Month: October 2006

Unsolicited: Some Gentle Advice for Authors – Gawker:

Don’t:

* suck up to your editor while simultaneously being a dick to her assistant, who’s doing all the real work anyway. They’ll compare notes, and you won’t like the results.
* second-guess or nag, even if you totally know what you’re talking about. Run your issues by your agent. If it’s necessary to bring them up, she will. If it’s not, she’ll protect you from yourself.
* make excuses about missing a deadline.
* make excuses about missing a deadline via a 1000 word blog post about the horrors of writer’s block.
* offer rebuttals to every one of your editor’s suggestions. Either make them, or don’t. Your editor doesn’t really care which, as long as she doesn’t have to hear about it.
* expect your editor or publicist to have an hour to spend on the phone with you every day. Want her to work harder on behalf of your book? Leave her alone, so she can get back to doing so.
* send ten emails with ten different questions in them. Wait until you have ten questions, and then send the email. Or better yet, delete it.
* imagine that your book is the only thing on your editor’s plate.
* call constantly fretting about sales in the weeks just after your book has been published.
* call constantly fretting about your Amazon ranking, which you should KNOW is almost completely meaningless.
* call constantly.
* call.

(Via P&T (or is it T&P? Better make it that, or everyone will think I’m talking about Penn & Teller.).)

Remember, your vote this year could very well determine whether or not Dennis Hastert, a man who concealed information about Mark Foley hitting on underage boys, stays as Speaker of the House.

From MyDD:

Voter Registration Deadlines

by Matt Stoller, Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 05:23:22 PM EST

I had this data on voter registration deadlines lying around, so I figured I’d put it out there. Please note that some of these dates are postmark dates and some of them are dates by which the forms must be in the Secretary of State’s office.

Also, here are two easy voter registration tools. If you use the first link, you will be counted as someone who registered to vote because of the net neutrality issue, and the Save the Internet coalition will be able to brag about how many voters we have on our side to politicians when trying to convince them to support net neutrality. If you use the second link, it’ll just be a regular voter registration.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/=netvoter 3

http://www.govote.org/?t1=120

Alabama         October 27
Alaska          October 8
Arizona         October 9
California      October 23
Colorado        October 10
Connnecticut    October 24
Florida         October 10
Georgia         October 10
Illinois        October 10
Indiana         October 10
Iowa            October 28
Kansas          October 23
Kentucky        October 10
Louisiana       October 9
Maine           October 17
Maryland        October 17
Massachusetts   October 18
Michigan        October 10
Minnesota       pre-reg. October 17
Missouri        October 11
Montana         October 10
Nebraska        October 20
Nevada          October 7
New Jersey      October 17
New Mexico      October 10
New York        October 13
North Carolina  October 13
Ohio            October 10
Oregon          October 17
Pennsylvania    October 10
Rhode Island    October 17
South Carolina  October 7
South Dakota    October 23
Tennessee       October 8
Texas           October 10
Utah            October 10
Vermont         October 28
Virginia        October 10
Washington      October 8
West Virginia   October 17
Wisconsin       October 19

If you’re already registered, ask your friends to register to vote; you’d be surprised how many people aren’t registered.

(Via .)