All Red, and if not, why not???) and the only disadvantage to having them in book form is they can't blink at you. Probably. Very folktale-ish, with all the death and violence that implies, and also the slightly eerie feeling that you know this story already, and then it turns around and slaps you.

For you if your favorite part is: looking over your shoulder when the foley gets good; Once Upon a Time in Space (I know that's not technically part of the Magnus Archives but shush)

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle I am not usually a fan of artists who jump media. Just because you can write songs doesn't mean you can write novels. Apparently writing good songs doesn't mean you can't write good novels, though, because John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats (pretty sure that's his full name at this point) wrote Universal Harvester and I love him for it.

Jeremy works at a video rental place in Nevada, Iowa (it's pronounced Nah-vey-da, and yes it’s real, I've been there, and yes, it's probably haunted). It's the 1990s, and someone's been returning their VHS tapes with something on them that isn't just the movie. Footage that includes a barn that he recognizes, just outside of town.

Fair warning: this is not the kind of mystery that gets tied up in a nice bow at the end.

For you if your favorite part is: Jon losing it with paranoia in S2, The People's Church of the Divine Host, the Lonely

The Good House by Tananarive Due If this author's name is unfamiliar to you, RUN, do not walk, to your nearest internet bookseller and purchase every single one of her books immediately, you will not regret it. She also just came out with a documentary on black horror, Horror Noire, on the Shudder streaming service. They've got a free month if you aren't a horror movie person, it'd be worth your while. This book summary sounds like it's full of tropes. It is, but Due has the cred to write them well.

Angela Toussaint hopes to salvage her suffering marriage and her troubled relationship with her teenage son with a trip to her grandmother's house, a home so beloved the locals in small-town Washington state call it "The Good House," but tragedy strikes instead. Two years later she returns and finds that the tragedy isn't over, and it's not going to stop on its own.

For you if your favorite part is: the very practical statement-givers who know what's happening to them and Will Not Put Up With This Shit, the Desolation, the Hill Top Road statements

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins Is this horror disguised as fantasy? Found family disguised as horror? Grown-up Neil Gaiman? Less grimdark George R.R. Martin? Honestly I have no fucking idea, but it's amazing. Fair warning, unlike Magnus Archives, this deserves all kinds of trigger warnings, including but not necessarily limited to: sexual assault, torture, mental manipulation, dysfunctional families, incest(?)

Father is missing, and his twelve children (though extremely talented in their own ways, and not strictly speaking children any more) are at a loss without him. But also, without him, things are starting to seem different. He might be God? They might not be human? (They were probably human once.) He might not be God but maybe one of them might be next? If any of them survive.

For you if your favorite part is: slowly turning into a monster, the relationships between entities and avatars, monsters hot (not kidding about the trigger warnings)

The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley I have to keep reminding myself that Magnus Archives isn't really folk horror, there are two separate (if related) strains of British horror here and folk horror is not the one we're on, but at the same time I really want a good creepy rural pagan cult to show up in the series, you know? Anyway.

When he was a child, our narrator used to go with his family on an Easter pilgrimage to shrine on a bleak stretch of Lancaster coastline locals called The Loney. His Catholic mother was searching for a cure for his older brother, and she was convinced if they kept going long enough she would be granted her wish. The locals, however, are not huge fans of her annual visits, and even less so when the boys become involved with the goings-on of a pair of glamorous tourists.

For you if your favorite part is: the Lukases, I didn't realize until I was writing this up that I'm picturing Moreland House in the exact place described by this book

Eutopia by David Nickle One thing I love about the historical statements in Magnus Archives is just how truly historical they are. There's almost nothing in "The Piper" that isn't historically accurate - yes, Wilfrid Owen spent several days in a trench underneath the shredded bodies of his fellow soldiers. Like. You can't make up horror worse than that. But then you add monsters and it gets good. And I'm a sucker for early-twentieth-century history, it's such a bonkers time.

It's 1911 and the new Eugenics Record Office is sending agents out to catalog the disabled, infirm, and otherwise undesirable members of society so they can figure out what to do about them. In the utopian town of Eliada, Idaho, Dr. Andrew Waggoner runs from the racism of American society and straight into the influence of Mister Juke, the most troubling patient in his new practice. (Trigger warnings for, obviously, a whole lot of ableism. Treated like the monstrousness it is, but there's a lot of it.)

For you if your favorite part is: learning history through horror, the Flesh

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay I hate male writers writing about teenage girls, so you are going to have to trust me when I say that I had to check, several times while reading this book, to make sure that Paul Tremblay is actually a dude. He's very good. This book was kind of his breakout, so if you follow horror you've read it already, but if you don't necessarily then please do not miss it. His newer ones, Disappearance at Devil's Rock (Stranger, Spiral) and The Cabin at the End of the World (Slaughter, Extinction), are also good but not as good as this, I think.

Fourteen-year-old Marjorie is having a rough time - outbursts, hallucinations, paranoia. Treatment is difficult (and expensive) and her family ambivalent; they turn to a local Catholic priest, who recommends an exorcism and, to help manage those medical bills, a production company who's interested in filming a reality TV show about the process. Fifteen years later, Marjorie's sister deconstructs the now-famous show and wrestles with her own memories of childhood. Trigger warnings for ableism on the part of many of the characters, but not the narrative.

For you if your favorite part is: the Spiral, metafictional analysis of horror tropes

[so-shiny-so-chrome]

Witness: Owlship

Creator name (AO3): Owlship

Creator name (Tumblr): v8roadworrier

Link to creator works: https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/owlship

Q: Why the Mad Max Fandom?

A: i am still asking myself this question! something about fury road grabbed me at just the right point in my life to interest me, and the people & community i found have been just wonderful at keeping me feeling interested & connected. i love that the world presented is clearly well thought-out and cohesive, while at the same time allowing for a huge variety of explorations even while staying strictly within the bounds of canon.

Q: What do you think are some defining aspects of your work? Do you have a style? Recurrent themes?

A: well, it's pretty clear that i adore the relationship between max & furiosa, since they star in 90% of my fics, and au's are kind of my thing. i don't consciously have a style that i write in- i just try and write more-or-less what i think could reasonably happen, i suppose, and to be honest i think of my actual writing as pretty utilitarian, rather than anything with a nice artistic style. probably the most frequent recurring theme in my fics is pining leading up to a happy ending, and i like to think i flirt with miller's idea of "engage to heal" pretty frequently as well.

Q: Which of your works was the most fun to create? The most difficult? Which is your most popular? Most successful? Your favourite overall?

A: i have fun with all my fics, or else they don't get written! i'm not good at making myself do things i don't want to do, especially if the only reason to be writing fic is to have fun in the first place. most difficult would probably be "birds in last year's nest" (the omega!max fic) because i really wanted to handle the issues in it well, while the easiest to get written was "out of the bag" (cat!furiosa) despite its length because it basically just wrote itself. my most popular is definitely "around the corner" (petshop au), which has a very dear place in my heart even if it's not the most polished of my fics. my favorite is usually whichever i've published most recently :)

Q: How do you like your wasteland? Gritty? Hopeful? Campy? Soft? Why?

A: hopeful above all, with a good balance of gritty and soft, depending on the particular fic. i like to explore the realistic effects of things, but i'm also happy to gloss over the tricky details in favor of fluff. i've only written one fic with an unhappy ending so far and i don't see myself adding to that number anytime soon, and i am just not great at humor so i avoid trying to be funny.

Q: Walk us through your creative process from idea to finished product. What's your prefered environment for creating? How do you get through rough patches?

A: my writing process is simple: i get an idea (usually i steal it), i bundle myself up in bed, and then i do other things while writing a sentence or two every few hours. sometimes i get into the groove and can bash out a few thousand words in a day, other times i flounder for weeks without anything holding my interest. when i do write i always work chronologically, which means finding the actual start of the fic can take a few tries, and figuring out the end can be difficult if i haven't really filled in the details in my head yet. for rough patches i put my head down and try to force words out, but if it doesn't want to happen i just let it go and move on, unless it's for a gift, or something like nanowrimo where i want those bragging rights. i don't use written outlines or keep notes of anything, which is a bad habit but one i can't shake. if it's not important enough for me to remember, how important was it really in the first place?

Q: What is your biggest challenge as a creator?

