Link Feast vol. 55
If You Have Time For Only One Thing
Creating Your Own Personal Commandments (Plus, I’m Sharing Mine!) by Roni Loren
https://roniloren.com/blog/2019/2/5/making-your-own-personal-commandments
And a bonus, since this is creating the commandments for your writing life
A Writer’s Manifesto by Julie Duffy
https://writerunboxed.com/2019/02/04/a-writers-manifesto/
On Writing
Business Musings: Priorities by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (seriously, read this post. Majorly important topic. And relates to the 2 above must read posts….)
https://kriswrites.com/2019/02/27/business-musings-priorities/
Creativity: 3 Ways to Cultivate Discipline in Your Writing Life by Nathan Wade
Creativity, Symbolism and Writing With the Tarot With Caroline Donahue by Joanna Penn
Creativity, Symbolism And Writing With The Tarot With Caroline Donahue
Staying Interested In Your Work by Chris Winkle
https://mythcreants.com/blog/staying-interested-in-your-work/
Getting Unstuck and Avoiding Writer’s Block by Tiffany Yates-Martin
Mining Reader Reviews For Story Gold by Nancy Johnson (every 1 star review is a failed reader expectation)
Do You Have a Story Concept, or Just a Cool Idea? by Cathy Yardley
Story Tropes: How Do We Twist the Cliche by Jami Gold
The Dual Plot Structure That Makes Stories a Success by Chris Winkle
https://mythcreants.com/blog/the-dual-plot-structure-that-makes-stories-a-success/
Six Stories That Covered Up Major Plot Holes by Oren Ashkenazi
https://mythcreants.com/blog/six-stories-that-covered-up-major-plot-holes/
The Ordinary World: How Much and How Ordinary? by Donald Maass
https://writerunboxed.com/2019/02/06/the-ordinary-world-how-much-and-how-ordinary/
How to Make Dominant Female Characters Like-Able by Lisa Hall-Wilson
Jaime Lannister and Sympathetic Monsters: A Look At a Master by Dave King
https://writerunboxed.com/2016/06/21/jaime-lannister-and-sympathetic-monsters-a-look-at-a-master/
Writing What You Don’t Believe by David Corbett
What’s the Matter With Superheroes: The Villain Problem by Matt Bird
http://www.secretsofstory.com/2015/05/whats-matter-with-superheroes-part-3.html
How to Realistically Depict Evil by Oren Ashkenazi
Making Sympathetic Antagonists and Why Thanos Wasn’t One by Mira Singer
https://mythcreants.com/blog/making-sympathetic-antagonists-and-why-thanos-wasnt-one/
How to Raise the Stakes in a Novel by Nathan Bransford
7 Ways to Bring Characters Together by Chris Winkle
Constructing a Compelling Romance by Chris Winkle
Five Characters Who Got Too Powerful by Oren Ashkenazi (how to deal with the power creep, especially relevant for book series)
https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-characters-that-are-too-powerful/
Making a Case For Poetry (And For Pillows, Lampposts and Subway Seats That Speak) by Sarah Callender
Making the Case for Poetry (and for Pillows, Lampposts, and Subways Seats that Speak)
Five Tips For Telling Stories of Resistance by Oren Ashkenazi
https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-tips-for-telling-stories-of-resistance/
Five Reasons to Not Write a Persecution Flip Story by Dave Lerner
https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-reasons-not-to-write-a-persecution-flip-story/
A Quiet Hero’s Journey: Processing Trauma in Fantasy by Leah Schnelbach
5 Sci-fi, Fantasy and Dystopian Tests That Aren’t What They Seem by Stubby the Rocket
https://www.tor.com/2019/02/05/book-list-tests-sci-fi-fantasy-speculative-fiction/
Holidays in Hell and Other Delights: A Worldbuilding Workshop by Holly Lisle (how to create unique holidays for your stories)
Fudging History: Is It Ever OK? By Juliet Marillier
Blind Spots and Obsessions in Historical Fiction: What Were They Thinking? By Dave King
Blind Spots and Obsessions in Historical Fiction: What Were They Thinking?
