7 Best Articles This Week for Writers 1/27/11

Marissa, Cam, Cici, and I are all at SCBWI-NY (YAY!), so this week's round-up is through Wednesday only. We apologize for the delay in posting! We'll catch up with the rest of the week in next Friday's round-up post. But there are still a LOT of great articles this week. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Inspiration

• The 3 Traits of a Writer—and Why You Can’t Succeed Without Them [Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors] Great: "You, as a writer, have a life to live, and you need to live it well."
• 7 Things I've Learned So Far, by Matt Baglio [Guide to Literary Agents] Motivate yourself.
• How Querying Agents Is Like the American Idol Auditions [The Sharp Angle] You either go to Hollywood, or you go home.
• Why You Should Read the Type of Stories You Write [Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors] 'If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.'
• A Message to Young Writers [Carolina Valdez Miller] You are the exception.
• A Post for Procrastinators [YA Highway] How to get writing in 8 easy steps.
• J K Rowling on Oprah (3rd & final part) [Time to Write] The final ten minutes. Awesome.
• Find and Replace [Julie Musil] FABULOUS! Need a little inspiration? A little courage? It's all in six little words.
• Five Things I Wish I Knew BEFORE I Queried [Some Things I Think...] Solid advice on how to overcome common writerly problems.

Craft of Writing

• Pretty Good v. Great — and Sellable [GENREALITY] Tight structure, clear voice, and taking a stand in your story can make the difference.
• When Is a Story Worth Writing – Part Three [Jami Gold, Paranormal Author] Three tips to make a story worth reading: questions to ask before your write.
• 5 Secrets of Good Writing – Examples of Sensory Details [Quips and Tips for Successful Writers] They work best in conjunction.
• Symbolism Thesaurus Entry: Bondage/Enslavement [The Bookshelf Muse] A variety of symbols you can utilize in your WIP.
• Common Senses [Paranormal Point of View] Lisa stretches our writerly muscles with a helpful exercise.
• And in the morning, I'm making waffles! [Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room] Dialogue should be like waffles, not pancakes.
• Reality Doesn't Have To Be Complicated [Babbles from Scott Eagan] Let your characters simply fall in love.
• Q of the Week: How Do You Keep Your Plot From Feeling Contrived? [www.publetariat.com] Add a twist or a crazy new character.
• Subtle techniques, subtext of horror [edittorrent] Great example and a new tool for your arsenal.
• Find Your Plot Friday: Grow Up Already: Character Arcs and Plot [The Other Side of the Story] Things to think about when creating character arcs.
• Trail Blazing: Planting the Clues and Hints in Your Story [The Other Side of the Story] Excellent post on giving your readers clues.
• Setting Thesaurus Entry: Lake [The Bookshelf Muse] Bring the lake setting to life using this helpful resource.
• Craft Issue: Getting It Down on Paper...Ugly First Drafts [Through The Wardrobe] Strategies for letting your first draft flow.
• What’s In A Title? Everything. [Guide to Literary Agents] The right title brings a book to life.
• Characters in Denial [Kidlit.com] LOVE THIS: The art of fiction is making the implausible seem plausible and relatable to readers.
• Action!!! [A Writer's Blog] Action is great, but too much action in one scene isn't necessarily a good thing.
• Tip Tuesday #73 [Literary Rambles] To avoid distractions, use underlined placeholders where research is needed.
• Something about Voice [BookEnds, LLC — A Literary Agency] Ideally, an author's voice will identify genre and where on the bookshelves the manuscript belongs.
• Overused Themes in YA, PART III [Write-Brained] Five more things you probably don't want to do in your ms.
• How to establish your characters: middles [Show Some Character!] How to craft evolving characters.
• Every Book Can Get Better: Getting to Know Your Protagonist [iggi & gabi] Draw from your own experiences.