A: right now it's finding the motivation to write when i've got other stuff going on in my life, especially on days when i am tired out even on my days off. other than that- staying focused on a project long enough to get it finished! i also struggle with juggling multiple characters especially in the same scene, making sure that everyone gets their turn and sounds authentic.

Q: How have you grown as a creator through your participation in the Mad Max Fandom? How has your work changed? Have you learned anything about yourself?

A: my writing, both in terms of technical skills and how i compose a story, has just improved leaps and bounds since i started writing fics, thanks in large part to the feedback i'm lucky enough to get, as well as the sheer volume i've been able to put out. i've definitely learned a lot about what kinds of ideas interest me to write, which is not necessarily the same things i want as a reader.

Q: Which character do you relate to the most, and how does that affect your approach to that character? Is someone else your favourite to portray? How has your understanding of these characters grown through portraying them?

A: i probably relate to max the most, or at least the version of him that lives in my head- it's easy for me to get inside his pov, but that means i have to stop myself from making *every* fic his pov! furiosa is a close runner up in terms of how much i like writing her, which is lucky because she's the other 50% of my fics, but it's a lot harder for me to get inside her head, so i have to pay attention more to what i'm doing when i write her.

Q: Do you ever self-insert, even accidentally?

A: i probably do, but not intentionally. of course i use my own experiences and feelings when writing, but i always try to translate them to the mindset of whoever i am writing. it's just been drilled into my head too many times that writing yourself as a character is not what you are supposed to do, i think.

Q: Do you have any favourite relationships to portray? What interests you about them?

A: max & furiosa, 100%. platonic, romantic, as soulmates, as enemies- i love every possible permutation of how they can interact with each other since they're so similar but still very distinct. i love how much of their relationship is unspoken but perfectly understood- or not, and how that can set up their interactions.

Q: How does your work for the fandom change how you look at the source material?

A: i pay a hell of a lot more attention to what's happening in canon, and pick apart even minor gestures or bits of speech to really drill down into the character's heads. if i was just watching the movie(s) to enjoy them, i'd stay a lot more surface level instead of analyzing details like what the interior of the war rig says about furiosa, or what's in max's kit at the beginning of the movie vs the middle, etc.

Q: Do you prefer to create in one defined chronology or do your works stand alone? Why or why not?

A: nearly all of my works are unrelated. i love coming up with little tweaks that don't really effect anything but might contradict each other (which of the wives takes on what role post-canon, how long it takes before max comes back for the first time, etc), and writing in a single series would mean i'd have to address those differences. short fluff or pwp pieces where the entire fic is just a single scene tend to share enough similarities that you could imagine they take place in the same 'verse, but to be honest, that's just me being lazy ;b

Q: To break or not to break canon? Why?

A: canon is fake and the author is dead! that said, i do actually try and stick as close to the canon facts as possible unless it's something i'm deliberately changing, because after all without canon there wouldn't be any shared understanding of the characters that makes fanfic possible. this is one of the trickiest parts about writing an au, because i have to find the right balance of familiarity to canon with what's different about each au in order to have the changes i make to the characters/setting/etc make sense to the reader.

Q: Where do you get your ideas for your AUs?

A: all sorts of places! some of them are given to me- i love prompts- others i steal from other fandoms, like bodyswap or wings or turning furiosa into a cat, some i search out via idea generators, and at this point i honestly can't watch/read any new stories without going "but how can i turn this into an au??" i also like to say "what if" almost *constantly* and sometimes that leads to full fics, other times i just make a post on tumblr with some half-baked ideas of how it could work out. what if furiosa's mother didn't die before the movie? what if max had a pet dragon? what if it started raining and didn't stop? it's honestly harder for me to write a strictly canon fic at this point :)

Q: Share some headcanons.

A: i actually don't have a ton that apply to every fic, because i like switching things up- but here's some ones taken for granted in 99.99% of my canonverse fics: furiosa lives after the end of the movie without any major complications, max comes back to the citadel at some point, furiosa has her own room with not much more than a bed, a workbench, and a window, the war boys are willing to accept the wives as the new rulers (and that the wives form a council rather than a dictatorship), and somehow the bullet farm & gastown fall into line with the citadel's new way of thinking. also, max has a sweet tooth and furiosa doesn't remember most of her dreams.

Q: What advice can you give someone who is struggling to make their own works more interesting, compelling, cohesive, etc.? 

A: something i try to keep in mind at all times is: write for yourself and not your audience. does your heart of hearts want to ship those two characters? hell yeah make 'em kiss. have a scene that is super cliche or over the top but you can't stop thinking about? write it! your stories need to be interesting to you first and foremost, because a reader absolutely can sniff out the difference between a scene you thought would be "good" and one you had fun with. you can always edit later to shape your fic into a different direction if you feel like you need to.

Q: Have you visited or do you plan to visit Australia, Wasteland Weekend, or other Mad Max place?

A: i've been to wasteland weekend twice now and hope to visit many more times in the future! it's a super fun experience in general, and it's also helped me get a feel for what a mad max world would really be like, rather than just relying on my imagination. i'd love to visit australia some day, both for mad max and other reasons, but ideally not while there's an apocalypse going on.

Q: Tell us about a current WIP or planned project.

A: *throws dart at gdocs* let's see.... i've got a fic started where furiosa is a viking, and after a raid gone wrong she ends up injured at max's farm where she has to learn the language and customs and come to terms with being his slave (until they fall in love, obviously). haven't worked on that one since july but hey, it's not going anywhere.

Thank you @v8roadworrier

[sol1056]

I've just read that word of god post you've reblogged and i agree that if it's not in the canon then it's not in the story. but what is the canon exactly? if we take vld as an example, can the extra materials like the guide books or interviews be considered canon when they give us information that is never talked about in the source material, that is in the show itself?

Canon, at its simplest, is “what the community consider the official record.” Its ‘things recognized as authentic,’ and by extension also ‘a standard by which something is judged [as genuine]’. Frex, to say ‘this album is modern jazz’ requires comparing the music to the modern jazz canon. 

For fiction, canon applies the idea of an ‘official record’ to the story itself. The purpose is to delineate the ‘actual’ (genuine) story, and the standards by which new stories (sequels, spin-offs, etc) become canon. The common standards tend to be: who created it and/or was involved, form of distribution (ie official channels), and how widespread it was. Frex, a song played once in a small club in Chicago and never recorded would probably not be considered part of the ‘canon’ of modern jazz (that is, would not be used as the ‘standard’ by which newer works could be judged, because the work is too obscure). 

That brings us to the next level (and often the most fiercely debated): which texts are deuterocanonical. It’s a fifty-cent word but it’s exactly the word we need, here. It means ‘secondary canon’ and it’s texts that could be canon but fell short by some measure. Different author (or ghostwritten), written years later or years earlier, retcons everything, completely different story but with cameo of canon character, and so on. 

Adaptations are often deuterocanonical: a book to a movie, a movie to a TV series, a TV series to graphic novels. Each media has different storytelling conventions, so the story changes, and if you were a fan of the ‘real’ story, you might see the adaptation as just a shade too different. Plenty of fans of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga see the first anime (which diverged wildly) as a secondary canon — interesting, but not crucial; fewer say the same of the second anime, which was much more faithful.  

Continuations also tend to be deuterocanonical, especially when the media changes. If your intro to a fandom includes the warning that everyone ignores a certain continuation, sequel, or spin-off, the community may have decided the later works are a secondary canon. This dismissal comes with the usual flamewars, at least until the fandom agrees to disagree.  

Best criteria is whether parallel or subsequent stories impact or develop the ‘main’ story. Agents of SHIELD is a spin-off of the Avengers movie series, and it pivots mid-story due to movie events. The TV show may be deuterocanonical for movie fans, but the movies are canonical for TV show fans, because those stories have significant impact on the events in the TV show’s storyline.

And then we get to words about the story: meta. Tolkien’s estate has published his drafts and notes; these books satisfy canon per authenticity (written by Tolkien), and stamped as official by the estate. You don’t have to read every rough draft to get the final version, so Tolkien’s notes aren’t really primary canon, but they probably would be considered deuterocanonical. 

