Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, March 6-12, 2016

March 15, 2016March 15, 2016 / Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

A nice bit mix of craft, career, and creativity 🙂

K.M. Weiland continues her most common writing mistakes series with number 49: weak conjunctions. Helping writers become authors. Later in the week, she helps us keep things straight: Plot isn’t story.

C.S. Lakin explores cinematic scene openings in her scene structure series.

Lisa Cron tells us the shocking truth about info dumps. Writer Unboxed.

Christine Frazier helps us take charge of our novels’ symbolism. The Better Novel Project.

Janice Hardy offers the basics of punctuating dialogue. Fiction University. Later, she talks about getting readers to the end and making them glad they came.

Chris Winkle shares five haunting backgrounds for creating deep characters. Mythcreants. Then, Oren Ashkenazi shares five more reasons your story is sexist.

Laura Drake overcomes rejection: Don’t give up your power. Writers in the Storm.

Jaym Gates talks about making hard decisions and refocusing on what matters.

I’m so glad more writers are blogging about this. So important. Self-care for writers, by Jami Gold.

This is the dystopia we’ve built. Kameron Hurley reflects on life experiences and reviews The United States of Japan.

Laini Taylor offers some writing advice. The Book Life.

Publishing business news from Publishers Weekly: The Supreme Court rejects Apple’s appeal.

BBC presents ten women who changed science fiction for the better.

Bustle shares eight feminist science fiction novels. Moar recommended reading (!)

This is just amazing storytelling. The Maker.

Another brilliant piece of storytelling, but with a dystopian bent. iMom will creep you out. i09.

Entertainment Tonight online interviews Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe on season two of Outlander.

Thanks for stopping by.

Come back for some inspirational material on thoughty Thursday.

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Feb 21-27, 2016

March 1, 2016March 1, 2016 / Melanie Marttila

A yummy week of Writerly Goodness for you:

Roz Morris shares three diagrams that you can use to check your novel’s pacing. Nail your novel.

Becca Puglisi also tackles novel pacing for Writers Helping Writers.

K.M. Weiland offers four tweaks that will help you write original stories and characters. Helping writers become authors.

C.S. Lakin looks at scenes as capsules of time. Live, write thrive. She added establishing your setting to her Scene Structure series later tin the week.

Jami Gold helps us find the right balance in story description.

C.S. Plocher shows us what we can learn from J.K. Rowling’s series grid. The Better Novel Project.

Janice Hardy explores how to build internal and external core conflicts. Fiction University.

Chris Winkle shares some tips about narrating dreams and visions. Mythcreants.

The 49th Shelf shares a round-table discussion about world building.

Oren Ashkenazi offers some tips for writing a diverse story. Mythcreants.

Marcy Kennedy writes about valuing yourself and your work. Remember that thing from last week? Yeah. More of that.

Jim C. Hines discusses the importance on not only having anti-harassment policies at cons, but also of enforcing them.

Heather Webb explores how a writer lives with yearning on Writer Unboxed.

Dan Blank advises us to create every day. Life is chaotic. There is no time but now. Writer Unboxed.

And here’s another Dan Blank video. Invest in relationships, not blueprints.

Jessie Burton writes about her journey, as a creative, through depression and anxiety.

Kirsten Oliphant guest posts on Jane Friedman’s blog on how authors can use Pinterest best.

Then Jane posted on Writer Unboxed about a common misunderstanding authors have about web sites.

Brent Underwood goes behind the scam to discover what it takes to become a “bestselling” author on Amazon. The Observer. The answer? $3 and five minutes.

Jamie Raintree helps you design your writing career from the top, down. Writers in the Storm.

Mark Medley profiles Jennifer Robson, the most successful Canadian author you’ve never heard of. The Globe and Mail.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, read in the original Akkadian. Open Culture.

Just a quick reminder about the importance of the Oxford comma. The Poke.

Electric Lit shares an infographic analyzing the 15 most populated novels. Guess what? A Song of Fire and Ice isn’t the worst offender 😉

An accented tour of the British Isles:

How to be a person. Shane Koyczan.

