Links for Writers: The Things We Do for Love

If you awaken at half past dark to squeeze in an hour of writing time, scribble in a notebook at Little League games, or hash out plot points with a friend while commuting to the day job, you're my kind of person. But how do we keep going in the face of rejection? 

Torre DeRoche, The Fearful Adventurer blogger and author of the memoir Love with a Chance of Drowning, has the answer: "Forget the stats, the numbers, the wealth, the prestige, the popularity, the things you imagine to be waiting for you on the other side of ‘success.’ They’re not there, and if they are, they won’t stay long. Instead, work tirelessly to make your soul happy. Keep going until you’re standing before a big, glorious creation made by you, for you. Your baby—made of cells, or paper, or clay, or words. That’s yours." Read more here. 

Think you need long, uninterrupted blocks of time to write anything meaningful? Jo Eberhardt accomplishes LOTS in sixty minutes a day.

There's no secret handshake that will transform a struggler into a published author but I perk up my ears when a writer offers to share her twelve-point writing plan. When will I learn? Here are numbers eight and nine of author Deborah Moggach's twelve-point plan:

8. I have to know the ending before I can begin. Map out as much as you need but don’t over-plot or you can constrict your characters. Let them change it as they go along.

9. You don’t have to know the ending.

She had me going for a minute. That said, her advice, especially, "There are no rules to break" speaks to me. If you only have time to read one writing-related article this week, make it Moggach's. 

On Memorial Day, I spoke with a thoughtful young man whose employer soon will send him to three countries for training. The Asian location hasn't been identified yet. 

"Does it make you uncomfortable that you don't know and can't make plans?" I asked.

"Not at all," he said. "I'm flexible. I have to show I'm flexible."

Writers need that young man's attitude plus the flexibility of Gumby. Here's agent Rachelle Gardner on what has changed and what won't alter in publishing.

Happy writing, friends!

Look, Writer, Something Shiny!

Summer usually passes in a blur for writer parents. Kids are out of school and must be ferried here and there. The refrigerator requires regular restocking with ice pops, watermelon, and string cheese. Visits to grandparents no longer take the over-the-river-and-through-the-woods route. Instead, they involve planes and layovers in Atlanta. What's more, despite parents' best efforts to keep kids occupied, the little buggers mutter "I'm bored" a dozen times a day.

For you writer moms and dads, here are three distractions to squeeze in after swim-team carpool and before you set up the slip-and slide.

You know you've compared your writing to that of well-known writers, but you're not a disinterested observer, are you? Why not ask a robot how your style compares to that of best-sellers? (Thanks to writer Alice McKenna Johnson for the link.)

If the entrepreneurship bug bites the kiddos hard, they might keep a lemonade stand going for more than an hour. In that case, check out this twenty-minute TED video of Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote the memoir EAT, PRAY, LOVE. (Highly recommended by literary agent Janet Reid/via her blog)

If you're on Twitter, you know some writers promote their books every hour on the hour. Agent Rachelle Gardner features a funny but short anti-spamming video on her blog.

I'd have more, but summer fries my powers of concentration. Lemonade, anyone?