This week in the blog world has been busy, especially with the extremely challenging 2nd challenge in Rachael Harrie's Platform-Building Writers' Campaign. If you read mine ("My Name is Imago Montoya...") and enjoyed it, I'd truly appreciate you voting for it by clicking here and "liking" entry #42. That's also where you'd go to see the complete list of entries -- there are some great ones out there, so it's worth a browse.
With that little bit of BSP out of the way, I hope you'll follow me past the jump to this week's links!
"Building a Sustainable Writing Career : How to Develop Multiple Income Streams" (David Gaughran) - This is a tremendous article about ways to avoid putting all your writing income into any one "basket" be that a single story/series/genre/eBook site, etc.
"Religion in Novels: Terrific or Taboo?" (Jody Hedlund guest-posting on Jami Gold's blog) - An interesting read on this topic, which could apply just as well to short story writing as it does to novels. I think Jody nails it with points such as "We should seamlessly weave in any themes or messages we want in our books." To do otherwise is to risk hitting your readers over the head and that can be a reading turn-off even if you agree with the message!
"Advice to a 10-Year-Old" (Ron Marz post on Comic Book Resources) - A writer thinks about all the things that he might tell his daughter if her current aspiration to be a writer takes hold and blossoms into her teenage years.
"Four (Nasty) Lies We Tell Ourselves About Writing" (Susan Kaye Quinn) - Writers really can be their own worst enemies in so many ways. Susan highlights four of the thoughts/"lies" we tell ourselves that can damage our ability to be productive writers and shows the truth behind those lies.
"There is More to Writing Action Than Meets the Fist, Part Two" (Tiffany Lawson Inman on Writers in the Storm blog) - Tiffany performs a "Dramatic Dissection" on an excerpt from Harlan Coben's novel Caught. This is a very detailed analysis, to the point of having comments on nearly every line of dialogue from a section in the middle of the excerpt. This one caught my eye initially because of my own Dissecting the Short Story series, and I was very glad that I read it. It's a good reminder that every word you write should be there for a reason.
"Down Underworld" (The Atlantic) - This one's not a blog post, but for people interested in reading and writing crime fiction, I thought this article about Australian crime literature would be very interesting. I think that Arthur Upfield is the only Australian mystery writer I've read much by, but I plan to pick up some of the titles mentioned in this article.
"A Game That Honed the Skill of Writers" (The New York Times) -Another non-blog item, this one I'm including both because Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series are some of my favorite books and because I thought it was interesting to see how a group of writers sprung up from a text-based multi-player game. I played briefly on a different MUSH back in the mid-1990s and can definitely see Butcher's points about how it affected his writing, especially in terms of character-building.
"Religion in Novels: Terrific or Taboo?" (Jody Hedlund guest-posting on Jami Gold's blog) - An interesting read on this topic, which could apply just as well to short story writing as it does to novels. I think Jody nails it with points such as "We should seamlessly weave in any themes or messages we want in our books." To do otherwise is to risk hitting your readers over the head and that can be a reading turn-off even if you agree with the message!
"Advice to a 10-Year-Old" (Ron Marz post on Comic Book Resources) - A writer thinks about all the things that he might tell his daughter if her current aspiration to be a writer takes hold and blossoms into her teenage years.
"Four (Nasty) Lies We Tell Ourselves About Writing" (Susan Kaye Quinn) - Writers really can be their own worst enemies in so many ways. Susan highlights four of the thoughts/"lies" we tell ourselves that can damage our ability to be productive writers and shows the truth behind those lies.
"There is More to Writing Action Than Meets the Fist, Part Two" (Tiffany Lawson Inman on Writers in the Storm blog) - Tiffany performs a "Dramatic Dissection" on an excerpt from Harlan Coben's novel Caught. This is a very detailed analysis, to the point of having comments on nearly every line of dialogue from a section in the middle of the excerpt. This one caught my eye initially because of my own Dissecting the Short Story series, and I was very glad that I read it. It's a good reminder that every word you write should be there for a reason.
"Down Underworld" (The Atlantic) - This one's not a blog post, but for people interested in reading and writing crime fiction, I thought this article about Australian crime literature would be very interesting. I think that Arthur Upfield is the only Australian mystery writer I've read much by, but I plan to pick up some of the titles mentioned in this article.
"A Game That Honed the Skill of Writers" (The New York Times) -Another non-blog item, this one I'm including both because Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series are some of my favorite books and because I thought it was interesting to see how a group of writers sprung up from a text-based multi-player game. I played briefly on a different MUSH back in the mid-1990s and can definitely see Butcher's points about how it affected his writing, especially in terms of character-building.
Additionally, here's a recap of the posts from this week on my blog:
"When Something Goes Wrong" - Monday, I talked about recovering from the discovery of a major plot hole including some tips on how you might go about repairing the hole and making your story even stronger.
"One Size Doesn't Fit All" - Wednesday, I wrote about the staggering amount of writing advice out there and how writers can try to work their way through it without getting frustrated or feeling confused or defeated.
"My Name is Imago Montoya..." 2nd Writecampaign Challenge - Mentioned above, this special Thursday blog post was the flash fiction I came up with in response to the campaign's 2nd challenge.
"#FridayReads - What I'm Reading" - I tried something new this Friday, joining in the #fridayreads discussion with a blog post on my current reads. The feedback I got was positive, so I'm going to do this a few more times at least, on the alternate Fridays where I'm not posting short story dissections.
Whew! A busy week indeed. And that's not even bearing in mind that pre-season hockey is underway. I hope that the links above provide you interesting food for thought and that the upcoming week is fantastic for your writing (and other) goals!
"When Something Goes Wrong" - Monday, I talked about recovering from the discovery of a major plot hole including some tips on how you might go about repairing the hole and making your story even stronger.
"One Size Doesn't Fit All" - Wednesday, I wrote about the staggering amount of writing advice out there and how writers can try to work their way through it without getting frustrated or feeling confused or defeated.
"My Name is Imago Montoya..." 2nd Writecampaign Challenge - Mentioned above, this special Thursday blog post was the flash fiction I came up with in response to the campaign's 2nd challenge.
"#FridayReads - What I'm Reading" - I tried something new this Friday, joining in the #fridayreads discussion with a blog post on my current reads. The feedback I got was positive, so I'm going to do this a few more times at least, on the alternate Fridays where I'm not posting short story dissections.
Whew! A busy week indeed. And that's not even bearing in mind that pre-season hockey is underway. I hope that the links above provide you interesting food for thought and that the upcoming week is fantastic for your writing (and other) goals!
Some interesting links that I'll have to check out, especially the one about lying to ourselves. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm Nellie over on the NaNo site. Feel free to add me.
And I need to do my challenge. >< I got distracted this weekend by other things and didn't sit down and do it.
-Nellie
Thanks, Nellie! I hope that you enjoy the links. Added you on the NaNo site.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your work on the challenge. I can relate to having been distracted this weekend. I've not gotten as much done as I would like...
Thanks for the shout out! And I'm going to have to check out Gaughran's article right away! :)
ReplyDeleteNano is a month - oh no
ReplyDeletefor several years I have tried and something always happens - last year I fell and couldn't write
maybe nano is not for me
Susan, I hope you find his article useful!
ReplyDeleteMoondust, that's too bad about last year. I hope that it works out better for you this year, if you choose to do it!
Thanks for the link! I appreciate it. :)
ReplyDelete