A first look at five new character portraits for season two of Outlander. It’s getting closer! Yahoo!

And that’s it until Thursday!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Dec 27, 2015-Jan 2, 2016

January 5, 2016January 5, 2016 / Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

Not off to a raging start in 2016. I have a feeling that there’s lots of Writerly Goodness yet to come, though.

K.M. Weiland shares her five step plan to analyze your favourite books (A.K.A. read like a writer).

And here are five ways Katie says will help you make better writing resolutions in 2016.

Jami Gold talks story beginnings.

Oren Ashkenazi shares six overused tropes and how to avoid them. Mythcreants.

And he returns with six clichés to watch out for. Mythcreants.

The ten self-editing mistakes writers make and how to fix them. These are some excellent pointers 🙂 Cathy Presland for Author Unlimited.

Emergence and depression: an interview with Charlotte Ashley.

Jane Friedman offers five industry issues for writers to watch in 2016.

If you’ve seen SW:TFA, you may remember that island where Ray finds you-know-who at the end. Guess what? It’s a real place: Skellig Michael, in Ireland. Irish Central.

Though Seth Abramson say he loved the film, he still found 40 ‘unforgivable’ plot holes in SW:TFA. BEWARE: HERE BE SPOILERS. The Huffington Post.

See you on Thursday for a wee (and I mean wee) bit of thoughty.

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, December 13-19, 2015

December 22, 2015December 22, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

Here’s your Writerly Goodness for the first day of winter, 2015.

K.M. Weiland offers four ways to reignite your sense of wonder in your writing.

Later in the week, Katie shared three smart tips for structuring powerful scenes.

Roz Morris wonders how much you talk about your work in progress?

I’m fond of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) and similar assessments. Jami Gold shares some MBTI resources in her exploration of personality and how it affects writing process.

Janice Hardy offers some strategies for describing your first person narrator. Fiction University.

Angela Ackerman discusses how to use weather to create mood, not clichés on Writers in the Storm.

Carly Watters explains why we need time, fear, and talent to make it as writers.

Amy Craft explores the science behind the best way to read for CBS News.

Kids should read whatever they want, whenever they want. Rachel Cordasco for Book Riot.

Tech Insider shares six websites that let you download ebooks for free. You may not know about all of them.

Steven Pinker reveals some of the most misused word in the English language. Business Insider.

Scrabble’s Anagram Christmas turns negatives into positives 🙂

X-rays reveal the secrets of medieval books. Medieval Books.

Mansplaining Lolita. Rebecca Solnit for LitHub.

Buzzfeed shares 38 literary quotes that may help you when you’re feeling down. ‘Tis the seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Blastr shares Arthur C. Clarke’s top 12 science fiction movies.

Den of Geek celebrates the dogs of speculative fiction.

Molly Templeton reviews the first episode on SyFy’s The Magicians (based on Lev Grossman’s novels) for Tor.com. Phil and I caught it and were very impressed. Looking forward.

Leah Schnelbach liked the SyFy adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End well enough, but Phil and I weren’t impressed. Now Phil is a scientist and a SF purist, so his reaction was understandable. My disappointment? Not so much. I’m still working it through, but I think it has something to do with the storytelling decisions made. The critical error in my estimation (so far)? Whose story is it? What character is there from beginning to (almost) end? Karellan. That’s who. Now that’s a story I would have liked to see. It would have been a bigger departure from the book than what SyFy gave us, but I think it would have been better. That’s just my opinion, though.

Because the costume makes the period drama part of Outlander shine, Frock Flicks is giving us droughtlander sufferers a sneak peek at the season two wardrobe.

Good words to you, my friends. The light is returning! Or maybe it’s just the Earth turning/tilting? Meh. Precession and all that.

See you in two days for some Thoughty on Thursday 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Nov 22-28, 2015

December 1, 2015December 1, 2015 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

We’re back on track and heading full steam ahead 🙂

K.M. Weiland shares more lessons she learned from writing Storming: How to write multiple antagonists.

And: Seven easy ways to research an historical novel.

Veronica Sicoe is sharing some of the lessons she’s learned from writing The Deep Link and The Prime Rift. Writing out of sequence is the best way to draft.

How to get comfortable with the f-word. Vaughan Roycroft for Writer Unboxed.

Brunonia Barry asks, are you writing for love or money? Writer Unboxed.

Julie Glover guests posts on Jami Gold’s blog about how grammar can strengthen our writing voice.

Angela Ackerman writes about creating characters that readers trust, but shouldn’t. Writers Helping Writers.

Chris Winkle shows us how to write a riveting fight scene. Mythcreants.

Chuck Wendig considers privilege.

The two posts mentioned in Chuck’s:

Further linkage to be clicked.

C.S. Lakin wonders, is backstory killing your books plot? The Write Life.

Shad interviews Nalo Hopkinson on diversity in science fiction for CBC’s Q.

NPR talks to Ta-Nehisi Coates about his work and the painful process of becoming conscious.

Martha Nussbaum explores how storytelling rewires us and why we have to befriend our neediness to be happy. BrainPickings.

Waterstones prepares for a new chapter as the chain returns to profitability. The Guardian.

Damien Walter writes about the genre versus literary debate. It’s a battle in which both side lose. The Guardian.

The BookBaby blog suggests you focus on your book’s back cover copy.

If you’ve enjoyed a good book and you’re a woman, the critics think you’re wrong. The Guardian.

How a Finnish librarian decoded the world’s folklore. Timeline.

The Best Sci-Fi Books presents its list of the 23 best cyberpunk novels.

Be well until Thoughty Thursday!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Nov 1-7, 2015

November 10, 2015 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

First up: NaNoWriMo:

Don’t get stuck during NaNoWriMo. Jami Gold on Writers in the Storm.
Roz Morris gives us five tips for writing a useful draft at speed.
Chuck Wendig writes an informal NaNoWriMo pep talk: The perfect machine vs. the art monster.
He follows up by sharing how he writes 50(-ish) k words per month.

To temper things, Chuck then wrote that writing advice is bullshit.

The Query Shark CrimeBake 2015 effective queries workshop.

Common writing mistakes, pt. 45: Avoiding ‘said.’ K.M. Weiland.

What Katie learned about writing funny dialogue in the course of writing her novel, Storming.

Donald Maass offers his thoughts on positivity and protagonists on Writer Unboxed.

Marcy Kennedy guest posts on Jami Gold’s blog with five tips for finding POV errors.

Beth Revis builds a great first chapter on Writers Helping Writers.

Therese Walsh shares lessons from Breaking Bad on Writer Unboxed.

Matriarchies, patriarchies, and beyond. Mike Hernandez for Mythcreants.

Delilah S. Dawson writes for the Mary Sue: Everything I love is problematic.

Ellipses can be powerful or annoying. Here’s a guide to using them well. Lexicon Valley.

They’re adding more words to the dictionary again. The Guardian.

What your bookshelf says about your personality. Bustle.

How to judge people by the covers of their books. Bustle.

Literary address quiz, anyone? Ace it, and get a cheeky wink from Simon Pegg :)The Reading Room.

Levar Burton – Problems only book lovers understand:

Monstress: the fantasy comic about race, feminism, and the monster within. The Hollywood Reporter.

I didn’t mind The Golden Compass movie, but a series would probably be better. i09.

Lego Doctor Who? Eeeeee! i09.

Come back next week for more awesome. MOAR I say. Moar.

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Oct 18-24, 2015

October 27, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

Whee! The countdown to Can-con and NaNoWriMo has begun!

I’m all a-squee!

K.M. Weiland answers a reader’s question: How do I keep writing during NaNo when all I want to is watch football?

C.S. Lakin writes about the insanity that is NaNoWriMo.

Katie describes how to make your hero’s self-sacrifice even more heart-breaking.

Jan O’Hara explores those times when dark emotions threaten your writing. Writer Unboxed.

Dan Blank compares copying others and failing vs. forging your own path on Writer Unboxed.

Veronica Sicoe looks at the power of momentum and the three c’s of productivity.

Maya Sapiurka teaches us how to cure writer’s block. Time.

C.S. MacCath gives us a strategy for writing through an emotional block.

