You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing
By John Scalzi
ISBN 1-59606-063-8
Limited: (sold out)
2nd Printing (unsigned): $35 (preorder -- to be published in December 2007)
There are books
which claim to teach you how to write. This book is about the writing life:
The business of writing. The day-to-day existence of a professional writer. The
ways writers interact with other writers. The things writers do to help
themselves out -- and the things they do to trip themselves up. Which is to say:
This book is about what it's like to be a writer, right now.
And what's it
like to be a writer, right now? Well, it's fun. But it's also work.
Coffee Shop shows the writing life as it is, from the perspective of novelist and writer
John Scalzi, who in 15 years as a professional writer has written just about
everything: critically acclaimed novels, best-selling humor books, nationally
syndicated newspaper columns, magazine cover stories...and ad copy, corporate
brochures and Web site headlines, too. His wide range of experience informs
this collection of essays on writing and the writing life, taken from his
popular personal Web site, The Whatever.
Whether
providing practical advice, discussing writing and writers or observing the
state of the writing world, Scalzi lays it out in a sharp, no-nonsense way that
assumes you want the lay of the land, without all the huggy-squeezy
hand-holding. Notes on the writing life, unvarnished views of writers and books
and (yes) even some practical advice: It's all here.
Take this to
the coffee shop instead of your laptop. You'll get more out of it -- and if you
spill coffee on it, it'll be cheaper to replace. See? Practical.
Limited: signed, fully cloth-bound hardcover edition
---
John Scalzi is
author of Old Man's War (which Publishers Weekly described as a
"virtuoso debut" in a starred review) and other novels, as well as
the author of the bestselling "Book of the Dumb" series of humor
books. He's also the proprietor of The Whatever, one of the most-visited
personal Web sites on the Web. A full-time writer since 1991, Scalzi currently
resides in rural America with his family and big fat Internet pipe to keep him
busy. Visit him at www.scalzi.com.
