Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- December 8, 2017 Edition

> Do you love "Best books of 2017" lists? Then check out this compilation of ALL the lists, conveniently linked. Largehearted Boy has got you covered. (Fair warning -- you need time for this list of lists!)

> If you missed it, here's video coverage from the National Book Awards. (via NPR)

> Staying with NPR for a moment, have you checked out their Books Concierge app? Especially this guide to their pick of top books for 2017.

> One of my pet editing peeves is telling, then showing; or showing, then telling; or (horrors!), telling, showing, and then telling again. Allison K. Williams has a cure for that, and related ailments, over at the Brevity Blog.

> I had fun sending in my own 13-word love story, when the New York Times' Modern Love column put out a call for them earlier this fall (to celebrate 13 years of ML). Mine didn't get selected, but these did.

> Aminatta Forna, in the New York Review of Books, tells of the seemingly unending fallout from publishing a family memoir.

> Finally, I'm pleased to be included in Booksie's new list, Top 100 Writing Sites 2017, especially since I'm sharing the honors with so many bloggers and websites I respect.

Have a great weekend!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- February 20, 2015 Edition

> Ann Hood--novelist, memoirist, essayist, editor, teacher--talks about her latest novel, her start as a writer, process, and much more, in an interview at The Writer. She was one of my MFA mentors, and I continue to learn from her, always.

> If you're here, you're a reader. Maybe you'd like to up your reading tally for the year? Check out the 50 Book Pledge (or 75, 100, 150, 200).

> The New York Times Sunday Magazine has been "re-launched" (and redesigned, re-imagined) in print and online. Except for those (like me) who are upset at the loss of the Lives column as a freelance essay venue, I'm hearing mostly favorable reviews about the first installment.

> Speaking of the Times, the Modern Love column (in the Sunday Styles section) continues as one of the most coveted pieces of literary real estate for creative nonfiction writers. This teleseminar on March 22, by an ML author, looks worth the time, and it's affordable.

> If you blog or maintain a website, you probably need stock images from time to time. HubSpot Blogs breaks down "10 Sites for Free, Non-Cheesy Stock Photos."

> Writer's Digest suggests "9 Ways to Break Into Major Markets with Personal Essays."

> My involvement with The Writers Circle (northern NJ) continues with teaching, and for the second time, acting as co-editor of a twice-yearly online journal. It features the work of some current and past adult, teen, and child writers. Here's the latest installment; for most, it's their first publication.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons, Lazurite

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, July 15, 2011 Edition

►Sandra Beckwith, of Build Book Buzz, is offering a free download of her guide to virtual author tour basics. She knows her stuff.

►I am a big proponent of maintaining a submission/rejection tracking system, and I like this author's – a tracker-with-a-trackside-twist.

►Interesting advice from Marion Roach Smith about structure and the memoir at Gotham Writers' Workshop.

► I was reminded recently what a terrific resource exists for writers on the hunt for scholarships to attend conferences, residencies and retreats. (hat tip Practicing Writing).

►I'm not a huge fan of sites that post freelance writing jobs, simply because most aren't really jobs (they pay nothing or pennies) and often the poster is clueless about reasonable rates, turn-around time, what experience matters, or other issues. But some writing friends tell me I just haven't found the right sites yet. So here's a list of 65 places that post freelance jobs. Who knows?

►Check out odd writing habits of famous writers over at Flavorwire, which also notes some of their writing philosophies, too, such as this: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket." Guess who?

►Looks like there's a lot to be learned over at Pitch University, about getting ready to send that manuscript or proposal to an agent or publisher.

►Some writers who've heard "no thanks" from the New York Times' Modern Love column are posting their essays, and in some cases, a note about their submission experience, over at Modern Love Rejects.

►Talk about short. At one forty fiction, they want your Tweet-sized, 140-character story.

►Kudos to two of my writing students/writing coaching clients whose work has appeared around the web: this piece by a mother of an autistic child, on her experience watching James Durbin on American Idol this past season; and this short contribution to the Eckhart Tolle newsletter, by a health care worker, on compassion and listening.

► Finally, in this fun speeded-up video, watch as an empty space becomes a book store (via GalleyCat).

Have a great weekend!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, Jan. 7 Edition

► I suppose I always knew this about The New Yorker, but it took the recent flap online for me to truly take notice: Does the magazine have a Girls Don't Get (Many) Bylines policy?

►Interesting exploration over at Kim's Craft Blog for nonfiction writers challenged by the need to create vivid nonfiction scenes for events which they did not themselves witness.