Catherine Ryan Howard gives us a virtual tour of her writing space: where the crying happens.

Joanna Penn presents seven things to fix in your first self-edit.

Chuck Sambuchino guest posts on Carly Watters’ blog with seven tips to help you craft your novel’s pitch.

Ruthanne Reid provides a lesson in world building 101. The Write Practice.

Liz Bourke writes about strong female characters and the double standard. Tor.com.

Jamie Gold offers great tips for and examples of writing diversity (without issues).

Noah Charney describes the not-quite end of the book tour. The Atlantic.

George Saunders shares his writing education in The New Yorker.

Was there a real-life Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s life? The Telegraph.

Has sci-fi become a 21st century religion? The Guardian.

Emil Lendof of The Daily Beast introduces us to Brian K. Vaughan, the comic visionary behind Y: The Last Man.

The Jessica Jones trailer:

And the heresy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:

I guess it’s trailer day on Tipsday. Here’s the supercut trailer for The Force Awakens:

Charlie Jane Anders lists 50 science fiction movies that everyone should see at least once. i09.

Grammarly shares 20 jokes for grammar nerds.

BuzzFeed presents 17 rooms for book lovers.

Seven celebrities recite Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” MentalFloss.

Come on back for Thoughty Thursday!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, August 16-22, 2015

September 1, 2015 / Melanie Marttila

Blissfully back to normal!

And Mom’s surgery went wonderfully, thanks.

Now, on to the Writerly Goodness:

Are you protagonist and your main character the same person? K.M. Weiland explains how the answer could transform your story.

The Pixar way to think about conflict in your story. Katie’s weekly vlog.

Chuck Wendig shares his writing process and invites us to share ours. Terribleminds.

He also smells our rookie moves . . . and tells us how we can avoid them.

Marcy Kennedy guest posts on Jami Gold’s blog on the topic of internal dialogue and three story problems it can help us address.

How to become a bestselling, full-time novelist—it’s so easy! Dan Blank takes a facetious look at becoming an overnight success as an author on Writer Unboxed.

Stephen Kings asks, can a novelist be too productive? The New York Times.

Jeff Bollow’s how to write FAST. By the way, that’s an acronym. It’s not about speed or productivity.

Leta Blake highlights diversity in the LGBTQ community for Writer Unboxed.

The Rabbit Box: a strange and wonderful storybook for grownups. Brainpickings.

Neil Gaiman explains why our future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming. The Guardian.

Dylan Landis shares her experience with grief and how it affected her. The New York Times.

The BBC talks to Verlyn Flieger, who helped to bring J.R.R. Tolkein’s Kullervo to print.

R.F. Foster on Yeats, faeries, and the Irish occult tradition:

Flavorwire shares this list of 50 books for 50 classes—a curriculum on your bookshelf.

Who won the Hugos and why it matters. Wired.

Noah Berlatsky chimes in with this take on women authors in SF and the Hugo controversy for Playboy.

Gary K. Wolfe writes about it in the Chicago Tribune, as well.

Takeaway of the week: It doesn’t matter whether your write fast or slow, full-time or part-time, only that you write. Don’t go comparing your work or process to anyone else’s. You are you and your novel is something only you could have created. Value yourself and your time.

So get writing.

And we’ll see you in two days.

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, July 26-August 1, 2015

August 4, 2015 / Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

Tipsday is back, full force. Feel the Writerly Goodness 😉

K.M. Weiland shares four ways to write a likeable protagonist at the beginning of the character arc. Helping writers become authors.

Related: Chris Winkle asks (and answers), do characters need to be likeable? Mythcreants.

Here are two ways to make the most of your climactic setting, Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Writer Unboxed continues its Diversity series with Gabriel Valjan: Import foreign cultures into your fiction.

Jami Gold shines a light on diversity issues.

Kim Bullock gets confessional on Writer Unboxed: The elephant in my living room.

How to write a novel in the dark, by Siobhan Adcock. The Daily Beast.

This is crazy-awesome Writingeekery. MJ Bush decided to live blog her 24 hour write-a-thon to draft her next book.

