Sorry for the brief hiatus!

I actually have a legitimate reason, this time. I got sick - and then I managed to injure my ankle to the extent that I need physical therapy.

Yeah.

…basically me, except that I can’t even hop

Not to be a Debbie Downer! Life has been good – and I’m excited to share some helpful online links, courtesy of a panel at the Yale Writer’s Conference on the process of submissions. Mostly, the panel focused on submitting to magazines, with a secondary focus on submitting to book publishers.

• Columbia College Chicago, Online Markets: A great listing of online literary journals.

In particular, these online literary journals were highlighted:

• Dogzplot

• Fail Better

• Word Riot

Back to more general publishing links:

• Duotrope: A comprehensive database of publishers, with helpful statistics such as response times and acceptance ratios.

• GalleyCat: To stay current on the newest developments in the publishing industry.

• Submittable: My FAVORITE link. If you’re like me, then you easily forget where you’ve sent what story. This site will help you track your submissions. The free version allows 100 submissions a month, which is not bad. If you’re going over 100 submissions a month, then you’re probably spamming people instead of submitting with care and intelligence.

• Publisher’s Lunch: Apparently VERY helpful when you’re about to submit to agents, but not that helpful before then, and maybe even depressing. It’s a paid service, so it was recommended that we subscribe during the query process – and then cancel our subscription afterwards. (But please, don’t tell them I told you that.)

Just for fun:

• Library Thing: Sort of like Goodreads, but not Goodreads. I’ll be honest, I haven’t tried it out yet – but I’m excited for any social networking site that involves books and reading!

• View from a Keyboard: Just a fun writing blog, about writing and – you guessed it – pictures of writer’s workspaces.

• Genre in the Mainstream: A blog series from Tor about genre elements in mainstream fiction. Fascinating reading. Great source of book recommendations.

To conclude, I’m going to post pictures of an adorable parrotlet. Because I can.

In the first video, Koolaid the parrotlet plays peekaboo.

In the second video, Koolaid runs after a ball.

Sorry there are no links today. There’s no real reason – just didn’t surf the Internet a lot this week. Blame Skyrim. And Downton Abbey. I’ve been oscillating between both in my free time, and they’re both addicting. I’ll make sure to have tons of fun geeky links next week.

Matthew thinks you should watch Downton Abbey

You don’t want to disappoint Matthew

My ROW 80 goal is to write 750 words a day on 750words.com.

I’ve accomplished that this week, having written 5648 words. That’s including last Sunday and this Sunday. Obviously I’m satisfied with that much productivity, but to be honest I’m also frustrated because I switched from my novel effort Kill the Last One to a short story called Rainbow Days on Wednesday. I did it because my monthly critique group is going to meet soon, and I promised a beta reader that we would each write a short story once a month in order to improve our writing overall (and by extension, our novels).

I’ve written a lot of Rainbow Days using the scene by scene method (instead of writing chronologically) and I have a lot of good stuff, but it feels nowhere near complete. This is concerning because a) I’m not going to complete it by the end of the month deadline, b) the larger a short story, the harder it is to sell, and c) I want to get back to Kill the Last One. So I’m going to give myself two more days to work on it before shelving the project and submitting the unfinished product to my poor critique group and beta reader. I’ll pick it up later. It’s not my preferred method of handling things, but I also can’t let this project consume me. Not right now. I also think this is one of those situations where I need to let the project sit, and allow my subconscious time to stew and process.

Anyway. How has your week gone, fellow ROWers?

If you’re curious about ROW 80, or want to visit other participants, please refer here.

(If anyone’s curious, my character in Skyrim is a shady mage who handles situations by stealing stuff and running away. It’s a lot of fun.)

I wanted another Downton Abbey picture in here. Isn’t Mary stunning?

SUNDAY LINK LOVE

• Kait Nolan makes an argument for deeper explorations of more interesting villains. I agree a lot with what she says here, maybe ’cause I’m studying psychology.

• Nicole Basaraba gives us an an excellent post about longhand, and the writers (some famous) who use it.

• Ari Susu-Mago gives me another gem on Twitter:

Can you find Wall-E?

• I’ve seen the Ira Glass on Storytelling meme circulating on Tumblr ad nauseam, but that’s usually via poster. I love the video version, which you can find here.

• I thought Kiersten White’s post about a night in the life was hilarious.

• Need some inspiration and encouragement, fellow writers? Saundra Mitchell’s post You Can Always Walk Away is one of the best of its ilk.

• Remember how Chuck Wendig wrote about 25 things writers should stop doing? Well, here are 25 things writers should start doing. Also by Chuck Wendig.

• I loved (emphasis *loved*) Claire Legrand’s post on first drafts and the wordiness they inspire, and how that’s okay. Definitely what I need right now, as I draft the heck out of my WIP.

STYLISH BLOG AWARD

ROW 80 UPDATE

• Goal recap: write 750 words a day on 750words.com.

This week was great! So far, I’ve plowed through 4739 words. Not bad, if I do say so myself. (And I do.) There’s no reason I won’t make my 750 quota today.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m weird, though. Because I’m so not writing in order. Not even a little. I’m not just talking about jumping between chapters, but jumping between scenes. And I’m… not sure that this is the best way to write a novel? Probably not. It’s working, sort of, I’m drafting at least, but it’s also kind of terrifying because scenes keep going in completely different directions than I originally intended (they’re telling the outline to talk to the hand, basically), and when you’re spending half your time writing future scenes that are dependent on earlier scenes working out a certain way…it’s um, well…unnerving.

Which has made me think a lot about Claire Legrand’s post that I included in the Sunday Link Love. Because while I might not be sure that I’m keeping all of these scenes – or that they’re even going to make sense once I organize them into chapters – they’re not completely meaningless either. No! I’m glad I wrote them. These scenes are helping me flesh out important story qualities such as character, emotion, theme, stakes, ect. They’re useful.

And for the most part, they’re viable places for the story to go. Writers often compare writing stories to childbirth, and in that vein, I feel like I’m telling my future novel (aka prospective child): “You can grow up to be this, or this, or this.”

Anyway. Those are my thoughts for today. How did your week go, fellow ROWers?