Article Dumping: Writer's Block Edition

Yeah. Maybe I should write about the subject myself one day.

Adventures in YA & Children's Literature: This Week for Writers 1/5/13 - 1/11/13:

If you haven't already, you should look through this other round-up from last week. It's a revival of the blog series I based these weekly round-ups on. Already, I added at least one other blog onto my blogroll.

(And on a totally unrelated note, "Roundup" is a weed killer. One other reason why to use "round-up" instead.)

edited 13th Jan '13 8:36:06 AM by chihuahua0

Annie Neugebauer: Why Some Novels Say “A Novel” on the Cover, and If Yours Should Too: A fun piece. Want another history listen? Dive in!

The Character Therapist: YA/New Adult "Good Girl Saves Bad Boy" Myth Problematic: I'm not a fan of the "bad boy" character, nor the concept of the protagonist female "saving" him. It's along the same vein than the Madonna-Whore Complex.

While this article doesn't explore the concept from a strong, psychological concept, it's worth pointing out that other scenarios should have a try in YA.

Thinking about it...does Twilight go into this scenario?

Cross-Up: How to Make a Good 50-Foot Woman Movie: Thinking up hypothetical stories are fun! This particular exploration gets really detailed into the process, especially with the "order vs. chaos" theme.

(Yeah, I'm varying these in length.)

edited 14th Jan '13 2:18:44 PM by chihuahua0

The Write Practice: How to Surprise Your Reader in a Downton Abbey World:

Basically, introduce the concept of being Genre Savvy into the mix. *

edited 16th Jan '13 1:14:39 PM by chihuahua0

Oasis for YA: Writer Wednesday: The Middle Book Syndrome:

I agree with both the premise of the post and many of the causes of the "middle book syndrome". Like the sagging middle, the second book in the trilogy can sometimes be done wrong.

Also, A Million Suns did avoid decay, in my opinion. I think it's because it manages to escalate while maintaining the same framework from the first book. Whatever that'll carry to Book Three, I'm not sure, but look where they sent the book!

Yeah, I think "The Tangent", as described in the article, is the prime reason why second books fail.

edited 16th Jan '13 1:14:22 PM by chihuahua0

Jody Hedlund: Are We Turning Into A Culture of Picky Readers?:

All right, I'll confess. I've been suffering a bout of pickiness when it comes to ebooks. It doesn't help that by getting a book for free, it can influence my obligation to read it.

Maybe I'll jump into one at random to see what happens.

Study Hacks: “Write Every Day” is Bad Advice: Hacking the Psychology of Big Projects:

Once again, this debate rears its head. [More later.]

Did I skip a couple of days? Guess so.

Kristen Lab's Blog: Enemies of the Art Part 1–Approval Addiction: I haven't encountered this problem on a family level, but I see it often with writers among other writers.

Don't get fixated over getting approval over one excerpt of your work from critiquers. Get the approval once, step away, and go write the rest. You will feel better when you can announce that you finished a draft, and then an entire project.

edited 22nd Jan '13 2:31:19 PM by chihuahua0

I think that's pretty solid advice, actually. And this is coming from someone who actually does try to write everyday, albeit for different reasons.

I'll add commentary on these on the actual blog post:

terribleminds: 25 Hard Truths About Writing and Publishing:

Jami Gold: Behave...The Internet Never Forgets:

Round-up of Writing Round-ups:

I'll be posting this list either next week or the following week for future reference (and future sharing).

Feel free to suggest additions, since I'm trying to create an extensive list.

Curators/Aggregators:

• Alex J. Cavanaugh: Ninja News
• Moody Writing: The Funnily Enough

Weekly:

• Adventures in YA & Children's Literature: This Week For Writers [Saturday]
• Copyblogger: The Lede [Saturday]
• Cynsations: Cynsational News & Giveaways [Friday]
• Lydia Sharp, Author: Writing Well [Saturday]
• Mystery Writing is Murder: Twitterific [Sunday; 12:00 AM EST]
• Strands of Pattern: Sunday Surfing [Sunday]
• The Writing Reader: Carnival of Creativity [Sunday]
• The YA Dogtown: Dogtown Weekly [Friday]
• YA Highway: Field Trip Friday [Friday]

Monthly:

• Firepole Marketing: Best of the Web
• Gene Lempp, Writer: Writing Resources

Discontinued:

• Courage 2 Create: Words On My Radar
• Roni Loren, Romance Author: Fill-Me-In-Friday: Best Links of the Week

edited 27th Jan '13 11:34:58 AM by chihuahua0

Monday:

The Write Practice: Why You Should Try Writing in Second Person: I'm posting this here because I wrote a couple of poems recently in 2nd person. In my (limited) experience, it seems to work well with non-novel works, but only because I read one novella in 2nd person. It wasn't my kind of book. It was one book though.

Try writing in 2nd person one day. It can work quite well when everything else is handled correctly.

The Character Therapist: Barbie Knocks One Out of the Ballpark: This is a more interesting article to discuss, particularly how the blogger talks about moral premise.

