THIS SITE HAS MOVED. Inkygirl posts are now part of DebbieOhi.com.
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Debbie Ridpath Ohi reads, writes and illustrates for young people. Every once in a while she shares new art, writing and reading resources; subscribe below. Browse the archives here.
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*NEW!* Also see my Broken Crayon resource
Writer comics by Debbie Ridpath Ohi are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
More details: Comic Use Policy
Welcome to Inkygirl: Reading, Writing and Illustrating Children's Books (archive list here) which includes my Creating Picture Books series, Advice For Young Writers and Illustrators, Writer's and Illustrator's Guide To Twitter, Interviews With Authors And Illustrators, #BookADay archives, writing/publishing industry surveys, and 250, 500, 1000 Words/Day Writing Challenge. Also see my Inkygirl archives, and comics for writers. Also check out my Print-Ready Archives for Teachers, Librarians, Booksellers and Young Readers.
I tweet about the craft and business of writing and illustrating at @inkyelbows. If you're interested in my art or other projects, please do visit DebbieOhi.com. Thanks for visiting! -- Debbie Ridpath Ohi
For those who encountered the malware warning over the weekend, Inkygirl has now been scrubbed cleaned (HUGE thanks to my hubby). Will post about what happened later today but basically, Inkygirl got hacked late Friday night. Didn't get much writing done over the weekend. :-(
For those who missed NaNoWriMo or did NaNo but are keen for more punishment inspiration, checkout BuNoWriMo, a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in June.
There's also a BuNoWriMo Facebook group.
For those interested, I've compiled a list of magazines currently available for the iPad.
For those interested, I've posted a new comic on Writer Unboxed.
I've been reviewing iPad apps that could be useful to writers on iPadGirl recently. Unfortunately Posterous doesn't have a good archiving index system, so I'm compiling a list of notetaking and writing iPad apps for writers on a separate page, with links to my reviews.
For those interested, here's a list of the writing and note-taking apps for the iPad that I've reviewed on iPadGirl so far. Some have iPhone versions!
"Hi, We are currently working with our providers to resolve the download errors you are experiencing. Sorry for any inconvenience this may be causing and thank you for your patience as we attempt to resolve this issue. Best Regards, Ted Fictionwise Support Team"
Since then, some of the titles I couldn't access before can now be accessed, but there are still quite a few that remain unavailable.
It's this sort of problem that makes it clear that the e-book industry still needs a lot of work before it has a hope of succeeding. I've already had at least one reader say, "See? This sort of thing is why I don't buy e-books."
DRM, for those that don't know, stands for Digital Rights Management. It's a pretty broad term that's used to refer to techniques for restricting the free use and transfer of digital content. It's meant to control copying of digital files but from what I can tell, it only ends up ticking off the consumer while content thieves find ways around it. It only takes ONE person to crack the code, and all the effort/hassle that has gone into the DRM for a particular item (an e-book, for instance) becomes worthless. Less than worthless, actually, because of the problems encountered by a consumer who LEGITIMATELY BOUGHT the e-book.
A quote from science fiction author Simon Haynes about DRM:
And now for DRM. When you sell someone an encrypted e-book, DVD or computer game, what you’re basically saying is: "Here’s the content you wanted, and by the way we think you’re a thief." The joke is that any thieves have already downloaded pirated copies of the same content, so you’re not inconveniencing them. No, the only people you’re annoying are your paying customers.Whatever has changed at Fictionwise, whatever the current geographic restrictions placed on certain titles in their store, the fact remains: THESE ARE E-BOOKS I HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR. It has been nearly a month since I last wrote them, when their support staff said they were "working on it." I'm not the only Fictionwise customer in this situation. If I was running the company, I'd be sending at least one follow-up e-mail a week specifically addressing the issue, keeping my customers up-to-date about what was going on and offering the option of a membership/book refund. I hope someone at Barnes & Noble is paying attention. As the owner of Fictionwise, this reflects poorly on them as well. I've been trying to be patient but I've pretty much hit my limit. I've written to Fictionwise again today; let's see how/if they respond. Related resources: Why DRM Doesn't Work - an illustrated example SF author Simon Haynes’ case against DRM at Amazon and elsewhere (Teleread) Why DRM won't ever work (ZDNet) DRM Doesn't Work - Mark Shuttleworth How Doesn't DRM Work? - Cory Doctorow
One of the many reasons I'm glad I joined Twitter: the Toronto MG/YA Writers' Group. Claudia Osmond started the #torkidlit group, approaching Toronto area middle grade and young adult writers on Twitter and suggesting we get together in person.
We meet once a month at a pub/restaurant in downtown Toronto. Although the focus of our group is on authors of MG and YA books, we are supportive of anyone who helps create children's literature in the Toronto area.