The same doesn’t apply when it’s just anyone writing meta, even a published Field Guide or Annotated Glossary — a fancier and footnoted version of the same kind of meta fans have always written on their favorite works. No matter how well-researched, that third-party meta is not canon, no matter who wrote it or where it was published.  

And then we get to word-of-god, however it’s relayed (panel quotes, interviews, tweets, blog posts, etc). Word-of-god, like handbooks and marketing material, are not the story; it’s talk about the story. It’s meta, and as such it can never be more than – at best – secondary canon, and even then under limited circumstances. 

The next thing to consider in word-of-god is: who’s the god, here? It’s easy enough with Tolkien, Rowling, Kipling, Austin, any one-author work where one voice did the bulk of shaping the ideas and words and story. It’s another matter when we get into multi-creator, collaborative stories like movies, television shows, even stage plays or dance where the work passes through multiple hands on the way to becoming a final product. 

If the actor chose to read those lines as though the character were in love, that has an impact on your experience of the story. Is it enough of an impact? Does that make the actor right to say, “this character is in love”? Does the actor have that authority? Or an executive producer who didn’t write the script, direct the episode, voice any of the lines, storyboard any scenes, or animate any frames? How do we measure the contribution of ‘enabling others to create’ to determine whether word-of-god applies? What about a story editor whose outline was informed entirely by exec notes? Can we say the writer of a particular episode even has word-of-god authority, if every line was altered by the actors to a smaller or larger degree? 

Beyond that — and this applies from one-author texts up to multi-season series with a production staff in the hundreds — we cannot assume the author (if there is a single identifiable hand in the story) actually knows the story they’ve written. We writers can tell you what we meant to write, and what we wanted to write, but what we ended up with isn’t always where we’d planned to be. Hell, sometimes we don’t see the themes until a long time after the work is written, the same way we don’t always see where the story’s failed on other counts (representation, gender, cliches, plot holes, etc). 

I could add a lot of words, but here I’m just going to quote some of TV Tropes at you, since the entry does a good job of covering all the bases. 

A number of people reject [word-of-god]… If the creator had wanted a certain fact to be canon, the thinking goes, they should have included it in the work to begin with. [Others] go even further, considering the uncertainty and ambiguity of canon to be a good thing… Wimsatt and Beardsley’s “The Intentional Fallacy” and Barthes’ Death of the Author essay both argue that the interpretation of a work cannot be limited to attempts to discern the “author’s intentions.”

Another thorny issue is … collaborators may not actually agree with interpretations of their story that weren’t made explicit in the work. This is especially likely if they no longer work together, and particularly if they had a real-life falling out. In this case, there are multiple “Gods” given potentially contradictory explanations, so whose word is to be considered correct?

If a story requires the author pop up to explain each scene in some nightmarish reverse-MST3K scenario, then the story has failed. Point blank, full stop, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. The story has failed. 

But let’s pretend the story is fine, and you just can’t take lying awake at night wondering about that damn watermelon. There’s a place and time for creator explanations; easter eggs (like in-jokes and homages) definitely count, and can be a lot of fun. There’s nothing wrong with word-of-god, after all, so long as it’s taken in moderation. In the end, it’s just a slightly more knowledgeable voice, but never let it drown out your voice or your experience. 

Ultimately, this incessant emphasis on word-of-god has two sources. 

One is the current penchant for throwing wild swerves as a way to combat audience boredom. These get called ‘plot twists’ but in the hands of less-skilled creators, they’re just cheap shocks. Pushed too far, they’ll break the story. Groundwork and foreshadowing are left off the page or screen for fear the audience will ‘figure it out’ too soon, and the result is an audience struggling to make sense of the quagmire. Word-of-god doesn’t fix the story, but it can at least provide closure. You know why the watermelon was there, and you can move on to obsess about something else. 

The other source is our immediate and seeming direct access to a lot of creators: writers, directors, storyboard artists, voice actors, producers, all up and down the line. We could sit down and think hard about the story (if the story isn’t so broken that’s moot, at least), or we could just tweet or blog or tag a creator and ask. Or hope someone asks our question at a panel, or a podcast, or some other interview. Why bother with meta, when you can get a slightly more-informed meta from someone who looks like an authority? 

Hey, authors have been getting questions from readers since Lady Murasaki sat down to write. No, the real issue are creators who’ve come to crave (and encourage) the audience asking how to interpret the story. It’s a pretty heady thing, getting that kind of attention, and it can get away from you really fast. What began as a simple question about indestructible fruit becomes an ongoing interpretative dance by the author on behalf of the work. 

It’s flattering to have the audience clamoring for your words, but… it’s not about you, as the creator. It’s about the story. A creator needs to step back and let the story do the talking. The sooner some creators remember that, the sooner some fandoms will calm the fsck down. 

Primary or secondary canon, word-of-god or radio silence; in the end, the story’s got to stand on its own. If it can’t do that, no amount of explanation in the world will prop the story back up again. 

[chipotle]

A brief chat about Chuck Wendig, the Internet Archive, and bad information spread in good faith

Because I’ve got a bug up my butt about this again, let’s briefly dig into a social media myth that Will Not Die:

“Chuck Wendig is suing the Internet Archive!”

No. No, he is not.

There are two important bits of background here.

First, the Internet Archive. If you know them, you probably know them because of the “Wayback Machine” that archives millions of web sites. They do a lot of other archive-ish stuff, though, including collecting and scanning books. A while ago, they decided to create a digital “library” of those books: anyone could “check out” as many copies of those books at one time as the IA had physical copies of. This is more or less the way digital lending works from your local library: they pay for, say, three copies of a given ebook title, and now three library users can “check out” that book at once.

Well, that’s the “more” part of “more or less”; the “less” part is that the IA was doing that with physical books and technically lending digital copies is not the same thing under copyright law. Even so, publishers mostly looked the other way.

Until.

At the start of the Great Pandemic, the IA decided they were now running the “National Emergency Library” and lifted the per-copy limit. If they had ten copies or a book or two or one, it didn’t matter, however many people wanted to check out a copy at once could. And the IA sent out press releases about this. They wanted everybody to know!

I’m not going to argue about the ethics of modern copyright law, but as a legal matter, this is not a gray area, kids. It just isn’t. The Internet Archive was all but sending out notarized letters to publishers saying “we dare you jerky jerks to come after us with everything you’ve got,” and golly gee, they got sued by the Authors’ Guild and several publishers. Who could possibly have predicted that outcome other than, you know, fucking everyone.

You will notice, perhaps, that the IA was not sued by individual authors over this. They were sued by publishers and a writing guild.

Second, Chuck Wendig. Wendig is a science fiction, horror-ish author who runs a popular blog and has a freewheeling, gonzo, over-the-top style—I’d argue more in his non-fiction than his fiction—that, well, you could call polarizing. (I enjoy it, most of the time, but I could see how many might be driven far away at high speed.) He also wrote a couple Star Wars novels, famously introducing the saga’s first major gay character in Star Wars: Aftermath.

And this was not popular with a predictable loud subset of reactionary fans, who carried a hate-on for Wendig that culminated in the trolls getting him fired from Marvel’s “Shadow of Vader” comic book, ostensibly because of his “vulgarity” in expressing what Quartz calls, with delightful understatement, “his unabashedly left-wing political views.”

So if Wendig didn’t sue the IA over the Emergency Library, how did he get involved in all this?

Well, he called it a “pirate site,” which he pretty quickly apologized for, but also wrote a much longer statement on the subject.

The problem with bypassing copyright and disrupting the chain of royalties that lead from books to authors is that it endangers our ability to continue to produce art—and though we are all in the midst of a crisis, most artists are on the razor’s edge in terms of being able to support themselves. Artists get no safety net. We don’t get unemployment and aren’t likely to be able to participate in any worker bailouts. Health insurance alone is a gutpunch cost, not to mention the healthcare costs that insurance wouldn’t even cover. I’m lucky enough (currently, at least), that I can weather a bit of that storm more easily, but most can’t, particularly young authors, debut authors, and marginalized authors who are already fighting for a seat at the table. I’m also not alone in calling this site out—others like Alexander Chee, NK Jemisin, Neil Gaiman, and Seanan McGuire have noted their concerns over this.

I am all for access to information and entertainment, and remind folks that libraries here already allow you to take out e-books, even while their brick-and-mortar locations are closed. I used to work for a library system here in Pennsylvania, and libraries all around the country deserve their time to shine in this crisis, as we realize what vital institutions they are, both intellectually and as a service to the community.

