Posted by admin on November 10, 2008
I was going to have a nice post listing a lot of e-books for writers, but you know what?
There’s a lot of them out there, and there are some nice directories.
So Instead of linking directly to a bunch of books I don’t really have time to review, here’s a list of over places to find them:
- Fiction Factor- Has A good selection of Free Books and Samples from professional Writers. Nicely laid out with seperate pages for fiction, marketing and publishing
- FreelanceWriting.com- Has a collection of books for the aspiring freelancer. Based more on the Business/Marketing/Web side.
- Juiced on Writing offers a pretty comprehensive list 36 Free Ebooks. Wait. It’s not Totally comprehensive because they’ve added 6 more in a separate post.
- And finally, literary agent Donald Maas is offering his Career Novelist here.
Posted by admin on November 1, 2008
It’s that time of year! November is National Novel Writing Month. Time to kick yourself in the butt and get that novel out come hell or high water. Tonight you get to write for an Extra hour, and then on Thanksgiving weekend get a couple of extra days off to get caught up. What Are you waiting for? No really, What Are You Waiting For?
- Check out the Official Site at NaNoWriMo.com. My Screen Name is Lcthulou if you want a writing buddy, or to keep track of my progress. The Site is usually down the first couple of days as it gets swamped, so start writing.
- Need More inspiration? Want to do better than just churning out a couple hundred random pages? The Success of NaNoWriMo has spawned a cottage industry of Quick-And-Dirty writing books. check out our review of Several Book in a Month Products.
- Finally, Try the Linux Based Writer’s World Maker. This new, Free product is like a lot of planning software, but better. Set up your novel by giving yourself a word count and daily goal, add chapters and scenes, and get busy writing.Writer’s World Maker seems to be built from the ground up to work the way I do: it’s like they read my mind.
Good Luck, and have a Productive NaNoWriMo!
Posted by admin on June 30, 2008
Well, She Did it.
My 16-year-old daughter got tired of waiting, got tired of worrying about her college fund and decided it was time I started seriously working on my book (Or Books- Like many aspiring writers, I have a whole slew I’ve been working on, but not typing out.)
So, for Father’s Day, she got me Book in a Month
Workbook from Writer’s Digest, and is now forcing me to start tomorrow. If Only I could get her to help clean the office out, too!
So Far, I’ve ran through the opening, signed the contract an got my outline ready to go. I’ll be following along in the book, which seems to be a nice cross between the No Plot? No Problem!, free association-write-only-for-yourself school and the structured-fill-in-the-blanks workbook of the Marshall Plan.
I’ll let you know how it all turns out, starting tomorrow.
Posted by admin on May 7, 2008
Browsing at Barnes and Nobles the other day, I was surprised at the sudden wealth of Get-Rich-Quick-Write-the-Next-Harry-Potter-Bigger-Than-Stephen-King-You-Yes-You-Too-can-Write-a-Book-With-No-Money-Down titles crowding the shelves.
I Think it started with Viki King’s How to Write a Movie in 21 Days, which besides having an awesome title is an actually pretty decent book on screenwriting and beating writer’s block. Hey, it’s been in print for fifteen years, How bad can it be?
Then there’s Chris Baty’s No Plot? No Problem!. The NaNoWriMo founder champions silencing the inner critic and writing for the pure joy of it. Just don’t tell the rest of us you’re a real writer.
Then There’s First Draft in Thirty Days. Use the time Chris gives you to actually, you know, PLAN A BOOK, and you might be able to produce something readable by an audience outside your own immediate family.
Not to be outdone, Writer’s Digest has produced Book in a Month. As usual, it’s a gorgeous book, filled with worksheets, illustrations and more guaranteed to make you feel like it’s your fault you didn’t finish the book, you loser, you.
Of course, sometimes you don’t have 30 days to write your book. That’s where the internet comes in handy, where you can find out how to Write your E-Book in 7 Days.
Posted by admin on April 16, 2008
Most of the blogosphere has been all in a tizzy about Scholastic’s and Rowling’s lawsuit against Van Der Ark.
However, there are a few ppoints that seem to be overlooked by many of these critics:
- Rowling owns the characters. You Rent them. Fantasize about them all you want, but only she has the right to sell them.
- She is more than fair with fans. The fact that the Lexicon is still up now shows that.
- Van Der Ark is a plagiarist. Rowling entered testimony today from other fan based critical works based on her books that showed how to, um, actually provide something. It appears that Ark was just regurgitating descriptions from the books in alphabetical order. And A quick read of the RDR catalog shows they’re interesting. Even though the cover art looks like a print-on-demand vanity press.
