All, Right Now

If my title suggests an uplifting song about seduction and reassurance by the British rock group FREE, check out the deliberate comma.

Today's theme is urgency or immediacy.

SUBMIT ASAP

 

Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House is accepting submissions of complete, unagented works.

For more information on which genres are of interest, and on what to do, and how, follow this link: https://authorspublish.com/berkley-an-imprint-of-peguin-random-house-accepting-submissions-through-january-9th/

For those who completed a novel during NaNoWriMo, this is great timing.

COMING TO A HEAD IN MARYLAND … COMPULSORY LICENSES FOR EBOOKS

 Maryland would force authors to license their ebooks to libraries at a price that Maryland politicians --and those who fund them-- like. Compulsory licenses have previously only applied to songwriters, but times change with technology.

Read the warning from a well written musicians' blog:

https://musictechpolicy.com/2021/12/10/the-revenge-of-the-internet-archive-google-and-the-metashills-lead-the-long-march-through-state-houses-to-weaken-copyright/

The MTP blog contains a quote from an anonymous librarian excoriating the Internet Archive. The quote is music to a copyright enthusiast's ears.

"You claim [the Archive is a] charitable organization. Charitable organizations provide money from their own funds to those in need or they collect donations of money or property, voluntarily offered by the original owners, to distribute to those in need. Taking from others despite their objections and offering the stolen material to those in need does not fall into the description of a charitable organization. It is, as has been pointed out, looting.

Your activity undermines the copyright system for your own benefit and in the financial interests of some of the wealthiest corporations in history. As has been said, the Internet Archive is not a public service but a pirate website. You are not here to help others- you are helping yourself to others’ property. It’s unfortunate that your supporters can’t admit this, or don’t realize it."

The quote is older, but entertainment value sometimes trumps other considerations.

Here is a link to a publishers' lawsuit against Maryland: 

https://publishers.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/AAP-v.-Maryland.pdf

 

It is alleged that a similar copyright grab is on the governor’s desk in New York.

 

The Authors Guild has issued a strong statement as of December 9th.

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/support-for-aaps-lawsuit-to-enjoin-marylands-library-ebook-licensing-law/

 

 

MUSIC FAIRNESS ACT... still time to act.

The free-thinking bipartisan team of a Democrat from Florida and a Republican from California introduced the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA), H.R. 4130 to help ensure that songwriters are fairly compensated when terrestrial AM/FM radio stations play their music. 

Other industrialized countries around the world make sure that their songwriters are paid, but owing to the current American laws, American songwriters cannot even be compensated by foreign countries when their work is exploited by foreign radio stations. 

The CopyrightAlliance.org calls on all creators to contact their Representative in Congress to urge their support for the American Music Fairness Act. They've made it easy. Just click on this link, fill out the brief form, and the CopyrightAlliance's campaign will automatically contact your Congressional representatives with an email—which is pre-written for your convenience—requesting their support.

https://p2a.co/fUuhVCp

KILL TWO BIRDS (to coin a phrase)

This is my adaptation of the Copyright Alliance's template, in which I also mentioned my dismay at the Maryland and alleged New York copyright grabs.

“I write to encourage you to support the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA), H.R. 4130, and give recognition to a terrestrial public performance right for sound recordings in the United States. Unlike the United States, most countries in the world require their AM/FM radio stations to compensate copyright owners of sound recordings when those works are played over the air. The USA does not do that, so, due to a system of reciprocity, this means that American copyright owners are prevented from being paid when their sound recordings are played over the air in other countries as well. The AMFA would fix this by establishing a terrestrial public performance right for sound recordings, and bringing U.S. copyright law in line with other industrialized nations around the world.

As an author, I know firsthand that the livelihoods of creative professionals depend on our right to be adequately and fairly compensated for our work. So, I am asking you today to show your support for creators like me by supporting and co-sponsoring the AMFA.

Moreover, the precedents and principles are important. It looks like the State of Maryland, and also perhaps the State of New York are proposing to create compulsory ebook licensing laws that would force unwilling authors to allow “libraries” to publish and distribute ebook copies of in-copyright works without the author having any input into terms or compensation.

Thank you for your assistance and support.”

Sometimes, one has to spit into the wind. 

If you are having trouble seeing Older Posts on the home page, look for a pink text link for More or Older Posts to the lower right of the Comments box.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

Karen S. Wiesner: HOW TO SPOT DEAD OR LIFELESS CHARACTERS, PLOTS, AND RELATIONSHIPS (CPR), Part 1 (Writer's Craft Article)

Writer's Craft Article by Karen S. Wiesner

HOW TO SPOT DEAD OR LIFELESS CHARACTERS, PLOTS, AND RELATIONSHIPS (CPR), Part 1

Based on CPR FOR DEAD OR LIFELESS FICTION {A Writer's Guide to Deep and Multifaceted Development and Progression of Characters, Plot, and Relationships} by Karen S. Wiesner

This will be the first of three posts focusing on how to spot dead or lifeless characters, plots, and relationships in your fiction.

