I'm still busy building the new LambdaLiterary.org (it's coming soon, really--go help us by completing the survey). Meanwhile, please enjoy these links and bits of news.
Scott, at Go Into The Story, exerpts Leigh Brackett talking about her screenwriting. Here's what she has to say on how she got her start as a screenwriter. "My agent, Hugh King, had been with Myron Selznick, my agency at that time, and he had gone over to Republic as story editor and had sort of managed to shoehorn me in because they were doing this horror film . They decided to cash in on the Universal monster school, and I had been doing science fiction, and to them it all looked the same—bug-eyed monsters. It made no difference. I did The Vampire's Ghost there, and just out of the clear blue sky this other thing happened, purely on the strength of a hard-boiled mystery novel I had published. Howard Hawks read the book and liked it. He didn't buy the book, for which I can't blame him, but he liked the dialogue and I was put under contract to him." (You may know Brackett better as a science-fantasy novelist.)
OutlantaCon has cancelled my appearance as Guest of Honour (and Kelley's). We had a written agreement regarding travel (I've talked before about what I need and why: I have MS), and sadly they now feel that they can't afford to honour it. So we're no longer invited. It's a pity. I think it would have been a very cool event. Ah, well.
Richard Curtis, over at E-Reads, discusses the latest e-books sales figures. Here's the money sentence: "The industry reported more sales in the fourth quarter of '09 ($55,900,000) alone than the total sales for all of '08 ($53,500,000)." But of course there's more to it than that. Those who are now reading ebooks on dedicated devices (like the Kindle--which is what I use) are essentially abandoning paper books when there's a choice. (I prefer paper books for research materials, but for long-form fiction, the Kindle kicks paper books to the kerb.) You might to take a look at Mike Shatzkin's blog for interesting business perspectives on digital publishing.
It's Friday, links-for-writers day over at Sterling Editing. We have a little something for everyone: podcasts, lexicons, discussion, insider How To, and more.
Happy Friday. I'm going to enjoy some sunshine.
