Writer's Report 2.0

When I saw Randy Pausch on TV, I was astounded with his absolutely courageous approach to his own mortality. I couldn’t be more impressed with his accomplishments and his outlook on life and his inevitable death.

I went online and watched his “Last Lecture”. It is lengthy, but is well worth your time.

You can see the video HERE . Or read the transcript HERE

NEW YORK – A dying professor’s inspirational speech, an Internet sensation this fall, will be published next spring by Hyperion Books.

Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, gave a lecture in September in which he spoke of suffering from pancreatic cancer and likely having just months to live. A video of the speech soon began spreading online, attracting millions of viewers, and the 47-year-old Pausch eventually gave television interviews to Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric and others.

“Remember, brick walls let us show our dedication,” Pausch advises in his speech. “They are there to separate us from the people who don’t really want to achieve their childhood dreams. Don’t bail.”

The book will be called “The Last Lecture” and will be written with the Wall Street Journal’s Jeff Zaslow.
Financial terms were not disclosed, although the deal has been widely reported to be worth more than $6 million.

“I was deeply moved by Randy’s speech, as millions of others have been,” Hyperion president Robert S. Miller said in a statement Tuesday. “We believe that his book can go beyond the speech to inspire readers for years to come to choose to live each day of their lives with purpose and joy.”

Sure, pick on the dead guy to save face of the living literary geniuses, who wished they were dead when they made this list:

Literary Review: BAD SEX IN FICTION AWARDS 2007

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer

LONDON – The conception of Adolf Hitler was never going to make for easy reading. But the late Norman Mailer’s explicit rendition of the incestuous encounter between the genocidal German dictator’s parents has won the writer one of the world’s most dubious literary prizes.

Mailer, who died of renal failure last month at 84, was one of several candidates for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award, which aims to highlight crude and tasteless descriptions of sex in modern novels.

In a ceremony at the In & Out Club in central London, the judges paid homage to a “great American man of letters,” adding: “We are sure that he would have taken the prize in good humor.” (more…)

It appears that conservative Catholic groups are going to make the The Golden Compass another controversial bestseller. They are up in arms over the ‘His Dark Materials’ series, by author Philip Pullman, a proclaimed atheist. The Church groups claim that this children’s fantasy series promotes an anti-Catholic, atheist agenda.

The Baptist Press claims:

“…He (Pullman) said in a 2001 interview, “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief,” and two years later told another newspaper, “My books are about killing God…”

Baptist Press article

The books seem more focused on the overbearing authoritarianism of the Church than being anti-doctrinal (a reference to Jesus is not mentioned in any of the books).

Bill Donohue, CEO of the Catholic League, claims that the movie ‘The Golden Compass’ is being used to sell atheism to kids. That it’s a dumbed-down version of the book which is ultimately being used to lure kids into buying the books – where the real message lies.

“The Catholic League wants Christians to boycott this movie precisely because it knows that the film is bait for the books: unsuspecting parents who take their children to see the movie may be impelled to buy the three books as a Christmas present. And no parent who wants to bring their children up in the faith will want any part of these books.”

Baltimore Sun article

It’s a good thing for Pullman that the Christian religion is mature enough with people confident enough in their faith, where they either just dismiss his work or take steps to have people boycott the movie and the books, instead of going out to kill the author.

With publicity like this, the series will be an even bigger hit than it already is. It sure worked in J.K. Rowling’s and Dan Brown’s favor.

John C. Maxwell takes a fresh look at the classic, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, he wrote with Zig Ziglar, and found that although the original laws are irrefutable they are, however, not complete…

By John C. Maxwell

This fall I had a rare opportunity to update and revise a book I wrote 10 years ago. When I wrote The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, I attempted to share everything I knew about leading people by teaching the timeless principles I had discovered. The book became very popular, appeared on The New York Times best-seller list and remained on the BusinessWeek best-seller list for nearly two years. It is by far the book I’m best known for.

However, not long after the book was published and I began teaching the leadership laws internationally, I realized that I had left out a couple of very important concepts. When my publisher, Thomas Nelson, invited me to revise the book, I jumped at the chance. I had learned so much in those 10 years, and I wanted to share it. What began as a minor update turned into a major revision in which I rewrote about 70% of the book.

One of the concepts I included in the new edition is something I call “The Law of the Picture: People Do What People See.” It deals with the importance of the examples leaders give to their people. You see, good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

Good leaders are aware that others do what they do. And they always keep in mind that:

1. Followers are Always Watching What Leaders Do
2. It’s Easier to Teach What’s Right than to Do What’s Right
3. We Should Work on Changing Ourselves Before Trying to Improve Others
4. The Most Valuable Gift a Leader Can Give is Being a Good Example
(more…)

This is the second honorary unsubscribe in a week.

NEW YORK (AFP) – Ira Levin, the playwright and novelist who wrote “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Stepford Wives” and “The Boys From Brazil,” has died at the age of 78, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Levin died Monday at his home in Manhattan, apparently of natural causes, the newspaper quoted his son Nicholas as saying. (more…)

In April of 1951, Jack Kerouac fed the first of a series of twelve-foot-long sheets of onion skin paper into his typewriter, and proceeded on a stream of consciousness, single-spaced, writing marathon. When he was done, three-weeks later, he had produced the Beat generation classic, ‘On the Road‘, on a Scotch-taped continuous roll of paper, 120 feet long.

Fifty years later, the scroll was sold at auction for $2.4 million dollars to Jim Isray, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team.

This now famous scroll (or at least half of it) is now on display at the New York Public Library as part of a thirteen-stop, four-year national tour of museums and libraries

You can read the beginning of the actual unedited scroll HERE

From the New York Times

Norman Mailer, the combative, controversial and often outspoken novelist who loomed over American letters longer and larger than any other writer of his generation, died early yesterday in Manhattan. He was 84.

The cause was acute renal failure, his family said. (more…)

Can you imagine the late fees?

3,778 books, 46,021 days late – that’ll be S/. 17,358,200.00 neuvo sol please…DOH!

From the Guardian Unlimited

Chile has returned 3,778 books that its military had taken from Peru’s national library – more than 126 years overdue.

Chilean soldiers pillaged the library in 1881 after capturing the Peruvian capital, Lima, during the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific.

The volumes, written in Greek, Latin, French and Spanish, some with full-page colonial-era maps, dated from the 16th to 19th centuries. Chile shipped the books, most in excellent condition, to Peru this week via DHL, where they’ll be returned to Lima’s national library.

Because writers have diverse ways of writing, there are many things that can cause a writer to experience stress and anxiety, and this stress can often lead to writer’s block.

There are some common causes for writer’s block and if you do get stuck, try these approaches to get out of it: (more…)

I know that for NaNoWriMo’s this way too early, but for future reference, Mur Lafferty has released a typically well produced podcast that addresses Editing. She also fields a few questions about: NaNoWriMo, young writers, action scenes and publishing contests – on her blog I Should Be Writing.