Are you a writer?

Much like Jeff Foxworthy came up with ways to tell if you’re a redneck (ie. you do your Christmas shopping at a truck stop), Adair Lara, who founded an on-line writing community called Matchwriters.com, compiled a book with signs to tell if you’re a writer. It’s titled, funny enough, You Know You’re a Writer When…
So what are some of the signs?

You know you’re a writer when…

• You drink coffee black because Balzac did
• You accidentally sign a check with your pen name
• The cafe won’t lend you pens anymore
• Not writing makes you depressed
• You keep a notebook under your pillow

Any of this sound familiar?

Quote of the Week

“I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.“

— Ogden Nash

RIP George, you ##$%^&!!@

George Carlin, the first host of Saturday Night Live and the man who brought us “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television“ died yesterday in Santa Monica, CA of heart failure. He was 71.

I personally loved his social commentary, just because it was so true. One of my absolute favorite bits that Carlin did was the “airline announcements” and the “safety lecture” on the plane. (oops, sorry George, I meant in the plane). However, I believe his best bit is when he’s talking about “Stuff.”

I did have the opportunity to see him live a couple of times. All I can say is that it was a great show.

Odds and Ends

That’s Connery. Sean Connery
The man who is best known for his role as James Bond will be unveiling his memoir Being a Scot on August 25 at a book festival in Edinburgh.

Two more for Lehane
After the success of the film versions of two of Dennis Lehane’s books, Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, two more books are primed to be translated into film. Up next is The Given Day, a novel set during the 1919 Boston Police riots. Universal and director Sam Raimi (both of Spider-man fame) are set to work together on the film version of the book. Also, production on Shutter Island is just about complete. The movie reunites Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, who last worked together on The Departed.

I am Amazon, hear me roar!

Apparently, small presses are also now feeling the strong arm tactics by Amazon.com. This started with Amazon saying that any POD book that is sold on Amazon.com must be printed by BookSurge. Those who don’t comply, will have the buy button on their page “turned off.”

For those of you who may not be up to speed or want a quick refresher course of what exactly is going on, you can find out at the Writer’s Weekly website.

Quote of the Week

“It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.“

— Paul Gauguin

Quote of the Week

“He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination.“

— Jose Rizal (National hero of The Philippines)

Harry Potter and the Rare Prequel

As reported by The Associated Press, Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling wrote an 800-word prequel to her popular series about the boy wizard. The prequel is hand written on both sides of an A5 sized card (slightly bigger than a post card) and will be auctioned off for charity by Waterstone’s Booksellers Ltd. in London. Waterson’s said that they distributed 13 of the A5 cards to people including Rowling, playwright Tom Stoppard, graphic novelist and author Neil Gaiman, and Sebastian Faulks, whose Bond novel The Devil May Care was released last week.

Quote of the Week

“A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.“

— Franz Kafka

How Kafka-esque

It was on this day in 1924 that Franz Kafka – known for works such as The Trial, Amerika and Metamorphosis – died from tuberculosis contracted in 1917.