Self-Editing

• Tightening Your (Manuscript’s) Belt: a Checklist for Eliminating Unnecessary Prose [Cheryl's Musings] Quick tips for eliminating waste in your WIP.
• Quick Editing Tip [Mystery Writing is Murder] Use comments to mark your own areas of weakness.
• Gut Editing [Mystery Writing is Murder] What to do when you know something just doesn't sound right.
• The Heroism of Revision [Editorial Anonymous] Editors love great revisors. Can you self-edit?
• TalkToYoUniverse: Subjective Point of View: expressing judgment with adverbs and verbs [talktoyouniverse.blogspot.com]

Critiquing

• Critique of the Critique Group [YA Muses] Uh-oh, is someone you know behaving badly?
• The art of critiquing [Personal Demons] The five signs of trouble.
• Tips on Receiving Critique, by V [YA Muses] Five tips to keep you sane AND improve your manuscript.
• Critique Group Checklist [YA Muses] How to be a helpful critique partner.

Contests

• ~*Super Shiny ALA ARC Giveaway!*~ [YA Highway] You won't want to miss this one!
• Backspace Contest [Confessions From Suite 500] Chance to win trip to Backspace's May conference!
• Contest Monday [Sisters in Scribe] Two fabulous contests to help you get your ms represented.
• Bookanistas: Sweet XVI...and Signed Book Giveaway [Carolina Valdez Miller] Win Julia Karr's new novel!
• Contest for DIVERGENT [Coffey. Tea. And Literary.] Enter to win Veronica Roth's book!
• Reader Survey and Giveaway! [Emily's Reading Room] 5 amazing books being given away!
• YOU LOOK SO SLIM AND FETCHING TODAY [Grab a Pen] Two winners will get $100 Amazon gift cards!
• YA Contemporary Book Giveaway [Reading, Writing and Waiting] Contest runs through January 29th!
• Mega-Awesome Query Contest! [* Fiction Groupie *] Leave a couple comments and get a chance to win. Don't miss this!
• THE VESPERTINE ARC Giveaway [ROOTS IN MYTH] Enter by February 4th!
• Pay It Forward Contest [Market My Words] Huge opportunity to get personal recommendation to an agent.

To Market

• WriteOnCon.com – Live Chat with Elena Mechlin, Joan Slattery, and Holly McGhee from Pippin! [writeoncon.com]
• Querying The Cliché [QueryTracker.net] "The specifics are the difference between a cliché & a compelling story."
• Twitter Tuesday~Agent Advice & WriteOnCon [Heather's Odyssey] Getting ready to query? Read this!
• Smart Self-Publishing: How to Get Published Without Getting Scammed [Author Marketing Experts, Inc. » BLOG] 13 pieces of advice if you're considering this route.
• Why did I get rejected? [Write Anything] Come find out. You know you want to...
• Agent Advice: Michael Strong of Regal Literary [Guide to Literary Agents] He's looking at some YA.
• There Are Only Three Possible Reasons Why You Have Not Yet Been Published [BubbleCow] See why you may not have made the cut (yet).
• CHECKLIST FOR GETTING PUBLISHED [Help! I Need a Publisher!] A handy checklist for being accepted by a publisher.
• Is Schmoozing the New Way Into Traditional Publication? [Author, Jody Hedlund] Focus on yourself first.
• Conference Tips, part 2 [Jennifer Represents...] Don't creep on agents, engage in conversation instead of pitching, listen and follow social cues, and be passionate when asked about your book.
• Some Inappropriate Agent Behaviors: A Guide to Their Identification and Classification [The Rejectionist] Four things an agent shouldn't do and how to watch for them.
• Want to Know What an Agent's Inbox Looks Like? Read Contest Entries! [Nathan Bransford - Blog] The next best thing to reading slush.
• Another warning: this one about "Best Solution Author Agency" [Time to Write] Writer beware before you sub...
• Agent Panel: Quit Obsessing [iggi & gabi] LOVE this: Need an agent? 1. Do Your Homework, 2. Don't Be Stupid, 3. Quit Obsessing.
• Query Letters--Shannon Style (Part Four: The Rest--and a giveaway!) [Shannon Whitney Messenger] Excellent run-down. Plus a change to win a critique!
• Pitches and Strikes [Glass Cases] Are you one of these six writer nightmares? Find out before you conference!
• SCBWI Winter Conference in NYC [Cuppa Jolie] Tips & what to expect.
• Love Letter To The Book [Confessions From Suite 500] Queries that follow the rules = good. Queries with glitter = bad.
• Updated: What I'd Love to See in the Inbox [Neverending Page Turner] YA male POV romance & MG boy books, among many others.
• Re-Write Wednesday: Shine On: Taking Time to Make Your Work Ready for Submission [The Other Side of the Story] You have to polish.
• Don't Rush Into Your Pitch Appointments at RWA Nationals [Babbles from Scott Eagan] Research first to find a good match.
• Agent Mary Kole is Teaching a Webinar on How to Get Your Kids/Teen Fiction Published (Feb. 3, 2011) [Guide to Literary Agents] You won't want to miss this one!

