Stephen King Essay

Someone sent me a link to this great essay written by Stephen King after yet another parent group decided his books didn't belong in their local middle school library. I don't always like King's fiction - often I don't, actually. Horror isn't my cup of tea. But his short fiction is frequently sublime and his essays on writing should be turned into a textbook on writing. Anyway, I like his balanced approach to the subject of censorship, book banning and how it applies to schools...

"Do I think that all books and all ideas should be allowed in school libraries? I do not. Schools are, after all, a "managed" marketplace. Books like "Fanny Hill" and Brett Easton Ellis' gruesome "American Psycho" have a right to be read by people who want to read them, but they don't belong in the libraries of tax-supported American middle schools. Do I think that I have an obligation to fly down to Florida and argue that my books, which are a long way from either "Fanny Hill" or "American Psycho," be replaced on the shelves from which they have been taken? No. My job is writing stories, and if I spent all my time defending the ones I've written already, I'd have no time to write new ones." -Stephen King, 20 March 1992 "The Adventure In Censorship Is Stranger Than Fiction"

Cause and Effect

Do you think that reading something not because it drew you in on its merits, but because you're acting in defiance of authorities intrinsically changes your relationship to the material?

The fact that someone else told me not to read something does not guarantee that I will read it. For one thing, there are a lot of lists of Really Bad Stuff and I don't have that kind of time. But in all honesty if I know that it is on a list it gets more scrutiny in terms of whether or not I will read it than it might otherwise. There are certainly books I've read and books on my to-be-read shelf that wouldn't otherwise draw my attention for one reason or another.

I think any reasonable person would see that seeking to ban something you hate is self-defeating. You're giving free publicity to those you oppose. Right? Or does the effort to ban or constrict access to a book or song so intrinsically change my experience of it that it's worth the effort?

If I read a book that's on some Really Bad List somewhere, the list all but guarantees that I will contemplate it on a level deeper than I would otherwise. Sometimes I find something I deeply loathe. (The key being that I found it, it wasn't kept from me because I might find it.)  And it troubles me slightly that the fact that it's on a List somewhere changes the way I feel about it, may alter on some level deeper than I'm aware of how I respond to it.

I suspect that I'm not alone in this. But is that good or bad? Does finding it on some We Hate This And You Shouldn't Read It list make it seem better than it is? Does it inhibit our critical faculties in some fashion because we, the rebellious readers, deeply WANT it to be good just because some annoying jerk told us they didn't think it was and they 'know better' than we do? So is banning a book a self-fulfilling prophecy or a self-defeating one? Or do the two cancel each other out?

I honestly think that the furor that surrounded A Catcher in the Rye was at least partially responsible for the cache that it's carried for the past fifty-odd years. Does the story of Holden Caulfield's 1950's Upper Westside, white, middle class ennui remain compelling without the history to the books fight to remain in print backing it up? Even after his idle and strangely asexual chitchat with prostitutes about "phonies" has lost its ability to shock us? I think it does, but I cannot be sure where the act of innate defiance that reading such a book entails begins and ends. So I asked my assembled friends on Facebook -- some of the brightest people I know from all parts of the country, all walks of life and every political leaning -- and now I ask you.

Is the prophecy self-fullfilling or is it self-defeating? What is the cumulative impact of challenging (verb form) books? Not to mention the cumulative effect on you, on society and on the writers of the books?

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Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.

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Writing Tips from Published Authors...

Q: Where do you turn for writing advice?
A: I tend to tell people asking me these questions to buy Bird by Bird or Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, and then pass on the advice I've summed-up from a hundred such conversations I've had with people you've actually heard of: "At some point you just have to put the books down and write something". If you want more nitty-gritty, detail stuff, that's why many writers keep blogs and I encourage you to check in on them from time to time and perhaps "follow" some of your favorites on Twitter. (And if that doesn't disabuse you of the notion that becoming a writer is lavish parties and fancy cars, nothing will. It's hard work and it's a business.)

Here are a few of my favorite online sources of information or musings that I found valuable...

