Sunday Links: September 18, 2011 Edition

Time to revisit the past week. It's seen me dive into writing a novel in addition to continuing work on my short fiction. The upcoming week has me a bit concerned. I'm on a good roll with my Seinfeld Chain (up to 17 days as of last night) but the next five days I'm going to be in training for my day job nearly 12 hours a day when you include transit time. Will I end up using a Mulligan? I hope not.

I came across some great blog posts around the internet this week, and I'm happy to present them past the jump. I hope everyone had a good week and has a great week this coming week.

"Say What? -- Writing Believable Dialogue" (WordServe Water Cooler / Megan DiMaria) - Nice article about writing dialogue with an example of good/bad dialogue for a scene. I think that dialogue is one of those things that a lot of writers think should be the "easy" part of a story -- after all, we hear people talking around us very day -- but it's subtly difficult and can be a real story-killer if done badly.

"Critical Plot Elements : MIDDLES #3 - Catastrophe and the Missing Link" (Seeking the Write Life / Aimee L. Salter) - The middle of a novel is a place that still makes me nervous when I contemplate it. Aimee talks about one way to structure the middle of your novel to keep the story moving and readers engaged. I especially like her concept of "The Missing Link" that connects the middle to the conclusion.

"Oh, Now I Made it Worse: When Editing Goes Astray" (The Other Side of the Story / Janice Hardy) - Another post with a great example of the concept being displayed. Janice shows how fixing what seems like a minor bit of clumsy wording ends up cascading into further revisions. The lesson is to make sure that you re-read what you've re-written.

"The Money is All in the Numbers" (Dean Wesley Smith) - Dean looks at the world of ePublishing and how having a large number of titles available for purchase is important to those who are looking to make money through ePublishing. It's inspiring stuff, and after reading this and thinking about it some, I am expecting to set some pretty audacious goals for myself in 2012.

"The Journeyman Writer" (Jaye Wells) - Another piece that I found inspiring this week as I started work for the first time on a novel. And I love this quote:

[people] say something [to me] like, “I’d like to write a book some day.” I always want to respond with a smile and, “Today is a day.”

"What Does a Rejection Letter Mean" (Nights of Passion / Susan Hanniford Crowley) - Susan talks about different types of rejection letters and the appropriate follow-up actions (if any) writers should take upon receiving them.

Additionally, here's a recap of the posts from this week on my blog:

"Striking a Balance" - Monday, I wrote about trying to keep from letting social media overrun writing time and asked readers for ways they would know if they were letting themselves get out of balance. Lots of good comments here.

"Dissecting the Short Story Preview & Goals Update" - I announced the story for this week's Dissection and gave an update on my progress for my September writing goals.

"Dissecting the Short Story: 'Aisle 1047' by Jon Armstrong" - This week's detailed analysis of a short story is for a science fiction story from the September/October 2011 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

And that's the week. I hope it's been productive for everyone and that the week to come will be even better!