Tag Archives: Friday Links

Some really good stuff in this week’s link roundup (including two – two – comics), so let’s get right into it.

First off, this comic is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a while. If you’re an artist – any kind of artist – you really should read it. (When the page loads, click the image to expand.)

Continuing with our Artist Inspiration Theme, have a look at this quote from Ira Glass. He explains that, if you’re going through years and years of disappointment with your work, that’s perfectly normal. The ones who succeed are the ones who keep going anyway. That should be you. (But the actual quote explains it all better, so give it a click.)

Jumping from beauty and inspiration to pure, shameless, self-whoring promotion, we have the New York Times giving a long list of great authors who have done exactly that. You have to click the picture of Hemingway to see his ad, because it’s just…words can’t describe how ridiculous it is. (Nevertheless, the moral is clear: if you have art and you want an audience, get out there and peddle.)

Next up, if you’ve followed the Neil Gaiman controversy (and by “controversy” I mean “some dude being a dick to Neil Gaiman”) you’ll enjoy this comic. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read Gaiman’s explanation. Or just read the comic without background, it’s still pretty entertaining.

We also have the lovely Intern with her take on what it’s like to receive a critique of your own work. As someone who just recently got a critique himself (more on that soon), I can vouch for the veracity of this. Minus the baking cookies part, because I am way too lazy for that.

And finally (spoiler alert) we have a long list of last sentences from novels. As the author of the article notes, last sentences are harder to understand than first sentences, without context; but I still thought they were fun to read.

And now we’re approaching the last sentence of this post. (See that? That’s called a segue. Write that down.) Have a good weekend, everybody.

Greetings, loved ones. LET’S TAKE A JOURNEY.

First up in links this week, we’ve got The Spectator with a compilation of the worst analogies imaginable, as submitted by their readers. My personal favorite: “The accountant had the world-weary air of a ferret that had been up so many trouser legs that life held no more surprises.” More where that came from.

Numero dos is the indomitable Chuck Wendig, who this week gives us 25 things every writer should know. It’s good stuff (though I don’t fully agree with his advice in #10, “don’t work for free”). For my money, the best one is #9, Storytelling Is Serious Business: “Treat it with respect and a little bit of reverence. Storytelling is what makes the world go around…Don’t let writing and storytelling be some throwaway thing. Don’t piss it away. It’s really cool stuff. Stories have the power to make people feel. To give a shit. To change their opinions. To change the world.”

Meanwhile Nathan Bransford has an intriguing take on confidence versus self-doubt, and how they are – in a way – the same thing. “To be able to spot your own flaws requires confidence.” Of course, while self-doubt can be a tool when applied in healthy amounts, it can also destroy you if you let it go too far. He makes that point too.

Finally, we’ve got this advice for artists: Don’t just do something, sit here. It’s about living in the moment, and it’s good advice, but I’m linking to it mainly because of the poem at the end of the article, which I would not otherwise have discovered. It’s so beautiful that I’m reproducing it here in full, because I’m afraid you might not read it otherwise.

The Writer
Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.
I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.
Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.
But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which
The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.
I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash
And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,
And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,
It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.
It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

I read a lot of blogs by and about authors, agents, editors, and books in general. Some of them have a thing where every Friday they post links to their favorite content from the past week. I enjoy these Link Fridays, so I thought I’d give it a try. Not sure yet if this will be a regular thing.

First off, author Lilith Saintcrow has a great post about writers and their fear: fear of rejection, fear of failure, all the usual. She says that fear hasn’t gone away for her even as a professional author. She also points out that fear is a constant, in the sense that it will always be there, even if you don’t write. “Quitting writing will not stop the fear; it will simply take different shapes and return in other areas of your life. Accept that while you’re alive, you’re going to be afraid of shit. It’s the human condition.”

The indefatigable Chuck Wendig lists six signs you’re not ready to be a professional writer. He’s partly kidding – one of the signs is “I Still See That Glint of Magic and Hope In Your Eye” – but he has some serious points, and it’s worth a read.

A trio of literary agents has started a regular feature where masochistic authors (the only kind) send in the first page of their manuscripts, and the agents – very gently – tear them to shreds. The first first page is up now. It’s a great insight into the mind of an agent as she’s reading unsolicited submissions. Though if you’re thinking of submitting your own work, I should warn you, they’ve received over seven hundred entries already; your odds are not good.

The Intern confesses that a voice in her brain is always yelling at her to be like other authors. Her response to that voice: “You write what you write. You are what you are. And, no matter how anxious you may be to have everybody like you, you’re not going to get there by scrambling to become what you think the world wants.” Tru dat, Intern.

Finally, a great article from Today In Literature about Mark Twain’s final years. “The white suits began in 1906 — a secretary’s diary gives us the precise date of being told by “the King” to order five of them — and they suggest more than a chuckle or another self-promotion.” Good stuff, though unfortunately that link will only be valid for a couple of days unless you’re a premium subscriber (I’m not). I can’t say I really understand a content website’s decision to hide their content behind a pay wall, but Today In Literature is a good daily read anyway.

Happy Earth Day, Happy Good Friday, Happy Easter! Have a good weekend, everybody.