►I'm not big on resolutions (everyone knows what happens to those), but I do like reading about what accomplished writers want to do differently – both serious and silly ideas for change from 37 writers are gathered in this piece over at Jacket Copy, the LA Times' literary blog.

► A coveted piece of journalism real estate for memoir and personal essay writers is the Modern Love column in the Sunday New York Times (even though the column's shrunk in word count and page space since a year ago). The column's editors detail the latest criteria and submissions detail here.

►For something different, catch a Filmpoem (hat tip New Pages).

► First a divorce section, now the Huffington Post has a dedicated comedy vertical. (Wonder if they'll ever have a We Pay Writers section?

►If you get there by January 10, you can snag a free e-reader download of a test prep book from Kaplan, which is offering them in 130 categories.

►You can now make a TweetMag from your own (or others') Twitter streams. The iTunes app, according to its developer "scans your Twitter stream and presents all links in a readable format".

► Have you ever checked out the PrePub Alert Blog over at Library Journal? There, the editors look ahead to what's going to be on the bookshelves, in every genre in a few months, and also include author interviews from time to time.

►I tend to get itchy all over when the topics of writing with SEO and keyword density in mind come up. Yet if you are going to write anything for the web (even if that's only copy for your own website), you'd best understand what these terms mean and how to do it, and this explanation over at WordCount can help (hat tip Steph Auteri).

► Finally, this very funny and snarky graphic Anatomy of a (Very Famous Magazine Company) Masthead (pdf).

Have a great weekend.

Writers, I Hereby Submit. And submit. And submit.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I am a big fan of the submission process and the role it plays in a writer's development, craft, and business. (Even if one's writing is not meant to generate income, I still think of every writer as having a business).

Whether you are submitting completed pieces to literary journals, query letters and manuscript chapters to agents, or queries to obtain article assignments, I believe that having a submission plan, routine, and a healthy attitude toward the process can only be a good thing. Regardless of what stage, phase, or malaise you find yourself in, I think it's a good idea to keep the submission muscle in play.

Well.

I must fess up. It's been a while since I took my own advice. A few months, to be exact. (I know this because I checked my very efficient Excel submission tracking spreadsheet – did I mention you must have one of these?)

The lull had to do with a combination of being in a major push to get to a new stage in my teaching efforts while at the same time being in a stubborn phase of not feeling too confident about the "completed" pieces and ideas in my to-be-submitted pile. Then there were paying clients whose work had to come first. And (non-paying) houseguests. Rudderless kids galumphing about. And rain, rain, rain. Oh, and did I mention the three friends who scored major literary coups recently? Yes, I'm happy for them -- truly, madly, deeply happy. But.

So, late yesterday afternoon, after the house cleared of menfolk headed to a Giants preseason game, I got back on the submission stick. First, I had to face some of my "reasons" for the hiatus.
• Confidence in completed work. The truth is, even after a piece is accepted for publication and after it's published, I'm still not really confident about it. Not really. Not completely. Is any writer?

• Energy targeted in another direction. Spending the time and focused energy on branching out in my teaching efforts is important. (And worthwhile - I'll be teaching one class at a local university this fall, but more about that in a future post.) Still, I want to stay tuned in to students' publishing goals, and to set an example by continuing to chase my own.

• Paychecks vs. possibilities. Yes, paying clients are freelance gold, but continued attention to publication builds my list of "calling cards", keeps me personally aware of the challenges my editing clients face, and of course -- published work (whether well-paid or not) usually leads to other paying work.

• Home office vs. B-&B. Working at home while relatives are staying with me for weeks, all I can really manage is to get to the stuff marked editor's-waiting-for-it / client-wants-it / program-director-needs-it. Shoot me.

• Summer & the living is...different. When they are kicking about the house, my kids are, thankfully, very considerate of my work time/space; they don't ask me to have lunch with them, play against them in a few games of Wii Sports, or discuss the plot of their summer reading books. Those things are all my ideas, and you know what? It's a good trade-off.

• When good things happen to good people. The three writer friends whose recent success I applauded but secretly envy? One won a major contest, another was published in a coveted spot, and the third signed with an agent who sold her book within two weeks. So I asked myself: Is there any real reason to feel that their accomplishments say something negative about my own work? And the answer was, frankly to my own surprise – NO! I had not entered the same contest as my first friend (though I will, next year). I had not submitted anything in three years to the column my second friend was published in (though I could have, and maybe should). And, I am not agent-shopping at the moment (though I may be soon). So my friends' coups should do nothing more than give me hope, right?

