Link Feast Vol. 5

Writing blogs are a great way to learn about the craft and marketing our work. Enjoy the posts I’ve hoarded, some older, some recent.

(P.S. My apologies for missing the Friday and Monday posts. On Friday morning I headed to a fun weekend cruise and returned with a nasty tonsillitis. If the next time comes when I’m unable to write my own blog posts *knocks wood*, I’ll take Jenny Hansen’s advice on how to reblog.)

 

On Writing

Uber-Cool Unboring Writing by Margie Lawson

How to make character change believable by Kay Keppler

Force your characters to go against their principles by Lisa Hall-Wilson

Action scenes with female characters: We’re Not Men by Linda Adams

7 tips for increasing creativity by Marcy Kennedy

How to edit by Nathan Bransford

Nathan Bransford’s 10 commandments for editing someone else’s work (works for critiqueing too)

5 ways to make more time to read by Michael Hyatt

 

How To Be A Serial Writer

Why authors should write a series: lessons learned from Patricia Cornwell by Joanna Penn

How to develop an enduring series character by James Scott Bell

Going deeper with a series character by James Scott-Bell

Lee Child talks about his best selling Jack Reacher series

Does familiarity bring contempt or comfort? by Elizabeth S. Craig

Building series novels by Lynn Viehl, author of Darkyn series (and 46 books in total under various aliases)

Outlining novel series by Lynn Viehl

Series Separation Anxiety by Lynn Viehl (how readers react to series cancellation)

Best selling YA author Cassandra Clare shares the themes for each books of her series

How to write a rockin’ sequel by Laura Pauling (example used is YA novel from Hex Hall series by Rachel Hawkins)

Writing a series by Kara Lennox (her genre is romance so she talks about connected characters between books)

Challenges of writing series

Secondary characters who keep demanding their own book by Lynn Viehl

How to create a series bible by Nathan Bransford

How to sell a series to an agent by Rachelle Gardner

How To Write A Series – A course by Holly Lisle

I have taken this myself and highly recommend it. Feel free to ask more in the comments or how ever you prefer if you’d like to learn more πŸ™‚

Holly says in her course pitch that there are 192 different kind of series. To clarify a little, the 192 kinds are variations of 4 different factors:

– How closely connected your books are to each others

– How big is your world

– Do events from one book affect the characters in the next/another book

– What kind of a character cast do you have (size and level of bullet proofness)

 

Your Author Platform

The one thing you should do to sell more books by Nick Thacker

How to help your favourite authors by Lindsay Buroker (and vice versa, you can ask others to help you in these ways)

Why should I read your blog? by Jeff Goins

Who is your ideal blog reader? by Annabel Candy

G is for Blogging Goals by Annabel Candy

Why Amazon tagging and liking are not enough by Ezra Barany

What Mascara, Thai Food & Julia Child can teach us about Social Media Success by Kristen Lamb

7 reasons why your posts aren’t getting retweeted by Pushing Social

Cover Art Tips by Gemma Halliday

The way an agent reads by Book Lit Agency

 

Social Media

22 ways you can make time for Twitter in everyday life

Reaching readers (not writers) in Twitter by the Chipper Muse

Be A Tweep, Not A Tool (on hashtags) by Kristen Lamb

RenΓ©e Pawlish’s mashup for book promotion in social media (Twitter, Triberr, Facebook & Google+)

 

Collected Wisdom

Blog Treasures by Gene Lempp (April 21st)

Twitterific by Elizabeth S. Craig (April 21st)

Writing on the Ether by Porter Anderson (April 19th)

 

Deep Stuff

The anti procrastination diet by Roni Loren

Organization for creative people by Lateral Action

Emily Asher-Perrin demonstrates how common the female back pose is in the pop culture (with lots of pictures)

Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on nurturing creativity

 

Fun Stuff

If you haven’t yet seen Inkygirl’s aka Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s hilarious comics for writers, check them out.

Phrases we owe to Shakespeare

Boyfriend of the week: Vin Diesel by Roni Loren

 

Since I devoted so much link space to writing book series, I’d love to hear about your favourite series. What hooks you to it? Do you like it when the character changes and grows? Do you want just more of the same but with different trappings?

15 Comments

  1. Jenny Hansen
    Apr 26, 2012

    Reetta, this is FEAST!! And you put me AND Margie’s post in it…thank you. πŸ™‚

    I hope you feel better soon – I have a vague memory of tonsilitis and it was wicked…

    • Reetta Raitanen
      Apr 26, 2012

      My pleasure, Jenny. Your posts are so useful and funny. And I have found all Margie’s guest posts really helpful.

      And thanks for the well wishes. The medicine kicked in really fast. I’m feeling much better already.

  2. Lisa Hall-Wilson
    Apr 26, 2012

    Thanks so much for including my post. Loving this list! I’m going to have to go back and read all those on series – great finds.

    • Reetta Raitanen
      Apr 26, 2012

      I’m glad to hear you found the series links useful πŸ™‚ I’ve been gathering them for a while. It’s surprising how little advice exists about writing book series. That I could find at least.

  3. Beth Barany
    Apr 26, 2012

    Thanks for posting a link to an article on my blog “How to make character change believable ” http://www.writersfunzone.com/blog/2012/03/22/weathering-wuthering-heights-when-characters-change-or-dont/. I’d like to point out that I wasn’t the author of this post, though I run the blog. The article was written by my very talented colleague and friend: Kay Keppler!
    I love this list. Lots of wonderful resources!

    • Reetta Raitanen
      Apr 26, 2012

      Thanks for the comment and correction, Beth. I will edit the post and put Kay’s name in instead.

  4. Emma Burcart
    Apr 26, 2012

    What a great list! I’ll have to come back and check out some of those links. You have so many to choose from.

    • Reetta Raitanen
      Apr 29, 2012

      Thanks for checking the links out, Emma πŸ™‚

  5. Marcy Kennedy
    Apr 26, 2012

    This is an incredible mash-up once again. Thanks for including me in it!

    I’m especially thankful for all the links about writing a series. Lisa and I are working on one right now, so I’ll be looking carefully through all those posts over the course of the week.

    • Reetta Raitanen
      Apr 29, 2012

      I’m glad you found the links useful, Marcy πŸ™‚ If you come across useful series links in the future, please pass them along. I’m hoarding them for personal interest too.

  6. Coleen Patrick
    Apr 26, 2012

    I love the Sue Grafton series ie A is for Alibi etc. I guess you could say it falls under more of the same, but she is such a fun, quirky character I am happy to follow her throughout the entire series!
    Thanks for more great links!

    • Reetta Raitanen
      Apr 29, 2012

      Thanks for sharing your favourite, Coleen. I haven’t read much mysteries but there is magic to Kinsey Millhone since Grafton has 22 of her adventures published already. I’m sure she’ll write a novel for all the alphabets, a feat most series writers can’t boast.

  7. Karen McFarland
    Apr 29, 2012

    Reeta, this post is perfection! And a lot of work to link this up! I’m bookmarking this. Thank you so much for your efforts. This is very helpful! πŸ™‚

    • Reetta Raitanen
      Apr 29, 2012

      Thanks for reading and for the comment, Karen πŸ™‚

  8. Jennette Marie Powell
    May 1, 2012

    Some good stuff here! Aren’t Holly Lisle’s courses great? Especially when I’m getting ready to start a series! I’m leaving this page open to come back and check out some more of these in a little while. Thanks for collecting it all!
    Jennette Marie Powell recently posted..Where Everybody Knows Your NameMy Profile

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