• Veteran suspense author and journalist David Hewson keeps a regular blog about writing and travel. Recently, he posted a great article about methods for the pesky task of keeping track of multiple characters amid multiple storylines, that gave me that "Yeah, me too" moment that makes me read other writers' blogs.
• I really had to search for this one... Back in August of 2006, The Atlantic aggregated some of the Great Writing Advice that has been offered in the pages of their magazine and posted it here. Which goes to show that when you do find advice you value, don't lose track of where you put it. (In my case, I had it printed out and had to go back and find where it might yet reside online.)
• I was there for this one... At the PNWA conference, James Rollins handed out some sage advice that one of my fellow attendees blogged. Rather than reinvent the wheel (or re-blog the conference) I'll give you a link to his summary of James Rollin's excellent advice. Advice we all should heed more often than we do.
• And of course, there's always the genius of Neil Gaiman. The man's chockful of advice. Some of it's even about writing.

Notice that with the exception of Mr Hewson's musings on keeping characters straight in a convoluted story, most of it can be summarized with the words: "Writers write, if you're not writing, you're not a writer"? There's a reason for that, and a reason that this blog is titled "Pages to type before I sleep". Which reminds me. I have writing to do before I can get some shuteye.

On Censorship

It's national Banned Book Week. A celebration of reading the things that someone didn't want us to, both historically and currently.

I'm a partisan in this fight, emphatically against any governmental entity telling me what is good or bad for me to read. But what about the other side of the issue? The counter-claim was launched by the Wall Street Journal in an Op/Ed titled "Finding Censorship Where Theyre Is None" which trotted out the usual arguments summed-up by the idea that it is impossible to really ban a book in today's America. With open lines to obtain a copy of anything we want online, censorship is theoretically impossible and citizens challenging the content of their libraries is the constitutionally-protected right to seek redress of grievances.
And they're right... at least to a point.

Christine at the wonderful book blog Stacked posted an excellent commentary in reflection of to the Wall Street Journal's Op/Ed and I encourage you to read it. She rightly points out the difference between books in school libraries and books in public libraries. But she reiterated something for the WSJ that I disagree with... that avenues of getting around a ban negates the ban and thereby negates the ability to censor. (You'll find my comments there as well.)

This is the stickiest of sticky issues. I agree on the marked differences between choosing appropriate materials for a school versus restricting content in a public forum such as a public library. Schools are necessarily controlled environments for pedagogical reasons and that has been repeatedly underlined by the US Supreme Court.

And the WSJ is also correct inasmuch as the application by citizens to have books moved, removed or segregated is the right of a citizen to seek redress of perceived grievance — a right every bit as sacred as the freedom of speech. And sometimes the two will collide, the one becoming restrictive of the other.

Rights are not absolute and definition and boundaries are usually defined as your rights stop where they begin to impinge upon the rights of another. You right to swing your fist stops when your fist impacts my nose. For similar reasons not all speech is protected inasmuch as you can’t shout “Fire” in a theater. The trouble is that outside of the realm of theater-shouting there’s no good way to indicate where your speech has impacted my nose… so to speak.

As a citizen of this country, I have the legally-protected right and ability to obtain a copy of anything online (within the bounds of copyright law which is a whole other issue). But this ability to get it doesn’t negate the ability of a community to censor. A theoretical path around a roadblock doesn’t make the obstacle cease to exist.

The trouble is the inherent conceit that there are people out there who ‘know better’ and deserve a role in choosing for me and for my child what they can or cannot see, hear and read. Within a school curriculum that makes a certain kind of sense, but a public library is a public forum. And any effort by authorities to restrict the contents of the stacks or remove items and place them behind a curtain not for fear that they will be stolen and incur additional costs to replace, but for fear of what reaction they might provoke… that stigmatizes those authors and those books and those who dare to read those books. The act of crossing into the restricted section becomes an open act in defiance of the perceived mores of the community rather than a private act of self-education. This will embolden some, even encourage them to read the banned material as an act of defiance, yes. But doing something in defiance inherently changes our relationship to the material. Even so, it's not for those emboldened that we argue -- it’s for those who will be warned away, their minds and ideas unchallenged by the forbidden volumes behind the curtain, their education and erudition stunted by lack of intellectual oxygen.

