Writer Unboxed

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 15-21, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

There’s a little bit of everything this week. A little craft advice, some blogging tips, love for the word nerds and the book worms, writerly brain science, and a couple of thoughtful pieces about women in fiction and making it in the world of fandom.

Part two of K.M. Weiland’s how to write a flat character arc series.

Later in the week, Cathy Yardley wrote a guest post for Katie: Six tips to outline your novel faster.

Jan O’Hara discusses McKee’s four tips on writing a BIG story on Writer Unboxed.

Anne R. Allen’s blogging essentials for authors.

In related news, Roz Morris answers the question, how much time should an author spend blogging and building websites?

10 words that started out as errors from Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty.

Moar wordnerdery from ideas.ted.com: 20 words that used to mean something completely different.

24 quotes that will inspire you to write more from Buzzfeed.

Also from Buzzfeed, 37 books every creative person should read.

Back with ideas.ted.com, six science fiction and fantasy books for the app generation.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads Kurt Vonnegut’s letter to McCarthy after the burning of (among other books) Slaughterhouse Five.

 

I just saw Lisa Cron tweet about this NY Times article: This is your brain on writing, by Carl Zimmer.

Tasha Robinson’s post on The Dissolve, We’re losing all our strong female characters to Trinity Syndrome, caused a bit of a furor on the SFCanada listserv, and elsewhere on the interwebz.

Jim C. Hines shares his Continuum guest of honour speech. It’s kick-ass. Then again, Jim’s good at that kind of thing 😉

Enjoy, my writerly peeps.

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 8-14, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

Another fine crop of lovely stuff to share. I’m even curating the curators this week 😉

Ten ways to tell a story – all about point of view from Writers Write out of South Africa. Solid article with good examples.

Are shifts in point of view and head-hopping always bad? Roz Morris answers.

How to ‘stay lit’ from The New York Times. An article Roz brought to my attention.

Finishing the novel: the daily task of “getting it done.” Elissa Field shares her process.

Elissa’s also a fellow curator. Here’s her Friday links for writers.

Writing the flat character arc, part 1: the first act. K.M. Weiland’s next character arc series begins!

What kindergarten got (and still gets) really, really wrong. The continuation of Lisa Cron’s standardized testing adventure on Writer Unboxed.

Robin Lafevers discusses what writing as therapy means to her. Also from Writer Unboxed.

Agent Noah Lukeman shares fifteen tips to help sell your ebook series.

The Atlantic: No, The Fault in Our Stars is not young adult fiction’s saviour. A few weeks back, I posted an article that posited Greenlit (for John Green, author of the above named YA novel) was a thing. Is this article the other side of that coin? Read and find out.

Guy Bergstom’s Red Pen of Doom: The six horsemen of the writepocalypse.

Enjoy, my writerly peeps.

I’m heading down to CanWrite! tomorrow. While I’ll keep the blog fires burning, I might be a little scarce around the interwebz otherwise. Good news, though: I’ll have more panels and sessions to blog!

Whee!

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz June 1-7, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Here’s the loot from the last week.

Ellen’s 12 rules for novelists from the Girlfriends Book Club.

How to make the most of your writing time from Aliventures.

The right way to layer desire in your story from MJ Bush of Writingeekery.

Vaughn Roycroft wrote a wonderful post on death and the writer for Writer Unboxed.

Roz Morris answers the question, “How do you keep motivated when your books aren’t selling well?”

K.M. Weiland takes a break from character arcs and returns to her most common mistakes series with this post and podcast about describing character movements.

TED talk on how Sting got his groove back. It’s all about storytelling.

 

Further insight from Carly Watters on why your query and/or sample pages aren’t generating interest.

A Rewording Life. A worthy, and wordy, project from Sheryl Gordon, in honour of her mother, and all those who have lost their words to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Famous authors and their favourite writing tools, a fun infographic from Bookbaby.

Clarkesworld Magazine interviews Chuck Wendig.

And for more Wendig-ishness, here’s the SFsignal podcast with Chuck and Gail Carriger.

Interesting news: Oryx and Crake series in development.

It’s all Writerly Goodness 🙂

Tipsday

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz May 18-24, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 3 Comments

Tipsday

Roz Morris responded to a writer in a bind. The result was this post.