For those that aren't familiar with the term "tweetup," here's a good explanation from SocialHat.com:
A tweetup is an event where people who Twitter come together to meet in person. Normally we connect with our friends online after we have met them. At a tweetup you meet the people you might only otherwise know virtually. Like finally putting a name to a face, a tweetup is a great opportunity to really connect with the people in your network and share just a little more than 140 characters at a time.I enjoyed having dinner at Fresh with Cheryl Rainfield beforehand, catching up with all the recent excitement in her life. Cheryl's book launch for SCARS, for example, takes place on June 24th, 2010 at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape (519 Church St. Community Centre, Auditorium Room 206) at 6:30 pm. Great to see Stacy King, Deborah Kerbel, Megan Crewe, Andrew Tolson, Hélène Boudreau, Helaine Becker, Lena Coakley, Cheryl Rainfield, Patricia Storms, Jo Swartz and Nelsa Roberto again, and meet Suri Rosen and Ian Keeling.
Hélène, by the way, has a book launch tomorrow for KEEP OUT:
Friday, May 7th, 2010
3-4 pm EST
Markham Village Library
6031 Highway 7, Markham
(corner of Markham Road and Hwy 7)
For more info: 905-513-7977 x4284
Helaine Becker: showed us the cover of one of her new book projects. I had met Lena Coakley while helping Cheryl Rainfield move, but it was great to see her at the tweetup.
Nelsa Roberto: had photos from her recent book launch of ILLEGALLY BLONDE.
I enjoyed meeting Suri Rosen and Ian Keeling, and 'twas fun to watch Jo Swartz and Patricia Storms draw on my iPad.
You can find out more about the MG/YA writers who attend the tweetups at the Toronto MG/YA Writers' Group website. I'm in the midst of moving this blog, so pardon the construction dust!
And if you're a Toronto area middle grade or young adult writer, please do check out #torkidlit on Twitter. For help with Twitter, please see my 
More writers have been asking me about what apps I'm finding useful on the iPad, so I'm going to start reviewing various notetaking and writing apps I've been trying out. I posted my first on iPadGirl today: Sketchbook HD - Great idea, but doesn't work properly in landscape mode
If you're curious about the steps I took to create the image above, see my iPadGirl post.
I've always appreciated those who post about what they've learned at writing conferences. The author of Bluestocking Blog recently wrote about the main lessons she learned at the event, and her post includes some excellent advice.
Last year, I posted that C.S. Lewis had been rejected 800 times after finding the info on several websites. Several readers have since questioned this data, including Mary Mueller, who said:
Who the heck is Inkygirl and where the heck did she get her data?? This is entirely undocumented (the 800 rejections) and shouldn’t be “published,” even on an amateur website, without meticulous documentation.Mary is entirely correct that I don't provide meticulous documentation for the rejection stories I've been posting, so it's entirely possible that some of the stats may be inaccurate. Unfortunately I lack the time to search for the original documents to support each stat but do try to include my sources of info whenever possible, in case readers need to verify info themselves. I make very little income from this site, and provide the info mainly to help inspire and motivate writers. I'm hoping that the spirit behind my Writers & Rejection series is still helpful to some writers, despite the lack of detailed documentation. Thanks to Mary for her feedback, and I do apologize if any of you were misled by my C.S. Lewis info. [Later edit: I just want to clarify...I -do- think Mary had a point, as blunt as her comment may have been. As she pointed out to me in a follow-up e-mail, just because you read something on three websites (or more!) doesn't make it true. It's a good lesson for me, and I do intend on doing a better job at verifying my source info from now on. Again, however, sometimes I won't have time to provide as detailed documentation as I could, so please do feel free to challenge anything I post if you don't agree. :-)] Gary McGath comments:
Claims made on the Web do tend to be picked up by other people and repeated, which gets some people really frustrated. I’m a lot more concerned when major news outlets, which _should_ have the resources to obtain “meticulous documentation,” don’t bother. I try to avoid the trap of repeating someone else’s unsubstantiated claim, but I’ve been caught in it too many times myself. All I can do then is acknowledge it.
I've been reading more magazines on my iPad lately. Here's what I did and didn't like, and my answer to the question, "Will the iPad save the magazine publishing industry?"
Rejection always hurts. I'm skeptical of writers who claim that rejections don't bother them at all. No matter how experienced you are, I can't help but think that a rejection -ANY rejection- has got to sting at least a little.
Don't know about the rest of you, but I'm saving all my rejections (paper and digital) for any particular project so I can roll them out to encourage other writers WHEN that project gets published. I certainly appreciate hearing about other writers' rejections -> success stories!
I've been gradually collecting these types of successful author rejection stories on Inkygirl.
One great place to find other writers' rejections is Literary Rejections On Display. The author of this blog prefers to remain anonymous, but describes himself/herself as follows: "I am a published, award-winning author of fiction and creative nonfiction--but whatever. In the eyes of many, I am still a literary reject."
URL:
http://literaryrejectionsondisplay.blogspot.com
My first comic is online at Writer Unboxed! I'll be posting comics there every other weekend. For those who aren't familiar with the site, Writer Unboxed is an excellent source of writing tips and info for genre fiction writers.
Monday, May 31, 2010 at 11:14 AM
