I came across a link on Arif and Ali’s Blog to coppyblogger. This is a site that I subscribe to and I really enjoy Brian White’s posts over there…
This particular nugget of writerly goodness was especially enjoyable: 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer. I’m not going to excerpt it here. When you click through you’ll realize why.
Keeping Your Vision Before You:
[Via: WOW! Women on Writing]Writing can be a solitary profession. Writers spend a lot of time alone, trying to find the right words, the perfect phrasing, and the unexpected plot twists. When things don’t come together the way that you wish they would, discouragement settles in. Then that nagging little voice in the back of your head reminds you of all the reasons you should quit. It says you’re not good enough, that you’re not creative or clever enough to be a professional writer.
Nice tidy article. Click through to read three ways to nip writing pessimism in the bud.
Just came across this nice video companion to my long post on Christopher Vogler’s Writer’s Journey.
Six-episodes of the classic Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers series. [Google Video]
The Hero’s Adventure (episode 1) is embedded below:
[Via: Dedroidify]I just caught up with posts on Clarkesworld. There is a long essay over there about loving writing and hating being a writer by Rick Bowes. It’s a lengthy piece about the World Fantasy convention in Sarasota Springs. I particularly identified with this paragraph:
I Like Writing but Hate Being a Writer by Richard Bowes:
[Via: Clarkesworld Magazine]I came late to being a writer, or at least the kind who wrote stories and books of the sort one could publish under one’s own name. The first SF novel I wrote was acquired when I was forty. Though I’d read SF and fantasy for most of my life, I’d never belonged to any fan organization or attended a convention until I sold my first book. It was much too late for me to fully enjoy being a writer because I’d stopped drinking.
** The title of this post comes from the essay…
John Scalzi hands out a nice writer’s rant about money and how it gets that way (at least as far as writers are concerned).
2. Don’t quit your day job.
Lots of wanna-be writers wax rhapsodic about how great it would be to ditch the day job and just spend all their time clickety-clack typing away. These folks are idiots. Look, people: someone is paying you money and giving you benefits, both of which can support your writing career, and all you have to do is show up, do work that an unsupervised monkey could do, and pretend to care. What a scam! You’re sticking it to The Man, dude, because you’re taking that paycheck and turning it into art. And you know how The Man hates that. You’re supposed to be buying a big-screen TV with that paycheck! Instead, you’re subverting the dominant paradigm better than an entire battalion of college socialists. Well done, you. Well done, indeed.
In all seriousness, this is a great overview of the business of writing. There are already 177 comments. What are you waiting for?