The Editor’s Clinic: Brave New World by Dave King
How Writing Short Stories Can Help You Hone Your Novel-Writing Skills by Julie Duffy
Outline a Short Story in Seven Steps by Chris Winkle
https://mythcreants.com/blog/outline-a-short-story-in-seven-steps/
Publishing Gossip & Having a Long Term Writing Career
Business Musings: Ghostwriting, Plagiarism and the Latest Scandal by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
https://kriswrites.com/2019/02/20/business-musings-ghostwriting-plagiarism-and-the-latest-scandal/
Business Musings: Getting to the Stories You Love by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
https://kriswrites.com/2018/11/07/business-musings-getting-to-the-stories-you-love/
And if you haven’t yet read the 3 first articles linked to in this post, I highly recommend that you do so when you have a free moment. They cover topics crucial to sustaining a long term writing career.
Finding Your Perfect Niche in Fiction by Edwin McRae (suitable especially for self-publishing authors but useful for anyone who ponders which genre story to tackle first, or considers a genre change)
Book Marketing, Blogging & Social Media
How Do You Find New Readers by Tim Grahl
https://booklaunch.com/how-do-you-find-new-readers/
The Author’s Guide to Tribes by Tim Grahl
How to Write a Blog: 10 Tips For Writing Strong Web Content by Anne R. Allen
https://annerallen.com/2019/03/how-to-write-web-content/
Should You Have a Webpage by Ilona Andrews (if you intend to blog and share your writing journey before getting published, the answer is yes)
http://www.ilona-andrews.com/should-you-have-a-webpage/
10 Reasons to Start an Author Blog: And Why It Is Easier Than You Think by Anne R. Allen
https://annerallen.com/2017/08/10-reasons-author-blog/
How to Use Your Book Cover to Sell More Books by A.D. Starrling
Everything You Need to Know About Pinterest SEO by Cathrin Manning
http://thecontentbug.com/2017/07/25/pinterest-seo/
How to Crush Tailwind (App) for Pinterest: Ultimate Guide by Louise Myers
https://louisem.com/264209/tailwind-pinterest
(Tailwind is an analytics & Pin scheduling tool, kind of like Hootsuite for Twitter. I started using this one and am really loving it. You can schedule 100 Pins for free, after that it costs 15$/month)
Deep Stuff
What Marie Kondo Says About Our New Ear of Self-Help by Claire Turrell (each decade has it’s own guru who catches the zeitgeist of that era, and Marie Kondo is it for 2010s)
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190222-what-marie-kondo-says-about-our-new-era-of-self-help
Introverted? Here Are the Jobs For You by Nick Clayton (really fascinating stories)
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20160919-hate-people-here-are-the-jobs-for-you
The Secrets of the World’s Greatest Art Thief by Michael Finkel
https://www.gq.com/story/secrets-of-the-worlds-greatest-art-thief
21 Women Get Brutally Real About What Men Need to Know About Raising Daughters by Mike Spohr
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mikespohr/21-women-get-brutally-real-about-what-men-need-to-know
Teenagers and Sex in Books by Ilona Andrews
Fun Stuff
What’s the Best April Fool’s Prank You’ve Ever Pulled Off by Krista Torres (there’s some gold in the comments)
https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristatorres/whats-the-best-april-fools-prank-youve-ever-pulled-off
39 Amazing New Scifi and Fantasy Books to Check Out in March by Cheryl Eddy
https://io9.gizmodo.com/39-amazing-new-sci-fi-and-fantasy-books-to-check-out-in-1832819961
Five Genre Bending Young Adult Books by Astrid Scholte
https://www.tor.com/2019/02/27/five-genre-bending-young-adult-books/
Thirty Erotic Novels That Are Actually Erotic by Suleikha Snyder
https://frolic.media/thirty-erotic-novels-that-are-actually-erotic/
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