Sunday Links: January 22, 2012 Edition

Most of Sunday has passed already, but there are still links to be shared.

First off, if you're looking for an opportunity to experience the editorial side of short fiction, Shimmer is looking for new slush readers.  Everyone I've talked to who has done slush reading has said that they have learned a lot from it. I was tempted to apply for this myself, but I think I'm going to pass for now because I'm already struggling to meet my current writing goals. The editor estimated this would take about five hours a week of a person's time. So, if this is something you're interested in, I'd urge you to check out the details at the link above.

Without any further ado, here are the other writing-related links which I've come across this week that I wanted to share with you all...

"Things I Know?" (Jeff Vandermeer at Ecstatic Days) - Jeff gives advice from his 25 or so years of experience in the world of books and literature, much of it around the same sort of "psychological" type issues which I like to discuss here. (One example quote: "Fear and taking the short-term view will harm not just your career but your creativity.")

"Don't Eat the Butt: Lies That Can Poison Our Writing Career #2" (Kristen Lamb's Blog) - Kristen writes great blog posts. I could probably include one of hers almost every week in this list. This is a great one about putting priorities in order and not letting others' perceptions of us drive our approach to our own writing.

"Ten Home Truths About Starting In Self-Publishing" (Patty Jansen at Must Use Bigger Elephants) - Patty has put sixteen items through the self-publishing process in the past year and here she shares her experiences. Very valuable stuff, if you're looking at going down this route.

"Give Back and Don't Worry" (Daniel Swensen at Surly Muse) - Daniel talks about the "secret" of his success in blogging. The title gives the general idea and the details are well worth reading.

"How To Keep Up With Your Writing When You're Sick" (Susannah at Write It Sideways) - Susannah gives several suggestions on ways to make good use of the time and resources you have to keep your writing moving forward even when some illness strikes (as it often does this time of year).

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

"Top 10 Films of 2011 (1-5) & #writemotivation Weekly Wrapup" - I listed my top five favorite films that I watched for the first time in 2011. Also, as part of the #writemotivation project I wrote about progress on my January goals.

"Dissecting the Short Story Preview and Update" - Wednesday I announced the story for Friday's Dissection post and also noted that I'm putting the feature on hiatus. Since then, I've come up with some thoughts on how I might continue the feature. I'm going to think them over in February, then towards the end of the month I'll announce what I'll be doing with it.

"Dissecting the Short Story: 'Observations on a Clock' by D. Thomas Minton" - The final (for now) Dissecting the Short Story post was for a story published in a recent issue of Asimov's Science Fiction.

Thanks for stopping by to check out the links. This coming Monday will see two posts as I have a surprise on Monday morning and then late on Monday I'll have my weekly #writemotivation status post. See you then!