Who Are You Really?

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Last week I linked to Chuck Wendig’s series of blog post on sexism and misogyny in The SFF and gamer community. It was hard hitting and an important wake up call to the writing community on what is appropriate behaviour in the 21^st century. (we can hope) The discussion is ongoing and Chuck turned his blog over to another Sci fi writer for her view on the topic. 

Writers are what they read became a theme and a separate blog post from Chuck. If your book shelves are full of dead white dudes...will your characters be authentic if they are different race, gender....

Another writer up against it this week has been Libba Bray. She has written a blog post that sears the soul on what it is like to have a novel not work...and how many different ways she has tried to make it work. Libba is a successful YA writer and this post is not for the writing faint of heart. It is gritty and realistic...I felt like reaching for the ‘juice box’ after reading it.

Another artist examining the soul this week was Amanda Palmer. On Twitter there’s a lot of comment from people who got ARC’s of Neil Gaimen’s latest book who think this book has shifted his writing into another gear. Amanda’s post on what it is like to see this creative process and the cost to your relationship gives you an appreciation of the joys and the pains of Art. Eyes wide open.

Beta readers are the subject of Porter Anderson’s Ether for Authors...kicking off with Hugh Howey suggesting that giving $10 each to five people to read your MS and tell you when they stopped and why this is better and cheaper than paying an editor first. Some interesting viewpoints in this one.

Writer Beware talks about shonky contracts being put out by a reputable publisher on an ebook romance imprint. The fine print is very fine... and dubious. Read and Be Aware!

Dean Wesley Smith has written a thought provoking blog post on writer self respect, contracts and genre publishing...publish... learn... publish... learn... and Trad will come calling.

Jami Gold looks at using Createspace as a learning experience.

Publisher's Weekly have a post on starting a new online journal for Librarians. With the success of Huff Post and other literary journals is the time right for an online Library Journal? 

In Craft,

Mary Kole urges you to pick the right time in writing dialogue...

Jordan McCollum spills the beans on Elisabeth Craig’s secrets to subplotting

Larry Brooks has a great post on story physics...Narrative Strategy.

Quick and Dirty Grammar...has the run down on comma errors...which one should you use?

Project Mayham has a great post on analysing the first 50 pages in midgrade.

What other writing can you do when you can’t write....nifty little post.

In Marketing,

Go straight to Indie Recon...their weeks focus on marketing blog posts are up.

The Book Designer has the run down on the copyright page.

Catherine Ryan Howard has the checklist for Self Publishing.

Indie Unlimited looks at getting the most out of Smashwords

Writer Unboxed has Do’s and Don’ts for Self Publishing.

The Creative Penn has a list of advice on why your books aren’t selling

To Finish,

If it all gets too much, change your name. The Passive Guy links to a site which explores pen names and why writers became someone else.

The weather is one of the wilder nights in the city known for wild weather... so I’m signing off before the power goes out. 

maureen

The Cost Of Being Vocal.

This week in the publishing blogosphere...The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers published their magazine with a chain mail bikini clad women on the front and an interesting article which had a line promoting  Barbie being a role model for her quiet dignity. Women members of the association objected to the tone of the articles and were immediately inundated with abusive emails...comments on their blogs...twitter feeds...from their peers.

When they published some of these responses...and detailed what it was like to be a women writing in this genre... the response was shock. How could writers do this to other writers...? And then it went viral.

Chuck Wendig wrote a great article about sexism and misogyny in writing and publishing. The next day he had to write another dealing with the comments on the first. Then today he had to follow that up, Why Men Should Speak Up About Sexism and Misogyny. The issues of the first article have spilled over into the gaming community, which has the worst instances of abuse to women working in this field. The abuse on Twitter coming to Chuck is miniscule compared to the  women writers who have lifted their heads above the parapet to say what their experience is like from other writers, convention fans and general male population who find out that they write Sci Fi.

I write Sci Fi. I read Sci Fi. I enjoy Science and Researching ideas and thinking of possibilities. I have friends who are scientists whom I talk geek with. I have never been abused as some of these writers have been...however I have had the disparaging comments on how ‘I’ (a woman/mother...) would know anything about that tech subject.... I ignore it and delete that person from my, consider-this-person’s-opinions-on-anything-valid, mental list. I quietly treasure the time a Male Scientist put a disparaging idiot in his place by agreeing with me. The look on that idiots face was something to behold.  The abuse to these women writers, coders and gamers is sustained, vitriolic and pervasive as trolls follow them across all social media. The level of abuse is scary with death threats often the least of the hate messages that spew out across the internet.  It is an important issue. It is nice to see male writers standing up to call out their peers who perpetuate these sexist, misogynistic attitudes. (If you are a Male writer reading this and you think this issue is over the top then read Ann’s Post and the first emails she got in response...Think about getting this level of abuse all the time....)

And so onto the other rants happening in publishing. The tendency of writers to not do their research before writing big articles in which they name other writers has annoyed a few people this week. Porter Anderson takes a look at the other big publishing firefight.

Publishing Perspectives has an interesting article on Why Publishing Needs to Foster a Startup Economy. (I’m sometimes wondering if we aren’t time warping to the 1880’s with the beginnings of modern publishing houses.)

With the speed of the publishing industry changes and the announcements in the last weeks of publishers pulling out of NZ, The League Of Shattered Authors makes timely reading. I have always promoted the idea of writer collectives...I think this is the future. Time to start banding together folks.

Forbes looks at The Future of Self Publishing and Beth Hull looks at 7 Things The Writer Needs To Hear.

With the ongoing focus on book covers Chuck asks what works...what doesn’t.... An interesting discussion ensued...and a link to a Lousy Book Covers site.

In Craft,

Some GREAT links this week.

Plotting made easy...This from is one of the websites to keep an eye on.

How to avoid trivial detail By Roz Morris on Jane Friedman’s site.

MythicScribes on Memorable Dialogue...

Victoria Mixon on Revising Wrong

Why Editors Focus On Page One...a great post on Jane Friedman’s site.

The fabulous K M Weiland on the 15 steps she uses to revise her MS’s

In Marketing,

The Indie Recon Teamare doing a week of Marketing Seminars

Free Software for Indie Authors

How To Pitch An Agent

The BookShelfMuse team on Foreign Rights Agents... Everything You Need To Know...This is interesting as Emotional Thesaurus starts to go Global.

Top 5 Errors In Layout from Joel Friedlander. (I am studying this carefully as I work on interior layout tweaking on a print book.)

Preplan your marketing as you write the novel...Interesting article!

To Finish,

How does a blog post go viral? The anatomy of a viral blog post tells you one example that worked. And for all you budding filmmakers...Amazon has a new free app for you, Storyteller. It takes your MS and storyboards it.

So you can go viral, Be a Force For Good and Change The World!

maureen

pic from Flickr/creative commons/ Gregoire Lannoy