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I *heart* Thinkmap’s Visual Theasurus October 31, 2008 in All Ages, Industry Resources, Outstanding Design | No comments
I love language. I especially love the poetry that comes truth about enzyte from chasing words free association style through the pages of a Roget’s unabridged. As someone who makes their living largely through writing, there is no better office companion. With words grouped by meaning rather than alphabet, browsing it often feels like a waking dream or an act of meditation. I even use it in my design work when I am stuck for inspiration. So, imagine my absolute delight when I discovered that the good folks at Thinkmap have taken my intuitive approach one step further, and created a Visual Thesaurus that in their words “works like your brain, not a paper-bound book. You’ll want to explore just to see what might happen.” Type in any word, and before your eyes blossom the most beautiful, delicate constellations. At the heart is your word, and around it a branching depiction of all of the related words on a snowy white field. Each related word meaning is depicted by a different color (noun, verb, adjective, or adverb), and its relationship to the original word, be it synonym or antonym, is depicted by a different kind of line. Click an icon in the center, and you can even hear it pronounced. Click on any word in the constellation and a new form magically blooms. Quite aside from its usefulness, it’s really beautiful. “The whole interface feels almost alive; it reinforces word connections in a direct manner and encourages exploration… overall it’s a rare, rewarding example of a paper-bound process that has been radically rethought from the bits up.” -The Washington Post Check out a free trial at www.visualthesaurus.com, and while you’re there try your hand at the spelling bee or any of the other fun language games, create your favorite thematic word constellations, and generally join the language geekery. If you love it as much as I do, the $20 annual subscription seems like a small price to pay for something that’s both practical and a whole bunch of fun. June 18, 2008 in Eye on the Industry | 4 comments
If you want to get rich, pick another industry. Seriously.
Do not write about your dog, your grandkids, horses, rainbows, puppies, feelings, or fairies. Be careful about wizards too.
Get a [good] agent.
Work with a professional editor.
Work with a professional book designer.
Assume the publisher will assign the illustrator.
Know that it’s a numbers game.
Writing a book is much harder than you think.
There is no such thing as a shortcut that works in children’s publishing.
Get comfortable with rejection.
When you think you’re finished, cut 200 pages.
Understand the difference between guerilla marketing and gorilla marketing. The first is okay; the second is not okay.
Seek to broaden your understanding beyond writer’s societies.
Become a prospective bookseller.
Become a prospective publisher.
Know that the market over-publishes, and only the strong survive the first printing.
Understand the difference between frontlist, backlist, and midlist.
Don’t call yourself a publisher unless you have more than six different books by different authors in print and you own the ISBNs.
Present yourself professionally.
Don’t try to start a viral campaign under an assumed name.
If you self-publish, expect skepticism.
Invest in professional design for your website.
Even award-winning authors have trouble moving books.
Publishers and booksellers talk; your reputation for difficulty will precede you.
Stop reading bestsellers if you want to write.
The way to the universal is through the deeply personal.
None of this $#%@$! matters unless you write a good book. June 16, 2008 in (12-18) Young Adult, 2008 Spring, Books that rate a 9+, Gutsy Girls, Instant Classic, Quirky and Hard to Define | No comments
Savvy by Ingrid Law Penguin; May 2008; 352 pp; $16.95 HC 978-0803733060 Core Audience: Readers 12+ and folks who love predicting award winners Strengths: Completely original from cover to cover and then some Twelve-year-old Mibs Beaumont has been counting down the days till her thirteenth birthday—the day her “savvy” will make itself known. Will she be able to create hurricanes like her brother? Or capture wonderful sounds in canning jars like her grandmother? Then Mibs’ father has a terrible accident just before her birthday, and Mibs feels sure that her savvy will be to help her dad. When she stows away on a traveling salesman’s pink bus to try to get to her father’s distant hospital, she finds herself on a madcap odyssey in the heartland of America—one that is as full of unexpected adventure and friendship as Mibs herself. Like some of my other favorite offbeat books of recent years, this story is absolutely original, with detail and a richness in the writing that paves its own way. This novel is also remarkable in the fact that it combines matter-of-fact bible belt imagery and fantastical super-powers in the same story in a way that manages to be neither off-puttingly dogmatic or overly fantastical, but rather sort of dreamy and lyrical. A book as unexpected as its main character and anyone who reads it seems to love it, no matter where they are coming from. |