Article Dumping: Writer's Block Edition

While interesting, and pretty factual. The author is so condescending and pompous about it I want to floor them.

While Vyctorian and I rarely see eye-to-eye, this is one time I have to concur, at least a little. The article makes a fine point about the nature of long-form character pieces—namely, that external conflict drives internal conflict—but his tone is excessively condescending. Yes, the person he portrays in his example is a bit of a twit, but the fact that he chose to frame the issue in that way gives a bad impression; he's saying less, "I do not suffer fools gladly," than, "I am surrounded by fools."

Monday:

• Time to Write: 52 Tips for Writing Success - 25: Comedy comes from drama: Interesting concept...
• Katie Ganshert: Does Your Novel Have a Measuring Stick?: What keeps readers reading is them wanting to know what comes next.
• The Write Practice: How to Paint a Scene With Words: Be specific, and choose wisely.
• Pub Crawl: Why I Hate The Term “Literary Fiction”: I think I know someone who would want to read this.
• Terribleminds: Bad Author Behavior As a Response to Bad Author Behavior Is Still Bad Author Behavior: Paying for reviews to be positive is...iffy..

edited 27th Aug '12 4:17:11 PM by chihuahua0

Tuesday:

• Terribleminds: Things I Learned While Writing Mockingbird: Blue meth! ;)
• Jane Friedman: EXTRA ETHER: Buying Book Reviews – Still Admire John Locke?: Is it okay to buy reviews...when you allow negative ones? Or is that the case? Maybe, maybe not. It's a sticky situation.
• Jami Gold, Paranormal Author: Spotlight on Subtext: When Characters Are Liars — Guest: Angela Ackerman: Jami Gold loves subtext, and enlists an emotions expert to cover this topic.

edited 28th Aug '12 4:55:29 PM by chihuahua0

I've been noticing a lot of the articles which seem the most informative seem to be written with the idea that you will be writing in first person, which makes it confusing for a primarily third person writer like me.

Could you give a few examples?

edited 28th Aug '12 9:15:40 PM by chihuahua0

Well the measuring stick one from Monday is what triggered this thought but there have been others which made me feel it was worth mentioning,. I'll have to back trace for a bit to find a few more examples though.

I was just wondering aloud how common first person narrative is in these author's book choices.

Wednesday:

• Terribleminds: So, Just What The Hell Makes a Good Book Trailer? Telling from low view counts on You Tube, it's hard.
• Lydia Sharp: Breaking Down Story Structure: LABYRINTH, Act Three: The last of this blog series!
• Kristen Lamb: Top Five Creepy Social Media Marketing Tactics: Twitterbots are not cool.

Thursday:

• Ebooks for Libraries: A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: One copy for thousands of downloads! Potentially.
• Jody Hedlund: How to Prepare For a Book Launch: For example, a Goodreads giveaway.

By the way, thoughts on this article? Would you say you're less bothered by it than the last article on the subject?

I think the thing that bugs me abut that guy's tone (I read a lot of articles on that website the other day) is that he's trying to sell his books and workshops and things, so he's trying to sound as if he has all of the answers and everything he says is indisputably the only right way of doing things. It bothers people.

edited 31st Aug '12 10:09:46 PM by LoniJay

I didn't want to be the first one to say it, but yes.

I don't like how he shoves his books and workshops down my throat. If I want writing books to read I could just ask a few other writers what they found helpful. If I want to attend a workshop I'll get some money and go to Clarion (for short stories) or Odyssey or Orson Scott Card's Writing Boot Camp et cetera. If you want to share some writing books or workshops, then share someone else's books that you found helpful or your experience at someone else's workshop.

Also when I look at a writer's blog I look for the writer's personality. I want to find out the writer's interests, enjoy some of his or her humor, and just get to know the person. Larry Brooks only lectures people on how they should write. Why should I touch your books or follow your blog if I don't know who you are?

Selling a story is about making a connection with a person, either as writer to reader or reader to reader.

From scanning through some of his recent posts, he isn't really pushing his services and products down the readers' throats. He has a "call-to-action" at the end of each post, and he occasionally mention them in passing, but his advice is front-and-center, instead of the promotion.

And I think his voice might come off as impersonal because of the straight-forward style, but I would say there are flickers of personality now and then.

edited 1st Sep '12 11:35:40 AM by chihuahua0

What personality it does show seemed to be mostly bossy and condescending to me =P

I don't know what it is that causes it,but it just reads like he's putting himself up higher than all his readers in a way that other writing advice blogs I've read don't.

Actually, I probably should've asked permission before doing this (and I didn't because I have done something similar to this before), but earlier this week, when I posted the first link to his blog, I relayed one of the pieces of criticism to him and he responded. Should I quote his email?

And I think a part of his tone comes from the fact he have been writing and coaching other writers for years, maybe decades.

edited 1st Sep '12 5:55:50 PM by chihuahua0

Monday:

• Daily Writing Tips: How to Identify Email Spam: An amusing breakdown of a message from "the FBI".
• Jeff Goins: What Everybody Ought to Know About Writing: Short but sweet.
• The Write Practice: 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Unfortunately, there aren't ninety-nine things in this post, but there's one great idea.
• Writer Unboxed: Flip the Script: End Anywhere: An "abrupt" end to a series.
• The Renegade Writer: The Ultimate Guide to Recycling Query Letters: For those who don't want to send simultaneous queries.

Hilarious.

@chih

Do you still have that cast herding blog you did, I went to check it and it wasn't loading.

Does this load?

Read it fast then. The thing about this is that this is the page that I get when previewing blog posts. They're not meant to be seen by a third party, but I find it works for when you want to show someone a sneak peek of an upcoming article.

If you want to use it as a guest post, or you know anyone else who would be interested in it, let me know.

It's a rough draft though, so I would have to revise it.

edited 3rd Sep '12 1:57:03 PM by chihuahua0

Ahh okay. Do you have any idea when it might be coming out as a full blog post?

I'm not sure. I just wrote it yesterday on a whim.

My current plans is to restructure it and pitch it as a guest post, but depending on what other articles I write, I might put it up on the main blog.

The problem is that I'm still figuring out the purpose of my blog and what kind of posts I write about. So far, I seem to be leaning more toward "a writer's life" than "writing craft", if that makes any sense.

But one problem is that most of my Monday posts are all over the place (with plenty delving interviews and such), so I have no idea what basis I should be using.

All I know is that a part of my blog philosophy is "don't say the same stuff that everyone else's saying!" and "don't be afraid to question anything—within limits." (You can argue I was aiming for the latter with my post on politics, since I was aiming to be slightly controversial. I'm yet to tick anyone off, so at least I didn't say anything overly wrong.)

Typing it out like this helps.

One problem is: What am I aiming for with The YA's Dogtown? Who am I helping, and how?

Thinking about it, I should be rewriting my "About" page.

edited 3rd Sep '12 2:11:56 PM by chihuahua0

I'm... deeply confused as to why you expected a non-partisan post that told people to keep politics out of their blog to stir up much controversy.

Perhaps because the very mention of politics tends to induce rage in some folks.

This.

Sometimes mentioning politics in a non-political conversation, at the very least, make people uneasy. I experienced this when talking worldbuilding with other writers during a Google+ hangout. We veered away from real-world politics while laughing nervously.

Keep in mind that there are plenty of Republican and Democrats in the writing world.

edited 3rd Sep '12 2:27:05 PM by chihuahua0