Random Thoughts Friday

• NaNoWriMo is having an official summertime NaNoWriMo called Camp NaNoWriMo. Is anyone thinking of doing this? I personally would have liked a bit more notice, so I could begin thinking of what I would have wanted to do, but I just may try it. It might necessitate becoming friends with my local library for a few hours a day, but who knows what it could yield?
• I have some exciting posts I’m working on…well, exciting to me. One is the Ten Commandments of Editing (feels a little sacreligious to call it “the Ten Commandments”, but there are ten of them, and I enjoy excuses to use “thee” and “thou”). Another is how editing a book can improve your relationship. I have a massive amount of link love to distribute as well.
• I found some fiction that I wrote when I was a senior in high school on a fiction website. Some of it is really good and I really want to continue it. One piece in particular sounds like the beginning of a pretty good Harlequin. I was actually sitting there going, “what happens next?” I don’t remember, although I know that there are at least three more chapters written stored away in Michigan. It makes me even more excited to go home.
• I thought I had more to talk about, but I actually have more things to write, as in writing that may one day be published. That’s a good thing. I’ll try to post what I can this weekend from the promised posts and pieces for the Untitled page. Thanks for reading!

How are you spending your weekend? Any exciting news to share?

Related articles

• Freestyle Friday: The Light Edition (2blu2btru.wordpress.com)
• If it’s Camp NaNoWriMo, does my writing have to be campy? (shardsofinfinity.wordpress.com)
• Countdown to NaNoWriMo (teresaedmond.com)
• What I Did on My Summer Vacation (anotherpieceofpie.wordpress.com)

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What Writers are Writing:February 18th

The British Museum Reading Room. Image via Wikipedia

Happy Friday everyone! It’s been a very productive week for me on this site. Even though I pledged to do a PostaWeek here, I’ve done three posts already! I am getting a CC License put up on the blog later today, as I plan to share some of my original writings with you under a new page, Untitled (no, really, that’s the title). The first thing I’ll be sharing is the creative non-fiction piece I mentioned earlier this week. Now, onto my favorite reading & writing links for the week!

The Reading Posts:

After reading this explanation of The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin over on Three Hundred pages by Kiley C., I am adding this to my (ever growing) To Read list. I’d heard about Gretchen before, but I’d never actually known what the book was about. Selfmanic shared his trials with reader’s block over on Off the Mark and Roaming. I especially enjoyed “When Bad Titles Happen to Good Books” by Alec Nevala-Lee, as I’ve been struggling with naming my own works lately. Finally, Kaye over at Have Coffee…Will Write discusses her love of romance novels (which I very much love, too!) and defends the genre.

As for writing, Amanda gave me two really good posts (as per usual) to ponder. One was about the attitude one should have towards rejections. The other was suggesting we use our senses when strapped for story ideas. Ana discusses getting over her aversion to the word “heroine” and embracing the addictive qualities a main character should have in her blog post “Embracing my Heroine.” Sonia M. finds inspiration in an unlikely source in “Mining a Migraine.” Nova shared her excitement over her book blurbs and asked “where do you write?” over on her blog Distraction no. 99.

I love Janna’s blog, JannaTWrite’s Blog! Her post this week, “What a Caesar Salad Taught Me About Writing-And Life” is especially good. I could certainly related to Ana’s discomfort when trying to write something and not being able to because of someone’s voice in your head, although my post on that would not be titled “Sex, Writing, and my Mother-in-Law.” Of course, I haven’t worked on my novel lately, so Jessica Stilling’s Guest post “Five Reasons You’re Not Writing Your Novel” really hit home. Once you write your novel, how are you going to publish. Catana gives some good thinks to consider in “A Few Notes about Indie Publishing.”

If you have any great links that I missed, feel free to post them in the comments. Please read the links provided, and keep checking back here for more content and reading suggestions! 🙂

Related Articles

• The Happiness Project (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
• Gretchen Rubin: Frustrated? Stuck? Put Yourself in Creativity Boot Camp (huffingtonpost.com)
• Gretchen Rubin: Balanced Life — Want Some Tools to Boost Happiness? Try the Happiness Project Toolbox (huffingtonpost.com)
• Gretchen Rubin: 9 Zany Assignments To Break Your Ordinary Routine (huffingtonpost.com)
• 13 Tips for Beginning Bloggers (Which I Learned the Hard Way) (problogger.net)
• Gretchen Rubin: If You Want To Achieve A Goal, Measure Your Progress (huffingtonpost.com)
• Famous and Celebrity Birthdays for February 18, 2011 (blippitt.com)

What Writers are Writing

Image by clspeace via Flickr

On my other blog, I’ve begun sharing the link love. Each Friday, I choose the post that I’ve read and enjoyed and post them up for my subscribers’ reading pleasure. It’s my way of passing on a good book blog. Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve come across some fantastic writer’s blogs. I have decided that I should share my favorite writing related posts of the week on this here blog, and any other reading/writing related bits that don’t fit anywhere else on Free to Read Fridays! Hmm…that sounds a little lame. No worries, I’ll come up with something better by next week.

What’s been going on with me this week? Well, I finished Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. It was so different from the movie. It was so much better than the movie. Although the movie kept the trip to Thailand and some other scenarios, it veered deeply away from the major conflict. The way they resolved the conflict in the movie…cheap is the best word I can come up with. It was a cheap trick. Helen Fielding is a much better writer than the movies would suggest (even if she does write without using pronouns: Right, will just meditate…Must call mother….where are the pronouns here? Is it a British thing? Maybe I’m misinformed.)

I also began work on my memoir and decided to send out Candy Apples as is for publication consideration. I’ve already blogged about the tiny breakthrough I had with my memoir in “Rusty Water.” As for my decision to send out Candy Apples as is, it was a bit spur of the moment. I was debating on adding further examples of the main character’s addiction and some other things, but I want to see how it’s received. Besides, I can always add those parts and publish it in the alternate form as part of a short story collection, right? I want to submit it before my birthday (two weeks from yesterday).

Speaking of my birthday, I have set a goal of having one chapter of my memoir done by my birthday. I think this is a reasonable goal, as the chapters now focus of specific images, ideas, or periods of time and can be elaborated on and fleshed out in a moderate amount of time.

Now, the Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For…Link Love:

Here’s what I found fascinating around the blogosphere, writing/reading wise:

• Amanda discusses sleeping with her characters
• Life in Boomer Lane gloats about her royalties
• The Hack Novelist Contemplates Cheating on his novel
• Catana gives us things to consider when writing a novel
• Tsuchigari’s You Know You’re a Writer When
• Amanda ponders shuffling her internal playlist.

What were your favorite writing and reading reads around the web this week?

Related Articles

• The lost art of editing (guardian.co.uk)
• Post Of The Day (storiesinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Happy Writers Society (twowritingteachers.wordpress.com)
• Oprah: “Know Your Viewer” (blogworld.com)