Tuesday, November 27, 2007

ND#3



As you see, I need something to put at the top of the new cover. Also, feel free to contribute all or part of the book's introduction.

34 comments:

Blogless Troll said...

Now with 33% more punctuation!

More fun than using a laptop on the crapper!

Chris Eldin said...

The Dino Bus. Please!!!

Or show a little cheek, both up and down.

Robin S. said...

I like the colors on the cover.

I have to think about the top line a while.

Anonymous said...

This time it's purple!

WouldBe said...

And now for something completely deviant....

Banned by major booksellers:

Recommended by Vlad the Impaler

See Rock City

Warning: may cause milk snorting

Chris Eldin said...

Introduction:

This book is dedicated to Church Lady, who is forever trying to improve Evil and his evil ways. Church Lady is a tireless worker for the common good. Ninety percent of the proceeds will go to the Church Lady Foundation.

(one of these days, I'm going to be kicked off this blog)

WouldBe said...

Introduction to ND3--Bill Highsmith

Why Novel Deviations 3? If you're reading this page, you've already paid for the book, so what does it matter? Just read it. And if you figure it out, let us know in time for ND 4.

Are you grumbling? All right, ND3 is a sophisticated and literary form of snipe hunting. Does that make sense to you? Then buy ND 1 and 2. Now.

It still doesn't make sense? Geez, was this book a gift or something? You see, Evil Editor gets otherwise intelligent authors to donate the opening from their magnum opus and sends his minions out to catch deviant continuations (snipes) . . . as if they were real authors.

(I'm laughing inwardly now, every few seconds.) All right, so then--and this is the coup de grĂ¢ce--Evil gets these same snipes to shell out good money buy the books. Oh dear, I'm having a seizure . . . I'm OK now.

Evil, where do I send my check?

Anonymous said...

Book -> blog -> book. It's giving back to the literary community. Like when a bully gives you back your gum once he's chewed it.

Word ver=ysaipn= Y Sapien, the humanoid variant that uses MySpace

none said...

Now with extra squirrels!

Dave Fragments said...

Intro?
This is as creative as I get tonight. The "passed around" sore throat and obligatory hacking with clogged sinuses have destroyed my creativity:
Try this for an intro:

Novel: a work of fiction composed of words, sentences, punctuation, paragraphs, and chapters -- customarily telling a story or describing an event.

Deviation: something other than what is expected.

Novel Deviations 3: The happy, humorous and highly inventive confluence of two authors -- one starting, the other finishing -- both creating the opening page of a work of fiction.

In this third outing of the popular series, Novel Deviations...


then add the boilerplate copied from ND1 and ND2

Dave Fragments said...

By the way, my Mother doesn't understand the premise of ND1 and ND2. I've tried to explain it, God knows, I've tried. But she still points at those two little books and says "I can't figure out what those things are."

Those things? Those things?

Those things represent my hard work, my blood sweat, toil and tears (to quote Churchill), my literary endeavors, my vision quest, my dreams. Yes, more than just Churchill's grand extravagance of metaphor, these little bits of my soul are the "stuff that dreams are made of."
Sam Spade had it right. It's is all mere figments and imaginings and twice-told stories of dubious origin. Shakespeare said that the words were nothing but a sound and fury signifying nothing... the passing of a mist... a fog that comes in morning and leaves by lunch.
Tiny fragments of souls cast adrift on a sea of words with a storm of ideas swirling around in incoherence until someone puts them in a logical sequence. An ember nursed to bonfire proportions by nothing more than a reader's mind.

Sad, really but my mother can't figure out what ND1 and ND2 are. And that, I guess is the point of this all.

For you see, these tiny elements are our gods and our devils. The monsters that delight us and the loves that scare us.

Now, back to the mundane.

Evil Editor said...

Now that would make a much more interesting intro.

Chris Eldin said...

I vote for Dave's intro. The eloquent one, not the boilerplate one.
"-)

Evil Editor said...

Milk snorting? What about coffee spewing?

Dave Fragments said...

Jeepers Dude, if you don't use it, I will. In fact, I may use it regardless.

Robin S. said...

I've been working on an intro- but Dave's is really very good.

WouldBe said...

OK, the first version one was done during lunch. Now that it is the evening, I can entertain EE's larger literary theme:

Warning: may cause coffee spewing and milk snorting

...and notice errors/typos from the Introduction:

...Evil gets these same snipes[minions] to shell out good money [to] buy the books.

Anonymous said...

How about
The Evil is in the E-tales

or

A Dauntingly Delightful Read -- Dante

(Always good to have a well-known author recommend your work!)

pacatrue said...

I still like:

"Now with 10% more ril."

Robin S. said...

Part of the intro I've worked on-

To write or not to write, that’s been the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler, in the workday world scheme of things,
to suffer the ennui, the mindless grind of a daily life purged of prose,
or to rail against a system of brainless spell checks and lunch hour balances and find,
amidst a tidal wave of busy work brouhaha, the wherewithal to take up your pen and by
its stroking, be born, as they say, all over again…
But you - are you good enough, my minion?
Aye, there’s the rub.

(and on a little while, re: critiques, comments and eventual evisceration...)

WouldBe said...

Introduction 2 --Bill Highsmith
(extraneous comma removed--sorry)

It began about six hundred years ago when Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg created movable type and mechanical printing. This was Good: books could be duplicated and even minions prosperously could learn to read. Then, lots of other stuff happened--none of it important--until Evil zur Flogginem Editor realized that books had but one storyline. This was Not Good: some wanted noble story lines and others wanted trashy ones. They wanted a choice. Evil z. F. Editor then invented the movable minion, whereby stories could have many paths to understanding. This was Good. Novel Deviations 3 is the third and greatest generation of movable minion literature. Can the Nobel Committee be deaf to this?

Blogless Troll said...

Now with 0 TRANS FAT!

Unknown said...

how about: Now with three times more weredingos!

or how about:
ND3 -- a third less sophisticated than regular ND's.

Anonymous said...

If my life was as satisfying as this book, I wouldn't be on wife number three -- Zack Martinez

Anonymous said...

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

- Charles Dickens

Anonymous said...

I vote Dave's for the intro.

And the Dinobus on the ToC.

Anonymous said...

All Sales Final

Robin S. said...

I vote for Dave's opening as well.

I wish I had something amazing for the "line above" line, but I'm drawing a blank.

As this is mainly for minions (right?) I kinda like the "now with 30% more ril" idea, as ril was already famous around here when I first found this blog, and that's been a while now.

ril said...

ril is blushing now.

I vote against the "30% more ril line" 'cause I'm just one of many, and all the regulars are famous round here. Some of them infamous.

But thanks for the suggestion -- it does make me feel warm inside, on a cold day!

ril said...

Freud had some good lines:

If you can't do it, give up.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

But perhaps most appropriate:

When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.

Anonymous said...

How about one of EE's own lines, then?

Something like "There's no such thing as too much pecking" or another line taken from a query that's been lovingly sliced-and-diced.

Robin

Chris Eldin said...

30% more ril is just too spicy.
Make it 20%, and put Dave's intro.

:-)

talpianna said...

How about the lovely "review" quoted at the beginning of 1066 and All That, "We look forward eagerly to their last work"?

Or the ever-popular "This book fills a much-needed gap"?

Anonymous said...

It's rily, rily good.

--Bill Highsmith