More Writer Unboxed: Jo Eberhardt shares a personal story about the power of fiction. [Mel’s note: Mary Brown’s The Unlikely Ones was one of the books I latched onto in my university years. Wonderful.]

Jeff Gerke guest posts on C.S. Lakin’s Live, Write, Thrive blog about hacking your reader’s brain.

Callie Oettinger revisits a past post on Steven Pressfield’s blog: Lay a little heavy on the business side.

Your second life starts when life cracks you open. Justine Musk on stepping into the bigger story.

Virginia Woolf believed that the best mind is an androgynous mind. Brainpickings.

Janis Joplin speaks about creativity and rejection in her final, lost interview, rediscovered and animated. Fabulous. Brainpickings.

Portland Monthly features home grown author Ursula K. le Guin. Amazing read.

Ever thought, ‘gee, I’d like to ask Ursula K. le Guin about writing’? Well, now you can! The Book View Cafe.

Neil Gaiman talks in his sleep. His wife, Amanda Palmer, found a forgotten recording of one of their nocturnal conversations and created this whimsical animated short. Brainpickings. [Mel’s note: I take a strange kind of comfort in the fact that I talk in my sleep, too. Phil doesn’t record our conversations, though.]

Fantasy writer N.K. Jemesin upends the racist and sexist status quo. The Guardian.

Haruki Murakami shares the moment he knew he’d be a writer. The Telegraph.

Jill Soloway calls for a matriarchal revolution in film. The Vulture.

How changing your reading habits can improve your health. Fast Company.

Charlie Jane Anders of i09 writes about ten books we pretend to have read and why we really should. For the record, I’ve only read one of these, Dune.

Foz Meadows writes about Sens8 for Tor.com. Just for the record, Phil and I loved the shite out of this Netflix Original.

CBC is now producing webseries: The Riftworld Chronicles. Tamoh Penikett stars 🙂

Buzzfeed presents seventeen (gif) faces that every grammar nerd will relate to.

Authors tweet #tenthingsnottosaytoawriter. Entertainment Weekly.

Interesting stuff coming up on thoughty Thursday, See you then!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, June 14-20, 2015

June 23, 2015 / Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments

Another wonderful week for Writerly Goodness!

What’s the key event and how is it different from the inciting incident and the first plot point? I know I still forget the distinctions. K.M. Weiland’s Helping Writers Become Authors.

And here’s Katie’s Wednesday vlog: How to write a riveting characteristic moment.

Roz Morris shares her experience with repetitive stress injury (RSI).

Kassandra Lamb guests on Jami Gold’s blog: Nine psychology myths you need to avoid.

Tips on picking up the pace from Rebecca LuElla Miller.

Learn about the magic systems of Brandon Sanderson. Tor.com.

Five ways first contact could turn into an epic fail. Veronica Sicoe.

Neil Gaiman offers his thoughts on why stories last. (w/ Podcast) BrainPickings.

Liz Bourke ponders how we speak of strong female characters. This post refers to others I’ve shared in past weeks and takes it in a slightly different direction. Very interesting. Tor.com.

How can you keep readers from hating your characters? Jody Hedlund.

Beth Revis posts on Janice Hardy’s Fiction University: How do you know you’re ready to publish? Agent Carly Watters of P.S. Literary wrote on the same topic last week 🙂

Dave King explores our motivations for writing. Writer Unboxed.

Kameron Hurley asks, why are we self-publishing? Locus.

Porter Anderson takes a look at Hugh Howey’s promotion of self-publishing and what it really means in the context of the continually evolving publishing industry. Thought Catalog.

Amazon changes its terms for KDP select. The Digital Reader.

Why I teach diverse literature. The Toast.

What librarians wish we knew about how to use a library. i09.

Authors share the places that inspire them. FlavorWire.

Ten books you should read before you see the movie. The Huffington Post.

Mark Twain’s advice to little girls. BrainPickings.

This is fun 🙂 Classic novels with clickbait titles. BuzzFeed.

BuzzFeed shares 22 book-themed gifts for readers.

Watch the Scooby Doo crew’s fashion evolve through the last century. i09.