The Periodic Table of Storytelling
Remember science class? That poster next to the blackboard full of little squares containing letters that looked more like Scrabble than the foundation of all physical creation?
Me neither. But I do remember looking at that thing and asking… why?
Storyfix reader Eva Moon is sharing a link to a vast improvement on all things periodic-table-esque… a Periodic Table of Storytelling by a guy who calls himself the Computer Sherpa. It’s an interactive interface with enough sub-topics about writing that, as he warns, might keep you busy for days.
You can buy the print if so moved (no, I’m not an affiliate, I just think it’s cool).
Click HERE to check it out (click on the image for a larger version). Because we can never have enough interesting stuff on our walls.
One Reader’s Home Run
Storyfix reader and contributor Chuck Hustmyre is a novelist. And he’s living the dream many of us cling to: they’ve made a movie out of his novel, “House of the Rising Sun.”
In case you didn’t think an iUniverse title had a shot at such heights.
Check out the preview HERE. This is Big Time, even with no big stars. A little violent and sexual (isn’t every good thriller?), so enter informed. Let’s support Chuck and buy the book and then see his movie when it releases as a DVD this summer.
Something To Blow Your Advance On
I love Costco. Buy a lot of books there (obligatory relevance duly noted). Their stuff is supposed to be cheap.
How cheap is a 55-year old bottle of Scotch? How about twelve grand?
They also had a bottle of Cognac selling for $21,999, I kid you not.
That’s a lot of Kindle ebooks at $2.99 each.
The Best Part of Being Published
Everybody does this when they get published: you go into bookstores, hunt down your book, and move the inventory to a better location.
Or, you can have your friends do it for you.
A friend of mine did that when my first novel, Darkness Bound, was published in 2000… as a paperback. With the best of intentions he moved the book to the bestseller rack, putting it in the #1 slot (that’d be upper left) ahead of Stephen King and Dean Koontz’s new hardcovers.
It was, you see, a rack for hardcover bestsellers.
They had a shoot-on-sight poster of me near the door at Barnes & Noble for years.
Anyhow, it’s still fun to see your book on a shelf, especially when friends send you pictures of it. This image is from my dear friend Renetta Krager, taken at a Borders in Portland, where I no longer live.
Write something amazing this weekend.
If not, do something amazing. Life is short. Live your story.
9 Responses
Hi Larry, I’m unsubscribing to email versions of your blog but that’s only because I’m shifting you to Google Reader. See you in English!
I can’t agree with the end of this post any harder. And better yet, I began a new novel project this weekend after a lot of soul searching about what type of story I really want to tell.
I don’t know if this will be a story I ever want to publish, self/electronic or traditional, but the telling of it feels so very right so far.
Aww, we’ll I’d love for one day for my book to be published and for a friend to get a chance to do that with my book! LOL. What great friends you have!
I saw that cognac — if you buy a case of 96, it’s only $18,999 per bottle. Now that’s savings you can count on!
~Graham
I raise my glass and say congratulations to Chuck Hustmyre (beer: Stella Artois $7 a six ) Here’s to it being just the beginning.
Does it count if I print out a draft of my story, staple it, go to Borders and take picture of it before I get kicked out?
Larry,
You never cease to inspire. I’m with Mary. Your mantra “Life is Short, Live Your Story” needs to be a poster!
Amazon weighs ” House of the Rising Sun” in at about the same price per volume as Cotsco does that 5th of Scotch. I think I will wait the next edition.
Thanks to The Animals that “story” has be waiting for a novelist since 1964.
Love the tropes, especially as distinguished from sterotypes. Figure some of my 50+ year-old tropes might still be around.
“Write something amazing this weekend.
If not, do something amazing. Life is short. Live your story.”
Larry, I think this should be made into a poster. I’d put it on my wall.