Scattered Thoughts...

Sometimes my mind scatters and I can’t concentrate on any one thing for long. 

Things around the house get started and not finished...my reading preferences skip straight to Sci Fi and I find it hard to sit down and work through something for longer than fifteen minutes before jumping up or changing position, sit to stand to pace to slump to edge of seat to...

I think my mind is jumping around trying to find a steady job with long term prospects...oooh shiny pretty... what’s over there or there or there...I’m looking for the idea that will capture me and make me tell the story.

With these thoughts in mind I trip into the blogosphere...and lo some great posts pop out.

How to audition your main characters...

5 reasons why your opening scene is like a blind date...

Do your characters fail enough and why they should...

These all reflect a percolation of ideas shooting round my brain... who are these characters.. will I like them or do I dislike them enough to have a really good story...

Sometimes Writers jump into something without taking time to research properly...

Writer Beware takes a look at authors who shoot the messenger without first understanding the message. This is a slow down and breathe and find out what it really means post over the Lendink debacle caused by authors.

Dean Wesley Smith talks about shooting yourself in the foot many times...and how you can avoid this if you are a writer...Take the time to find out what works people!

The self publishing team take a look at 5 Writer Scams...Lets be careful out there...

Sue Grafton made waves in the blogosphere with the statement that self publishers are too lazy to get a publishing deal. After the furore, she quickly apologised but it did generate some interesting and entertaining responses like this one from Megg at Author To Author (hehehe)

Jami Gold looks at the value publishers add to your project. This is a great little post where Jami reflects on keynote presentations at RWA and the strong messages said there.

Matt Richtel has a wonderful guest post on The Kill Zone looking at what killed the thriller writer...your attention span...He makes some great remarks about the use of short fiction to enthuse you again and bridge the gap between books...

Susan Kaye Quinn has a stellar post on creating your five year writing plan. This is a must read post.

Author platforms are still a big talking point on the blogosphere...so this is a timely post from NYT author Rebecca Skloot on lessons learned.

Kristen Lamb look at what writers can learn from Star Trek...

Every now and then I come across a blog post that encapsulates the publishing industy and the authors place in it perfectly. It makes sense of the swirl that is publishing now. Hugh Howey, author of indie smash hit, WOOL (optioned by major film company this month after a straight up the charts launch) looks at publishing from an author perspective now. He has had every kind of author deal and he knows....Learn from the master, people!

And with that I will leave you to go and finish off some half  finished projects.

maureen

photo Flicker

http://www.flickr.com/photos/melindasutton/6210437093/

Write On Writers

This week has been a busy one. 

Two writing deadlines and in the middle of that WRITEONCON.

This year WriteOnCon was in the middle of the week...as it is based in the Northern Hemisphere our time zones don’t quite match up...but WriteOnCon is online so even if you don’t get to all the live forum events you can still follow along as everything stays online.

There is a HUGE amount of information. To give you an idea...there were more than 30 kidslit agents and editors. They hosted panels and keynotes from YA to PB where they decontructed pitches and queries that were randomly selected from the many many submitted. This was great learning. It was always exciting when one of them in the forum said I’ll message you privately for a full request. 

There were keynotes and workshops on all sorts of topics from more than 30 experienced writers, illustrators and editors. Attendees were encouraged to register their pitch, 1st 250 words, first five pages and their query. A team of Ninja Agents would troll the lists over the two days looking for projects that interested them...No one knew who they were, they had code names...but everyone soon knew when they were ‘in the house.’

This year there were 15000 attendees from around the world  and more than 2 million hits on the web site in two days.

Check out the feast of links and set aside some time with a huge cup of coffee. You will not regret it....Then make plans to attend next year!!

WriteOnCon is the brain child of seven writers who got together in 2010 to offer an on line conference for people who couldn’t get to one. A fabulous idea which struck online gold straight away...Many kudos and writer prayers to this stellar bunch of writers!

Because WriteOnCon was the bulk of my online  trawling this week I have a short (but good) list of links for you to check out.

For those of you looking at self publishing these two links have been getting lots of rave comments this week.

Joel The Book Designer, On why a book looks self published and what to do about it.

Roz Morris looks at Createspace and Lightning Source...which one is better for POD books.

Agent Rachelle Gardner looks at ways to promote your books.

Joanna Penn interviews  Lisa Cron about using brain science to hook readers. This is an interesting article on why we like genre...it’s all biological!

One of the talking points in the blogoshere this week was the Forbes article looking at Publishing entitled Publishing is broken we’re drowning in indie books and it’s a good thing!  Some very interesting comments about gate keepers and what happens next in the industry.

FaBostory is ramping up...we have some keen young writers out there. It’s quite tricky knowing that they are soo good(when you are trying to write your own chapter!) Pop into the website and read some very good young writers!