Writing

• How to start a story the Stephen King way (clearly he’s doing something right. Right?)
• Titles drive agent Janet Reid nuts too, which makes me feel so much better about my own title problems.
• Steph Sinkhorn (one of my favorite bloggers and one of the first I followed after creating Tell Great Stories) posted this week about Experimentation in Juvenile Literature. Her message is short, sweet and full of awesome: “That’s one of the joys of creating literature for young people… it allows us the freedom to play.“
• TL Conway was on the Vegas trip with me and we spent a huge amount of time at the hotel spa talking craft and being pampered. Just before the trip she blogged about a topic near and dear to my heart- being true to deceased parents in your writing.
  

 

Blogging

• Awesome interview with A-to-Z Blogging Challenge co-host and my friend Matthew MacNish!
• 5 of the most common author website mistakes. Please take out a sharpie and circle and star and make little hearts around Mistake #2, the most important piece of advice I’ve ever gotten or given.

 

Publishing

• Jeff Rivera over at Digital Book World interviewed Seth Godin about the present and future of publishing. The interview is going to probably make you sick because it’s everything no one wants to hear, and certainly made enough people sit up and go “Oh crap.”
• Marvel to bundle free digital download with print edition purchases. If they do well, will we see this move to publishing sometime in the next two years?
• Encyclopedia Britannica ends it’s print edition. Not that I’ve used one since I was like, twelve, but I think we should all stop for a second and realize – a 244 year old resource of knowledge and research has just disappeared from the world.

 

Miscellaneous And Awesome

• The Happy Heathen has some crazy antique market finds that you have to see to believe.
• Discovery News gave me my favorite article of the month: How to build your own TARDIS and the 7 weird things you would actually need to accomplish it and whether or not we have a future in making said weird things.
• And last but not least: HungerNames.com. I am: