Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, February 12 & 13, 2013

Hope you’re not a triskaidekaphobe! Today’s double-13 day, and tells you it is: 2-13-13, or 13-2-13, if you prefer. Thirteen what to thirteen? Which reminds me of Albert the Alligator, a character from the old Pogo comic strip, for whom the 13^th day of the month was always Friday the Thirteenth, even if it was a Wednesday.

What does that have to do with today’s post? Not a darn thing, as far as I can tell. In fact, you’re double-lucky to be finding out about today’s Great Stuff. Read on!

CRAFT

Here’s some really practical advice that we can all use: Writing Gender-Specific Dialogue from the Writer’s Digest There Are No Rules blog. Excerpted from a book by romance writer Leigh Michaels (@leighmichaels), the piece gives advice to women on how men think and act, and hence speak, and vice versa for men writing female characters. For example, women know and notice which colors go together and which don’t, while men generally don’t notice or care. That reminded me of a woman in my writer’s group who had a (straight) male character noticing that a woman’s eyes matched the color of her uniform. Um, sorry, no. We ad-dress-ed that. 😉 Have you run into this kind of thing? How did you address it?

Some writers like to have music playing in the background when they’re writing. Not me, it’s too distracting. But if you’re like Ann Aguirre (@MsAnnAguirre) and Let Music Set the Mood when you’re writing, you’ll definitely get her piece on Writer Unboxed today. But even if you’re not a writer/listener, there’s something for you here: a song may not set your mood, but it can set the story’s mood or reveal something about a character. In my first novel, one of my characters is a fan of rock music from the ‘60s to ‘80s and snippets from those songs will pop into her head from time to time, usually at high-stress moments. It tells you something about her and adds a new dimension to the scene. Do you do anything like this?

You might not expect to find advice on story-telling on ProBlogger, but that’s what Gregory Ciotti (@HelpScout) offers in The Science of Storytelling: 6 Ways to Write More Persuasive Stories. The piece is based on research by Dr. Philip Mazzocco and Melanie Green having to do with court arguments, but their six keys apply in fiction too. They are: audience, realism, delivery, imagery, structure, and context. Space doesn’t permit me to discuss them here, but slide on over and check out the article.

BUSINESS

So, we’ve all heard that the job’s not over when the writing’s done when it comes to books, right? Sure, but what exactly does that mean? Enter Boyd Morrison’s (@boydmorrison) What to Expect When You’re Expecting…to be Published,  a list of 31—that’s right, 31—things that you’ll do after you get that magical phone call saying your book has been accepted for traditional publication. Indie publishers: think the list doesn’t apply to you? Wrong-o, Kindle breath! Of course, some steps won’t, at least as written. But many will in one form or another, and often they’re entirely on you to do, rather than in response to a request from the publisher. A real reality check here.

Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) has published many articles on e- and print book design, so Book Design Quick Tips for Self-Publishers doesn’t have anything really new, except for a hint at the end about something he’s going to be launching soon—a book layout service, maybe? But this pretty long but useful post lays out the basics in simple terms. This stuff isn’t cosmic or über-technical and you shouldn’t fear it. Take the time to study and absorb it and you’ll be ahead of the game.

Nancy J. Cohen (@nancyjcohen) is releasing a new novel and using the free option on KDP Select for a few days. More important for other writers planning to self-publish is the other information on where and how to get publicity and reviews she offers in the FREE on Kindle post. If this is something to do, check out the post.

Looking into what the future might hold for Nancy, J A Konrath (@JAKonrath) discusses his recent experiences with having some of his books sold via KDP Select in his post Amazon Numbers. Three lessons to learn: (1) despite what he says, being a “name” in the business helps. It’s not required but your sales numbers will be better when you’re known than when you’re still an unknown. (2) Giving the book away for free boosts for-cash sales. I’m reading Cory Doctorow’s The Problem Is Obscurity right now, and he makes the same point. (Beats you over the head with it, actually.) (3) The more titles you have for sale, the better. Konrath closes this long post with two other discussions. He doesn’t like Amazon’s demand for exclusive sales fights for 90 days if you sign up for KDP Select (no one but Amazon seems to), and self-publishing gives you control over your work, which is a good thing.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Writing advice from @NathanBransford in <141 characters. It’s better than you might expect. (27 characters left.)

THE WRITING LIFE

I could have put Keith Cronin’s (@KeithCronin) Write Like You Mean It up in the Craft section, but since it’s really about attitude—making the effort to make anything you write a piece of quality writing—it fits better here. Keith’s piece is pretty long but he uses that length to approach the basic thesis—if you want to be considered a professional writer, write like one whenever you write, even on Twitter or Facebook—from a variety of different angles with the intent that if one doesn’t resonate with you, another one will. What do you think? Is this your approach?

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, February 9-11, 2013

Decisions and dumps and getting it done. Being safe and effective at the same time while you’re on social media. That’s what’s on tap for you in today’s Great Stuff. C’mon in: the writing’s more than fine!

CRAFT

Part 10 of KM Weiland’s (@KMWeiland) series on scenes and sequels deals with your Options for Decisions in a Sequel. The decision the character makes about how to respond to his or her dilemma takes the character and reader from the end of this sequel into the beginning of the next scene and that scene’s goal. While the basic decision is to act or not act (cue Prince Hamlet) there are, of course, variations on how that decision will play out. For those details, click on over to Katie’s post.

Ah, the dreaded info dump. They’re the reader’s bane and the writer’s curse. And yet… you probably know a writer or two who falls into the dump from time to time, don’t you? Not that you, dear reader, would ever do such a thing, right? Of course not. 😉 So, to help your writer friends who find themselves down in the dumps, as it were, check out Leslie Ramey’s (@CompulsionReads) guest on The Bookshelf Muse on Dumping The Info Dumps, and you’ll—I mean, they’ll—go forth and dump no more.

SOCIAL MEDIA

You’ve gotten those strange messages on e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or wherever, telling you your account’s been suspended and you need to send in your password to reactivate it, or a friend’s been arrested overseas and needs bail money, or the family member of some recently deceased African despot NEEDS to give you millions of dollars from his secret bank account, or whatever. You didn’t reply, did you? I sure hope not. I got stupid that way once and while I didn’t lose any money as a result, it was painful enough changing bank and credit card accounts, passwords, and all the rest to make sure that didn’t happen. That’s why Kristen Lamb’s (@KristenLambTX) Digital Sheep Get Slaughtered—Being Safe On Social Media is a must-read. As Kristen says, you need to be a social media sheepdog (or Tweepdog—love it!), not a sheep. Protect yourself and your real friends too. Thanks to Joel Friedlander for pointing this post out.

I know one of the complaints I hear about Twitter is, “how can you make sense out of following so many people?” (where “so many” can be anywhere from 10 to 10,000). Nina Badzin (@NinaBadzin) to the rescue! Or, as she puts it, Twitter Lists to the Rescue. Her very practical Writer Unboxed post walks you step-by-step (with pictures!) through the process of and rationale for setting up lists into which you plop the folks you’re following. Voilá! Instant—okay, pretty quick—organization! She even tells how to set up Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to make use of these lists. Very cool! Thanks, Nina.

THE WRITING LIFE

One thing I’ve sure seen in the time I’ve been reading other writers’ blogs is that no matter whether you’re (already or planning to be) traditionally published or indie published, it’s no longer enough to be working on just one thing at once. That luxury, if it ever existed, doesn’t today. That’s what makes James Scott Bell’s (@jamesscottbell) How to Work on More Than One Book at a Time so valuable. He provides a plan you can follow to keep the ideas coming and the words flowing. Keep in mind, this is a TECHNIQUE: you DON’T have to do it exactly his way. But if you’re looking for ways to up your productivity, check this out.

Along these same lines, you’ve heard this before: write every day. And you’ve heard this before (maybe you’ve said it): I don’t have the time!!!! So, are you serious about writing or not? Joanna Penn (@thecreativepenn) describes what she did to figure out How To Write More And Create A Daily Writing Habit. You don’t have to watch the embedded video because she includes the key points in the text of the post, but if you enjoy listening to someone speak with a British accent, hers is delightful, so that’s reason enough. The techniques she describes aren’t new or remarkable, but they work! Maybe they’ll work for you. Your word-count target may differ from hers (I’m committing to writing a scene a day, for example, rather than X number of words) but the key thing is, she committed to writing every day.

Do you write every day? How do you keep yourself going and on track? Do you use word-counts or some other goal?

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 29 & 30, 2013

 

For a while this morning I thought I was going to have to write, “Nothing Great out there today. Sorry.” Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case, although the final list is short. That’s okay: quantity isn’t quality.

