The Cult of Universal Authorhood now has a youth recruitment program.
Created by former New Yorker managing editor Jacob Lewis and current New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear, it’s called Figment.com, conceived as a sort of Facebook for young adult fiction, where teens can “write whatever they wanted in whatever form they wanted.”
Librarian and author Lawrence Clark Powell said, “Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow.”
I would add this to his list: “Link to help others.”
In that spirit, on to the writer links!
Oh, Monday… with your false enthusiasm and wearisome clichés of toil resumed.
Prescription: coffee, with a healthy shot of cynicism and defiance!
The writer links this week are chock full of advice on characters and a writer’s personal approach to writing. On to the links! Continue reading
It’s that time again in my three-part cycle of link soup.
Just like how, at the cafeteria where you work, the middle of the week means taco bar, the beginning of the Leith Literary soup cycle means links to stuff other writers are writing about! There’s no guac or salsa here, but there certainly is a lot of spicy goodness.
So, set your laptop somewhere it won’t overheat (the cooling vents are probably on the bottom!) and enjoy the following links offering advice and other neat stuff from writers. Continue reading
I have returned, completely mostly moved in to my new place of residence, and ready to shout “clear!” and slap the paddles to this flatlining blog.
Also, now that I’ve switched WordPress themes, I can go back to regular text hyperlinks; Andreas09 gives them a nice, clean look. However, I still like the idea of card suit bullets distinguishing the different categories of link soup, so I think I’ll keep them too.
So, without further introduction, let’s look at some good stuff posted recently by writers: Continue reading
I want to start this week’s writer link soup with two author success stories from the Shooting Stars blog: Sarah Wylie and Mary Lindsey. Check them out; their story could be your story someday!
At the suggestion of her son, Becky Levine digs into the metaphorical Professor Umbridge, while Kelly Morgan of Distracted By The Internet gives us an intriguing peek into her writing process.
Heather Singh writes in her Composition Book about the Top Ten highlights from the Novel Writing Retreat at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, while John over at BookFox gives into the “evil meme” and presents his list of the Top Eight books that have influenced him. I may give into this fad myself soon.
Les Edgerton advises writers to avoid “as” and “-ing” phrases, while Lydia at The Sharp Angle discusses how to use micro-themes to bring energy to your writing.
Juliette Wade at Talk To YoUniverse explains how to let your characters use their social skills, and Liesl at Writer Ropes and Hopes kicks off her Contradictions series (a very clever idea, by the way) by navigating between showing and telling.
And big THANKS to Jade Smith for including my “In Defense of Coffee Shop Writers” in her latest link wave!
At the Sharp Angle blog, guest blogger Juliette Wade offers up some useful insight into the use of 1st Person in fiction. Although not a favorite of mine, 1st Person did end up being the approach I took in my first novel, so I found Juliette’s observations interesting… and on-the-mark.
Jesse Kornbluth at Publisher’s Weekly surprised me by repeating three of my opinions about how publishers could face the technological and economic minefields facing them, opinions that I considered outside the pale: publish fewer books, publish better books, stop publishing everything in hardback first. He also advises writers to do what I would do more of … if I actually had more time: spend more time online with one’s own website and social networking sites. (And, thanks to Dystel & Goderich for the surf assist.)
