Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, April 26-May 2, 2015

May 5, 2015 / Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

Your prologue could be destroying your story’s subtext. K.M. Weiland – Helping writers become authors.

Are you misusing cliffhangers? Find out in Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Christine Frazier of the Better Novel Project presents an infographic that will show you how to deconstruct a scene like Katie 🙂

Ruth Harris discusses the magic of novel rehab on Anne R. Allen’s blog. Never give up!

Gwendolyn Womack writes about the story iceberg on Writer Unboxed.

Jordan Rosenfeld guest posts on Writer Unboxed: the seven secrets of highly persistent writers.

Janice Hardy explains how mini arcs create more story depth.

Jane Friedman compiles links to all the relevant resources on her site for this post: How to find a literary agent. Heading into querying (most likely June), so I needed this 🙂

Books & Such agent, Wendy Lawson, discusses the issue of “Playing around the Edges.”

Writer tech awesome: Veronica Sicoe shows us how to format our novel for Smashwords in one day. Note: requires a #gallonofcoffee 🙂 Step by step with screenshots. Extremely helpful.

Klexos from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows:

The case for physical books. The National Post.

Grammarly presents the dark side of nursery rhymes.

Publisher’s Weekly lists their top ten most difficult books. How many of them have you read (or tried to read)?

Here’s Buzzfeed’s list of 26 books from around the world that we should read before we die.

How Shakespeare’s heroines evolved from one-dimensional to feminist. Flavorwire.

Last week’s Outlander episode featured full frontal male nudity and laughed in the face of rape. Salon.

Thanks for making Writerly Goodness part of your blog-reading pleasure 🙂

See you Thursday!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, April 5-11, 2015

April 14, 2015 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

A weekend of rest plus a weekend away at a convention equals slim pickings. It’s all Writerly Goodness, though 😀

“When did thrilling the reader become cheap?” Roz Morris weighs in on storytelling in literary fiction.

K.M. Weiland discusses how to ace your climactic moment.

Interaction is the key to dynamic scenes. Katie’s Wednesday vlog.

Fallacy: the primer for surprise. Blew. My. Mind. Writer Unboxed.

How dreams can lead to creative breakthroughs. Canva.

How the subconscious mind shapes creative writing. The Guardian.

Brainpickings presents Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s favourite books.

Authors Publish offers seven misattributed quotes. Oops.

Research suggests Shakespeare may have written ‘lost’ play. CNN.

Monks wrote in the margins, too. i09.

Alex Garland on being an “auteur” and his movie, Ex Machina. Grantland.

Thoughty Thursday appears to be full of YouTube this week (!)

See you then, my friends.

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Dec 7-13, 2014

December 16, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Hachette wants to turn Twitter into a bookstore. I’m still not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Bloomberg Businessweek.

Do agents Google potential clients? You bet your sweet bippy. Survey conducted by Debbie Ridpath Ohi.

The most common writing mistakes series, part 36: Too much introspection and not enough interaction. K.M. Weiland.

Blogging for authors: How to create a blog that will grow with your career. Anne R. Allen.

How to become a writer by Lisa Cron for Writer Unboxed. It takes time and patience, practice and persistence.

Last week, I shared a post about writing in your books. This week, I discovered that monks annotated their illuminations 😛 Catholic Memes.

Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre unearthed. The Guardian.

Margaret Atwood’s ten rules of writing. Brainpickings.

Buzzfeed shares 51 of the most beautiful sentences in literature.

This is the coolness: a periodic table of figures of speech. LifeHacker.

Nearly perfect movies and what they teach us about storytelling. Charlie Jane Anders for i09.

Steven Moffat finally agrees that a woman Doctor is a distinct possibility. Can I get an “Amen” my sisters? Though he also says it’s too soon to think about a new Doctor. i09.

Five lessons Peter Capaldi learned from Doctor Who. Wired.

Beautiful poetry from Shane Koyczan:

Neil Gaiman recites “Jabberwocky”:

This is going to be one splendid movie 🙂

Paftoo’s secret room in Roz Morris’s Lifeform Three was based on this real underwater ballroom. Sunny Skyz.

May your week be full of fantastic nonsense 🙂

See you Thoughty Thursday!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz, Nov 30-Dec 6, 2014

December 9, 2014 / Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Here’s another post and podcast on theme from K.M. Weiland. This theme stuff is a little brain-twisty. Katie makes it accessible without getting didactic. That’s exactly what you have to do with your theme.

Jane Kisacky writes about literary hypochondria for Writer Unboxed.

Ruth Harris wrote this wonderful post for Anne R. Allen’s blog on managing your social media for sanity.

Listen to the Creative Penn podcast. This week’s guest: David Farland 🙂

What Catherine Ryan Howard learned about rejection. Catherine, caffeinated.

Karen Thompson Walker. What fear teaches us. TED Talk.

11 books aspiring writers should read. Bustle.

25 words you should add to your vocabulary.

Pixar’s 22 rules of phenomenal storytelling.

Chuck Wendig’s simple, no-fuckery plan to write and the no-fooling, fix-that-shit plan to finish your goddamned novel.

Last week, we learned that readers have more empathy. This week, writers are proven to have better coping skills and better physical resilience. Go figure. Arts.Mic.

I think this might go along with last week’s reader discovery. Book ban in prison repealed. BBC.

How not to build a future society. BBC.

If any of you out there are like me, you’re in agony waiting for April and the resumption of the Outlander season. Here’s a little teaser for you to tide you over courtesy of The Nerdist.

I am a BIG B5 fan, so when I read about a reboot movie, I was vibrating on a higher level. Ars technica.

The Saturday Evening Post DC superhero series by Juan Carlos Ruiz Burgos. Deviant Art. I waffled about whether to put this on the Tipsday post or the Thoughty Thursday post.

The Creative Arts Shop on Etsy offers Doctor Who themed merchandise. I kind of like the fingerless gloves meself.

Buzzfeed presents some awesome writing nooks.

The science of Shakespeare on CBC’s Ideas.

Do you write in your books? Consider this post by Tim Parks for The New York Review of Books.