Well, I finally finished and posted something! Just the next section of a long-dormant wanna-be WIP, but wow does it feel good.

You?

To start off with, I'd like to apologize for this being brief. It's my first time posting here with links and they'll probably turn out looking very strange. My only excuse is that I have a real lj phobia when it comes to posting... I just can't think in the ways I need to in order to post there, but I'm going to give it a shot. So if this turns out looking really funky, maybe somebody can PM me and let me know what I did wrong!

Now, with that out of the way... There's a couple of writing links that I've come across recently that might be of use to our writers in this community. The first is for a site called the Scriptorium.

There's all kinds of articles on writing, reading, creativity and quotes. I found myself wishing I had more time to read the articles and information, so I bookmarked the site and thought I'd share it with you. You could easily spend hours wandering through the site. (And here comes the tricky part... getting the ljcut right! LOL! Crossing fingers, toes, and eyes!)

The Scriptorium


And here's an article I've been saving for the next time I'm struck with writer's block: Writer's Block

I hope something in what I've listed comes in handy for someone else. And if the addys come out screwy, please forgive! I'm trying to post this by midnight and I have two minutes left! LOL!

Happy writing, everyone!

(edited so the link to Scriptorium works... thanks to the people who notified me the link didn't work. See, there's a reason why I'm phobic about posting to LJ, mostly cuz I usually screw it up Thanks again!)

Haven't finished anything, but have been doing lots of writing around the edges of other things, which is a habit I fell out of and have been trying to reacquire for months. So I'm feeling pretty good. Also, I'm on vacation, which makes me feel even better. How about you?

Brat is currently trying to write four things at the same time. Check back later today.

How 'bout you?

Not a lot to report this week, due to some frantic busyness on my part, so just a select few links:

If there's one site I'd want to recommend to people, it's The Best of Twitter, which does an excellent round-up of links and advice posted to Twitter each week. You never know what's going to turn up, but it's usually good!

This very short piece on editing illustrates the subject neatly and succinctly.

How to keep your day job from killing your writing career. Simple advice, but definitely bears repeating.

Good books about genre writing by actual authors. Yes, this is a link list that's linking you to yet another list, but these look like good, useful titles for people writing action, romance or any other 'genre' fiction.

I'm confused. How is each one supposed to be used?

Let's not talk about what I didn't accomplish this week. Let's talk about what you accomplished this week. Or didn't. Griping is totally acceptable, as is boasting.

(What's infuriating is that I have at least four things hovering on the verge of being finished, if I could just get myself to sit down and do it. But I either don't have the focus/energy, or I have to be at work. Argh.)

I had completely forgotten that it’s my week to post, so apologies that this is somewhat hastily pulled together. Most of the links are (sort of) about setting. Setting doesn’t seem to be something discussed very much (other than in this community, of course) which is odd, because it seems so integral to a story.

( ‘Your fiction must have atmosphere, because without it your characters will be unable to breathe.’ )

Whoops, almost forgot.

Made no progress on my main WIP, but a fair bit of progress on some other stuff I've been meaning to do, so I suppose it evens out. My current goal is to be able to say "it's done!" next Saturday. We'll see if it actually happens. I'm very good at making goals and then completely failing at them.

Since Writerisms and Other SIns has already been linked (are you a C.J. Cherryh fan too, kill_claudio?) I thought I'd start with a different Cherryh link :

( four links )

Almost finished the rough draft of my main WIP! Just need to type it up and fill in a couple little holes as I go. How about you all?

I've completed Book One of The Fourth Rewrite. I'll be laying out Book Two's core events and plot developments shortly.

105,000 words. :) Not bad.

As for the rest: I'm working on another book that I'll be sending as a spec document to a publisher for release as a PDF online, at first. I have until July to get that sorted. But since I've done the vast majority of the book, well, we shall see.

Right. Now, that question I wanted to ask those who have written fantasy and SF stories: how much verisimilitude do you include in your tales? By that, I mean things like writing songs for the setting, making sure that names conform to local naming conventions (e.g. perhaps your nation considers calling a child "Dindus" is as taboo as we'd call a child "Hitler" or "Myra Hindley") or things like that.

How much attention to detail do you like to pay in your settings, to make them come to life?

Because I'm too tired for anything more extensive, here's one link. But it's a good one: Patricia C. Wrede's Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions.

In her words (because I've got a headache and am feeling lazy): "The following list of questions is meant to aid authors of fantasy fiction who are seeking to create believable imaginary settings for their stories. While many of these questions may be helpful or crucial to certain stories, they will not all apply to every story. It is not necessary for an author to answer all, or even any, of the questions in order to start writing, (or to finish writing, either). The idea is simply to provoke people into thinking about the ways their settings and backgrounds hang together … or don't. If it's useful, use it. If not, don't."

If you're concerned that your fantasy (or science fiction, even) world is tending toward 'blah and cardboard cut-out' rather than 'awesome and 3-D!', this is a great way to evaluate---just be aware that it can be a time-eater, and may result in you writing a completely different world and story than what you'd intended.

Got a little bit of work done on a couple of my WIPs, but spent most of this week flopping around, recovering from the whole wedding thing that was last week. I'm hoping this upcoming week to have enough energy to make some noticeable progress. How about you all?

I'm done writing my Ro Focale SF short story. I believe I've mentioned this in last night's post. All that remains for that is editing. Perhaps a little reworking if the feedback is not so great.

I need to crack on with The Fourth Rewrite this weekend, and get to work on some of the other stuff I've been asked to do. The time has come for me to complete the projects I've been working on, and I can shirk the duty no more. :)

I might even get that short story with the sword started if I get time to. :)

A question for the group. Has anybody written sf or fantasies? (Of the swords-and-sorcery kind, and not of the "Bloody-Hell-what-are-those-two-blokes-from-Harry-Potter-doing" kind we call slash) I'd like to know, because I'll probably be asking some further questions of those who reply in the affirmative.

As well as those who reply in the resoundingly negative. >:)

I just completed "Y Bleidd Ddyn," the third SF short story for Roshon "Ro" Focale. 10,200 words.

I am off to bed, now. :) I'll have further reports on my other projects tomorrow, as per usual.

We still need someone to post roundups during the first week of each month. Interested? Details are here.

Much thanks to kill_claudio and jadesfire2808 for taking care of link roundups this month!

I should declare here and now that I am an RSS addict. My GoogleReader gets terrifyingly full, terrifyingly quickly, and I don't know how I survived without my Delicious account. The links below are a sample from the hundred that I seem to acquire on a daily basis.

These links mostly focus on the various writing blogs out there, offering advice, suggestions or just a slice of writing life. I've tried to divide them in some kind of logical manner and hopefully there's something here for everyone. If anyone has their own favourite blogs, I'd love to hear about them. I can probably squeeze a few more into my RSS reader.

( As I said, I collect these things.. )

Yeah. Um. My sister got married today, hence the lateness of this. No writing on my end of things this week, as might be expected. How about on yours?

This week’s links are all about revision, which I secretly rather enjoy. There’s something very satisfying about ironing out all the wrinkles that you knew were there but wouldn’t let yourself tackle the first time round.


( [Writerisms and Other Sins] [Writing Guide: Revision] [Editing and Aristotle] )