National news this week has brought more tragedy and violence. With so much news of these events, life takes on an unhealthy emotional environment in our homes and communities.
What to do? Find something positive to do in your community. Support an effort in your community to help the hungry and homeless. Volunteer at a Boys and Girls Club to help young people learn something other than hatred and prejudice. Perhaps your church is involved in neighborhood meetups and gatherings.
Look for news about things you enjoy–music, books, poetry, fiction, memoirs, and more. Here are a few articles for your perusal:
Wonder about the truth of proofreading? Susan DeFreitas, Collaborative Editor at Indigo Editing, shares The Truth About Proofreading in Indigo’s recent newsletter.
From Nina Amir’s How to Blog a Book site 15 Expert Tips to Increase Reader Comments on Blog Posts. Participants include Yaro Starek of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, Joel Friedlander of TheBookDesigner.com, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.com, Peg Fitzpatrick of PegFitzpatrick.com and Mary Jaksch of WriteToDone.com.
The Guardian reports on The BBC’s #LoveToRead poll and the risk it runs of closing a potentially wider doorway into modern writing.
Jennie Yarboff at Signature shares the debate over grammar by sharing her thoughts on five books on how to write “right.”
Did you see the post by Jennie Nash at The Book Designer? Jennie talks about getting our stories out of our heads and onto the page. This is post 3 with links to posts 1 and 2.
Welcome to my weekly curation post on the best writing and book links I discovered during the past week.
My hope is to save us both time. How you might ask?
First of all, I list the links to my favorite items in this post. A place I can always go back and find them.
Second, I pass them along to you, and without too much effort, you have them at your fingertips. You can either bookmark the post or save it to Evernote or something similar if you think it will come in handy down the road.
Here are some great articles from last week:
Finding time to write is always the bane of many writers’ existence. In this article, Jessie Kwak at The Write Life shares a way to protect the most creative times in your day.
Jennie Nash writes a stellar post on the opening lines to your book, whether fiction or nonfiction. Several examples are provided from some works we are all familiar with from authors like Anne LaMott, Maurice Sendak, and others. Check it out at The Book Designer.
Who among us enjoys criticism? I’d make a guess and say not one of us enjoys criticism although it is a vital part of successful writing. Read advice from some of the writing greats of the past century as posted by Maria Popova at BrainPickings.
This week in The New Yorker James Wood shared his thoughts on Edna O’Brien’s latest novel, The Little Red Chairs. Most interesting in the article is learning that O’Brien is now 85 years old and is still writing as strong as ever.
Mick Silva, writer and editor, blogs under the same name. His recent post, Why Writing Is Not About Creativity, caught my eye and curiosity. If not, why not? Mick shares his thoughts on the topic beautifully.
Curated news turns out to be the best for all concerned.
I read what I curate and if I benefit from it, I share it with you.
In turn, that saves you from having to surf and search and read every news item you come across.
Sometimes we might even stumble across each other in our reading and commenting. So, if you have already seen one of these links feel free to skip over it and go to the next one.
April came to a close with some good and some bad news about folks among our creative communities, but also news about some new faces. Here you go:
Lynda Bouchard at Where Writers Win shares a beautiful and meaningful tribute to two princes of the creative kind, Pat Conroy, author of Prince of Tides who passed away in April, and Prince, recording star, composer, musician, and entertainer as well as lover of purple, who also passed away in April.
Via Where Writers Win
An interview transcript from NPR’s All Things Considered tells the story behind Joshua Hammer’s The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and how one librarian became an “operator” sneaking manuscripts out of the library under al-Qaeda’s nose.
Many of you are familiar with the name, Christina Katz, but did you know Christina has started her own writing school: The Christina Katz Writing & Publishing School? Well, she has, and among other things Christina recently shared on her site a post sharing the opportunities offered by Creative Nonfiction magazine to writers for submissions to the magazine.