I support your right to seek the removal or segregation of books within the public forum because to support my unfettered right to speak is to likewise support yours. But I don't in any way accept that the government has the right to impose your views on me and mine. Your option to seek redress of grievance is sacrosanct and it contributes to our culture not because I think the government can acquiesce to your demands, but because it keeps the debate alive within our society about a range of issues that should never be kept under a basket.

The public library is the central storehouse of ideas within a community. Whether or not we can find other ways to obtain a copy of a given book or magazine in irrelevant. The removal or segregation of written material within a public library is an act of the government to enforce the opinions of some upon the whole. That is what makes it censorship and takes it from a citizen seeking redress of grievances into the realm of the government endorsing an opinion and acting as the arm of that opinion, ideology or person.

And that's a violation of all of our rights.

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Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.

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Fahrenheit 451

It is banned books week! Celebrate your intellectual freedom. Go out and read something that someone doesn't want you to read. Find a list of books saved from the pyre here.

Books Aflame

There's an unwritten contract between writer and reader: The author is here to challenge you, to hold up a mirror and show you what they see, a new viewpoint different from your own.

It is in the nature of any reflection that we will not always see what we expect to see. At its worst it is merely titillating, but at its best this is the beginning of a conversation. The juxtaposition of different viewpoints, one set beside the next, interlocking reflections of life in our times (or past times in some cases) adds depth and understanding because no single image can be the entire picture. In the words of the oft-censored author Douglas Adams: "The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn’t a mirror big enough..."

Without the conversation, without seeing as much of the picture as is available to you, all the reflections available to you, you cannot hope to have a fully-realized picture of our culture. Pull the mirror off the wall and the reflection will go away but it will not change what it showed. Only by taking all the images available -- even those we disagree with -- and overlaying them can we begin to see the whole interconnected collage of overlapping lives and loves and wonder that surrounds us.

The whole of creation laid out before us in the stacks of the world library.

 This past year, Judith Krug died, leaving behind a tradition of raising up those voices that others would silence. Ms Krug founded "Banned Books Week" at the American Library Association, which begins on Saturday. Art is supposed to be a challenge to your viewpoint. If all we ever read or hear are those voices which already agree with us, then we are stagnant and the conversation dies. And that... that would be truly tragic.

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Find out more: The American Library Association (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom Geoffery Chaucer, Montaigne, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Joseph Heller, JD Salinger... not to mention the Bible, the Quran and the US Constitution. Some of the greatest minds and influential works ever to pass from pen to page have all been censored, blocked, burned and banned. UPenn offers the following list of banned literature: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html And one of my favorite places to keep track of the current trends in banned and challenged books is the blog The Dangerous Pages Review

Borders :: Odd and the Frost Giants

You've got to love a good Neil Gaiman tale... Borders :: Odd and the Frost Giants Shared via AddThis

Google Books Update

The parties involved in the Google Books settlement are cracking it open to see if they can fix it to the satisfaction of all parties and the regulators that are making anti-trust noises.

"Lawyers for The Authors Guild and other plaintiffs said in court papers filed Tuesday that they plan to have settlement talks with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve complaints about a $125 million deal that the Justice Department said probably violates antitrust law." -MSNBC

Read the whole story at the link above. Here's hoping they can get it right this time... stay tuned.

Rock the Vote

The votes have been tabulated, the finalists chosen, it's time for the runoff election! It's time to make your voice heard and the choices will not be easy. I'm speaking, of course, of the race for the best book to win the National Book Award for Fiction in the past 60 years. Should the honors go to an anthology? Was the chief among equals the stories John Cheever, Flannery O'connor, Eudora Welty or William Faulkner? Or should it go to a novel? The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison or Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon? The National Book Award Foundation wants to know what you think. Which of these giants towers just that much above the rest? I'm not going to endorse a candidate, though I've already voted. Dust off your bookshelves, dear readers and polish your erudition. Remember that every vote counts -- your vote counts -- and those who don't vote don't get to bitch about the results. (Well, they do, but we're going to ignore them when they do.) At the moment, Flannery O'connor is way out in front and Ralph Ellison is following hard on her heels. Incidentally, people periodically ask me for book recommendations -- check the National Book Awards website for a list of some of the greatest works to be committed to the page in the last six decades. Good reading!