Come on, how could anyone read that and, in anything even approaching good faith, take major offense at it? This is empathetic to authors and libraries. Yes, it’s (gasp) making a claim that copyright does have value, and maybe you don’t see that. But I hope you at least see why a lot of authors feel they should be the ones to make the choice about how their books get distributed. I’m not against giving my own work away for free, but I am against you telling me that you’re going to give my work away for free and I have no choice in the matter.

In fact, I don’t think the people who started this “Wendig sues the IA, film at 11” bullshit did so in good faith. I think many people spreading it are doing it in good faith, but bluntly, I think they’re being used by trolls relying on it being way easier to click “like” or “retweet” than to do fact-checking. (Frankly, I despair at how often I see left-leaning friends gleefully retweeting the most dubious shit that confirms their biases, but that’s a bridge I won’t burn today.)

While this whole nonsense is months old, I’m seeing another new thread floating around today fisking an older book of writing advice from Wendig, inviting us all to mock how weird and bad his writing is and how awful his advice must be and oh yes remember he sued the Internet Archive!, and I’m out of patience nuggets for this one. If that’s your image of Chuck Wendig and what he’s like and what he writes, let me offer a different one, from “Follow the River, No Matter Its Rapids, No Matter Its Turns“:

It’s a lot right now.

I think if we can agree on anything, anything at all between us, it’s that everything is a whole lot. It’s too much. If you’re not screaming into a couch cushion soaked with gin right now, who even are you?

But here’s what I’m thinking.

I’m thinking all of this is a river. It’s a dark, fast river. It crawls serpentine through the earth, through the forests. Sometimes it moves slow, other times it’s all rapids. Sometimes it is eerily serene, and sometimes it’s rough enough to knock your teeth into your knees and draw blood. It’s waterfalls and eddies, it’s deep and it’s cold. Like all rivers, it can soothe you, and it can betray you.

This river, the river we’re in and on now—it’s harder, meaner, a river after a flood, a river whose waters are not sated, who will not abate. It’s mudded up and frothing like the muzzle of a rabid wolf.

You can fight against that river.

We often do, in writing. We often go against our own moods, against the news of the world, against bad reviews and against poisoned thinking. Our work is often an act of anchoring our boots against the soft slick weeds and the water-smoothed stones and move against the current.

Upstream, stories can be born.

Sometimes, though, I think you gotta do the other thing.

Sometimes, you go the other way.

You go with the flow.

You run with the river, not against it.

And what that means, practically speaking, is you let it happen. What you’re feeling, what you’re seeing, sometimes those elements demand to be seen in the work. Sometimes the river is the channel that feeds the narrative sea, and that means you need to put it in there, out there, all over it. You don’t escape. You confront. You ride the turns, you rough out the rapids, you take all your fear and your anger and your confusion and you put it on the page. And not even in a way of trying to write something that’s marketable or sellable—but just trying to speak honestly about who you are, about the world in which we’re living, and about your grappling with all of it. It’s not even about writing a cogent book or a collective piece. It can be about taking the time to punch that keyboard and scream onto the page—if only to clear the water and find time to climb back onto shore to write something else. It can be the thing you’re writing, or it can be a way to get to the thing you’re writing.

I don’t mean to suggest this as good “advice��—it’s certainly no requirement. You have to do what feels best and right—and, further, what feels most productive in the direction you need to be going. I’m only saying that, if it’s that much of a slog, if the slow churning march upriver and against the current feels like you’re fighting too hard and losing to the pressure, turn around and go the other way. Sometimes we want to, even need to, write about what’s going on inside our heads and our hearts. Sometimes we can’t ignore the room on fire. Sometimes we can’t get out of the river or go against it. And in those cases, let the waters take you. Write what needs to be written. Write what the river tells you to write. Follow the water, and see where you go.

You may still hate that writing, but if you do, who even are you?

[inkshares]

A Q&A with cover designer M. S. Corley

Last July we brought book production in house. As part of that, we knew that we needed to hire and work with the best editors and designers around. Over the next few months we’ll be introducing you to some of these amazing people. We want to kick that set of introductions off today with Mike S. Corley.

Mike is known for his powerful, evocative covers. He’s done work for bestselling authors like Hugh Howey and Paolo Bacigalupi, and he’s worked on everything from novels to comic books to concept art for videogames. He’s designed covers for some of the biggest publishers, like Simon & Schuster, Houghton Mifflin, and Random House.

Currently, he’s designing Matt Harry’s Sorcery for Beginners (publishing this October from Inkshares with the official cover reveal on Wednesday). He’s also the mastermind behind the gorgeous covers for other Inkshares titles like A God in the Shed and Rune of the Apprentice.

Mike recently spoke with us about reinventing Harry Potter covers, the pleasures of reading Murakami in the summertime, and his thoughts on what makes a great book cover.

Mike, we’ve heard you have a really interesting story about how you broke into the business. Can you tell the Inkshares community a bit about it?

Back in 2008, I was working at a merchandising agency and wasn’t really enjoying the work I was doing. It was easy and comfortable but not very fulfilling. So one night after work when I would normally work on my own personal projects, I was thinking about what I would do if I could have any art job. I’ve always been a bibliophile, so I figured if I could do anything, it would be designing book covers.

There was a trend at the time of redesigning things in old-fashioned, minimalist art styles. People were doing movies as books and videogames as books and posting them on the internet. So I thought, well I don’t wanna just copy them and try to make more movies or video game covers: why not just do books as books, go back and apply the same design aesthetic?

The first ones I tried my hand at were the Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. I worked it out in the old Penguin Marber Grid style of covers they had in the 60s.

I worked on Harry Potter next and started posting the covers online. I struck a chord with a lot of folks on the internet when I put my HP covers up and things escalated quickly with those covers specifically. I was going to make prints because there was a huge demand at the time, but then Warner Bros. lawyers came flying outta nowhere and shut me down quick. It was surreal that I would be contacted by a HP lawyer saying, “you can’t make this art and sell it” as they slowly cracked their knuckles into the phone quite menacingly. So of course I stopped any progress on producing those covers. Luckily they were already out in the wild and about a week later I got my first cover job from someone who saw them and wanted me to do something similar for them.

From then on I got about one book cover request a month for the rest of the year and it slowly increased. I would do my normal job during the day and work on covers at night when the jobs came in.  In 2009 I quit my corporate job and went full time on covers because the timing seemed to be right, and I was young and stupid enough to take the risk without much damage to my current life. I figured I’d give it a go for a couple of months and if it didn’t work I could always go back to a design firm and get a “grown up” job again. Luckily that never happened.  

Wow, that’s a hell of a story. You should publish that as a book on Inkshares, and we’ll make the cover. Kidding. What were your favorite books of 2016? And which books are currently on your nightstand?  

I read a lot less last year than I would have liked, but a few standouts for me were:

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. I have a tradition to read a couple of his books every summer during the months of May-August.This year my Murakami summer read will be 1Q84. He is the best. Makes me feel super melancholy and nostalgic for things I don’t even know.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I love the Frankenstein monster and the old Universal monster movies in particular, but I’ve never read the original novel, so I made that a goal for last year. I read an oversized version illustrated by Bernie Wrightson which really added to the story.

The Valancourt Book of Christmas Ghost Stories from Valancourt Books. I love reading ghost-story collections around Christmas time. There is something fantastic about sitting by the fire, drinking some Winter Cheer (look it up) on a cold winter night. I’ve read so many collections it seems that everyone just repeats the same ‘greatest hits’ in the ghost-story genre, but this book was all new to me.

On my nightstand I currently have The Vile Village, Book 7 in the Series of Unfortunate Events. I started re-reading them in January because of the new Netflix show coming out. I wanted a refresher, and they still are fantastic. I also just started The Pilgrim's Progress. I’ve read abridged versions before, but this is the first time I’ll read the original text which I’m looking forward to.

What was your favorite cover of last year? No choosing your own covers!

Hah, I wouldn’t choose my own covers. I’m one of those artists that never enjoys looking at work after it’s done, I’ve seen how the sausage got made so I’ve no interest in ogling at it beyond the creation itself.

