Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, August 2, 2012

Some tough stuff every writer needs to know, today, but also some inspiration, and much in-between.

• I have to start with Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s (@kriswrites) long Business Rusch post The Future and Balance (Deal Breakers 2012). Unlike yesterday’s light-hearted promo, today Kris deals with publishing contract clauses that should be treated with caution at best, outright rejected (even at the risk of losing the contract) at worse. That’s the reason for the parenthetical “Deal Breakers” comment. This is one to be bookmarked, studied, and saved.

• Rachel Randolph (@rachelrandolph) offers tools for Keeping Track of Contacts, Media History, and Speaking Engagements on WordServe Water Cooler. Her intent is certainly good but the tools are all Excel 2007/2010-format spreadsheets, so if you’re not comfortable with Excel and/or spreadsheets in general, don’t have a current version of the software, use other software that isn’t compatible, or don’t even know what spreadsheets are, these tools may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you’re comfortable with Excel, give ’em a look.

• Robert Lee Brewer (@robertleebrewer) has taken some time off from his My Name Is Not Bob blog to spend more time with his family (good for him!) but he’s back now with a response to a reader who asked, with regard to social media, Where Should I Spend My Time? Robert’s answer refocuses the question from which platform(s) to what you are trying to achieve there and what’s most important in your (writing) life.

• Juliet Marillier’s story on Writer Unboxed about how a community came together Out of the Ashes of her granddaughter’s arson-burned school is really about the power of story and how not just writers, but whole communities, can use it to make it through hard times.

• Donna Galanti (@donnagalanti) guest posts on The Kill Zone about Watchers: Heroes in Fiction. The “watchers” she refers to are characters who may or may not be prominent yet play critical roles in stories, background heroes, you might say. It’s an interesting idea, one I’d never heard of, and worth a look.

• Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) encores a previously-published piece on the fact that The Writing Rules Are Just Tools, a lesson many writers and writing instructors need to take to heart, it seems.

• And that leads us to today’s last piece, by Becky Levine, which comes by way of Nathan Bransford (@NathanBransford). Becky writes about Critique Comments: Remembering to Give Them Time, in other words, remembering that our first, often defensive, reaction to critique comments may blind us to something of real value–if also sometimes to a lot of reworking. Not easy advice to follow, but so true. (Something I’d better keep in mind myself when I get my WIP back from my editor!)