The Ravages of Cabin Fever

The pleasure and peril of where I live is the distance I live from the hustle and bustle of the workaday world. On the one hand, I can't pop down to the corner and grab a cup of coffee. On the other hand, I can paint my house whatever color I want, have a garden instead of a lawn and even a firepit and woodfired pizza oven (currently under construction) out behind my house. And as long as I don't violate any county codes, no one cares. After over a week of dealing with a real fever, the "cabin fever" got to me and even painting the eaves of the house began to sound like a relief from eight days on the sofa sucking down chicken broth. I spent nearly all day outside, including cooking two meals over the firepit out back, painting the eaves of the house laying on a blanket trying to remember the constellations I'd memorized when I was ten. I didn't want to come inside. So, I got very little writing or editing done this weekend, and I just don't care. My heart wasn't in it. After a week seeing nothing but my computer screen and the ceiling above the sofa, I needed to see leaves and trees and dancing flames. I have a half gallon of leftover beef stew from the dutch oven to take me into the coming week. Earthy, smoky goodness to remind me of a fabulous week.

Brown Out?

It's funny. I don't think I know anyone who is actually reading the new Dan Brown book. I've been holed up with the sickness so I'm out (though I'll read it eventually) was anyone in line Tuesday morning, clambering to get their hands on it? The largest print run in publishing history, touted to be the book that can save or doom the publishing industry single-handedly... Is it good? bad? indifferent? Whether you're reading it or not, let me know what you think in comments. (If not, why not? &c.) In the meantime - if you've a hankering for some alt-historical thriller fun - you can create your own custom Dan Brown sequel using Slate.com's Handy Dan Brown Sequel Generator just pick a city and an ancient (or not-so-ancient) secret society and off you go!

A Plague Year

When I have a fever, my brain tries to run in many directions at once, rather like the iconic image of Scooby Doo trying to simultaneously run in four directions at once connected only by his tail. That's me lately. Oh, and there's more cartoon imagery when I'm sick as well. I've been having the week to end all weeks. First one thing then another, and now I seem to have the flu. And if not the flu, something that should be awarded an emmy for it's masterful imitation. To wit: There has been more sleeping than pages being typed the past couple of days. Some Random Updates:

• Dig the new look? Late nights and NyQuil tend to make me restless, and I was getting tired of the plain-vanilla thing anyway. Please tell me what you think!
• The 365 Mugs project continues over at DailyBooth, despite the fact that I've needed to lean on some of my friendly neighborhood Muppets as stand-ins. You can play along if you like, by posting your morning mug in response to mine. When you spend as much time alone as writers tend to, it helps to reach out and remind yourself that the rest of the world is out there trying to muddle through the morning too. At the moment, the tasty beverage of choice is tea rather than coffee, but that can't be helped. I'll talk more on that a bit later, I think.
• Several people have been forwarding me links to people who are doing things with books other than reading them. I suppose that with the long-heralded demise of print, the crafty ones among us are trying to decide the best ways to put them to use beyond their bookish lifespans... which makes me sad. Some of them are fun, and some are more than a little scary. Here's a sampling: How To Turn an iPhone into a Moleskine Book from WIRED.com's Gadgetlab 25 Things You Can Do With Books Besides Reading Them by Creatrope Use Books As Wallpaper Or Chop Them Up As Bric a Bract with Country Living

The pages are typed, time for some sleep... NyQuil take me away!

Welcome New Readers!

We have newcomers! Welcome and well-met. These are the current Standard Operating Procedures for Pages to Type. Please review the SOP's before reading further...

