Timewaster's Guide Archive

But I will.

 Okay, I'm way excited because I'll actually get to see Dan Wells at LTUE! So this time I hope I can get him to sign my copy of Mr. Monster ('cause IANASK got signed by proxy).

And Dan, if I somehow miss you, then I demand a tour for I Don't Want to Kill You.

Anyone else going to be at Life, the Universe, and Everything?

Amazon now has I Don't Want to Kill You's release date up. March 29th! Dan better do another book singing in Provo, cause I missed him last time!

1. I don't like the rich wizards vs. poor people with technology trying to avoid change. Too cliched.
2. It doesn't take alot of money to start a business. Google was founded in a dorm room. Early technology improvements that helped alot were pretty simple. For example when more people started farming in northern Europe, they needed a heavier plow to turn the soil. This made a large difference, but was not something that required investment.

Ok, I think you totally missed the point. I wasn't saying that's what you had to do, I was talking about looking at all the different ways a story could go, and how one thing would affect another in the process. I was just giving an example to explain what I meant.

So good luck with your story.

This could be a really interesting story! But how exactly are the two different tracks, magic and technology, going to affect each other?

You mentioned Magic being advanced, so those people have it easy. Does that mean these people are more prosperous and rich than the others? Are people that can't use magic poor, or looked down upon? If they're the lower class, then how are they getting the money they need to invent and build these machinery? Or, are the people who use magic afraid of industrialization, because it would make what they do obsolete? Where's the conflict?

See what I'm getting at? Push boundaries, ask question, and look at it from different angles! How will this affect society? And most importantly, how will this affect the characters?

Sounds like a lot of fun!

It'll be interesting to see how this is accepted. Recently I've been thinking a lot about online novels, and there doesn't seem to be a lot out there. A lot of stuff has been moving to the internet, like comics, and with sites like Hulu and show like The Guild and Dr. Horrible, t.v on the web has been taking off.

But so far E-books are the main way to get books online, and until very, very recently you couldn't even read a large majority of them without an e-reader.

But the thing about the internet, is that everyone thinks it should be free. So I don't know how well their site will do if you have to pay a subscription fee.

Finished the Atlantis Complex my Eoin Colfer. Well, I was expecting more from the book. I mean, the previous Artemis Fowl was just so good, and this one disappointed a little. It was funny though, that's always a plus. But the humor in this book even felt different, it felt more like... Hitch-hikers (though I've only seen the movie). I wondered if the writing got colored from when he worked on And Another Thing...

Or maybe I just don't remember the other books that well.

Anyway, not sure what to read next. Hmmmm.

Well, if you want to check out some illustrated novels, I don't know many that are for YA other than the ones mentioned, but there are quit a few for adults.

Brom has three out. The Plucker, The Devil's Rose (both of which I know have colored illustrations), and The Child Thief. I have the Plucker, which is gorgeous, but it's Brom, what can you expect?

Yoshitaka Amano has done a few as well that have been published over here. Mateki: The Magic Flute, and Shunjiku, which are colored. And he's illustrated a number of other books as well, but most of those are black and white.

Then there's Charles De Lint, who has out Seven Wild Sisters, A Circle of Cats, and Medicine road. Probably has a few others as well, but these are the only ones I can think of.

This is hard, because a lot of publishers might be wary of picking up a book like that. Usually they'd want to choose their own illustrator for a project. Also, it's really rare to see YA with illustrations that's not a graphic novel. Illustrated books are much more MG. There are some, granted, but not many. the author for Here, there be dragons was a professional illustrator before that book came out, and I think that's one of the reasons they had him do the artwork.

But the thing about writing and art is that you just gotta do what you love. If you do this project and want to do the illustrations, then do it! No matter what you'd be gaining tons of experience, and you'd be getting better. So go for it. Maybe a publisher will love it, maybe they won't want to pick it up, but you'll never know unless you do it. And in my opinion experience takes all.