Notable Reads on Submissions and Writing

This is the last week of school for my kids, which means this is the last week I’ll have extended periods of uninterrupted writing time for a while.

So, in lieu of spending two days writing a blog post (which, inevitably, is how long it takes me to get it to a self-satisfied publishable level), I’m leaving you with a few links to some great reading I’ve bookmarked.

Submissions

1) You may have seen these tips before, but it never hurts to read them again: 5 Writing Lessons 1 Writer Learned From Being an Editor, by Emily Wenstrom.

What makes a story good? Which will appeal to my readers? What’s the difference between a story that’s truly awful and one that is simply not up my alley?

2) And this reminder, in From the Slush Pile: Have You Got What It Takes? by Sarah Banse, to keep submitting, even when one editor turns you down:

Art is subjective. Readers have individual sensibilities and biases. Believe in your work and have faith that someone shares your artistic vision.

Writing

1) It’s all about perspective. In The Map and the Trail, Donald Maass highlights the importance of giving readers both the big picture and the close-up view of your character’s journey.

So, day-to-day what mostly do you observe in your life…the forest or the trees? Probably it depends on the day. That’s as it should be. And so it should be for the characters whose paths we hike in your fiction.

2) I love the saying that the real writing happens in the rewriting. In On Multiple Drafts, DM Gordon explains well how revisiting drafts (again and again) works for us, not against us.

[E]ach story has its own questions and each answers to its own world.

What have you bookmarked lately?