Recently, I wrote about the issue of quality in self-published books when compared to traditionally published books. I’m not the first or only person to have written about this (see here and here and here and here). I have also written about it on this blog many times. On my latest post on this subject, a commenter wrote: … Continue reading Quality of self-published books, revisited…
Yesterday, I wrote about self-published books and quality, and I lamented that it is very difficult for the ordinary reader to find the quality reads in the gigantic pool of self-published books. Most self-published authors, especially authors who haven't established an audience, generally don't have access to the various means of book discovery that traditionally … Continue reading Experiments in book discovery… (part 1 of many, I hope)
The short book, Negotiating with the Dead, is a collection of six lectures Margaret Atwood gave on writing. This is not a typical writing handbook, dispensing now-cliched advice like "write what you know" and "show, don't tell." Rather, Atwood tackles the question of what does it mean to "be a writer?" What is the writer, anyway, and … Continue reading Negotiating with the dead: Margaret Atwood on what it means to be a writer
This is a great piece by Neal Pollack about writing and The Shining (book and movie), and it also touches on the "calm the fuck down" parenting method, which we have adopted in our household as well: All Play And No Work: Neal Pollack Watches ‘The Shining’ On Netflix With His 13-Year-Old Son True story. When The Shining first … Continue reading All Play And No Work…
More great stuff from Margaret Atwood! Brain Pickings shares a short animation that accompanies Atwood's meditation on how technology shapes storytelling. Worth watching.
Stephen King asks: Can a novelist be too productive? We are all artists now, though. But if you don't click on this story, the writer doesn't get paid.
A roundup of interesting stuff to read about reading, featuring some of my favoritest writrs: All the critical backlash over Go Set a Watchman is missing the point on XOJane: I've got a copy and am ready to read it, but the Internet feeding frenzy really turned me off; I like to form my own opinions on … Continue reading Links for readers…
It seems fitting to highlight this great piece about Harper Lee by Roy Hoffman in the New York Times now that Go Set a Watchman has come out and blown up the Internet.
For my yearly reading project in 2015, I have been focusing on women writers, specifically of speculative fiction. This project has led me down lots of wonderful side alleys discovering new writers, revisiting old favorites, and thinking about what they have to say. It's also helped me understand the bias that women writers continue to … Continue reading Women writing — some links
Every writer must eventually write a book about writing. It's some sort of unspoken rule. Due to my lifelong interest in the writing process, I've read a fair number of these advice manuals. (Two of my favorites are Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley and Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, because both of these books say … Continue reading Writing advice, distilled…