Personally, I can't judge Barbie as Rapunzel based on the description, but I'm curious about moral premise. It doesn't seem to be the best executed, based on the summary, since Barbie wasn't lying and was punished, and this hints that maybe this version of her might be too pure, but I need to watch the movie.

It's unlikely unless one of my younger cousins happen to watch it one day while I'm around.

If you want a super long analysis of a work by most blogger standards, look up Cross-up.

terribleminds: Yes, Virginia, You Can Be a Writer Too: This is a follow-up from Chuck's 25-item list from last week, which was in the round-ups.

Read this if you need a little inspiration peppered with strong language. Work on your typing, know that it can take years to become published, but in the end, it's worth it.

As in, "$46600 a year" worth it. Of course, writing isn't a profession to go into for the money most of the time, but that sounds like a reasonable income. I'll confirm it when I take personal income next year.

Still, get writing.

Word for Teens: Blogging In Real Life (1): Here's a quick post for the bloggers my age to confirm that, yes, you can use your blog for your resume.

The Vandal: Goodreads. A Great Site, But…: Is Goodreads really overrun by spammers? From my perspective, I keep getting friend requests from people I haven't interacted with. Maybe I should prune my list one day.

But is it true that Goodreads needs to take some more tips from Facebook? Pitch in, Goodreads members.

New week!

Kristen Lamb: How Eminem Makes Me a Better Writer:

I'll be adding commentary in the actual post.

Adventures in YA & Children's Literature: Stop Trying to Fit Yourself into the Publishing Box by Brittany Geragotelis:

TalkToYoUniverse: 1000 Posts at TalkToYoUniverse!:

edited 6th Feb '13 1:39:57 PM by chihuahua0

Turndog Millionaire: How To Create An Organised & Awesome Launch Day:''

It's a new cycle!

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: How To Sell Ebooks:

AndiLit: The Lie We Perpetuate about Writing, Drugs, and Mental Illness:

edited 8th Feb '13 1:11:31 PM by chihuahua0

NA Alley: New Adult Books: Do They Have to be Graphic?:

Writing Help: 55 Words To Describe Someone's Voice:

That second article makes a good point, and the writer's heart is more than simply in the right place, but it does fail to address an important issue: The reason why so many great writers were unstable or deeply unhappy people is because their circumstances allowed or forced them to write about aspects of the human condition that are not generally in the emotional wheelhouse of many happier, better adjusted people. Knowing a subject first hand and being able to articulate one's experiences with that subject are a powerful combination; one can bring new feelings and perspectives to those who had never before even conceived of such emotions, or at least were never able to put them to words.

The first article should be ragingly obvious to anyone that takes writing seriously. Erotica, pornography and shock horror aside, graphic content is always optional. If you think that it is necessary and think that you can really pull it off, go for it; if not, you should feel free to leave things in subtext.

Seriously, the only reason that this person brought this up has to do with branding, which tells me something not too great about their attitude toward writing. While I can understand wanting to be careful about pissing off a publisher with respect to a book, avoiding writing something that you might want to do because of image? Bitch, please.

As for the second article... I think that the ways that some of those words are defined are pretty misleading.

I think brand is a concept that is emphasized more these days.

Your commentary goes very deep. Can I mention one of your points in the final round-up?

I'll format this after school: http://thisblogisaploy.blogspot.com/2013/02/83-problems.html

Oh, the branding thing. Always the branding thing.

I loathe the whole branding thing for some very deep-seated reasons. As someone with a background in the arts outside of fiction, I am very conscious of how image and personality relate to how a work comes across. But here's the thing: The image is born of the opus, not the other way around. Your work comes first, then your persona; to let the former dictate the latter is simply silly. The exception to this is if the persona is the artwork in question, but that's clearly not the case here. The woman who wrote the article is not Andy Warhol or Bow Wow Wow in authorial form, merely someone overly preoccupied with how others see her and how that will affect her "bottom line." Fuck that noise.

And yes, you may, as long as you give credit where credit is due.

On a less polemical note, that article that you just posted makes a very good distinction between two things that people often confuse. No life is perfect, even if it may seem that way externally. It is simply a question of degree.

edited 13th Feb '13 9:03:01 AM by JHM

Thursday:

• Nathan Bransford: Can Bookish Be a Game Changer?:
• Jeff Goins: The Secret of Success: Stop Trying to Be Famous:

To the first: Hulu for books already exists. It's called a lending library. Now, would an online lending library be awesome? Yes. But so far, no-one's really done that, and it doesn't really sound like Bookish is there yet.

To the second: That should be obvious if you've been into writing for a long time, but something that younger, newer writers need to hear stated in a straightforward and non-threatening way. Which is nice.

Commentary can be seen here.

Now, for new articles...

YAtopia: Amazing Advice from Some Amazing Authors:

Livehacked: Learning to Spell At Fifty:

edited 15th Feb '13 2:48:52 PM by chihuahua0

YAvengers: Writing For Trends:

The Write Practice: Do You Have a Purpose? The Absurd in Literature: