Contact Update + Vicarious Blogging
September 12, 2009
Apologies for the blog-free week!
As usual, the reason is that I’ve been busy working on the next Phoenix Files book.
The second draft of Contact is due to be handed in on Friday. The book has changed quite a bit in the redraft (structure, not story) and I’m really happy with the way it’s shaping up.
I’ve also been working out some of the finer details of Mutation (aka The Phoenix Files #3), which I can’t wait to get started on.
So anyway, that’s my excuse for the lack of activity around here.
But in lieu of actually doing my own blogging, here are a bunch of other people’s posts that I’ve been enjoying this week:
- Don Miller on tracking down typos.
- John Green on re-evaluating book reviews.
- Andrew McDonald reading from his book and two others.
- Adele’s review of Catching Fire (which I am reading now and loving).
- Jorge Garcia’s encounter with the paparazzi.
- Tom’s love letter to the internet.
Oh, and I’ve also been thinking of getting started on some video blogging… Any suggestions?
Video blogging through a blog site I wouldn’t know about. Best thing I can think of would be to set up a YouTube channel for yeself.
Set up a YouTube channel, upload your videos there, then embed them in your blog posts.
I don’t do much video blogging myself (I did two video reviews a while back), but, as a rule, since it’s a lot easier for people to read text, if you’re going to vlog, make sure it’s something you can’t just as easily write down (like my video reviews, which were a bit disastrous). I assume you’ve watched John Green’s vlogs (since you linked to his blog here), and those are pretty good.
It’s always interesting to watch videos of authors talking about the ideas behind their books/what inspired them to write/funny anecdotes about experiences that later had some influence on their writing… stuff like that. Or the reading of an excerpt is always good. I don’t particularly like vlogs where people just talk about their day-to-day life, but some people do (unless you’re a ninja for a living. In which case, AWESOME).
And with making vlogs: it’s very time consuming (for me at least). It took me an hour to make a three-minute video review.
Can’t wait till Contact comes out! (Is it February next year?) (And you should make a book trailer. Definitely.)