• This is a "novel blog" which is not really novel, but it is about a novel (sometimes) and the novelist who is writing it (mostly).
• If you should get any novelty in your eye, flush with water and seek medical help immediately.
• Safety goggles or Cokebottle nerd glasses should be worn at all times. The thicker the frames & lenses, the more at home you might feel. (You don't have to be a booknerd to enjoy this blog, but it wouldn't hurt...)
• Nothing found herein should be construed as the entire view of the author or anyone else living, dead or existing in an indeterminate state caused by fluctuations in space and/or time.

If we haven't met IRL, I'm Scott. I live on an island in Puget Sound with my wife (aka "The Engineer") and our two spoiled cats. This blog updates when something occurs to me that won't fit into what I'm supposed to be focusing on, which means almost every day. Because of my background as both a writer and a bookseller, these tend to focus on the changes our literary culture is enduring as it transitions from ink to electrons. This blog exists because I need someplace to warehouse the overflow of ideas that occur to me as I write other things. If I put it here, I know where it is and can keep an eye on it. Please feel free to feed the ideas. One can never feed an idea too much, they're happier when they're plump. Comment, subscribe, repost (please backlink) and feel free to expand, dispute or otherwise use anything here as a springboard to your own ideas. This is a community. WARNING: Improper application of "Pages to Type" may cause excessive coffee drinking, insomnia, Post-it notes on the bathroom mirror and the urge to write deep into the early morning hours Welcome!

Imagine that...

The $150 Space Camera: MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer-Money Budget

The $150 Space Camera: MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer-Money Budget

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Booknews Roundup

This week the Pirate Bay sale threatened to run aground after the buyers were accused of being on the take and de-listed on the Swedish stock exchange. Allegories abound and metaphors were sighted off the port bow. I wonder if Johnny Depp will get a role in the eventual movie. (via WIRED magazine) Speaking of movies and metaphors, the challenges faced by an award-winning and beloved childrens book that's only about ten sentences long shouldn't surprise us, but it does. This transition from pre-adolescent fantasy to post-modern film is brought to you by the letter N, Y and T. But this tale of a childrens book's coming of age wouldn't be complete without this compelling illustration edition. That Gap ad is magical. (Five words I never thought I'd write.) (via NewYorkTimes and Geektyrant) Tuesday is the big day and the District of Columbia grits its teeth and braces for the onslaught of conspriacy buffs as it makes preparations "to be Dan Browned" on Tuesday (I prefer my cities medium-rare, thanks). Meanwhile, the Publishing Industry prays to be Dan Browned. Makes me wonder where I left my decoder ring. (via MSNBC, AFP, the L'il Orphan Annie show and the makers of rich, chocolaty Ovaltine) Of course there isn't a publisher or bookseller who doesn't wish Dan Brown could take a leaf from James Patterson's playbook. Patterson writes a couple books a day, I think and gets by with a little help from his friends. To his credit, Patterson's a heckuva nice guy and it reportedly very generous to his co-authors. As a writer, it must be odd to be the CEO of "Your Name Here" Inc. (Speaking of the Beatles, do you think there's much hope we'll see an author's edition of "Rockband" that comes with a typewriter and a bottle of Scotch? Maybe not.) (via Reuters, .CNET, Paul, John, George and Ringo) And in other news: This article on flexible screen makes me wonder if my pondering about dancing text isnt so far off, and the melee of authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians and lawyers currently centered on Googlebooks is giving me a headache. If you can summarize it or make it funny, more power to you. (via WIRED magazine, Yahoo/Reuters, ALA, and NewYorkTimes).

365 Mugs

I am blessed with friends and family who now reside in all corners of the globe. It occurs to me that the only cup of coffee I can share with them on a daily basis is a virtual one. So I'm planning to do just that. Every morning for the next calendar year, I will be posting a picture of my "mug" over on Dailybooth.com (username: pages2type). I invite anyone who wishes to share a tasty beverage to join me in the exercise. You can even drink tea if you want. Or milk, or orange juice or some healthy wheatgrass smoothie thingy. We won't laugh at you. . . much. I'll try to be fresh and creative as ever, but I'll admit up front that these probably won't be the finest examples of photography ever seen. That's not really the point. Much like the internet, writing is a tool for bridging divides. Every novel serves this purpose from the pulpiest of pulp fiction to the highest of high-brow, because novels are ultimately about stepping outside ourselves to see what the world looks like through a different set of eyes. The Internet has a unique capacity to bring that experience out of the fictional realm. Family and friends are welcome, but so are strangers! In a world that grows more divided by the day, the least we can do is sit down for a moment to see one another as real people. The 'comment' function even allows us to carry on conversations. Good coffee and civilized conversation? Can the world survive such a thing? If you want to come have a cup with me, follow the link above. All are welcome at my table. The service is free to sign up and all it takes is a digital camera or webcam and a steaming cup of something. So sit with me for a moment each day and share a cup with me and my farflung friends.

Kinetic Convergence?

Text has danced for quite awhile. Watching a Powerpoint presentation is sometimes a jarring experience as the data points samba across the screen, blink in and out and sometimes hide as much as they reveal about the speakers' point. Sometimes I think we're probably better off without it. But moving text doesn't have to be bedlam. Last week when I was looking at people who stepped outside the normal venues for delivering text, I remembered this video by video blogger Alan Lafustka aka "Fallofautumndistro". Alan put up an animated video of the Kenneth Koch poem 'Social Life with Friends'. This kinetic poem is done very well (I think) and I love the poem, which fits my current mood. I don't necessarily agree that it has to be an either/or proposition -- in this and in all things, finding a workable balance is the key. The reason I bring this up is the notion of delivering a story as animated words, so called 'kinetic typography'. There are a number of these poems and snippets of books on YouTube and as is the nature of the Tube, they are executed with a widely varying degree of skill. As ever, finding the workable balance is the key. Moving text can give you a migraine or it can inform and illustrate what it's trying to get across to you. In the middle of the dust-up awhile back about Kindle's 'read to me' app I started thinking about the future intersection between text and speech. Some books simply cannot be brought across as audio books. If you've ever read 'House of Leaves' you'll know what I mean, but Danielewski's acid trip of a novel isn't alone in breaking free of the stereotypical typeblock. A few weeks ago, I took my nephews to a bookstore and read over their shoulders as they browsed. I was astounded by how much even the middle grade books were straining against the format. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney especially seems to be ripe for a method of delivery that would blend animation and text. Not a full-on cartoon, but a kinetic book. Of course, your e-Reader would need a video card, but with Barnes & Noble's entry into the e-book world, we're on the doorstep of true convergence. One of the many possible definitions of "convergence", is a blend of the abilities of many gadgets into one omni-gadget. An iPhone, for instance. The new B&N site, along with the controversial Google Books site is already delivering content that doesn't require a specific e-reader in order to view it. That means you can read your e-book on a PDA, Blackberry, laptop or netbook. I'm typing this blogpost on an netbook that honestly doesn't outweigh an e-reader by that much and has the added benefit of allowing me to watch video as well as choose between working on my book or reading someone else's. I predict that at some point this force of 'convergence' will either eliminate the e-reader or force their creators to allow them to do more than just read books. As books take on new dimensions and text slips the physical restraints of ink on a page, the possibilities for a convergence of our own are virtually limitless. Words can dance, appear and disappear, and illustrations will no longer be forced into a static realm. And as the technologies and artforms converge, it will either be beautiful or absolute and unadulterated bedlam. I've prepared a Powerpoint presentation that shows why it will probably be a bit of both. . .

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.

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Kindle Return Policy (redux)

Amazon has come full-circle on the Orwell controversy. According to NPR they're offering the restoration of the titles (presumably legal editions) plus some walking around money in hopes of putting the debacle behind them.