No money for a big vacation this year? Kate Scott takes you around the world with an amazing global list of books taking you to the 80 most populated countries. Pour up your favorite beverage and get comfy in your favorite armchair!
Hope you found something of interest today. See you next Tuesday.
Writers and bloggers need resources to aid in getting their ideas into context attractive to their followers. In order to find these resources, we could spend hours surfing the Internet to find those people most helpful to our brand, blog, or book. The following five individuals and two sites are resources I follow consistently. I hope you find something helpful among them.
“Social Media Just for Writers was named as one of the top 30 websites for independently published authors by Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts, Inc.”
“This website will help you to get your writing in front of more readers who would love to know about your books. You’ll learn how to use social media efficiently and effectively, and you’ll learn about new applications, best practices, and tips that will help you reach your marketing goals.”
(quoted from About page of Social Media Just for Writers)
“I have had the privilege of working with hundreds of writers, helping them share their stories and connect with readers. Some of these folks are bestselling authors, with millions of books sold, while others are first time authors, and many more are somewhere between those two points.”
“…I’ve worked with hundreds of authors, and some of the most amazing organizations that support writers.”
Gretchen is a treasure trove of tech tips, social media tips, suggestions for maintaining an easy-to-work-with inbox, and more. Read some endorsements I found on her site:
Gretchen Louise
“I like to think I’m fairly computer savvy, but there are some aspects of WordPress that really freak me out! Gretchen took my vision and was able to make anything I wanted happen. All I had to do was ask!”
-Kalyn Brooke, Creative Savings
“I really can’t say enough good things about Gretchen…she is professional, helpful, kind, and a coding superstar! She customized a theme for my site and it looks amazing. I felt completely confident that she would make my site look beautiful and work flawlessly, and I was right! She is a wonder.”
-Kelly, The Pretty Bee
Writers Helping Writers, formerly known as The Bookshelf Muse, is hosted by co-authors and co-bloggers, Angela Ackerman and Rebecca Puglisi. Together they have written “bestselling triplets, The Emotion Thesaurus, The Positive Trait Thesaurus, and The Negative Trait Thesaurus.”
From their About page, “Our mission is simple: offer help and support as much as we can. This site has many different tools and resources for writers, editors and teachers, so poke around and enjoy!”
Joel Friedlander, better known as The Book Designer, offers practical advice to help writers in producing better books. The following quote sums up Joel’s philosophy:
“Writers change the world one reader at a time. But you can’t change the world with a book that’s still on your hard
drive or in a box under your bed.”
Joel’s blog is filled with resources and tools to help you decide how you want to publish your book and to teach you the ins and outs of self-publishing should you choose to follow that route. The author of many books on the subject of publishing and with a background in the field, Joel’s expertise is priceless.
In 2006 aspiring novelists Therese Walsh and Kathleen Bolton collaborated to dissect complex books and movies. After their second rejection, they decided to create a site where they could state their opinions with no possibility of rejection, except possibly from readers. Writer Unboxed was born. With a list of contributors too long to share here, the articles posted in Writer Unboxed always bring something to the reader useful, educational, and resourceful. It is a site I recommend to all aspiring writers.
Writers Digest, the site, is a one-stop shopping experience for the writer. With everything from books, magazines, downloads, conferences, workshops, classes, webinars, tutorials, blogs, competitions and resources, this site is like an online shopping and educational experience rolled into one. Writers of all genre will find something to suit their needs and competitive spirits. With a subscription to the newsletter, you’ll receive a list of 101 websites for writers, more than I’ll ever be able to list here. (That doesn’t mean you won’t need to continue to read my blog! Or subscribe to my newsletter.)
These are some of the folks I rely on for information and leads as I write my book. Of course, there are many others as well. However, I encourage you to take some time to visit each of these if you haven’t already. I think you’ll find something valuable.
What about you? Do you have favorite sources of information online you could share with us?
National news this week has brought more tragedy and violence. With so much news of these events, life takes on an unhealthy emotional environment in our homes and communities.