CRAFT

Harvey Stanbrough (@h_stanbrough) continues his series on writing mistakes with The Next Five (Okay, Six) Most-Common Mistakes Writers Make. If you missed his first installment, you can find it here. This piece deals with assigning human traits to body parts, where to put descriptive narrative relative to dialogue, describing characters speaking to themselves, unnecessary “reaching” verbs, and others. Valuable basic craft stuff here, especially for new writers.

BUSINESS

Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) interviews New York Times and USA Today bestselling author CJ Lyons (@cjlyonswriter) today about Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing: Enjoy the Best of Both Worlds. To be honest, there’s really nothing new in what Ms. Lyons says in this long piece, at least not if you’ve been reading this blog or any others for any length of time, but if you need to hear it from a big-name success, this is the piece you want to read.

THE WRITING LIFE

Now here’s a piece that’s the kind of thing writers need from time to time: Angela Ackerman’s (@AngelaAckerman) Success: Is It Happening To You, Only You Don’t Realize It? on The Bookshelf Muse. The subtitle, 7 Signs of Emerging Success, is the key here, or rather, the signs themselves are. They’re a terrific set of sanity checks against the crazy-making hunt for that 100,000^th sale or the spot on the big-name bestseller list. None of us are likely to get there unless we had at least a few of these seven first.

I admit I’m always a bit leery of whoever’s the guru-du-jour—I’ve lived long enough to see too many of them come and go—so for that reason I’m not on the Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog) bandwagon. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have good ideas or clever insights, I’m just not going to worship at his feet. That said, his interview with Kelton Reid (@KeltonReid) on Copyblogger, Here’s How Seth Godin Writes, is worth a look if nothing else than for the short and snarky answers to some of Reid’s questions. Example: Q: Do you write every day? A: Do you talk every day? Hmmm. I wonder if Godin’s getting interview fatigue. Or did Reid get the answers he deserved?

What do you think? Is Stanbrough right? What about Godin? Let us know in the Comments.

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 22 & 23, 2013

 

What do you know? A Great Stuff post without anything on craft! But that’s OK, there’s still Great Stuff out there: a convenient submission tracking form, yet another way to connect using social media and other ways to get support, acting like a writer, and a post like nothing you’ve ever seen—at least not recently.

BUSINESS

A couple weeks ago, Gabriela Pereira (@DIYMFA) published a post called Navigating the Guest Post Process on DIY MFA, which included a PDF guest post submission log form. Today she announced on Twitter a new and improved version that you can fill out using Adobe Reader. (Full disclosure: Gabriela designed the form, I suggested and created the capability to fill it in with Reader. Thanks for letting me contribute, Gabriela!) The form is good for other submissions besides guest posts, too: opinion pieces, even full-scale non-fiction articles for print or online publication. You can find the form by clicking on the link above or get it directly here.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Google+ continues to come up with its own takes on things other social media sites are already doing. Now Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) introduces us to the latest with Google+ Communities Create New Networks for Authors and Publishers. I won’t make any snarky comments about this being another way to spend time we should be spending writing: we know that already. What jumped out at me was this: there are four general types of groups: public, public moderated, private, and private hidden. That’s fine. But once the community’s been created, you can’t change the type, from public moderated to private, say? Really? If Joel’s not wrong, Google certainly is. That’s poor design.

THE WRITING LIFE

No doubt Becca Puglisi (@beccapuglisi) chose the title Got Any Wise People in Your Village? Or Just Idiots? with the intention of getting our attention. And she succeeded. But the village she’s referring to is the group of writing-related people around us—the people who should be our support group. Are they wise or, um, not so helpful? Her key points are: (1) you need them; (2) you decide who to keep close and who not to.

Having that village around you will only help so much, however, if you’re not willing to help yourself. Carleen Brice (@carleenbrice) answers the question Can Acting As If You’re a Writer Make You a Writer? with a qualified yes. Yes if you use acting-as-if to get started or keep yourself motivated to keep going. There’s even scientific evidence now to show this works. But it’s the doing that matters in the end, not the pretending.

FUN

Oh, man, this is just too much fun to pass up. John Vorhaus’s (@TrueFactBarFact) Simile Fever Spreads Like Wildfire on Writer Unboxed is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Good thing you’re done with this post. You can stop what you’re doing an go read it—now!—without guilt.

Then share the laughs with all your writer friends.

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 19-21, 2013

Happy Monday, everyone! It’s a grumpy Monday around here and I’m not sure why. Maybe it was that hard-sell video lying in wait in my inbox this morning. Grrrr. But enough of that: there’s Great Stuff ahead!