"Confirming and declaring that someone is dead is a careful process. Check for a pulse, pupil response, and heart sounds. If a patient is in a coma, check for signs of brain death, including irreversible brain and brainstem damage, an inability to breathe on their own, and, again, a lack of pupil response. An EEG, a test that measures electrical activity in the brain, will flatline when all functions in the heart and brain stop." ~"Exactly How a Doctor Knows That Someone is Dead" by Sara Coughlin on the Refinery29 company website 

In real life, you can get to know some people easily. With others, it may take you years and an incredible amount of effort to truly get to know them and understand who they are. Characters are just the same. Some come to life with the first story spark and flesh themselves out continuously throughout all the stages of writing. Other characters refuse to come out of hiding so easily. In some ways, these characters are hiding from the writer, so it becomes that much harder for the writer to get to know them and bring them to life. These characters have barriers the author absolutely must break through in order to bring them to life.

A lot of authors ask, How do I know whether my characters are coming to life? The assumption is that, if a character is walking, talking, and moving through each scene in the book, she must be coming to life. Real, living characters and merely lifelike characters are two completely different things, especially in this age, when it’s so easy to manipulate images and facts. Authors can be holding those characters like lifeless puppets, thrusting them through the story when there's no life in them. Real, living characters are what you’re striving for because only these characters allow the readers to understand what lies behind the face presented within the story. Readers will see personality, deep issues and conflicts, goals and motivations, and amazingly natural growth and evolution. Lifelike characters are merely cardboard, and most readers will see right through the careful façade you constructed because there’s clearly nothing behind it--no personality, no growth, no true internal conflicts, response to external conflict, or deeply personal goals and motivations as a result of the problems.

If you don’t have to ask whether your characters are coming to life, it’s probably because your story is reeling through your mind in full color. As a writer, you should wake up with your characters in the morning and go to bed with them at night. In any given situation, you should know exactly what they’d be thinking and saying and doing. You see them growing and developing as they work through their conflicts and relationships, and you have a solid idea about what motivates them in any situation. It goes without saying in this best of all scenarios that your characters, their conflicts and relationships are living and breathing through you. If your critique partners, publisher, agent, and readers feel the same way, consider yourself blessed.

It’s harder to define when--and especially why--some characters don’t come to life. However, in most instances, the characters, plots, or relationships are lifeless because the author hasn’t developed them three-dimensionally enough to allow them to live and breathe. You as the writer need to create solid CPR development throughout the story. But keep in mind that both author and character need to share control of development. An author should never be so controlling that the character is too stifled by rigidity to come to life nor can an author allow the character to run amok in a story in ways that simply don’t fit. The author should give his character enough freedom to be able to emerge and develop naturally and enough discipline to keep the story logical and cohesive.

Dead CPR development sounds as easy to spot as a dead body in real life. See the quote at the beginning of this article for the medical process of determining such a state. Dead doesn't move, doesn't so much as twitch, groan, or reach for help, especially the longer it's been lying around. There's nothing there. No breath, no pulse, no warmth, conscience or *conscious*ness, let alone activity or movement that might imply something once existed, walked, and talked at any time previously. If nothing else, the analysis of your own story's core elements in the search to locate signs of life should point to either a definitive extreme in the positive or the negative or something in-between. Unfortunately, it's not always so cut and dried in telling whether or not our characters are dead or lifeless.

In some instances where this fact was (unbelievably and yet it happens) ignored, the dead elements may reek so badly, there's no question about whether you're in the presence of something dead or lifeless. Few readers will get past the first paragraph. No one wants to get near it, not even those who claim to love and care about you but are begging off desperately concerning this story. On one hand, it's a good thing if it's this obvious. At least you know, right? Logic says that, if you realize it, you can do something about it.

In other cases, only one or two of the core elements are actually dead. The living elements are "carrying around" the other one or two. (If that's not a vivid image, I don't know what is.) In theory, we should be able to recognize dead development when it's paired with something living. In that situation, can you point out what you're enjoying and connecting with? Those are the living parts. Are other potentially specific things unfocused, surreal, and maybe even unbelievable, without a pulse, a sign of life, or the proper foundation to begin building on? Those are dead or lifeless.

Easy peasy? Sigh. Not so much. In Part 2, we'll talk more about how to spot dead or lifeless CPR development.

Find out more about CPR FOR DEAD OR LIFELESS FICTION here: http://www.writers-exchange.com/cpr/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JDYXMFQ

Have you ever read a book with dead or lifeless characters? Leave a comment to tell me about it! 

Happy writing!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner

Xenobots

Organic "robots" developed from frog cells have learned to reproduce:

Self-Replicating Robots

Formed from the stem cells of the African clawed frog, the "xenobots," as was revealed in 2020, "could move, work together in groups and self-heal." Now they've developed the ability to reproduce "in a way not seen in plants and animals." The article compares them to Pac-Man figures, and there's a video clip showing them in action. Although they have no practical use yet, eventually they may be capable of applications such as "collecting microplastics in the oceans, inspecting root systems, and regenerative medicine."

These nanobots problematize the definition of "life." Are they robots or organisms? Furthermore, they potentially raise the question of what constitutes intelligence. If intelligence means the ability to respond to environmental changes by adapting one's behavior, even plants and bacteria have it. If true intelligence requires sapience—consciousness—it may be restricted to us, some other higher primates, and a few cetaceans. But if intelligence mainly equals problem-solving, the xenobots do exhibit "plasticity and ability of cells to solve problems."

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt