Our weekly roundup of links we hope you’ll find interesting and useful.
• Writer Richard Bausch’s essay “How to Write in 700 Easy Lessons” (thank you to Karina for the link).
• Agent Jill Corcoran’s roundup of links on rejection.
• Pimp My Novel’s useful advice on dialogue tags.
• Agent Nathan Bransford’s list of writing maladies.
• In publishing news, a mass market publisher goes entirely digital…
• … and here’s Newsweek’s graphic take on books versus e-books

Yes, we’re still closed to sample edit requests, but we’re making our way through the Mountain Of Work (thank you to all our wonderful clients!) and will be open to sample edits before the end of the year. Really. To those who have inquired, thanks for your patience.

Enjoy your weekend. Write something wonderful!

If you have a link of interest to writers that you’d like to see in a roundup, please email us or leave a comment.

Our weekly roundup of links we hope you’ll find interesting and useful.

The internet is talking about what makes a good book…
• Are there still good modern novels being published? A thought-provoking conversation.
• Agent Nathan Bransford is thinking about the fate of literary fiction (and be sure to follow the link in that post to this very useful analysis of differences between literary and commercial fiction).
• And here’s a post and an essay from Your Editor Nicola about joy, storytelling and what fiction is for.

In other news…
• Moonrat the Publishing House Editor gives a rundown of the pros and cons of trade publishing, indie publishing and self-publishing…
• … and Eric the Publishing House Sales Guy has a great timeline of what to do after you sell your book.
• We leave you with these thoughts from the great screenwriter, director and producer Billy Wilder — just as relevant to great fiction!

Yes, we’re still closed to sample edit requests, but we’re making our way through the Mountain Of Work (thank you to all our wonderful clients!) and will be open to sample edits before the end of the year. Really. To those who have inquired, thanks for your patience.

Enjoy your weekend. Write something wonderful!

If you have a link of interest to writers that you’d like to see in a roundup, please email us or leave a comment.

Join Laurie Halse Anderson and Write Fifteen Minutes A Day (WFMAD) in the month of August!

I’m an independent editor as well as a writer and screenwriter, a partner, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor… and I know from my own experience how hard it can be to find time to write. But here’s the thing: writers write. We need to find strategies to make room for writing in our lives.

Writing does not have to be a precious and sacred ritual. It can be a daily task, like washing the dishes (there are times when washing the dishes is more fun — that’s life). The point is, that sometimes we get ourselves believing that we don’t have “enough time” to write; and the result is that we spend no time at all, for weeks or months or years, in writing. No one ever finishes a book by not writing. No one ever learns to be a better writer by sitting around thinking about it. Never.

You do not have to write thousands of words a day to be a writer. You do not have to write a book a year. You do have to write; you have to finish things; you have to get feedback; you have to revise; and you have to keep learning how to write better. These things make you a writer. (Being published makes you an author).

I’ve been very busy lately: I have a full editing and coaching schedule, a screenplay in development, and I’m the board chair of the Clarion West Writers Workshop (CW). It’s not necessarily the best time for me to take on a new project. But recently, CW held one of our most important fundraisers, the Write-a-thon, six weeks in which writers sign up for a writing goal and solicit supporting donations to CW. Like a walk-a-thon or bike-a-thon with writing goals instead of miles. And so I signed up to write 12,000 words of a new YA novel.

And I set aside 30 minutes a day to work on this project. That’s all I could give myself. I got a timer, I turned off the internet, and I wrote.

In 30 minutes a day (with a little extra time here and there), I made my 12,000 word goal in six weeks. And I expect that in 15 minutes a day, I can do at least half as well. A thousand words a week is nearly a YA novel first draft in a year. If that feels like a long time to you — if you’re impatient to be done, done, done — then I suggest you consider the alternative, which is waiting for the perfect time to write; because what if that golden time never comes? WFMAD is a great chance to help train your writing brain to understand that you don’t necessarily need two hours, absolute silence, the right software or a character bible to do your work. Of course it’s better to have more time and to have a supportive environment to write. But what if you don’t? Will you throw up your hands and curse, or will you write anyway?

Take 15 minutes a day in August with Laurie Halse Anderson, with me, and with lots of other people. Let’s all be writers.

Our weekly roundup of links we hope you’ll find interesting and useful.

• Moonrat at Editorial Ass is our hero of the week for this smackdown of focused look at why present tense is not necessarily your best choice.
• Consultant Marian Schembari offers tips on using social media to publicize your work.
• Agent Chip MacGregor does the math on making a living from writing…
• … and agent Rachelle Gardner encourages you to manage your expectations while getting there.
• A window into how one editor thinks, works (and still finds time to write!) in this interview with editor and writer Jill Santopolo.

Please note that we are still closed to sample edit requests while we catch up on work. To those who have inquired, thanks for your patience.

Enjoy your weekend. Write something wonderful!

If you have a link of interest to writers that you’d like to see in a roundup, please email us or leave a comment.