Even if my friends' good fortune were in exactly same arenas in which I had also tossed my hat – well, so what? Letting that keep me from pushing on helps no one. What helps is to get back into action.

And so I did, sending my words off on wireless wings.

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Hot August Writes

Today’s list of links I liked lately. Enjoy.

• My friend and former MFA classmate Kerry Herlihy wrote the Modern Love essay in last Sunday’s New York Times, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. (Okay, I’d be more thrilled if it were me, but I screamed out loud while alone in my office when I got the news a few weeks ago). On the blog of another mutual MFA classmate, Kerry describes how she nailed the acceptance, and its aftermath.

• Short stories seem suited to today’s shorter attention spans, right? Not according to the traditional publishing industry, and this piece (and all the comments) asks why not, and ventures a few guesses.

• Not busy over the upcoming Labor Day weekend? Maybe the International 3-day Novel Writing event is for you.

• Mothers (and fathers) who wish to participate in an online workshop focused on writing about parenthood would do well to check out this class, taught by Susan Ito, creative nonfiction editor at Literary Mama (and a generous, smart and funny gal).

• The Poets & Writers Maureen Egan Writers’ Exchange Contest, which moves from state to state, will reach my state in 2010 – New Jersey fiction writers and poets are eligible (deadline Dec. 1, 2009).

• Would you accept, and even be happy about, a payment of $30 for one of your creative works to appear in Time magazine? Apparently that’s what happened when the media giant paid for a cover photograph a little while back.

• France’s version of the blog-to-memoir-to-movie-to-second book deal. Ka-ching. And, good for her.• I’ve said this often: I’m not a huge fan of “balance.” Maybe because I’m not all that skilled at it. Yet I admire anyone – especially a writer-mother with a full time day job – who is trying anew to make it happen.

• Excellent writing prompts, tips, exercises over here.

• Harriet Brown’s next book is going to be a family memoir about dealing with her daughter’s anorexia and recovery. She’s posted a draft of her prologue here, and welcomes comments, particularly from those who have experience with the subject matter.

• It’s all about the story, says this writer. No matter what.

•And finally, I can’t nominate my own blog (well I could, but I feel a bit smarmy doing so), but if you think this blog is helpful for writers, you could do the deed.


Have a great weekend.


Coming soon on the blog -- an interview with Sue William Silverman on writing memoir.

Stuff I Like and You Might Too. You know, writer stuff.

>Women writers in the New York City area might want to think about this October weekend conference/workshop. Saturday, a full day of intensive discussion on one key issue – “Plot: The Structure of Story in Fiction, Memoir, and Narrative Nonfiction” and Sunday, it's Meet the Agents.
>I love this new-to-me blog, Three Guys One Book. So much great advice for writers, plus author interviews, reviews, and some fun.
>Ellen Neuborne, ghostwriter, editor, and almost-there-novelist, has a fun new blog in which she is chronicling her quest to (at least once in her writing career), command one of the most coveted pieces of literary nonfiction real estate – the Modern Love column in the Styles section of the Sunday New York Times. Ellen is forthright, open, and sometimes hilarious. Her Monday Morning Quarterbacking feature is a must-read for nonfiction writers everywhere who already spend a portion of their Sunday evenings dissecting what ran in that day’s column. (For those who don’t know, scoring a Modern Love clip often leads to serious agent inquires and book deals.)
>And finally, some days I feel like a relic. Like when my 11-year-old teaches me how to use the shortcut to some feature on my cell phone which I didn’t even know I had, much less ever used. Other times, it's because, as much as I love my computer (and my blog, my Facebook page, LinkedIn, Twittering and all of that) I can also actually still remember the sound of typewriter keys and putting -- 30 -- at the end of an article. So that might explain why I occasionally enjoy checking in over at When Editors Were Gods, where even I get to feel kind of young in comparison.

Show Me the Modern Love

If, like me, you start your attack on the Sunday New York Times by reading all the personal essay columns -- Lives, Generations, Home Work, Rituals, Book Review Essay, and especially the Style Section's Modern Love, then this article – about Modern Love's popularity and the power of a Modern Love byline in garnering book deals for some of its authors -- is sure to either give you encouragement, get you depressed, or both. In any case, it's certainly of interest.

Which makes me wonder. How many of you writers have "get published in Modern Love" on your writing-goal radar? I'll admit it's always on mine, though the intensity wavers; otherwise how to explain that I've made only one submission ever (and yes, received a rejection).

So fess up. Do you hanker for a Modern Love byline? Made any submissions? Gotten any feedback? Is there any other column or piece of journalistic real estate – in the Times or elsewhere – that represents your ultimate byline nirvana?