Oh, Monday… with your false enthusiasm and wearisome clichés of toil resumed.
Prescription: coffee, with a healthy shot of cynicism and defiance!
The writer links this week are chock full of advice on characters and a writer’s personal approach to writing. On to the links! Continue reading
I have received a few submissions at Facebook for the graphic icon for “Reading Cats,” and I should have the final decision — and a developed icon — by the end of the weekend. Thanks to all of the entrants, and a great looking bunch of felines; for your own safety, may they never learn to read!
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And, without further side-lining, let’s get to what you clicked that link to find: publishing industry professionals offering up their advice and opinions on books, writing, and all things literary! Continue reading
First link of the day comes from Jessica at BookEnds. Following up on a fantastic post by Nathan Bransford about the importance of keeping a “series bible” to keep track of the little details in your fictional world, Jessica explains the difference between a series bible and a style sheet, and why an author should seriously consider developing a style sheet before his or her work goes under the editor’s knife.
I am using that as my intro today because Jessica’s idea hadn’t even occurred to me, even though I do maintain a rough series bible for the Observer Tales. (The releasable stuff, I rework into Observer’s Gloss entries.) Now I have another project!
On to the rest of the links: Continue reading
This week I have begun a variety of summer renewal projects. I have potted 10 new plants in my new place, and have begun a photo catalog of my bookshelves. (I may post these to the blog, if encouraged.)
I have also begun a targeted revision of The Ligan of the Disomus, and a related short story, The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die. Although I do not subscribe to the common wisdom that a work of art is “never finished, merely abandoned,” I am glad that Ligan had not been picked up for publication before I had a chance to sketch out and complete a few short stories in the Observer’s world, and thus work out some larger-scale plot and character development decisions.
But, enough about my writerly life! On to the links from other writers: Continue reading
From The Reshaping of Everyday Life : 1790-1840 (1988) by Jack Larkin:
Just after Chloe Peck was married in Rochester, New York, in 1820, she wrote to her sister of “our family, which consists of 7 persons.” Living and eating together in the Pecks’ establishment were the newly wedded couple and five unrelated men and boys—the journeymen and apprentices of Everard Peck’s bookbinding shop.
Today “family” denotes people bound together by marriage and kinship … but early-nineteenth-century Americans almost invariably echoed Chloe Peck in describing their domestic groups as “families,” suggesting their sense of the household’s functional unity … [Everard] Peck a few years later wrote of his strong sense of responsibility for “the welfare of those connected with us, and the harmony and good order of our family.”
Afterthought: I whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the tenor and common details of early U.S. history.
Today is my last day at my day job for a while, so I’m decompressing in anticipation of a week off, otherwise known as my real job of loafing and writing.
(According to Mutiny on the Bounty co-author, James Norman Hall, “Loafing is the most productive part of a writer’s life.” I agree.)
So, instead of a bit of Advice From a Dude, or another short story, I think I’ll close out this Friday with a few “background” links: two from the dark days of the Revolution, one about a Carolina shipwreck, and two food-related links — complete with archaic recipes! Continue reading
As it occasionally happens, I discovered a great piece of advice not on my usual rounds of favorite writer, agent, and pub-pro blogs. Today’s iteration of this phenomenon is from Andreas Kluth, a correspondent for The Economist. His site, The Hannibal Blog, is ostensibly about composing a book, so I guess this is technically a writer link.
Pazoom — writer-link icon activated! (Hope Andreas doesn’t mind being represented by Sappho.)
Anyway, to the link itself. Invoking a few historical examples along the way, Kluth stresses the importance of having a good First Reader. Every aspiring author should find this quite interesting. Enjoy!
As you might have noticed, I have added some sidebar graphics for the short stories Tyson’s Corner, The Chameleon Missive, and The Dun Cat of Mill Bridge, as well as a new graphic to add mood to the master page for all of the Observer Tales.
I will probably work something up for Reading Cats, too.
And, before we get to the main links, two contest announcements:
♦ First up, in honor of the release of Rock Paper Tiger, Nathan Bransford announces a contest to (in his words) “write the most compelling chase and/or action and/or suspenseful sequence. It may be something you have written for the purpose of the contest or from a work in progress.” The prizes? Hey, I didn’t put that link up there for nothing! Go, go!
♦ Rachelle Gardner also announces a combination contest and exercise, to write a one-sentence summary of your book.
Now, on to the (other) links! Continue reading
Before I get into the links to publishing pro blogs, let me do a short follow-up on my Lost-inspired “Advice From A Dude” column. I was surprised to find it one of my most well-received advice pieces; I really expected a lot of defensive Lost fans in the comments trashing my trashing of the show’s creators. Thanks for being kinder to me than I was to them.
And thanks to Jade Smith for including me in a Lost-oriented link soup. If I am missing anyone else who linked me up, just speak out!
Also: I am the creator of the parody Lost – Gilligan’s Island graphic used in the article. I consider it covered by the Fair Use doctrine; one of the perks of being an American! Insofar as I have any control over it as an original composition based on sampled (parodied!) pieces, I hereby free it for use to anyone who credits me, John Nelson Leith, with a link.
And now, on to the publishing links! They may seem a little thin this week, perhaps because everyone is busy at Book Expo America 2010.
♣ Speaking of which, MediaBistro‘s GalleyCat is promising all the news and snarks on BEA 2010.
♣ The Author Magazine blog opens up the forum to Deb Caletti, author of The Six Rules of Maybe, who advises writers to be who they are.
♣ The Moby Lives blog follows up on Editorial Ass‘s recent piece on giving your book a title that another book already has. (That phrase just seemed more descriptive than “duplicate titling.”)
♣ Eric at Pimp My Novel offers his own take on the Lost finale, a little peek into the future of self-publishing with Barnes & Noble’s new PubIt service, and a few pointers on writings (and selling) literary fiction.
Also, as a bonus
Here we are at the beginning of another week, on a day that happens to be the anniversary of several significant events in the history of written things.
Four hundred eighty years ago today in London, a list of heretic books was ordered burned. A short 13 years later on this date, Copernicus published the landmark work on the heliocentric model of the solar system, De Revolutionibus.
On this day in 1610, on the 3rd anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, Sir Thomas Gates establishes a draconian civil code for the colony. (Fourteen years later to the day, Virginia is declared a failure and its charter is revoked.)
This is also the birthday of magazine and newspaper publisher Samuel Irving Newhouse (1895-1979) and United Press International (1958).
Now, on to the book-oriented side of publishing, with this week’s literary agent links! Continue reading
