Thursday, November 19, 2015

Speaking Our Fears




The week the world has been shaken up and now everybody is thinking about mortality. 
We are not invulnerable. 
In the writing world Tech Crunch analysed the publishing industry and came to the conclusion that there is a new parallel publishing universe happening. Welcome To The Dark Side.

Catherine Ryan Hyde has written an amazing post onrejection. This tells the story of Pay It Forward. Catherine has some great advice for writers struggling with the lows of the publishing world.

Dean Wesley Smith talks about the times that the writer becomes overwhelmed by the critical voice in their head saying ‘What’s the point?’ This is a great post about reconnecting with the joy of writing.

Jane Friedman recently wrote about the myths of writing and then linked to an interesting article on writers and addictions by Douglas Millikin.

Jody Hedlund has a post on How To Drive Yourself Crazy As AWriter. Jody gives great advice so make sure you drop in and read what not to do.

By now you may be reaching for a stiff drink!

On the good news front. China needs more books. Publishers Weekly has just covered the Shanghai Children’s Book Fair and the news is allpositive... and great opportunities are opening up.

Rick Riordan has managed to get his foreign publishers to stop white washing his characters on the cover of his books. This is great news. I wondered if it was a language translation problem but sometimes that is not the case... Marketing can make the wrong decisions! I was thinking about my own characters this week and realised that all the characters in my head were biracial... but I don’t describe them by skin tone. Something to work on maybe...

In the Craft Section,
Molly Greene has a great novel outlining method



How to decide how many POV characters to have.- Angela Ackerman/ Marcy Kennedy


How to create a memorable setting- Pat Verducci-Bookmark





In the Marketing Section,






Book Marketing tips- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

Website of the Week
Kristine Kathryn Rusch has been on fire this week with some excellent posts on the publishing industry. She is a multi talented writer/ editor across many genres and is much respected. She doesn’t pull any punches or suffer fools. She will give it to you straight... Read Her!

To Finish

This week I’ve been thinking about talking.  I’m comfortable with chatting to people one on one, small groups etc. Then at our recent National Conference I had to Skype interview in front of 100 people, the lectern was shaking I clutched it so hard. A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed on radio for a new magazine style programme being developed. That microphone looked like an interrogation spotlight! 
Talking in public is important for writers to master. Elizabeth S Craig has a great post on public speaking for writers.

The Podcast for Writers Island is in the sidebar if you want to listen to some cool Indie Music and Writer Tidbits and me. I guess I should probably tell you that a version of this blog is up on Bibliocrunch every week. Talking isn't so bad… when you are writing.

Maureen
@craicer

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