CRAFT

Porter Anderson’s (@Porter_Anderson) Writing on the Ether posts have always been frustrating for me. On the one hand, they often have useful or at least interesting information in them. On the other hand, they’re so freakin’ long. I mean, 5,078 words this time? Seriously? Which is a shame, because buried in all those words are two useful sections. One is on a study by Teresa Frohock (@TeresaFrohock) on whether readers can tell the difference between male and female authors when they don’t know who wrote a particular piece. The short answer is no. You can find the full report here. If you want to read the full Ether discussion, including a diversion into whether boys or girls are reading more, and two tangential tweet copies, click here.

So it’s ironic that the next piece here is Joe Bunting’s (@write_practice) 3 Ways to Compress Your Story Like Les Misérables on Writer Unboxed. Compress like les Mis, eh? Turns out, Bunting’s referring to the compression of the original novel into the play and the recent movie musical, which he says requires these steps: choose the right moments; combine characters; and write a good story, then cut. Good advice, all, though tough to do. Be sure to check out the supporting quotes.

Let’s stay with the practical tips and visit Harvey Stanbrough’s (@h_stanbrough) Top Five Mistakes Writers Make. Clear, simple, practical advice that I’m much more conscious of since he pinged me on most of them when he edited my WIP. D’oh!

KM Weiland (@KMWeiland) has pretty much finished teaching us how to structure our scenes, so now it’s time for the sequel, which would be… sequels. And in Pt. 7: The Three Building Blocks Of The Sequel, she does just that. To give you a preview, those blocks are Reaction, Dilemma, and Decision, which every sequel, no matter how brief, should include.

BUSINESS

Anderson also includes a section on author Cory Doctorow’s (@doctorow) take on writing, publishing, and visibility in another section of the same Ether post titled Beyond DBW: More Conferences. What that has to do with what Doctorow says isn’t clear. Here’s the key quote, though (emphasis Doctorow’s): “Here’s the thing about fame: although it’s hard to turn fame into money in the arts, it’s impossible to turn obscurity into money in the arts. It doesn’t matter how you plan on making your money — selling books or downloads, selling ads, getting sponsorship, getting crowdfunded, getting commissions, licensing to someone else who’s figured out how to make money — you won’t get the chance unless people have heard of your stuff.”

THE WRITING LIFE

Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) summarizes the key points from the Stockdale Paradox and applies them to the writing life (courtesy Jim Collins, author of Good to Great) in 3 Ways to Change Your Thinking Today. “Stockdale” refers to 8-year Vietnam Prisoner of War Jim Stockdale and the philosophy he used to survive that ordeal. In short, for writers, the 3 points are: decide that you will find success; embrace your current challenges; and face your situation realistically, being willing to work as hard as necessary to overcome your challenges. Easier to say than to do, but necessary.

I hope this sets you up for a great week.

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 10 & 11, 2013

Happy Friday, everyone. Today’s posts really live up to the blog’s title. Great stuff! Not always the kinds of things we want to think about (estate planning, anyone?) but valuable nonetheless.

CRAFT

Jordan Dane (@JordanDane) picks out five lessons for great writing from Elmore Leonard’s TV series Justified in I Am JUSTIFIED on The Kill Zone. Want some hints? OK: “Never discount the importance of a good secondary character.” Or, “Dark humor is gold.” OK, that’s not for everyone. Check out the rest of the list to see what might be for you.

Lisa Cron’s (@lisacron) long but excellent 9 Tips for Writing a Really Good “Shitty First Draft” is about a lot more than just being an outliner versus a pantser. Her tips are much easier to write down than to do, but then, as she writes near the end, “… it’s not about the writing. It’s about zeroing in the story that you want to tell.” It’s a very timely post for me too, because today is the day I start Draft 1 of WIP #2. Deep breath… and dive in.

BUSINESS

This week’s long, as usual Business Rusch post from Kristine Kathryn Rusch (@kriswrites) is titled Fearless Inventories, so as you might expect, it deals with inventories, but the literary kind, what your estate’s executor might have to deal with regarding them, and what you can do to help them so they’ll remember you kindly—and your entire estate, including everything you’ve written, or planned to, will be properly valued and taken care of. Not a topic most folks are comfortable dealing with but if you hate your heirs (and not just your in-laws), go ahead and ignore this.

THE WRITING LIFE

Even if you don’t listen to the embedded 43-minute podcast, be sure to check out the 5 Things You Need to Get Sorted In 2013 on Joanna Penn’s (@thecreativepenn) blog. Good bet at least one of those five will be something you can/should do. Me? Four, anyway.

These next two guest posts could have gone into several categories but this one seems best because ultimately they’re both about the life of a writer. Debut novelist Matthew Turner (@turndog_million) lists the 10 Things I’ve Learned About Self-Publishing on The Book Designer, and seven-times-published Jennie Nash (@jennienash) lists her 5 Surprises About Self Publishing on Rachelle Gardner’s blog. Not surprisingly, there’s both overlap (it’s hard but worth it) and disconnects, if for no other reason than Nash traditionally published her first six books. If you have time for only one of these, I’d read Turner.

Okay, make it three multi-category posts. Robin LaFevers’s (@RLLaFevers) very personal essay, Embracing the Naked on Writer Unboxed, isn’t about that kind of naked (although that can be fun too), it’s about all the different kinds of exposure we have to deal with as writers—our own desires and fears, the slings and arrows of outraged readers, in the end, our own humanness—if we wish to be the genuine author we say we want to be.

What lessons have you learned about publishing, writing, or the writing life? Please leave a reply below.

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 8 & 9, 2013

Dystopian fiction and subplots, the future of fiction (maybe dystopian, maybe not), publicity in all its forms, and keeping your head in the game: we’re covering it all today. Dive in!

CRAFT

Dystopian fiction may not be your cuppa java—it wasn’t Karen Duvall’s (@KarenDuvall), at least not to write—but when she had a chance to write it she discovered 5 Ways Dystopian Fiction May Surprise You, which she shares on Writer Unboxed. The most surprising to me: opportunities for romance (love among the ruins, and all that).

So what good is a subplot, anyway? KM Weiland (@KMWeiland) explains why you should Use This Subplot to Bring Depth to Your Story. The “this” she’s referring to, by the way, is the emotional subplot, which brings out personal aspects of a character that wouldn’t otherwise be available to the story.

BUSINESS

Jane Friedman’s (@JaneFriedman) Commodity Publishing, Self-Publishing, and the Future of Fiction provides a very long for her overview of where she thinks the publishing industry is now and where pieces of it might be going in the future. There are points here I agree with and points I disagree with, sometimes vehemently. Give it a look, though. What do you think?

Ever wonder how to get book reviews? I have been lately. Dr. Rita Hancock (@DoctorRita) details how she went about Generating Buzz Through Book Reviews on WordServe Water Cooler. Note that some of her suggestions apply primarily to authors publishing primarily in print rather than electronically and it may not really be necessary to engage in 13—that’s right, thirteen—different publicity platforms the way she did, but her advice to start early is certainly on target.

Denise Wakeman (@DeniseWakeman) provides a bit of a sanity check against the last post with her post What’s Your Path to More Online Visibility? Her note that “you don’t have to do it all” is a welcome relief, although she also cautions, “Boosting your online visibility requires commitment and consistent action.” (Emphasis hers both times.)

Getting reviews is just one piece of the publicity pie, though. Rachelle Ayala (@AyalaRachelle) guest posts on The Book Designer on 5 Reasons It’s Hard to Market Indie Fiction and What to Do About It. Practical, actionable, reasonable advice.

THE WRITING LIFE

Jan O’Hara’s (@janohara) Solving a First-World Blogging Problem on Writer Unboxed, after a bit of a tease that makes a point, gets down to asking whether numbers (number of books sold this month, number of words written today, Klout score, etc.) really matter to writers and more importantly, if they do, how they should. In case you were wondering, 76.2% of her commenters agree. (I made that number up, by the way.)

Kind of in the same line of thought, Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) advises, Don’t Feed Your Discontent. Among other things, she asks, “Are you worrying about things you can’t control instead of focusing on things within your sphere of influence?” emphasis hers, and suggests ways to refocus.

There must be something in the air this week—New Year’s resolutions starting to fail, maybe?—because here’s the third article posted in the last two days on keeping focus: James Scott Bell’s (@jamesscottbell) Don’t Let Worry Drag You Down. His pyramid diagram puts into a concise image the writer’s path. Keep climbing.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten for staying focused on your long-term goals?

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, January 3 & 4, 2013

Whew! A day to catch our breath after Wednesday’s mega-post.

BUSINESS

In her first post of the new year, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (@kriswrites) discusses what to make of one’s Year-End Numbers, that is, not just sales results but work produced. That latter point is one that hubby Dean Wesley Smith also made recently: what matters most is the amount of new work you produce, not how much time you spend on your platform or social media, on editing, or anything else; on writing. That’s a message I know I need to take to heart.

Now, note that Kris DOES NOT say ignore all those other things for the sake of writing. That’s good because Nathan Maharaj (@nrmaharaj), Kobo’s Director of Merchandising, addresses the issue of pricing (and adjusting pricing) in Power Pricing: How should I price my eBooks? on the Kobo Writing Life blog. The goal, he notes, is to maximize revenue, NOT setting the price or even maximizing the number of copies sold. His three tips—stop giving away money, price for today, and use price only to solve price problems (and not others)—are well worth studying. Jane Friedman listed this article as one of December’s best business advice for writers posts.

THE WRITING LIFE

Julianna Baggott (@jcbaggott) reveals The Secret to Writing a First Novel on Writer Unboxed. Want to know what it is? It might surprise you: “I don’t sit down to write a novel. I sit down to make up an opening that compels me to write the rest.” There’s more to it, of course, especially trusting the story, but this is where Julianna starts. This one could have gone in the Craft section, too, but the whole piece deals more with the life of a writer than the craft of writing, so that’s why it’s here.

What Great, or even just Interesting, Stuff have you come across recently? Share it in the comments below.

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, November 27 & 28, 2012

WOWSERS, is the season of giving ever upon us—and I’m not talking about shopping, unless you mean shopping for great information on writing and publishing out there on the blogosphere. Check out today’s jam-packed line-up of articles, starting right now with

CRAFT

Today’s three pieces form an interesting contrast between themselves and between the cultures and to some extent between the demands of “literary” and “genre” fiction. We’ll start with Barbara O’Neal’s (@barbaraoneal) Cornerstones of Excellence: the Art of Detail on Writer Unboxed. While I certainly don’t disagree with her point that the right details in the right places can create depth and insight that a story without them would lack, I guess it’s my bias that there’s such a thing as too much, too. I’m just not a fan of spending so much time querying a character, for example—especially within the piece—that the story ends up getting lost. The “right” amount of detail for a particular story depends in part on the genre it’s a part of.

So it’s no surprise, then, that freelance thriller editor Jodie Renner (@JodieRennerEd) would have a different take on details in Writing Tense Action Scenes on The Kill Zone. Her dozen techniques for writing these scenes, plus before-and-after-editing examples, are excellent for any writer whose work includes action scenes, irrespective of genre. Even “literary!”

And then we get Writing Advice from Somerset Maugham on Michael Swanwick’s Flogging Babel blog. The advice is a couple of quotes from his introduction to a collection of his own work. Swanwick sums it up thusly: “Gonnabe writers should keep this in mind:  Advice from writers on how to write the sort of thing they themselves write is usually very good.  Their advice on what not to write, however, is always suspect.” Bloggers (and their readers) beware! J

SOCIAL MEDIA

Lori Lynn Smith (@lorilynnsmith) provides a very long but very thorough resource in The First 7 Steps to a Successful Social Media Plan for Writers on Write to Done. Not just bullet points but hows and whys for each step. This post happens to be particularly timely for me and my writers’ group as it’s something we’re starting to pay more attention to. I’ll be spending more time with this post, that’s for sure.

Jane Friedman’s (@JaneFriedman) 10 Ways to Build Long-Lasting Traffic to Your Author Website or Blog is a terrific complement to Smith’s piece. Also long but full of links to other resources, this one is definitely another one to linger with.

And then there’s Porter Anderson’s (@Porter_Anderson) ‘Social’ Media: ‘Sharing’ Our Narcissism, also on Writer Unboxed, which isn’t really a counterpoint as much as a sanity check: does everything we “share” on our social media platforms really have value to all our followers, friends, connections, circles, etc., or some of them, or, if we’re not a foodie writing for foodies, does anyone really care what we had for lunch? Not just a rant, Anderson provides three tips for better SM posts.

BUSINESS

Jordyn Redwood’s (@JordynRedwood) One Hundred Thirty-Eight Points and Bestseller Lists on WordServe Water Cooler ponders numbers and what they mean, whether in a college basketball game or on somebody’s bestseller list. You probably won’t be surprised to learn her take is that it depends on whether and how the points were earned. Kinda hearkens back to the kerfuffle of a month or so ago about the purchased and ghost-written reviews, doesn’t it? The desperation to get ahead can be a sad thing.

