Sunday Links: July 22nd, 2012 Edition

It's been a rather quiet month around here writing-wise. I've made progress on a number of fronts, but haven't really had much in the way of exciting news to report. There's nothing wrong with that -- in fact, it's rather typical. The last couple of months certainly spoiled me a bit, though, with all the story sales and other exciting news that I got to share. But I absolutely can't complain about the progress I've made with getting various stories written and revised, which is equally important, if less exciting to talk about.

Below are this week's writing-related links that I wanted to share with my readers. Also, if you're so inclined, C. Bryan Brown has a guest post up today on my Write Every Day blog where he talks about how he's developed his writing rituals.

"Remember Pacing in Your Stories" (Scott Eagan) - Scott talks about the importance of pacing and some places where he finds that writers are prone to create pacing problems in their fiction.

"Finding the Unfamiliar Phrase" (A. J. Hartley at Magical Words) - A. J. talks about looking for phrases that can stand out from our writing (in a positive way) and using them to avoid cliches or other boring prose. He provides numerous examples and also talks about how reading poetry can help fiction writers. Which reminds me that I've slacked off on #poemeachnight and should work at getting back into that routine.

"How to Trust Yourself as a Writer" (Lynda R. Young guest-posting at Rachna's Scriptorium) - Lynda provides tips for writers on developing more confidence in themselves. It's a great list of worthy suggestions, valuable even as a reminder to those writers who normally do okay on the confidence front.

"The 'I Made It' Syndrome" (Patty Jansen at Must Use Bigger Elephants) - Patty talks about avoiding over-confidence in terms of ongoing sales figures for those who are self-publishing. Several months of steady sales does not mean that sales will stay at that level indefinitely.

Along with those links, here are the items I posted on my blog this week:

"Monday July 16th #writemotivation Update" - Monday's post gave a mind-month status on how I'm doing at working toward my goals for the month.

"Thoughts on NaNoWriMo 2012" - Thursday I wrote for the first time about 2012's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and my thoughts on how I might approach that event. On the one hand, it's a long way off. On the other hand, it was only a few weeks later than this time last year when I came up with the idea that I developed into my 2011 NaNoWriMo project.

Have a great week!