If you’ve read Lifeform Three, you’ll find this Roz Morris post on the inspiration of the Surrey landscape interesting. If you haven’t read the novel, you’d better get cracking!

The Geeks’ Guide to the Galaxy interviews Mary Robinette Kowal. Listen to the podcast.

Speaking of podcasts, listen to K.M. Weiland’s fourteenth instalment in the Creating Stunning Character Arcs series. Or read the post. As you wish, dear reader.

The draws and drawbacks of success as an author from The New York Times.

Jan O’Hara tells us why our characters need to make tough choices. Writer Unboxed.

And yes! Now WU has its web issues sorted, here’s Lisa Cron’s wonderful post: What kindergarten got (and still gets) really, really wrong.

Three more things you need to know about exposition and telling by Victoria A. Mixon.

Agent Carly Watters has some advice for when you start comparing yourself to other writers.

Maggie Stiefvater writes about how her characters are not based on her experiences, but they answer the questions she asks in her head.

Tech Crunch interviews Hugh Howey.

The Paris Review resurrects their interview with John Steinbeck.

Anne Lamott on how to handle the haters. Brainpickings.

Two of my favourite Neils talk about genius. More Brainpickings brilliance.

Writers’ Relief offers five techniques to help turn short stories into novels.

The Bookbaby blog presents this interesting infographic about 24 books that predicted the future.

Enjoy, my writerly peeps 🙂

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz April 20-26, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

TipsdayLinking has won the day, if not the poll.

Got yourself a Franken-draft? There may be hope. Dianne K. Salerni on Writer Unboxed.

K.M. Weiland’s Creating Stunning Character Arcs series, part 10: The Midpoint.

9 tips to entice readers to your author blog from Anne R. Allen.

Everybody Arcs! How it all comes down to character. Kristen Lamb.

Carly Watters with 6 reasons you need an agent now more than ever.

12 realizations every writer must come to from 12 Most.

The Atlantic. The appeal of science fiction. A.K.A. why do people look down at the genre of Orwell and Atwood?

Is literary fiction just good marketing? The Guardian. More on the literary/genre debate.

Time. 21 women authors you should be reading.

And that’s it this week. Linking certainly makes for a shorter post!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz April 6-12, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila

TipsdayAnother eclectic bumper-crop here on Tipsday.

Wired podcast with Elizabeth Bear:

http://www.wired.com/2014/04/geeks-guide-elizabeth-bear/

MJ Bush’s WritinGeekery. A balance of strengths to take your story higher.

http://www.writingeekery.com/strength/

Robin Lafevers on Writer Unboxed. Dear soon-to-be-published author.

http://writerunboxed.com/2014/04/11/dear-soon-to-be-published-author/

And Lisa Cron on The importance of letting ‘em see you sweat.

http://writerunboxed.com/2014/04/10/the-importance-of-fear/

And … Jael McHenry on the relative value of writing craft books.

http://writerunboxed.com/2014/04/07/should-you-read-about-writing/

3 tips for writing better action scenes from BookBaby blogs.

http://writerunboxed.com/2014/04/10/the-importance-of-fear/

Wlater Benjamin’s thirteen theses from Brain Pickings.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/04/15/the-writers-technique-in-thirteen-theses-walter-benjamin/

Agent Carly Watters answers the question, Can I write fiction for a living?

http://carlywatters.com/2014/04/07/q-can-i-write-fiction-for-a-living/

Patty Jansen offers her thoughts on when hiring an editor isn’t necessarily the answer.

http://pattyjansen.com/blog/get-your-book-edited/

The Outlander fan gathering. If you’ve been drooling over the coming Starz series as much as I have, you’ll want to see this 🙂 BTW, for my Canadian friends, Showcase will be broadcasting (eeeee!). this summer. Can hardly wait.

http://www.starz.com/videos/video/388

How to be the lord of your novel’s timeline (timelord, get it?) from Roz Morris.

https://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/an-easy-way-to-make-your-plot-plausible-control-your-novels-timeline/

10 ways pre-published authors can start their careers now, from Anne R. Allen.

http://annerallen.blogspot.ca/2014/04/10-ways-pre-published-writers-can-start.html

K.M. Weiland on the elephant in the room. Are you ignoring your writer’s instincts when it comes to revision?

http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/2014/04/story-revision.html

Enjoy, my friends.

