Repairing Paperbacks

I recently found a copy of a book I've been looking for for years in an old antique shop, however it's cover was falling off and one signature was almost completely separated. I managed to repair it by scraping away some of the old dried and flaking away glue and then applying a thin layer of regular old Elmer's Glue-All to the inner spine of the cover.
Then I pressed it all together, wrapped it up (but not too tight) with some rubber bands and placed another heavier book atop it and let it sit 24 hours.

It's not a perfect repair by any means but it's much much better than it was before.

Auto-Correct

I loathe auto-correct. Not only will it be responsible for some war in the future it's actively contributing to the dumbing down of the planet much like "tweeting" and Facebook. So here's some funny examples of auto-correct gone awry.

Similar: City of Ember vs The City Under Ground

City of Ember published in 2003 by Jeanne DuPrau.

The City Under Ground published in 1963 by Suzanne Martel.

James Frey Writing Factory

This is quite an interesting read if it's new to you. This isn't the first time it's happened in the literary world either.

Frey saw collective writing as a way to get around the conundrum of having umpteen ideas for clever commercial book series but never enough time to write them. He also liked the idea of applying the model of an art studio along the lines of those run by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons to the book world.

So he came up with the concept of a book-writing factory that would go beyond the basic model of existing companies such as Alloy, which use teams of writers to produce books to order.

Ideas for books, or ideally series of books, would either come from him or an author recruited to the Full Fathom Five stable. Then Frey would hold the writer's hand, providing critical feedback as they wrote.

The finished product would be sold to publishers and/or film studios, and the writer would be given a share in the royalties as incentive to produce their best work.

Again, this is nothing new but I still have major reservations about the methodology.

Nano Update

I've not officially signed onto NanoWrimo this year but I have been working on the "throw away" novel here and there. I've been too busy to really get some major wordcounts but the few who have read it thus far seem to honestly like it. I'm still sticking with my original terms however, no forethought, no revisions and no limits.

A fourth character appeared and one is turning into someone a little more sinister than I had anticipated. Remember, I'm writing this off the cuff so even I have no idea what's going to happen. The one rule is to hit 70,000+ words. I'm getting there.

The Screenplay

Believe it or not this blog isn't dead. It's just been a tumultuous past three or so years.

I'm kicking around an idea for a screenplay (not my favorite form of storytelling) and jotting down some notes in the fairly helpful Celtx, which is free.

It's a science-horror thing that, while similar to a somewhat recent spate of films, lends itself to a more realistic approach (I hope). We'll see how it goes.

Will I continue to post here? I dunno. It's late and I'm bored.

And no, I have't forgotten the infamous nano-novel.