Member: sonyagreen

Sonya--- Hello!

Thanks for your pithy review of Jim Lynch's "The Highest Tide" . . . as you say, "he's all coasty, & I'm all coasty"! True!

As I've just come, a few moments ago, from a conversation with Jim Lynch, I thought I'd pass on to you---as an interested reader & LT-er, my memories of the encounter.

Jim just finished a presentation to our local Asotin County (WA) Library, as part of a book tour to Central Idaho & Eastern Washington, and mentioned, in the process, that he's about 130 pages into writing yet another novel, for which he has high hopes.

I've read & enjoyed his other published books, "Border Songs" (set in Whatcom County, on the Washington border with British Columbia, Canada) and "Truth Like The Sun", his latest book, (about the people & processes which brought the 1962 World's Fair to Seattle, and led to the construction of the iconic "Space Needle"), but hearing him read the opening pages of "Highest Tide" really made me want to read that book, too.

Among his tips for aspiring writers

(in addition to the essential, "Write!") were suggetions that one:

"play with your own experiences, & write about that, modifying & weaving fact with fiction, until the story comes clear";

and also, appropos "writer's block",

" . . . lower your expectations, instead of critiquing yourself as you write, until there's no felt threshold to get over, on the way to getting your story out onto the page".

The "writer's block" solution turns out to be an echo of something William Stafford once wrote, on the same topic; it turns out that Lynch likes Stafford's poetry, too!

Hope you & yours are well!

All The Best,

---Steve ("j.a.lesen")

posted by j.a.lesen at 4:59 pm (EST) on Nov 15, 2012

A number the the regular participants of Hobnob with Authors are fighting a constant battle to keep the group from being swamped with drive-by book blurb postings. Clearly your instructions in the group description saying not to "cut and paste" these aren't having the desired effect.

What I think might work better, is to tell people YES, DO THIS! Since they are going to anyway, encourage them to do it in a better way. So I'm coming to you, because you are listed as the group creator, and I'm assuming you are the one that can change the group description. If you aren't the right person, I apologize for the long irrelevant message, could you please forward me to whoever the right person is.

What I'm thinking is that a more effective approach might be something like:

WELCOME AUTHORS!

This is the one group on Library Thing where you are encouraged to promote your book(s). Please start by posting a description of your book in one of the following threads.
POST YOUR NONFICTION BOOK DESCRIPTION HERE
POST YOUR GENRE FICTION BOOK DESCRIPTION HERE
POST YOUR NON-GENRE FICTION BOOK DESCRIPTION HERE
POST YOUR OTHER BOOK DESCRIPTION HERE

If you came by to tell us you are offering a book free or at a reduced price, then:
POST YOUR FREE BOOKS AND SPECIAL OFFERS HERE

And if it's a brand new release (the last three months), be sure to celebrate with us here:
NEW BOOK RELEASE THREAD

We'd also love it if you tell us a bit about yourself on the
HOBNOB AUTHOR INTRODUCTIONS THREAD

Thanks for dropping by! If you would like to stay and chat, please do visit some of the discussion threads below. You might want to try checking out the rest of Library Thing as well. Directly promoting your books isn't permitted anywhere but here, but there are other things you can do that will help your marketing efforts. Some helpful hints for authors can be found

--

The goal is to collect all the book promotion threads, and other non-discussion threads into a few big ones, so that they don't keep scrolling down off the bottom of the thread list and being lost in obscurity. If this can be accomplished, it will also mean that the discussion threads will retain their visibility for much longer -- which will hopefully encourage the "hobnobbing" that the group claims to be for.

I have mentioned this idea in the group (about a month ago?), and although not everyone said "Yes, great idea!" nobody said "Ewwww!" either. Most to the point, however, is the fact that nobody participating in the discussion had the power to DO something like what I just suggested above. We can create the threads, but we can't encourage the new people arriving in the group to use those threads instead of just starting a new thread. The participation of someone who actually has the power to make changes to the group description would be needed for there to be much point in discussing this idea further.

posted by LShelby at 8:23 pm (EST) on Feb 29, 2012

Last message for today, Sonya: I received "Els infinits" by John Banville from the October 2010 batch, but I'm affraid it's still cueing. I'll post my review as soon as I can.
Jordi Fortuny

posted by jordi.fortuny at 2:03 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2012

Sonya,
I already received "Els infinits" by John Banville from the October 2010 batch, but I have not read it yet. I'm really sorry. I'll post my review as soon as I can.
Jordi Fortuny

posted by jordi.fortuny at 1:59 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2012

Dear Sonya,
I reveived "Subsòl" by Unai Siset from the September 2010 batch, and I posted my review on 26th December 2010.
Regards,
Jordi Fortuny

posted by jordi.fortuny at 1:56 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2012

Dear Sonya,
I reveived "L'home és un gran faisà en el món" by Herta Müller from the February 2010 batch, and I posted my review on 6th July 2010.
Regards,
Jordi Fortuny

posted by jordi.fortuny at 1:48 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2012

Sonya,
I never received "La seu episcopal d’Ègara. Arqueologia d’un conjunt cristià del segle IV al IX", from the December 2009 batch. I'm sorry!
Jordi Fortuny

posted by jordi.fortuny at 1:38 pm (EST) on Jan 17, 2012

I am sorry I was in the middle of moving when it finally arrived. I never got the chance to review it. What should I do?

posted by Valkitty at 11:57 pm (EST) on Sep 29, 2011

If I could ask Gary Shteyngart one question, I would ask him for the time back that I spent reading "Absurdistan," a pointless and disgusting book.

You obviously didn't read my review.

posted by clogbottom at 4:15 pm (EST) on Jul 4, 2011

From Sonya: I no longer work at LibraryThing. If you have a question or comment about the site, please email info@librarything.com.

posted by sonyagreen at 12:01 pm (EST) on Nov 19, 2010