notes on Broadway

[rivendellrose]

For the Wicked fans on my f-list - guess what was the top money-making musical this year!

The rest of the list, at NPR.org. Not surprised to see that Phantom is still toward the top, though it's been beat out by The Lion King, among others. And Spamalot! is creeping up the list, too... It's a good time to be a geek. ;)

Writing, editing, and generally working at home today, though I might migrate upstairs to the laptop in a little bit. It's freezing in the basement, as usual. I also want to make some icons, though, and I don't have GIMP installed on the laptop, nor would I trust my fingers on the touchpad even if I did. Alas.

Oh, and books like this? Terrify me by their very existence in the world of publishing. After reading even part of the list of historical inaccuracies... wow. And to think, I go nuts if I can't get enough historical/ethnographic research for my fanfic writing, let alone the original work that I spend months doing period research for... The good news is, whenever I see something like this, I sort of start thinking that maybe if I can ever hack out a good enough idea to support a full novel (and then write the damned thing) I might have a chance at getting published, after all.

Comments

[mahala.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic. Wicked, with Shoshana Bean [sp?], was one of the best productions I've ever seen in New York.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I still haven't seen it (great tragedy, to my mind - the stupid Ticketmaster site decided to repeatedly hate me while the show was in Seattle), but I passionately adore the soundtrack, book, etc. So jealous you got to see it in New York! ♥

[mahala.livejournal.com]

It was a treat; my mother's 70th birthday, so we took her to her favorite city. :)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Now that's what I call a good birthday!

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

I don't have time right now to read through Fandom wank, but does anyone mention this book is self-published?

Near as my research (IE, Google) tells me, Writers Club Press is actually iUniverse, which is a vanity publisher. In otherwords, she paid them to publish her book. Since the publisher has been paid, they don't care what she's writing or how bad it is.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Is it? Oh, thank god. I didn't get far through the links, so I totally missed that.

My (somewhat scant) faith in the world of publishing has been restored.

[shadawyn.livejournal.com]

It's probably my interest in (traditional) publication, but when I hear about a book (for good or ill) I check the publisher.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'll get to that eventually, but I figure that until I've completed a salable manuscript, there's no point in even paying attention to such things. I've got a ways to go before that point. ;)

[zhapper.livejournal.com]

I tend to ignore most niggling errors in film and literature. An author has the right and often the need to take license in works of fiction to get to the larger truth, especially in works of fantasy. However, wow, that's just pathetic. Any schlub that watches the discovery channel or learned anything about history at a high school level knows that chocolate, tomatoes, and tea weren't part of the European diet before the 16th and 17th centuries. It seems like an increasing number of people are conflating World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons, George R Martin, and actual history. It makes me happy to hear that you really obsess over your research. It's part of telling the best truth that you can with your writing. For any writer, laziness in any part of the process really comes out in the work.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mean... I'm not one of those people who's prone to pulling the "that brand of soap wasn't available in England until 1903" kind of stuff (completely made up off the top of my head, for the record), but there does come a point where some degree of accuracy is to be desired.

It kind of makes me unhappy that I obsess, sometimes, because it occasionally distracts me enough from the actual process of writing that I get bored of an idea before I get finished with the research. Other times, though... I just like the feeling of getting things right. And if I'm interested enough to write about something, I'm interested enough to spend a few hours (or more...) researching it. Besides, sometimes the research turns up really useful stuff that I would never have thought of on my own. For instance, in one of the (fannish) pieces I'm working on right now, I did a bunch of reading on Gypsy culture in America. A lot of the taboos and little quirks that originally seemed like a hindrance to my story are now totally integral to it, and I have a lot of material in my head now that's spinning out in interesting ways into plans for my original work, too.