I don’t know the designer off hand but one cover I really enjoyed was I Am for You by Mieko Ouchi. Beautiful and simple. I love images that are one thing at quick glance and then on closer inspection they reveal another.

Another would be Onibi, a French graphic novel by Atelier Sento. I really love the art style and the book, which I own but can’t read because I don’t know French beyond fries.

If you could live a day in the life of a character from any book who would it be?

Thomas Carnacki from William Hope Hodgson’s short stories on the character. He is the epitome of what I would like to do as a life job (besides art) and just has the perfect amount of confidence and scaredy-pants-ness as a guy I can relate the most to, who can still be cool.

What is your favorite part of the job? What’s the hardest?

Getting paid! Har har. No my favorite part is doing the concepts. I read pitches then I go through a little routine of prepping for a new book. I’ll gather some reference images that feel like a style I think matches the book, and I go for a run or have a long shower (that’s where my ideas come to me for whatever reason). Then I sit down for a day or a few and just work out every angle I can take the book with a number of concepts until I either think I hit the right one, run out of ideas, or run out of time. Sometimes I get art blocks during the concept phase and mope to my wife about how I’m a terrible designer and maybe I used up all my ideas on the last book. Then I’ll start the process over, run more, shower more, a literal rinse and repeat.

You forgot the “lather” part! What was the most challenging book you’ve ever worked on? What made it challenging?

There was this one indie-author book that I got a few years into doing freelance. They found me because of the Harry Potter covers. They detailed the book idea they had, even had a rough sketch and said “just make this in your style,” so I made just that in my style. They said “this is good, but was it too good?” They asked if I could make it look worse, of course not that specifically but very nearly. I went through round after round breaking it down till it was literally (not figuratively) their sketch in the end, and then they weren’t happy and said “okay how about you do it the way you’d like it.” And then I put my hands up in the air and said I’m probably not the right guy for the job. That was a playful retelling and this was drawn out over many months. It was very surreal, sad, and frustrating. It’s over though, so I can look back and laugh a bit about it.

*cries softly*

It felt a bit like McSweeney’s “Client Feedback on the Creation of the Earth.”

In your opinion, what makes a great book cover? Are there rules that for you across genre?

I don’t think that can be pinned down in words exactly. It’s very easy to see a terrible book cover and point out why it’s bad. Wrong font, bad images, weird layout, etc. But often a good cover, for me at least, is more of just a gut feeling. You know it when you see it, and you can try to break down why this part works or that part works but sometimes it doesn’t make sense at all. Sometimes rules are broken that shouldn’t be broken in design and it just works. Sometimes it’s how the title plays with the images. Sometimes it’s just the colors, or just the images. Sometimes it’s just great because art is relative and you think it’s a great cover when it actually isn’t...  

I see a lot of publishers point to other comp covers out there and say “That cover is great, make that cover, but not..” and I can do the exact same thing that we see on the referenced cover but it won’t work for this other book for various reasons. Sometimes things just work with one book and don’t with another.

So for me, I have a certain taste in covers, and I realize my likes on art in general don’t match everyone’s tastes, but if I can be paired up with people where we mesh, then we are able to create great things. Or maybe they’re not! Depends on who’s looking at it.

Unless it’s our mothers looking at it, then of course it’s great.

You’ve had a lot of success, but you’re still young. Who are your favorite covers designers from the older generation?

Oh gosh, I don’t even have an answer there. The older generation? I may only be in my 30s, but I feel like the old generation already. Often times, and criminally, I don’t know who most cover designers are. It isn’t prominently posted anywhere especially with books from the olden days. There are lots of vintage books I own with just beautiful hardcover designs and I haven’t a clue who created them. Things are changing a bit now which is good, with social media artists are posting their own covers and often even publishers will link to the artist so it’s becoming a lot more known who did what. But I don’t have any good names to give. Saul Bass?  

What was your favorite cover as a child?

Calvin and Hobbes collection covers. Those were the best.

If you could go back in time and design any book’s cover, what would it be and what would it look like?  

I would love love love to go back and design the Harry P—just kidding. I would actually love to have been able to design the Lemony Snicket series. I’m not sure I could have done better than the original covers— Brett Helquist’s art is Lemony in my mind. But that series means so much to me and changed my view on books as a whole in a lot of ways, so getting to design them if only to take part in that series in a more concrete form than just being a fan would have really buttered my bread.

[t80annie]

Photo editing software for photo collage

Edit a photo made easy with the good latest image editor

Understanding your shutter rate means the distinction between taking a sharp photo as well as a blurred picture. My wish was a easy image editor for Windows 10 for edit a picture. If you are photo shooting a showing off event or kids running about in the yard, you most likely want your based on be in focus. On the opposite end of the scale, you might intend to capture the lengthy streaks of cars and truck's tail lights running via your shot. Sometimes it's very easy to provide your pictures more life. If you're photo shooting a road scene in the city, you can time it to obtain individuals strolling by, talking, giggling or otherwise going concerning their day. For various other shots, you'll require to obtain innovative. Possibly as opposed to taking an image of your pal sitting at a bar table grinning, you photograph them as they're taking a sip of juice. This is still something you can exist, yet it looks additional genuine. Frequently it is simple to offer your photos more life. In specific nations if you photo someone you are not supposed to photo, it can get rough as well as ugly really promptly if you are not mindful. These are all presented pictures as well as they are looking down the lens. I restrict myself to grinning, drinking hands, offering hi-five and also revealing them the photo on the back of my video camera once it is done.

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It's a bad behavior professional photographers can establish. Over and over again I see digital photographers take a photo and afterwards check out the back of the screen quickly. By doing that you might miss all the unique minutes. You can take a look at your photos later. You can miss out on the shot as well as it impacts the flow of your job, so simply keep capturing! Typically the difference in between a great photo along with a wonderful photo is the editing and enhancing as well as improving. Improve pictures made easy with the powerful brand-new image editor for beginners and experts with a lot of helpful options. A little modifying can remedy little concerns and also increase a photo's optimal facets. Lighting, strength, and also contrast are all facets you can change in your customizing program of selection. There are expert software, nonetheless there are furthermore rather a number of less complicated as well as a lot even more cost-effective selections available. Whichever software you choose, invest a long time getting comfy with it to ensure that you acknowledge just exactly how to utilize all its attributes. This tool is a brand-new image editor with a ton of awesome functions for fast and easy photo editing. The software has many useful features like photo collage, changing the contrast of a photo or crop photos that make it possible to edit pictures from your friend. When beginning out with photography was actually just how to patch up my photos, one issue I handled. Possibly a photo was actually quite darker, perhaps it needed to have to be switched or cropped. Digital photos normally demand some kind of command before final result. A further practical usage of picture manipulation is several times the artistic amend of a picture.

Image editor for PC and photo editor program to edit image or insert objects into another photo

As I was searching the internet for a purposeful image editor, I finally tripped over this really great one

This image editor for edit a picture includes very much effects such as photo collage, change the brightness of pictures and cut photos which make it possible to correct pictures from your city trip. Listed here is a quick overview which I've produced to support you patch up your photographs. It is actually an exceptional tool that authorizations you to acquire specialist photo impacts making use of basic, easy-to-follow activities. You might furthermore want to inspection my news of the best amateur photo publishers for Windows. If you are actually taking pictures of people, opportunities are you may have actually taken a photo along with red-eye problems. This is promptly eliminated image customizing computer program application. If you have actually taken a picture in a wrong alignment, it's easily corrected little reduction in top quality through utilizing a switch device. This tool is a new image editor with a ton of helpful functions for rapid and simple photo manipulation. You'll additionally want to perform some trimming of your photo to remove turbulent atmospheres that draw focus out of your topic. You may produce the leaves violet, improvement the whole photograph to white and black, include a colorize outcome virtually everything you desire. An exceptional photo editing program is going to possess automated color harmony choices to adjust shade troubles in your pictures. Usually I such as to add a masking influence to my pictures. When I deal with a image editor for edit a photo, for instance effect brush or automatic aligning, I normally collaborate with top image editor. What you may do listed above is actually to selection locations of the photograph which are insignificant and blur all of them out. Developing the image is the upcoming step in the photo patch up procedure. Opposite to common idea, you cannot really polish an out of focus image. What I normally perform when honing a photo is actually to precisely develop. That is, I opt for an aspect of the picture, probably a personal's eyes as well as hone just that place. Leave inconsequential places unsharpened. Depending upon your requirements, you might wish to resize your image. If you are actually emailing a photograph to a buddy, you'll desire to resize the graphic to a smaller sized dimension. Use the large TIFF picture style if you wish to preserve all relevant information for coming photo customizing. Alternatively, you can easily make use of the JPEG picture format if you dream to just deliver the picture with e-mail or even publish them to your internet site. This kind of image editor for edit an image supports very much image editing effects like modify pictures, change the contrast in photos and crop photo that make it easy to edit shootings from your party.

