Don't try this at home:

Opening sentences are supposed to be short, pithy, and grab the reader's attention.  Nobody told Charles Dickens that when he began A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

(Thanks to Ken Hoffman, who reminded me of this clunker in his Houston Chronicle column, 6/14/12

The art of writing may not have changed much since Dickens' day, but the craft surely has.
Compare this list from Bleak House with the contents of your desk:

 a long list of items retailed by the legal stationer Mr Snagsby, together with
 “office-quills, pens, ink, India-rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and
wafers ... pocket-books, almanacs, diaries, and law lists; string boxes, rulers,
inkstands glass and leaden pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other
small office-cutlery”.

from "World Wide Word", June 9

A friend just asked me a question, and I think the answer may be of general interest to this group:

So here's the situation: my sister is using photos, sketches and other media to create the images we are going to use. We want to know, can she use any images off the internet if she edits them? What kind of images can & can't she use and, to what percentage does she need to alter them if she uses them?
***

Unfortunately, my best answer is a (somewhat) expensive one: consult with a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property.

The basic rule is that copyright attaches to any expression (but not to the idea behind it) as soon as that expression is reduced to a tangible medium -- and that includes images reproduced on the internet.

The copyright holder may prevent any reproduction of that expression, including derivative works, or collect damages for unauthorized copying.  So if I took the famous photo of Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate and made a charcoal drawing based on that picture, Iwould probably be quilty of infringement.

The exception is that one can copy part of a work for the purpose of "fair comment":  the use for some social purpose like criticism, satire, political comment, etc. and that does not interfere with the commercial use of the original. The key case is that the Supreme Court held that the Boyz2Men version of Roy Orbison's "Pretty woman".

If you use all or part of someone else's expression without permission, you run the risk of being sued (a very expensive undertaking, even if you win) and of being held liable -- or even criminally guiilty -- of infringement.

Additionally, if your work includes a recognizable image of a real person and if you have not received that person's permission to publish it, you may be liable for violating the rights of privacy or publicity.

Have I scared the shit out of you yet?  Good.

Two or three hundred dollars to consult with a good lawyer might be the best investment you ever make.  The Houston Bar Association  has a good referral service.

SteveBerry’s 11 Rulesof Writing
(in Houston Chronicle, 5/29/12)

1. There are no rules.

2. Don’t bore the reader.

3. Don’t confuse the reader.

4. Don’t get caught writing (or, Don’t allow your authorial voice to intrude where it doesn’t belong).

5. Don’t lie to the reader (although it’s OK tomisdirect).
6. Don’t annoy the reader (with excessive punctuation and the like).
7. Writing is rewriting.

8. Writing is rhythm.

9. Shorter is always better.

10. Story never takes a vacation.

11. Tell a good story.

Eldorado writer publishes digital erotic fiction as new career path

Neuroscience graduate left field and found her niche writing romance

Phaedra Haywood | The New Mexican
Posted: Saturday, May 19, 2012 - 5/19/12

·        "Thinking he was trying to embrace her, she pulled away and found herself back against the brass railing. By the time she gathered her flustered thoughts, her wrists were handcuffed to the rail behind her. Mortified, a bit afraid and -- worse --suddenly and wildly aroused ... ."

So reads a teaser excerpt from Sapphire, a digital novel written by Eldorado resident Jeffe Kennedy about a female executive who enters into an affair with a man "determined to prove that she longs for the loss of control he can give her."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Kennedy was a little girl who was good at math and science -- who grew up, she said, at a time when little girls who were good in math and science were "pushed."

In college she double-majored in biology and comparative religious studies and went on to get a master's degree with a double major in zoology and physiology, specializing in neuroscience.

She intended to be a neurobiologist. But while living in Wyoming and studying for her doctorate, she attended a conference of neurobiologists. She didn't like what she saw.

"Everybody I talked to didn't seem happy," she said. "And all they could talk about was their work. So I sat myself down and I said, 'If there were no ifs, ands, or buts, what would I do?"

Writing, she was surprised to find, was the answer.

She started taking some classes at the University of Wyoming, and one of her personal essays struck the fancy of one of her professors. He passed it on to his sister, an editor at the University of New Mexico Press. She contacted Kennedy.

"She asked if she was in time to publish my first book," Kennedy said. Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel," a hardcover collection of Kennedy's essays, was published in 2004.

The book got good reviews, Kennedy said, and it gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling to walk past a bookstore and see it in the window. But it didn't sell.

Then she saw a request from Samhain Publishing for "red-hot fairy tales." Kennedy said she had always wanted to write a "nasty" version of Beauty and the Beast.

So she did.

Petals and Thorns, Kennedy's racy version of the classic fairy tale, didn't get picked up by Samhain, but digital publishing house Loose Id liked it, and it was published online in 2010.

