Friday, June 12, 2009

My Book is in Heaven, Waiting to be Born

It's Friday morning and I'm at the BYU Writing for Young People who Read Good Conference, so I'll make this quick.

RANDOM SMELL STATUS: The random stench in my basement is gone, but now my car suddenly smells like puke. On the drive to lunch it smelled fine. After lunch, it smelled like puke. Did someone break into my car, hurl under the seat and then run away laughing? Ah, the excitement of a mystery.

CONTEST

Remember to follow me on Twitter (or link to me) by Sunday to be entered into the drawing for free autographed books.

WE RULE
The push for world domination was successful. Just this morning, we topped that elusive 2 million mark. The procreating bunnies tapped out at 1.7 million. I think the pressure got to them.

In other news, local animal shelters say June is a great month to give your honey a bunny.

RANDOM CONFERENCE CHICKEN NUGGETS OF WISDOM
1. Dandi Mackall gave a great talk at the conference, and at one point, she recounted a dream in which she went to heaven and found all sorts of books who were waiting patiently for an author to man up and write them.

I couldn't help but picture a little 8-year old book, looking longingly down to earth at me, hoping to be born into this world, only to discover I tied my brain tubes. All night, I heard this tiny voice, screaming her guts out from the sky: "Brodi! You promised me!"

I promise, little book, I will try to reverse the procedure, and write you.

2. Tracy Hickman talked about how a book doesn't exist until a reader reads it. (He said it a lot gooder than I just did.)

Anyway, he likened it to the theory of Schrodinger's Cat. Anyone familiar with the famous feline?

The theory goes something like this: If you put a cat in a metal box, with a poison time-release capsule, you'll never know if the cat is alive or dead unless you open the box. So while the box is closed, the cat is
alive and dead.

Did that just blow your mind? Alive AND dead! I'll give you a moment to scrape your brains off the wall.

Here are a few graphs to help you understand.

























I'm not sure what it had to do with writing, but I came home and wrote a scene where a cat suffocates in a box. So it totally helped me.

3. For one exercise, I had to draft a letter from my Main Character to me (the author). Here's what my Main Character had to say to me:

Dear Brodi,

Gimme a plot already, booger-brain.

Love,
M.C.

Apparently, my Main Character overheard the flogging of my book during critique, and she sided with my fellow writers.

4. The BYU bookstore was charging $4.76 for those little plastic contact cases.









Seems a little price-gouging for a religious institution.

More details to come on Monday. For now, enjoy the Big Bang Theory's take on Schrodinger's cat.

11 comments:

  1. It has been nice seeing you for about 30 minutes every night before we go to sleep and you head out early the next morning. Will you look into seeing if the BYU writing conference will be held in Salt Lake City next year? Thanks in advance.

    There are a lot of books up in heaven screaming down to authors on earth. But considering the number of poor quality books on the market, I wonder if the author is wondering why they got stuck with a certain book that wasn't as pretty or as talented as the book down the street. Sorry for the very deep thought.

    I love Big Bang Theory.

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  2. It took me a while to scrape my brain off the wall. I think I left a few pieces behind.

    Big Bang Theory makes me giggle.

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  3. I had no idea Shcrodinger's cat was so popular. I need to try that on my kids...it might explain alot, or at least blow their brains out thinking about it. (Hopefully that will buy me a little down time...I love summer).

    The conference sounded fun and enlightening. Can't wait to hear the details.

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  4. Sam- I've missed you too. I will see what I can do about transporting the BYU campus to Holladay.

    Debbie- Thanks for lunch today. Totally fun to hook up with you and Heidi!

    Erin- I love how you turn "mind blowing" into "they'll blow their brains out thinking about it." Very very... Erin.

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  5. Love the letter from your protagonist. Laughed muchly. I hope you two can make peace before the name-calling gets ugly.

    THANK YOU for lunch. I feel inspired. I'm very intrigued by this writer's conference thing. Maybe I'll start writing something in prep for next year (might take me that long).

    (And thanks to that creepy pic, I'm afraid of taking my contacts out tonight. I think I'll lock them in a black box with a time release vial of poison.)

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  6. Brodi - I have heard something similar to the books waiting for someone to write/read them. It was part of the mythology of a short story I once read. There is a great library that contains all the unfinished books. If there too long, the characters dies. Just like when Winnie the Pooh died because Christopher Robin no longer believed in him (when my hubby reminds me of this, I kick him). I think it is all a major conspiracy to promote guilt in this world.

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  7. Heidi- Lunch was so much fun! And remember, there's a little book up in heaven that will teach kids about computers. And it's yelling at you.

    Una- That's an even worse way to think about it. I'm killing characters! I always get sad when I think of Winnie the Pooh too.

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  8. I do too, it's how my husband torments me, he thinks it funny. That and he reminds me every time I cry, a puppy dies.

    I must note: he does this to try to make me laugh instead so I don't cry...it sounds heartless but it's really not.

    Anyway, I firmly believe that if someone believes even remotely close, they live! Dreams are immortal after all!

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  9. Una- your husband sounds like a crack up.

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  10. Which sister-in-law am I E or E?

    I want to start writing YA so I can go to conferences with you.

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