“Tim of the Awesome” endorses this message
Posted on Wednesday, October 13th, 2010It’s been a while since I last posted, so let’s get started. Today I’m going to break the first rule and show not tell.
First off is a video today. As I’m certain you’ve all heard if you’ve been paying attention to my site is that Philippa Ballantines book, Geist is coming out, with a Canadian release date of October 26, 2010. I cannot wait to see it come out and in fact, I think that I’ll be making it my “nano-treat”. I do have a great little treat for all of you though. Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris have gotten together and made a book trailer and if you haven’t seen it before it’s great.
Personally I’m not really sure how to look at these “book trailers” . On the outside it appears to be a really good idea, but I’m not sure if it is. On one hand I have always felt that’s really interesting to see what the author envisioned but on the other some people may be disappointed with a given book simply because the promise made in the video is different than the promise made in the book. While it doesn’t happen often with book covers when it does it can make a really good book come off as a cheap hack. On the other hand when this is done right it can make the book seem even better knowing not only have the author saw the book but how you saw it as well.
So basically I’m on the fence about this one and I’ll keep you updated as to when I make a permanent decision on whether these are good or bad. In the meantime though watch Philippa‘s video that I’ve put up on here. I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed. A friend at my work is going to be picking up the book as well, based solely on how interesting the cover picture is. I’m very impressed.
A lot of people are coming up with very interesting ways to show how much they love nanowrimo, and with the boards back up they have ample opportunity to share their creations with the world. One of my friends, whom I will refer to here as “Tim of the Awesome” has been put in novels around the world in a nano challenge the last couple of years. As he puts it nowadays “put me in your novel, add a couple thousand words and let the awesome flow.” While I heartily suggest putting Tim in your novel that’s not actually why I’m mentioning him today.
Tim (known as Hero on the nano forums) wrote a parody of that old spice commercial. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Hello Wrimos.
Look at your novel, now back to mine, now back at your novel, now back to MINE.
Sadly, it isn’t mine, but if you started writing 1667 words a day it could be as long as mine.
Look down, back up, where are you? You’re at your computer WITH THE NOVEL YOUR NOVEL COULD LOOK LIKE.
What’s in your hand? Back at me. It’s the remains of your silenced inner editor.
Look again.
THE EDITOR IS NOW DIAMONDS!
Anything is possible with NaNoWriMo.
I’m on a forum.
Definitely awesome is it not? I’ve heard that Tim may be planning on doing a live commercial version of this… if he does I will definitely have the video linked if not posted here. If you like this though go over to the nano forums and show Hero some love.
Another gentleman is making waves is one of the Toronto-Wrimo’s who uses the handle Errol. His new video, “good’Ol nanowrimo” is another brilliant example of people supporting things they love, doing it in creative ways and getting the word out there. Here’s the link for it.
I’ll be making my own video to go along with these “showing the love” examples later this week.
In other news, I finally finished reading Brandon Sanderson’s “the way of Kings”. All I can say on this is that the book is brilliant, well written, intelligent and thought-provoking. The only part that I wonder if it could’ve been done better is how he told Kaladin’s story. He did a present scene followed by a past scene for most of it. While it did work it didn’t seem to come off quite as smoothly as it could have, although I definitely don’t know how or if it could’ve been done better in this particular medium. Definitely a good read and I suggest you read it.
Finally I just want to quickly mention once more SIWC. I will be heading out next week on Tuesday for the beautiful lands of Abbotsford, Canada. I’ll be staying with a variety of friends and family for Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday I will be on-site signing in for my hotel room and preparing for my class on revision in the rewrite. I contacted the teacher last night and got homework help me prepare for the class. While it was a little overwhelming, it did raise my expectations of the class. I look forward to learning quite a bit and improving my novel in brilliant ways. If any of you are taking that course or will be over at the SIWC for the weekend look me up. I’d love to meet some of you in person.
Tags: Blog, Errol, Good 'Ol Nanowrimo, Hero, Nanowrimo, Novels, Philippa Ballantine, SIWC, Surrey International Writers Conference, Tim, Video Book Promos, Writing
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