Kennedy cried. Because, she said, she didn't imagine such a book would be her first published novel.

But, she said that "people really liked it and it didn't take me so long to write, and I thought this could be a good way to build my career."

Since then, Kennedy has published Feeding the Vampire and Sapphire. Both are erotic-romance novels published by different online publishing companies.

She doesn't get big advances for the books. But the publishers provide editing and marketing, and she gets a generous chunk of the royalties every time someone pays to read the book on their digital reader.

"The advent of the e-reader has made a huge difference in that people have more privacy to buy and read romance and erotica," she said.

"People look down on romance," she said. And in the past the "clinch covers," showing a couple locked in a steamy embrace, "would shout out what you were reading."

Kennedy said romance is now the fasting-growing genre of online books. "The whole idea that romance is only for dumb women has been debunked." Indeed, Fifty Shades of Grey, the novel at the top of four of The New York Times best-seller lists, is a racy romance novel that began online.

Some critics have said the strong BDSM -- bondage and discipline/dominance and submission/sadism and masochism -- themes in Fifty Shades of Grey (which also appear in Kennedy's book Sapphire) glorify sexual violence against women and perpetuate antifeminist ideas that women long to be dominated and controlled.

But, Kennedy said, "There are a lot of people giving opinion on it who don't read it, haven't read it or would never read that sort of thing."

"There has always been, especially in American culture, this deep discomfort with people enjoying sex, especially women," Kennedy said. "But BDSM is not about day-to-day life. It's about sex and power exchange and intimacy and that is the part that people miss. It's something you do in the bedroom that you don't do in the office, and that's part of what makes it fun."

Or as Barbara Walters said when discussing Fifty Shades of Grey on The View last month, "Women like us," (who work hard and have high-profile jobs), "when you get home, you want the guy to be in charge."

Kennedy's next book, Rogue's Pawn, will be published online in July. She is still not a full-time writer yet -- she supplements her income as a freelance environmental consultant-- but she is having fun.

"Romance writers are so generous with advice and help," she said. "They love what they are doing. It's really a terrific community to be part of."

RESEARCH TIP: What’s It Called?

As I wrote the short story, “Tunnel Vision,” for The Final Twist
anthology, UNDERGROUND TEXAS, 2011, featuring a female property
manager overseeing a new tenant buildout, I constantly found myself searching
for information on what actual building products were called. Internet construction
materials websites were a lifesaver. The sites showed the exact tools in color,
including cables, electrical connections and, thank goodness, the names
construction crews used. I learned more about Romex (bright yellow) cable and
junction boxes, two-way radios, electrical conduit, massive computer servers,
electrical meters, insulated tools and protective gloves, steel shelving and
anti-static cloths. Just another resource to make our stories more authentic.

by Sally Love

E-book demand cramps writers

Think you're not working hard enoughat your writing now?  This was re-printed in 5/13 Houston Chronicle:

NEW YORK TIMES

For years, it was a schedule as predictable as a calendar: Novelists who specialized in mysteries, thrillers and romance would write one book a year, output that was considered not only suf­ficient, but productive.

But the e-book age has accelerated the metabolism of book publishing.

Authors are nowpulling the literary equivalent of a double shift, churning out short stories, novellas or even an extra full-length book each year.
They are trying to satisfy impatient readers who have become used to downloading any e-book they want at the touch of a button, and the publishers who are nudging them toward greater productivity in the belief that the more their authors’ names are in public, the bigger stars they will be.

“It used to be that once a year was a big deal,” said Lisa Scottoline, a best-selling author of thrillers. “You could saturate the market. But today the culture is a great big hungrymaw, and you have to feed it.”

Scottoline has increased her output from one book a year to two, which she accomplishes with a brutal writing schedule: 2,000 words a day, seven days a week, usually “starting at 9 a.m.

and going until Colbert,” she said.

The British thriller writer Lee Child, who created the indelible character Jack Reacher, is now supplementing his hardcover books with short stories that are published in digital-only format, an increasingly popular strategy to drum up attention.

Publishers say that a carefully released short story, timed six to eight weeks before a big hardcover comes out, can entice new readers who might be willing to pay 99 cents for a story but reluctant to spend $26 for a hardcover.

That can translate into higher preorder sales for the novel and even a lift in sales of older books by the author, which are easily accessible as e-book impulse purchases for consumers with Nooks or Kindles.

Jennifer Enderlin, the associate publisher of St.

Martin’s Paperbacks, said the strategy had worked for many of her authors, who saw a big uptick in hardcover sales, book over book, once they started releasing more work.

“I almost feel sorry for authors these days with howmuch publishers are asking of them,” Enderlin said. “We always say, ‘How about a little novella that we can sell for 99 cents?’ ”