Writing Post Round-Up - Week of Mar 31-Apr 6, 2013

A few months ago I started collecting links to blog posts about writing for my writing group and posting up to ten of my favorite posts each week.  I try to choose a variety of topics each time, so that they’re not all posts about character development, or writer insecurities, or outlining – you get the idea.  But I also tend to choose the posts that spoke to me that week, so sometimes there’s a theme.  And then I add a little blurb on what the post is about and why I liked it, so that people can decide whether or not it’s relevant to them.  

NOTE: These links are drawn from the posts I read this week, but may have been originally published at any time.  I get behind in my RSS feed, and sometimes I find links to awesome older posts that I want to share.  

http://miriamjoywrites.com/2013/03/27/insecure-writer-bingo/

                There are a fair number of “writer insecurity” posts in my collection of late.  I’ve been having a really tough time with my writing lately, so it helps to read posts from other writers going through the same thing.  It seems most writers have times when they feel like their writing is crap, so it’s nice not to be alone.  This one is cute because it has a little bingo card to fill out – maybe making a game out of our insecurities makes them less dark and scary?

http://www.yarnagogo.com/blog/2011/11/how-to-revise-your-novel.html

                Revision kind of terrifies me.  This is possibly do to the fact that I’ve only ever finished one first draft so that I could revise it (it’s out to a beta reader now, after I ignored it for nearly a year), so it’s like this big dark cave of the unknown.  So I save lots of revision advice articles.  This post is of notes from Rachael Herron’s workshop on her revision method.  I like the step-by-step instruction format.

http://cateartios.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/elizabeth-ann-mitchell/

                Elizabeth Anne Mitchell’s musings on the “write every day” rule.  This post just really resonated with me this week.

http://www.magicalwords.net/john-hartness-2/matters-of-life-and-death-well-mostly-death-really/

                Magical Words is one of my favorite writing blogs, so the next three links are from there.  It’s mostly geared towards fantasy writers, but I think some writing advice is universal.  This post from John Hartness is about when and how to kill off characters.

http://www.magicalwords.net/misty-massey/weaknesses/ 

                It seems like we spend a lot of time talking about how our protagonists should be flawed – because who wants to read about a perfect guy (or girl)?  Here’s a post on weaknesses for your villains.

http://www.magicalwords.net/mindy-klasky/backing-up/

                Learning your craft is important, but so are some other basic procedures.  A post on the importance of backing up your work.

http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/03/writing-contests-when-to-enter-when-to-run/

                Thinking about entering a writing contest?  They can be an awesome ego and career boost if you pick the right ones.  Here’s a post about what to look for.

http://writerunboxed.com/2013/04/02/notes-from-a-desk-2-respecting-your-process/

                Writer Unboxed is one of my other favorite blogs.  As I mentioned, I’ve been having a really hard time with my writing lately.  This post reminds me to respect MY process, even if it’s not the same as someone else’s .  Every writer has to find the way that works for them.

http://girlgeniusadventures.com/2013/04/04/publish-perish/

                And finally, some news from the land of publication, and a reminder to be careful of our contracts. 

That’s all for this week’s Writing Post Round-Up.  Stay tuned for more writing fun next week!