Speaking of which, maybe you haven’t heard that Simon & Schuster is the latest publishing house to sign on with Author Solutions, Inc., a company that’s made it (bad) reputation by selling packages of “services,” that could be done for little or no cost, to naïve authors for substantial amounts of money—in some cases in the tens of thousands of dollars. I’m not kidding. Dean Wesley Smith (@deanwesleysmith) basically says, “didn’t I tell you this was coming?” in his New Way For Uninformed Writers to Spend Money. Check out the Publisher’s Weekly article Smith links to.

THE WRITER’S LIFE

Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) asks Do You Have Impostor Syndrome? What in the world is that? It’s that feeling that you really don’t know what you’re doing, that you’re just an impostor writer (or agent, in her case), or whatever. We’ve all had that, haven’t we—those days when the words won’t come, when our characters go on strike, when our plot drifts off into the wrong morass—definitely NOT the one we wanted the characters to get into! Oh, yeah. When that happens, Gardner writes, that’s the time to remember those days when things DO go right, when the words sing, when the plot flows, when you’re confident in saying, “This is what I do.”

KM Weiland (@KMWeiland) says much the same thing in Tempted to Give Up on Your Story? Don’t! In her last in the series on what she learned from writing her latest book, she talks about how she had those give-up days but didn’t give in to them, and as a result, she’s now able to promote that book.

WHEW! Told you there was a lot of Great Stuff out there today! But surely that wasn’t everything. What did you find?

Great Stuff on the Writers’ Blogs, November 6 and 7, 2012

Ahhh, blessed peace! A day without political ads. Even so, we’ll have one—just one—fun piece (promise!) on presidents. But before we get to that, a bit on craft, a bit on the writer’s life, and a larger bit on the business of writing. Let’s get started, shall we?

CRAFT

Joe Moore (@JoeMoore_writer) wrote an excellent piece today on The Kill Zone on Kick starting your story. While that sounds like it might be plot focused, it’s actually character focused, with a list of about 18 questions about characters’ motives, goals, and obstacles. Answer them for your protagonist and antagonist and you’ll be a long way toward knowing the story. I’m doing something similar for my new WIP and it’s exciting. (Be sure to check out Jordan Dane’s and “Jim in Missoula’s” comments, too. Jim’s interview your characters technique is one I’ve used.) This one’s a keeper.

BUSINESS

Jordyn Redwood hosts self-described “book marketing expert” Rachel Simeone (@Zetablue), founder of Zetablue Marketing, who discusses The Book Review Conundrum: are they good, bad, or both, and how do you get authentic ones? Despite the recent kerfuffle over paid and/or fake reviews, they’re still an important way of getting people to make the decision to give your book a try, so this is a piece worth a look.

Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) has a couple of posts I’m recommending today, although with caveats on both.

• The first is 26 Questions on Writing & Publishing: My Answers on Reddit (note: to save you a step, the link goes directly to Reddit, not to Jane’s blog). The caveat should be clear from the title: 26 questions and answers is a lot. And, because the topics cover a wide range, not every question is going to interest every reader. That said, it’s worth skimming the piece for the topics that interest you. You do not have to have to be a Reddit community member to read the Q&A.
• The second post is a video recording of an interview Jane did on a Google+ Hangout with a group of women who are part of the BABs, the Bay Area Bloggers. As with the Reddit post, you do NOT need to have a Google+ account. The caveat here is that the interview, called A Framework for Thinking About Author Platform, is a bit over 30 minutes long.

THE WRITER’S LIFE

The one post in this section is from Therese Walsh (@ThereseWalsh) of Writer Unboxed, on Admitting Defeat to Find Success. The piece is about far more than admitting defeat, though, it’s about what to do after you reach that point where you know something’s not working and you don’t know what or where or who to turn to to fix it. Therese suggests people to call on and things to do to get past that roadblock, even if it means completely redoing the work.

JUST FOR FUN

And finally, now that the Presidential election is over with, whether your happy or unhappy about the result, Robert Bruce (@robertbruce76) of 101 Books and his readers offer up their choices for Literary Characters As President: The Good & Bad. And really, after the two years of non-stop campaigning we’ve just endured, who can’t use some creative “what ifs?” Enjoy.