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the interwebz March 23-29, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

TipsdayK.M. Weiland’s Creating Stunning Character Arcs series, part the seventh:
http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/2014/03/character-arcs-7.html

Lessons culled from the Undercover Soundtrack. Roz Morris.
http://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/7-essentials-for-writing-a-good-novel-notes-from-the-undercover-soundtrack/

Tom Bentley’s Anatomy of a Writer. Writer Unboxed:
http://writerunboxed.com/2014/03/25/anatomy-of-a-writer-2/

The do’s and don’ts of copyeditors past:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/55850/dont-use-pants-pantaloons-19-surprising-rules-copyeditors-used-enforce

The creepy side of libraries …
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/harvard-discovers-old-library-books-bound-in-human-skin_b84050

Top 10 quotes from Oscar Wilde:
http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/Irish-genius-Oscar-Wildes-10-best-sayings.html

Incidental comics. Writing styles. I like the ghost writer, personally 🙂
http://www.incidentalcomics.com/2014/03/styles-of-writing.html

Bookcase hides a secret writer’s retreat. Pure coolness.
http://www.viralnova.com/home-with-hidden-library/

One writer’s musings on marketing:
http://katemoretti.blogspot.ca/2014/03/in-which-i-theorize-on-marketing.html

What can I say? It was an eclectic week.

Good night, everyone!

Tipsday: Writerly Goodness found on the Interwebz March 16-22, 2014

/ Melanie Marttila / 8 Comments

TipsdayAway from home this week and free wifi is slooooow.

I’d just posted about seasonal affective disorder (SAD) myself when Lydia Sharp posted this to Writer Unboxed:
http://writerunboxed.com/2014/03/16/seasonal-writing-disorder/

On the changing role of agents and new submission guidelines from Anne R. Allen’s blog (with the fabulous Pam Van Hylckama Vlieg):
http://annerallen.blogspot.ca/2014/03/the-changing-role-of-literary-agents.html

Part 6 of K.M. Weiland’s Creating Stunning Character Arcs series:
http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/2014/03/character-arcs-6.html

Two from Elissa Field. Is teaching a good day job for a writer? http://elissafield.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/writers-day-job-is-teaching-a-good-day-job-for-writers/ and Friday Links for writers 03.14.14 http://elissafield.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/friday-links-for-writers-03-14-14-quirky-info-sources/

Hey, who says I can’t curate the curators?

And here’s a third for good measure: novel revision strategies: http://elissafield.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/novel-revision-strategy-retyping-the-novel-draft/

The science of emotion in marketing. The article speaks to me more of braiin science and the power of story.
http://blog.bufferapp.com/science-of-emotion-in-marketing

Improve your vocabulary.
http://justenglish.me/2014/03/10/important-infrequently-used-words-to-know/

Stephen King’s top 20 rules for writers, ‘cause you know, we can never break too many of them 😛
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/stephen-kings-top-20-rules-for-writers/

Agent Carly Watters explains what she looks for when she Googles a prospective client.
http://carlywatters.com/2014/03/17/q-what-do-agents-like-to-see-when-they-google-writers/

Roz Morris on the dangers of over-dependence on your thesaurus.
http://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/bring-on-the-empty-horses-handle-synonyms-with-care/

The neurological similarities between writers and the mentally ill. Get your critical thinking caps on people.
http://thoughtcatalog.com/cody-delistraty/2014/03/the-neurological-similarities-between-successful-writers-and-the-mentally-ill/

5 charts that show how publishing is changing from Jane Friedman.
http://janefriedman.com/2014/03/21/5-valuable-charts/

5 insightful writing tips from Paul Harding.
http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/60070-5-writing-tips-paul-harding.html

5 reasons your platform may be spinning its wheels from Michael Hyatt.
http://michaelhyatt.com/traction.html

WOW! Did I find a lot of good stuff on the interwebz last week or what?

That’s the thing with me. Sometimes, I’ll be all over that. Sometimes I won’t. This week, for instance, being on the road, I don’t think will be very productive for the linkage. We shall see.

And this is me, saying goodnight.