"In an e-mail sent Thursday to Kindle owners whose books were erased, Amazon offered to redeliver the titles to their e-readers for free, along with any annotations users had made. Or the customers can get a $30 Amazon.com gift certificate or a $30 check — which could be worth much more than two Kindle books, because many of them cost $10 or less." -from NPR (listen and read the complete story)

As I recall from my earlier reporting (cough-ranting-cough) on the subject, the eye-catching titles were 1984 and Animal Farm, but titles by JK Rowling and Ayn Rand were also deleted and there's no word on how that's panning out. I suppose there's a cache in having the headline-grabbing titles missing from your library. What do you think? Does this make you feel any different about the whole affair?

iEducate?

Several people sent me this article from Mashable, outlining the shift from a school library full of books to a digital school library filled with eBooks. This follows on the heels of a series of articles on the site tracking the future path of technology in education and the transition of textbooks to eBooks.

It's a fascinating series and well worth the read whether you work in education or just happen to have one.

On the whole I have no problem with this. When my wife & I were in school (she's an engineer) there were any number of classes where the textbook was a photocopied manuscript rife with errata and addendae and usually in desperate need of some professional copyediting. Needless to say the professor or instructor's name was usually on the 'cover' (such as it was). At the very least, a self-published electronic Textbook wouldn't force me to buy a gross of loose leaf hole-protectors in order to keep my textbook from losing pages.

Just don't give it to me on an iPhone -- as the New York Times pointed out yesterday, the screen size just isn't big enough to meet the task. What you may not know is that when I go to work each day, the main thrust of my career is to faciliate a "Distance Learning" program for my school and the state of Washington. Every day, I watch more students opt for an online path to education and my job is to help them get there.

I keep thinking about the article I linked to awhile back on Iced Tea and Sarcasm written by an independent bookseller who is skeptical of the eReader. He included a brief survey of studies that seemed to strongly indicate that retention was a problem when reading from a screen as compared to reading from paper.

As far as I know, there isn't any current data on how the current high-rez screens used by the Sony Reader, Kindle and the upcoming Plastic Logic readers fare in the same tests. The newer technologies allow for interaction with the text on a level unknown until the introduction of the Kindle. We can highlight and annotate texts as we read them and advances are even being made into digital marginalia that can be shared. If you've ever pawed through the used texts at a school bookstore looking for the one with the most lucid notes and highlighting, you can appreciate a feature like that. 

The Engineer and I - between us - carted around thousands of dollars (and hundreds of pounds) worth of books around. Engineering texts and art history books, lots of images and low printruns made them expensive and heavy. Electronic versions of textbooks are running about half the cost of their printed and bound cousins and weigh nothing. In many aways, at the core of these uncertain times, the reader is getting more choices.

And with skyrocketing tuition rates, wouldn't it be nice if there was something in scholastic life on which the price was dropping?

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Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.

Contact Me

Three To Watch

Yesterday I asked if you could name some people who "live outside of the lines". Here are some of the people I see who are doing intriguing and risky things with their fiction, three authors who are (for better or worse) moving beyond the traditional definition of the novel. People whose innovative ideas will get across better than anything I can tell you about how crucial it has become for us to look beyond our imaginary walls -- to think outside the box. These are three people moving beyond the traditional definition of the book and taking full advantage of all that digital filmaking, websites and computer downloads can offer...