Some photographers are frequently searching for the best image editor to edit photos, but every person has to know for themselves which is the best image editor for Computer

Technical words for photo editing features are photo montage, print a picture or add text etc. When I collaborate with a image editor for edit pictures, such as concentrated impacts or radial stretch, I all the time take uncomplicated image editor. Right now you comprehend the method to touching up and readying your pictures for result. If I operate with a image editor for edit a picture, like masks impacts or insert very own cliparts, I regularly deal with easy to use image editor. Do not be worried to practice and uncover - practice creates best when it comes to repairing your images. Improve photos made easy with the helpful unique image editor for beginners and experts with many great settings. It is in fact an outstanding unit that produces it achievable for you to secure expert photograph results utilizing direct, simple to follow actions.

[valeriebielbooks]

Interview with author Liz Czukas (aka Ellie Cahill)

I absolutely loved I Temporarily Do by Ellie Cahill (the not-so-secret pen name of author Liz Czukas). It all starts with a marriage of convenience between two wonderfully written and believable characters who don't mean to fall in love. They really don't! And I'm not giving away anything here--this is a romance novel after all. Of course, they fall in love. But what happens next is what makes the story so delicious. I just love a story that makes me laugh out loud. I was so glad to learn there that this is the first book in Cahill's Cordially Invited duo. Can't wait for the next installment.

About the book: A little white lie. A little white wedding. A pair of roommates in over their heads.

Days before she's set to move across the country and start a prestigious graduate program, a con artist leaves Emmy with no where to live and less than zero dollars in her bank account. But her day doesn't seem quite so bad compared to Beckett's--his fiancée called off their wedding just days before they tie the knot. Now he's single and ineligible for his place in married student housing.

So what are a girl without a home and a guy without a wife supposed to do? A quickie wedding in Vegas will solve both their problems. It's a business arrangement, and no one even needs to know. They'll just get an annulment in a few months. What could go wrong? Only Beckett forgot to mention his new apartment is a one-bedroom. And neither of them counted on their new friends at Middlesex University thinking they're a great couple. The platonic newlywed game might be harder to play than Emmy thought. Especially when it starts to feel less than platonic.

To Purchase:   Kindle   Paperback

I'm so glad Liz agreed to let me pepper her with questions here today, because she's really busy writinggreat stories for us!

Can you tell us about the different jobs you’ve had other than writing? I always like to ask authors this, mainly because authors always seem to have had so many different careers and often an interesting job history.

Before I was published, I was a Labor & Delivery nurse for 9 years! I have a master's degree in Nurse-Midwifery as well, although I never practiced as a midwife. But I only went to nursing school after I realized that my undergrad degree in History and Anthropology wasn't exactly a hot commodity on the job market! Writing is by far my favorite job.

How long have you been writing and how long ago did you publish your first book?

I've been writing as long as I can remember. Terrible stories as a kid, novels, short stories, non-fiction for a health information website, fan fiction...you name it. I wrote it. My first book didn't come out until 2014, but it definitely wasn't the first book I wrote!

If there’s anything that you could go back and tell your ‘unpublished’ self, what would that be?

Patience is a virtue. It can feel very "do or die" in publishing, but the truth is, humans have been making and reading books since we figured out how to communicate. Stories aren't going anywhere, so it's okay to take your time, and it's okay if publishers don't like your first offering.

Is there anyone/anything you would consider the most inspirational or influential in your success as a writer and why?

My senior year English teacher told me that I was a good writer. In fact, he told me he'd give me my money back if I didn't get a 5 on the AP English test. I got the 5 so he got to keep his money. But the things he taught me about reading and writing stuck with me. I dedicated to my first book to him (and my other high school English teachers, actually, because they all had an influence on me in one way or another.)

As you can see from my review above, that I loved “I Temporarily Do”, which you wrote as Ellie Cahill. I know that you also write books under your real name—Liz Czukas. Can you tell us a little bit about how your pen name came to be and how the books you author as Liz Czukas differ from each other?

First of all, thank you so much! I'm glad you loved it. I was first published as Liz Czukas. All my books under that name are YA, intended for teen readers. When I got an offer on my first adult-oriented book "When Joss Met Matt", my publisher wanted me to have a separate identity so readers would know what they were getting. Thus, Ellie Cahill was born. It's handy having a name like Elizabeth, because there are so many good nicknames to use for author personas. And as for Cahill, I wanted something people could actually pronounce!! (Incidentally, Czukas is pronounced CHEW-kiss, or two fun things to do with your mouth.) Although I have a lot of cross-over readers, there are definitely people who prefer one type of book over the other. If you are someone who reads multiple genres, I think it's safe to say that if you like one of my books, you'll like the rest. I'm all about the fun, romantic-comedy feeling in both YA and adult.

Can you please explain the difference between the Young Adult (YA) and New Adult (NA) genres? (I still find people who don’t know that the new adult genre exists.)

New Adult is basically a fancy title for books about people who aren't teenagers, but aren't living the responsible lives of "grown-ups" yet. It can be about college students, or people in the military, or athletes...anyone who is still kind of figuring out who they want to be as adults.

Can you tell us a little bit about how your ideas develop as a writer? Do you have a clear vision of the main characters from the beginning? Do you outline?

Every project is a little different for me. Sometimes the idea for a character comes first. Sometimes just the spark of an idea. Some ideas start as sparks, but can't go anywhere until I combine them with other ideas or characters. I'm not a full outliner. I am a planner, though. I write out a 1-3 page synopsis that gives me a rough plan for where I want to go with my story.

As a writer of middle-grade/young-adult stories, I often get asked why I write stories for this age group. What appeals to you about writing for the young adult and new adult age groups.

I like writing for these age groups because the characters still have so much to learn. They haven't become set in their ways, or bogged down by the drudgery of adulting, like paying mortgages and grocery shopping. Instead, they still have the chance to learn about new things, and who they want to be. They're open to new ideas and possibility. Plus, the intensity of relationships is so strong at these ages. First love, first kisses, first heartbreaks. So much more juicy than later in life.

Of all the books you’ve written (and there have been quite a few) do you have a favorite or is that rather like asking a parent which child is their favorite?

Ha! Definitely like asking my favorite child. I like them all for different reasons. Some, like Ask Again Later, were so much fun to write because of the structure. Others have characters that I practically feel like old friends, like "When Joss Met Matt". Some have favorite scenes or lines of dialogue. That's the joy of writing a lot--there's always something new and unique.

I am always curious about other author’s writing environments . . . so where do bring all your wonderful characters to life?

Nowhere special! I don't have an office at my house. So I'm usually working on my couch on kitchen table. I also meet up with other local writer friends and do some writing at coffee shops, or libraries. If I'm lucky, I get to go on multi-day writing retreats with other fabulous writers and get to immerse myself in nothing but making the words appear on the screen for days and days.

Can we look forward to another book from you soon?

Yes! I have another romantic comedy coming out as Ellie Cahill in November. It's called "The Designated +1", and it features a character who made a very brief appearance in "I Temporarily Do". Don't worry though, it's a complete stand-alone. You can read it without reading any of my other books. It's up for preorder at Amazon, Kobo, and iBooks.

Before we move on to the Fast Five list, is there anything else you want to tell readers about yourself or your books?

Just that I can almost guarantee you a laugh if you read my books. When you need a pick-me-up read, keep me in mind!

Fast Five:

Fav Pizza Topping – mushrooms

Book You’re Reading Now – Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes

Coffee, Tea, or Both – both, but especially latte

Fav TV Show as a Child – Tiny Toon Adventures

Best Place You’ve Vacationed – Rome

How can readers discover more about you and you work?

