Disqus - Latest Comments for MoJacobs

Re: The Three Fears of Alan Kaufman

MoJacobs — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:44:08 -0000

Leave it to you to make sense out of a largely nonsensical post. I have to admit, my first impression was of immediate dismissal... in fact, I didn't read past the first paragraph because I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. I went back and re-read everything, and you're right: Mr. Kaufman may very well have some legitimate fears. Fear, however, is not truth, and giving into such flights of fancy is, in my mind, more of a problem than the sensationalized idea of information centralization.

Re: The Economics of eBook Abundance

MoJacobs — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:30:25 -0000

A lot of good points here - I think it's harder for fiction writers to see themselves as yarn spinners or tellers of tale, however we can take a lesson from memoirists who make a good deal more from ticket sales than from book sales.

David Sedaris, for example, regularly has speaking tours in conjunction with book releases (he was just here in Hawaii last month... and the tickets were not inexpensive). Chris Leavins (of the "Cute with Chris" website) held several "Chris Leavins Story Hour" performances and offered the audio recordings as a podcast in the iTunes store. Right now, things like this are seen as special exceptions to the norm - for Sedaris, he's "famous" enough to fill seats... for Leavins, it's an inventive way to boost sales of his self-published book by tapping into his internet audience. Personally, I'd love for things like this to be the rule, rather than the exception. Using the Leavins example, I enjoy reading his short stories... but the performances of the same story brings forth nuances and inflections that I missed during my reading.

Re: Your Character Sources

MoJacobs — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 05:51:42 -0000

As a blogger, I try to stay as far away from venting about people who read my site as possible.. it has backfired on me a few times and have since learned my lesson.

In my fiction, I think my characters come from everyone I know or encounter in my daily life. Sure, some people may get annoyed, but my characters are such composites that no single person can claim "hey, that's me!!!" More than that, I often put a character in situations that the real person/people have never been in - or I'll take an event from a friend's life and make up a completely different character to cope with the situation.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that the person who ends up looking the worst in all of my fiction is me. Very few of the people I've modeled characters on have ever called me on it because 9 times out of 10, the character that represents me is far more deplorable.

Re: The Napkin Pitch

MoJacobs — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:07:39 -0000

Once upon a time, Maya was engaged to Tim. Two days before the wedding, he left her confused, devastated and trapped in a land that constantly rained soup. As she pieces together the events leading up to his departure, she uncovers the truth of their relationship that can free her from the soup storm.