1. John Green is a young adult author I've mentioned here before. He writes smart fiction that challenges young readers and has the most loyal fanbase I've ever seen, mostly through the video blogging he does on YouTube. Green's a case study in so-called "Platform Building". That's innovative enough, but he is also re-defining what the novel is. John created something called This Is Not Tom, which is a novel posted for free on the website I just linked to, but in order to read it you have to solve a series of increasingly-difficult riddles and visual puzzles. The novel is free. But you have to solve a bunch of very difficult riddles in order to read it. So much of the writing trade is supposed to be about making it easier and easier for the reader to get through the book. Green is imposing obstacles between the reader and the book and it's working. As his story grows in astonishing directions, the readers are hooked and word is spreading. And at this point all I know is that that guy... well, he's not Tom.
2. Anthony Zuiker, creator of the hit television show(s) "CSI" is setting his creative sights on multimedia novels. "Zuiker said people's attention span was becoming shorter and shorter and that it was important to give people more options on how they consumed entertainment and books." (Reuters) I fear that this is a self-inflicted ailment and I'm not sure he's necessarily right when the younger generation of readers got their taste for the printed word by hefting the cinderblocks that JK Rowling calls novels. Regardless of the attention-span issue, Zuiker is making intriguing use of all the technological tools available to him and is betting that through shear audio/visual moxie, he can tell a compelling story that people will want to read and see. A story that crosses the bridge from just being a printed block of paper by having readers visit a website every twenty pages and typing a code into the site to view the next film clip related to the novel. How this all ties together and how the codes will be presented remains to be seen. I should hope by some logical storytelling mechanism they are inserted into the storyline.
3. Cory Doctorow. If you read Writer's Digest, there's a great interview with Cory this month that sort of outlines his philosophy and his view of how the novel is unfolding. While he's not writing novels in four dimensions like Green, Cory is a force in the movement to unleash the novel from the staid traditions of his forebears.. All of Cory's publishing contracts include the rights to distribute his works under a Creative Commons license for free download. Yes, as the books are selling on the store shelves, Cory is also giving them away. Your mother told you that if you give away the milk, they'll never buy the cow? Cory says your momma is wrong. In a move that essentially treats the electronic book as a marketing tool rather than a product, Doctorow is gambling that the people who read it for free will like the milk enough to come back and buy the cow. And so far he's right.

I don't know that any of these guys are necessarily right. I commonly tag these posts with "technophobia" because in some ways, that's exactly what's keeping a lot of us from doing what these three are doing. John Green's riddle novel is compelling, but is working in part because he has a devoted fanbase of self-proclaimed nerds who are willing to unravel the story rather than have it just laid out for them. All the same, he displays a deft hand with his subject, his format and his fans that we could all learn from. Zuiker's "digi-book" looks a little gimmicky from here, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of my time. If nothing else, we know he's capable of spinning a good story and he has always displayed a finely-tuned sense of his technologies. Cory Doctorow is as much an activist as he is a novelist. Much like Green, he enjoys a certain 'geek cache' and a devoted following of readers who make his business plan functional. Maybe the real lesson all of these guys are teaching us is how far you can stretch once you've created an audience that is willing to follow you down the rabbit hole. Or perhaps they are simply showing us that the walls that exist between page and screen are as imaginary as Les Nessman's office walls and we all need to be ready to write in a new cross between the two formats.

Nessman's Box

"Outside the box" is one of my favorite cliches. (Yes, I allow myself to have favorite cliches, sue me.) It gets across in one succinct phrase all the dangers of these artificial boundaries we erect between what we are comfortable with and what is possible. It also illustrates the benefits of being one of those who is willing to step across the yellow tape surrounding our imaginary boxes. We all live like Les Nessman from the WKRP television show. Imaginary walls that provide us with imaginary comforts. Please use the imaginary door to enter and don't forget to wipe your feet on the imaginary mat. I feel like writers and publishers are more guilty of laying tape around our comfort zones than anyone else. We live and work in an industry that has - more than any other - remained virtually untouched by the last 500+ years of technological advancement. From the scribes at their desks in the monasteries to the guy at the cafe typing on his laptop, all that is different are the tools we use to put the ink on the paper. Yet in the past ten years, the idea of the book or newspaper has changed so drastically that we sometimes forget that the tapelines that form the boundary of our imaginary worlds exist largely as a matter of tradition. And the tape is peeling. My recent series of posts here at P2T have focused on how other forms of creative storytelling can add colors to an author's palette. In this ongoing meditation, I've talked about how Commedia del Arte informs my character choices, play writing helps me hear my dialogue and role playing helped me see the story from the inside. All of these are methods by which I break down those imaginary walls. For me, this blog is yet another step across the tape -- a place where I can think out loud about these things and maybe get some feedback from like-minded folk. Do you know a novelist that works outside the traditional boundaries? Someone I might not have heard of? Talk about it in comments! I'm curious to hear from you. ---

Scott Walker Perkins writes literary thrillers and novels of suspense woven from the threads of history. His current novel is The Palimpsest and he is working on another tentatively titled 42 Lines.

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