So, it's been a week since our last Face-Lift, and there are no queries in the queue. Except for a few NaNoWriMo openings, we haven't posted a New Beginning since October, and there are no openings in the queue. [Update! Crisis temporarily averted. We now have openings needing continuations and queries needing fake plots. And more to come, I hope.] Comment trails are shorter all the time; writing exercises were discontinued due to lack of participation; rarely do more than five people show up for a Book Chat.
The handwriting is on the wall. If it's longer than 140 characters, it's too long. Maybe that's what's killing the publishing industry. They demand books of 80,000 words, when readers want books of 140 characters. Preferably fewer; those who use the full 140 characters need to be more concise if they want to make it as writers today.
The only way to survive as a blogger is to adapt to the changing world.
What does this mean for this blog? Basically, two things:
1. Instead of editing openings and queries, Evil Editor will edit tweets. Minions submit tweets they are planning to publish, and Evil Editor fixes them so that the tweeter doesn't sound like an illiterate twit. Or, say your tweet is longer than 140 characters; EE makes the cuts that make it legal.
2. Currently, EE's blog is a place you can read Mrs. Varmighan's tweets if you don't care to officially follow Mrs. Varmighan. This will be expanded so that each day the tweets of
Mrs. Varmighan, Evil Editor, 
Evil Psychiatrist, 
Unethical Attorney (in which a defense lawyer ignores privilege and tweets his thoughts during a murder trial), 
Erick the Strange Angelic Man, 
literary agent Hannah Rogers, Public Confessor 
(in which a priest takes confessions in tweet form), and 
Kind Serial Killer are posted.To ease the transition, we'll still be accepting queries and openings, at least until we hit #1000.
12 comments:
Waah!!!
Mrs. Varmighan twitter feed is funny.
I'll send an opening or two before the weekend.
BTW - two short stories of mine started out as writing exercises on this blog. They will appear in 365 Days of Flash Fiction (granted that's not the Booker award or even a paid publication but it pleases me and will make a nice gift to an acquaitance who only wants to read short stories)
"The Outer Limits of the Pizza Twilight Zone" started out as July 25, 2010 Grand opening #6 -
http://evileditor.blogspot.com/2010/07/grand-opening-6.html
"Young Sherlock Holmes' Big Crime Spree" started out as Holmes #1 on April 4 2010, http://evileditor.blogspot.com/2010/04/holmes-1.html
I just saw the galley of "365 Days of Flash Fiction" by Pill Hill. It will be printed after Thanksgiving and put on sale in December.
nwerp
I would attend the book chats if a) i could afford to buy the books and b) they weren't usually on a Saturday
Please, please no! This blog with the Face-Lifts and openings is my main ispiration!
And I am re-writing my query over and over, I just have little time! I think that is the reason queries are not coming now.
NO!!! Sending new opening NOW. MUST not end blog.
If your minions submit a truckload of openings and queries before you reach the magical number, will you reconsider your position???
Pleeease!
Tweets would be the perfect way to bulk up those comment trails. See, three people have already commented on this post, and then they stopped. But if there were a 140 character limit on comment submissions, no one could fit all of their thoughts in at one go. Dave's single comment would turn into a more impressive eight. BuffySquirrel's would qualify for two, as I believe "nwerp" would be a suitable Tweet in and of itself. AlaskaRavenclaw would just have to depend on re-tweets, though.
Tweetments (commeets?) would also up the ante for getting your thoughts down speedily. Imagine two readers looking at your blog simultaneously over their morning coffee. One has a witty comeback...but wait! The other has already posted the same one in 80 characters before he could finish his 120! Competitive Tweeting would ensue, each Minion trying to get their points across before someone else breaks the flow.
In conclusion: "Drinking tea & commenting on EE." Stop. "OMG My cat is sleeping SO cute." Stop. "LOL." Stop.
I'm sad to see that you're thinking of ending the blog posts. I always look at them.
But I understand why you might feel this way.
If you end this I will end me. I'm sure this doesn't discourage you in the least. I will work on an opening to submit... in fact, I think I have at least 3. I'll also harass people to submit their queries.
Man, with all those tweets to read, I'll never get to the blog.
Don't go. I implore you, don't go.
Given it's almost the holiday season, how about offering to critique those annual family circulars that end up in the greetings cards. You could be just what people need to make a family's past year seem either moderately interesting or at least not excrutiatingly pretentious.
Uncle Rubin has recovered from his procedure by the way, pleasing the twins no end. I knew you'd appreciate the update.
It would be a shame for you to leave us, but it does seem that the blogosphere as a whole is caving in.
I really hope you stick around, and if I had any suitable items, I'd send them in.
Looks like I'll have to make something up.
Tamara, nwerp often IS a tweet all by itself.
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