Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links Writers May Like. October 22nd Edition

Typically, every Friday I post interesting web links (both obscure and popular) I've found throughout the week – hence the name, Friday Fridge Clean-Out (much the way I feed my family on Friday nights). Lately, I've only been sporadically blogging, so the fridge is now overflowing. Some of them may have already found their way to your screen, though a handful are more current. Either way, enjoy.

►In the LA Times, Mary McNamara offered this Working Mother's Guide to Writing a Novel. Bottom line: difficult but do-able, and a daily decision.

►Manhattan's popular The Strand ("18 miles of new, used, rare & out-of-print books") used to stack small inexpensive books near the register for impulse buys, but lately have found what grocery and convenience stores have known for years. Readers have a sweet tooth.

►Anyone who has done it before and is heading into National Novel Writing Month again this November probably has a list of tips for newbies. This one, serious ("Learn how NOT to edit") and silly ("Lock up all fire arms"), covers a lot of the bases.

►Free public wifi isn't a bargain if it plants a bug on your computer, as NPR explains.

►Is there a writing workshop in your future? Can't hurt to review these tips at MFA In A Box. I especially like: "Don’t ever confuse a writing group with a therapy group." Ah, but doesn't that kill half the fun?

►No matter what they write, I am almost always interested in how and why successful writers created the work they did, sometimes especially when it's outside of my genre and/or skill set, which is why I enjoyed this piece about how Darlene Hunt created and writes scripts for The Big C, a new Showtime TV series.

►My friend Sari Botton, a standout ghostwriter (a Q/A with her ran here last year), recently interviewed Vivian Gornick about the difficulty, in memoir, in writing the truth and also taking care of loved ones on the page. Gornick's first memoir was Fierce Attachments and her craft book, The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative, is probably on every nonfiction writer's shelf (or should be).

►I had a major crush on Andrew McCarthy from the Brat Pack films (St. Elmo's Fire, etc. – yeah, I'm dating myself) through to his turn in Lipstick Jungle last year. Now he's back on my radar, winning the 2010 Travel Journalist of the Year award in the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. He's the real deal too, as this brief Washington Post interview notes, with bylines in Travel and Leisure, Afar, Bon Appétit and National Geographic Traveler.

►I have always believed that the creative process is somehow altered (in my opinion, for the better), when we handwrite rather than type our first drafts. Lately, researchers are finding that handwriting delivers all kinds of other benefits too.

►And finally: we writers ARE a strange lot, no? We want to write, crave time to write, complain about not having enough time to write, and yet sometimes….we just don't write. One Page Per Day seems like a workmanlike way to trick yourself into it.

Have a great weekend.