Website: http://lizczukas.com Facebook: Liz Czukas OR Ellie Cahill Twitter: @LizCzukas OR  @Ellie_Cahill

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lizczukas/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lizczukas/ Amazon Author Page: Liz-Czukas OR Ellie-Cahill Goodreads: Liz_Czukas OR Ellie_Cahill

Thanks, Liz, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with me today!

[1000wordresearchreport]

Reply From Draw With Jazza

I did get a reply form jazzy but he said he get some many replies everyday he cant answer them all. he have given me a list of question that he gets asked the most and his replies to them, they are what I'm looking for in this chapter but they will be very usefully throughout the rest of my report 

Dear Student,

I really like to support students and used to be able to answer interview and survey questions but unfortunately I get so many requests for responses along with my normal emails that I am unable to assist any more on an individual basis. I have created a list of past questions and responses which I will send you and I hope they may be of some assistance to your research. Apologies for the generic answer but I get hundreds of emails every day and time constraints make individual interviews impossible. I realise that your questions may not be answered by these documents but this is the best I can do to try and help in some way. Also here is a link to an online interview I did http://www.federationstory.com/drawing-has-never-been-so-interactive/   and I have linked in the questions below to a few autobiographical and relevant videos on my channel. All the best with your project!

Jazza

1. What was the first Job you ever had? Target as a checkout assistant

2. Did you always want to be an artist/animator? Yes- although not specifically animator sometimes I wanted to be a director, sometimes a musician

3. Was there a turning point in your career? Moving away from game design and starting the YouTube channel

4. Did you have a mentor or someone that inspired you? Christopher Hart when I was young. Also Adam Phillips.

5.You’ve got a large following on YouTube but how did you start out? and did you ever think you would have such a large following? Have a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNDY6FWGgmE No I never thought it would get this big but now I find my goals increasing all the time

6. A)  Are you surprised that your making a living from Youtube? and not only you but so many other people?    B)  Do you find that your channel on Youtube allows you to make a comfortable living? People who make a living from Youtube often don’t make it from ad revenue but have to find other ways to support themselves. I have a shop that sells digital art products and that allows me to be a professional Youtuber/Artist and this is a really important support to my channel. I used to take pretty much any freelance work I could get in the beginning- as another way to earn a living, although now I find I have less time for freelance. I am an author and have my first book (on Character Design) commercially published at the end of the year, as well as contributing to other publications. I do still take on occasional freelance but mostly larger commercial projects

7. What do you feel makes you different from other artist on YouTube? That I put my face and personality in my channel a lot. I try and have a community and be informative as well as fun, spontaneous and entertaining.

8. What do you wish you had known before you starting uploading videos to youtube? Be careful how much work to set myself. I tend to underestimate the time it takes to do things and take on too much.

9. Is there anything you dislike about the platform (YouTube)? I wish it was easier to report stolen content.

10. Tell me about your process from idea to implementation? I come up with a lesson plan or script, then I film/record, then I do a rough edit and beyond that I add assets such as video footage or images, finally I polish the edit, render and upload

11. Do you use social media as part of your strategy? Yes I use Twtich, Facebook, Twitter

12. What are some of your biggest achievements? Building a large audience, collaborating with reputable companies, Interviewing talented artists, writing a hard copy book soon to be published in the US and a grant which you know about from Screen Australia and Google

13. What does a typical week in your life look like? Up at between 6-7am, off to the office where the magic happens. I have a schedule planned out about a month ahead which involves the days I am recording and the days I am working on supplementary projects. I don’t finish until 6pm usually, then I try and get to the gym and see baby Jazza.

14. Would you say creative block is an obstacle for you? if so how do you overcome that? Long answer-This should help answer your question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh17KFLbuEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqzFpUbbhuc

15. Do you have much time to work on personal projects? NO NO NO, I wish I had more time, …. I try and work on things I love and also that work for my business

16. What are some of you favourite tools and software that you use?

I use Adobe Flash (now Animate CC) for my animations, which is good in that it can be used to create interactive mediums like games/apps as well as animations. ToonBoom is an animation specific program that is quite popular, and though I have not used it very much I plan to do more work with it in the future.  I use Adobe Photoshop for my Digital Paintings and image editing.. I use a Wacom 24 HD which is a high end LCD tablet for professional use. I talk a bit about tablets here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pqmDjGQmJA

17. Do you get much work outside of your channel? Yes but most of my work comes initially from my channel or from my website but usually from my reputation that is mainly built through the channel.

18. Have you ever turned away work? If yes why? All the time- pretty much every day. The reasons are usually a combination of: 1) Unrealistic budget expectations (want me to work for free or almost free) 2) Unrealistic project expectations (feature film/music video) with little understanding of the amount of work involved 3) Strange project that I do not like or I consider inappropriate (I won’t work on obscene or adult content) 4) I am already booked up (which I am for at least 10-12 months usually)

19. What do you like to do in your spare time if you get any? I enjoy a game of Dota, some nerdy role playing with mates, spending time with baby Jazza and my wife.

20. What advise would you give to someone trying to start their own channel? Work hard, be consistent, have integrity, release what you consider to be quality content

21. Pepsi or Coke?

Coke

22. How did you go about getting into the industry? -Did you have connections or was it a case of putting your work out there as much as possible? I draw constantly- then became professional through YouTube: Have a look at this video- basically I kept putting my work out there, Newgrounds and obviously YouTube  helped a lot with this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNDY6FWGgmE

23. What advice would you give to a young animator trying to get into the industry? Becoming a professional animator is not an easy road. There is no one way or sure fire path to success but one thing that you must adhere to is hard work. People who treat it like a profession even when they aren't being paid and try consistently, taking every opportunity to improve their skills, have the best chance of success. Remember it takes doctors and lawyers 6-8 years of daily study and it’s the same with art and animation. Keep practicing, put yourself out there in the animation community and be determined (and a bit thick skinned)

24. Do you prefer working as an independent freelance animator or as a professional at a studio? - Why do you prefer (whichever you prefer)? I have never worked for a studio, just run my own. I have toured some as I may need to set up larger one day and have been interested in how the larger studios work, but I don’t think I would enjoy animating one particular segment repeatedly. I like being part of  the whole creative picture.

25. How did you find the transition from aspiring animator to professional? -Did you face any problems you hadn't anticipated? I had to get a handle on the business and legal side and it is not my strong point. Copyright releases and IP contracts, terms and conditions, deposits- now my wife handles most of that end which is a relief.

26. There has been some speculation that CGI is leading the way for animation and that 2D will become irrelevant. What are your personal opinions on this? No I don't think 2 D will become irrelevant. I think new tools will make producing animations more accessible though.

How did you first get started with art? Have you always been into drawing? I have always been in to drawing (since I can remember)! Art has been my escape, my way to tell stories and create characters since I was a child. I was sometimes quite lonely at school and I was bullied a bit when I started high school, so at lunchtimes (and even during class I admit) I would often sit by myself and draw.

How old were you when you first made the transition into digital art? About 12 years old when I started playing around with early versions of Photoshop and Flash, I got my first tablet at 13.

How have things changed since then in terms of technology? When digital art emerged as an option I knew I wanted to jump on board. I got my first tablet and didn't look back. Obviously since then software and tools have come a long way! However right now things are moving on again and I am so excited because on the channel I have just begun to create 3D art in virtual reality. It's an exciting time! There will be more development in the software and tools for VR art (in the same way as there was with digital art) and no doubt that this is just the beginning.

When did you realise you’d be able to draw for a living? I had dreamed of writing a 'How To Draw' book since the age of 12, but it's not until recently that I have been able to make a stable living in the art world. I began to feel confident about making an OK wage about 3 years ago, when I began to get some reasonable freelance jobs, mainly as an animator rather than solely an artist. It wasn't stable but it was suddenly paying the bills. The problem was animation is very slow work and there was only one of me, so it was always going to be limiting in terms of making a stable wage. I had to convince my wife that it was worth turning down freelance on occasion to keep focusing on my YouTube channel, where I could see building a reputation and better potential for growth than one person animation. The YouTube channel eventually brought the offer of my first published book 'Draw With Jazza- Creating Characters' and even a children's television art show.

How did you get started with your YouTube channel? Before YouTube I used to work as a Freelance Flash Game Designer, but the Flash Game market was taking a nose dive. I had already started doing little art tutorials on YouTube, at first on a channel that contained a mixture of stuff (music etc), because I am usually working on creative projects of my own, but I noticed the art tutorials were quite popular. That is when I decided to start Draw With Jazza and see if it would grow into anything. It was lucky I did, as earning money in the Flash Game market was getting more and more difficult, Draw With Jazza began to grow and gave me the next direction in my career just in time, as I could no longer support myself with Game Design.

How quickly did success come there? You could say both quickly and slowly! I think a lot of people who start a YouTube channel want to see automatic viral videos, the reality is it take a lot of channels years to build an audience (it did mine) and the ones with the initial viral hits often don't go on to be long term successes.  My channel definitely wasn't viral and it took a few years to get momentum, but then it grew quickly. In total I have been on YouTube for about 4 years and after year 1 I had about 5,000 subs, it took 3 years to reach 100,000, now at the beginning of my 5th year I will hit the 1 million mark and I am so excited about that.

What do you think is your secret, and how do you keep things fresh? I love art and I make content that I would be interested in watching. Although I pay a bit of attention to what is popular, popularity is not the main driver for my content choices, as I feel when you do that  the content gets 'fake' and lacks quality. I really believe in making videos that I have enjoyed making and I hope the fact that I believe in what I am doing, comes across! It's not just about art, but also about showing your personality and letting people in. I definitely only do what I believe in. I'm not saying every video is perfect! Every now and again I make a video and I think 'that didn't turn out so well', and sometimes I still have to release it, as doing three videos a week doesn't leave me much room for error. Ironically sometimes the ones I'm not so proud of are really popular videos. You have to be willing to put yourself out there warts and all. My art challenges (left hand drawing, blindfold etc) don't show my best art (that's for sure) but they are very fun to make and popular content.

What would be your advice or top tips for anyone looking to get started in digital art? The same as my advice for any beginner artist, practise, work hard and don't be too tough on yourself. I think most people expect to be good quickly, or maybe when you look at developed artists they make it look easy and then you compare yourself to that. It took good artists, not hours, but years and years of practise. You need perseverance and patience with yourself.

Are there any mobile/tablet apps you’d recommend people should use for drawing on the go, and why? There is Photoshop Sketch and an Illustrator equivalent but I forget what it's called. I personally work a lot on the go but I run Photoshop off my Windows Tablet, that is capable of running the full program. A lot of people like using Sketchbook.

What would a good beginner’s setup be? For digital art you need a descent tablet of some sort, and it doesn't need to be expensive, but get one made for art. You can get started with a basic Huion or Wacom tablet (even picking up one second hand from ebay if necessary). The tablet will need a PC or Laptop with Photoshop or similar on it. There are way more expensive 'tablets' that aren't really made for art and won't give you the same results as a cheaper option, made with artists in mind.

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

My Sweet Life: Diabetes Life Stories You'll Love

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/my-sweet-life-diabetes-life-stories-youll-love/

My Sweet Life: Diabetes Life Stories You'll Love

We review a lot of books here at the 'Mine, but rarely do we have the opportunity to review one that we're actually featured in! That's why it's a special honor to share the news about the release of My Sweet Life, by Beverly S. Adler, PhD, CDE, a new anthology of essays written by 24 dynamic women living with diabetes. And our fearless leader, Amy Tenderich, is one of them! ... along with other great D-bloggers, like Kerri Sparling and Kelly Kunik; other D-personalities, like Riva Greenberg, Brandy Barnes and Cherise Shockley; and accomplished artists and athletes like Zippora Karz and Kelly Kuehne.

The book features autobiographical essays on how these accomplished women have succeeded in life, either because or in spite of their diabetes. These women vary in age, from thirty-somethings to a woman in her 90's who has lived with diabetes for over 70 years! They write about their diabetes diagnosis and how diabetes has shaped their life — for worse and better. Diabetes has such an overwhelming impact on a person's self-identity, and it's really empowering to see so many women who are persevering and overcoming obstacles to pursue their dreams. Or some cases, like Amy and Kelly and Kerri and Riva, using their diabetes as a catalyst to try to help others live their best possible life.

In the introduction to the book, Beverly writes, "Who better to share our ups and downs (with blood sugar or mood) than another woman who walks the same walk as us? Sometimes it helps just to know that other women have overcome the same challenges as we are going through."

The stories are touching and empowering, like when Cherise Shockley describes finding people she could relate to and get support from. She writes, "I was comfortable with this community of strangers; they understood what life is like with diabetes. I didn't feel like I was the only person living with diabetes. I realized I wasn't alone."

And they're funny, like Kyrra Richards, a professional dancer, who was sure that she had "broken her bladder dancing in Afghanistan," and Birgitta Rice, who drank water out of a garden hose while helping her mother do laundry.

And they are a full of life's turning points and momentous moments. Two of the contributors, Mari Ruddy and Heartha Whitlow, also struggled with cancer diagnoses after being diagnosed with diabetes. Mari's experiences in both the cancer community and diabetes community inspired her to create the Red Riders, the ADA's program for cyclists with diabetes. Mari writes, "[Cancer survivors] are the ones who've made pink ribbons so prevalent. And they don't feel sorry for themselves. No — they evoke empathy and empowerment in themselves and others. That's what I wanted to bring to the world of diabetes." And that she did!

I think Brandy Barnes sums up the book best when she writes, "Rather than focusing on the numerous illnesses, surgeries and challenges, I choose to be thankful for all I have and focus on the many blessings I have received. Thinking about it any other way would make life less enjoyable — and I want all the joy I can possible have in this life." Amen, Sister!

Riva Greenberg posted an interview with author Beverly Adler last week, in which Beverly explains why she felt a book like this could fill an essential need, from what she's seen in her own private practice as a clinical psychologist and certified diabetes educator (and type 1 PWD for 36 years herself):

"Many women feel so hopeless and overwhelmed by their diabetes that they give up before they even try. Many women, for instance, need to make healthier food choices, but they've already experienced failure dieting and their past negative experiences paralyze them from making positive changes. Usually it takes a scare like the start of retinopathy in their eyes or neuropathy in their feet to shake them up enough to redouble their efforts...

"I noticed most of the women (contributors) had a 'pivotal' moment when they were able to change their attitude about diabetes from negative to positive. That then changed their actions in the direction of achieving better health. The women were able to recognize that diabetes is just a part of who they are like having green eyes or being left-handed. And many realized, while it may have felt like they were alone, they actually had the support of their family and friends."

The essays they've contributed are all well-written and poignant, and I definitely recommend this book for any woman with diabetes. But more importantly, I think this book is also perfect for men with diabetes, or even family members, friends or health care professionals. Sure, all the contributors are women. But the stories share issues of diagnosis, acceptance, technology and tools, and family life. The book also captures the diversity in life with diabetes, which many people not intimately familiar with diabetes might not understand. It's a perfect companion to Amy Stockwell Mercer's book, The Smart Woman's Guide to Diabetes, but unlike that book which also delves into specific issues like pregnancy and hormones, this book is more inspirational than instructional.

btw, Beverly is just beginning work on her next book, which will be an anthology of stories from successful men with diabetes!

The only downside to The Sweet Life book is the price. At $24.95 on Amazon, it's quite expensive for a paperback. But for anyone going through a rough patch in their diabetes — and honestly, who isn't? — I think it's a really good read and an excellent gift idea this holiday season.

The DMBooks Giveaway

We're still committed to sharing our book finds with you, our Dear Readers! Please follow the instructions below for your chance to win a free copy of The Sweet Life. Entering our giveaway is as easy as leaving a comment.

Here's what to do:

1. Post your comment below and include the codeword "DMBooks" somewhere in the comment (beginning, end, in parenthesis, in bold, whatever). That will let us know that you would like to be entered in the giveaway. You can still leave a comment without entering, but if you want to be considered to win the book, please remember to include "DMBooks."

2. You have until Friday, Dec. 16, at noon PST to enter. A valid email address is required to win.

3. The winner will be chosen using Random.org.

4. The winner will be announced on Facebook and Twitter on Monday, Dec. 19, so make sure you're following us! We like to feature our winners in upcoming blog posts, too.

The contest is open to anyone, anywhere. Good luck to all!

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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