Social Media

• 21 Reworks to Achieve a Better Blog in 2011 [Blogussion] Improve your blog design, content, and more.
• HOW TO SUB QUERIES & FULL MS IN THE DIGITAL AGE [Jill Corcoran Books] Interesting formatting tips.
• When Social Media Becomes a Time-Suck [Author, Jody Hedlund] Set boundaries and prioritize.
• The Little Things [Mystery Writing is Murder] Are you a typo snob?
• A Million Screaming Fans [Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent] "A platform is more than a bunch of Twitter followers."

Congrats!

• A Wait Well Worth It [Katie Ganshert] Hooray! Kate Ganshert scores a 2-book deal with Multnomah Waterbrook.

After the Sale

• SHOW ME THE MONEY [Let The Words Flow] Understanding the basics of an advance.
• How To Use Facebook Advertising To Market Your Book [The Creative Penn] Get the biggest bang for your buck.

Book Reviews

• ROOM by Emma Donoghue [ROOTS IN MYTH] High marks for this emotional novel.
• Bookanista Review: The Liar Society, by Lisa and Laura Roecker--AND AN ARC GIVEAWAY!!!! [Shannon Whitney Messenger] Addictive, hilarious, and a ton of heart.
• Review: Incarceron [Ramblings of a Drifting Mind] We love this amazing book!
• Friday Book Recommendation - When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead [Sisters in Scribe] Another book we adore!
• Book Review: Vampire Crush by A.M. Robinson [Novel Novice] In a world of vampire over-saturation, this one emerges.
• Review: XVI by Julia Karr [Confessions of a Bookaholic] Intense world-building and an amazing story.
• Cryer's Cross [WORD for Teens] A straight-forward story with a creeptastic edge.
• Marvelous Middle Grade Monday - The Tail of Emily Windsnap [Book Dreaming] Water, swimming, and mermaids... oh, my!

Issues and Trends

• 10 Ways to Be Awkward at a Writer's Conference [Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent] Stalking won't get you anywhere.
• How Original? How Edgy? Writing for a Market [Mystery Writing is Murder] Great post on juggling market demands as a writer.
• Why Writers Should Go To Writers' Conferences - It's Not What You Think [Agent in the Middle] 'Let the experience be your guide.'
• The Dilemma of the Prolific Writer [Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent] What to do if you've got a book deal and continue to write another.
• New Site Encourages Diversity in YA [GalleyCat] Features new books that embrace diversity. Kick-off author tour set for May 2011.

Other Weekly Round-Ups:

• Jane Friedman of Writer's Digest also does a wonderful list of best tweets of the previous week. 
• Alice Pope does a Wednesday Tweet Roundup for the SCBWI Children's Market Blog.
• Northern Colorado Writers do This Week in the Writing World every Friday.
• Jennifer Roland does a Writing Roundup on Fridays.
• Ricki Schultz does an "In the Blogosphere" post on Fridays where she lists posts she's stumbled across during the week.
• Elizabeth Craig has started posting a weekly list of all her helpful Twitter posts.
• And don't forget to check Nathan Bransford's blog later this morning for his weekly recap of publishing news and information.
• Saturday Link Party [Forever Young] Jessica rounds up fun and interesting links.
• Stina Linddenblatt does a Cool Links Friday. This week, she caught a lot I wish we had on ours. I know what I'm doing for the next few minutes!
• DuoLit does a weekly list of links with some emphasis on self-publishing and marketing.
• YA Highway's Friday Road Trip hits the high points of the publishing industry, writing craft, submissions process, and other fun stuff.
• Cynthia Leitich Smith at Cynsations does a Cynsational author and book news review.

Did we miss anything? Anyone? Please leave a comment!

Happy reading and joyous writing,

Martina, Marissa, Clara, Cam and Cici