Mur Lafferty's Blog, page 98

5 Ways to Pick Yourself Back Up

Let’s face it. The reason most of us fail in this writing game is because someone knocks us down and we lie there, on the sidewalk, knees skinned, tears running down our face, and wonder why we do this. We want to go home, have our moms put band-aids on our knees, hug us, and give us some ice cream. They’ll tell us that we’re the smartest and cleverest and no one will ever be better. And we’ll feel better and never go back to that sidewalk again.

Stupid sidewalk.

[ending the metaphor here because

Advice, protocol, survivor’s guide, and NYT Bestsellerdom

This is an *excellent* resource of other links. Degree Director recently posted “10 Ways To Become a Better Writer,” and while the advice is stuff you’ve heard before, they have links to reinforce each rule. They link to free writing courses, online crit groups, and places to teach you better self-editing and proofreading. BOOKMARK THIS POST.I’m going to WorldCon this year and I hope to meet many industry professionals. I thought Janet Reid’s blog post on social interactions with agents would be

ISBW Special #43 - Nebula Award Winner John Kessel

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I interviewed Dr. John Kessel, winner of the 2009 Nebula Award for best novella! We talked in a coffee shop, so please forgive the background noise.

Did I mention you can get the early info of the new Heaven book at the site, if you join the Inside Story?Promo: Get a $3 discount off Scott Sigler’s The Rookie with the discount code MURInterview with Dr. John Kessel, author of Pride and Prometheus, winner o

Links for 2009-04-27 [del.icio.us]

Flu Preparedness Kit

Found via making light, written in 2006 and very timely.

Order THE ROOKIE and save $3 with the code MUR

New York Times Bestselling Author Scott Sigler’s The Rookie has been called his best book by many junkies. Available previously in podcast-only form, now he’s selling limited edition hardcover copies on his site!

Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, The Rookie is a story that combines the intense gridiron action of “Any Given Sunday” with the space opera style of “Star Wars” and the criminal underworld of “The Godfather.”

Aliens and humans alike play positions based on phy

ISBW #115 - Beginnings and Prologues

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I come up from illness to say hi and talk about stuff!

My Story “Mother Sponge” came out in Hub magazine!
Friend me at GoodReads!
Promo: GreatHites
Beginnings, prologues, and yes, you are allowed to suck!
Promo: Nina Kimberly the Merciless
6 yr old Nicholas Skidmore, author
New software: Jer’s Novel Writer, DarkCopy, JDarkRoom

Why #amazonfail matters

As of Monday morning (Eastern time), we still don’t know if the Amazon issues this weekend were a glitch, homophobia (and disabilityphobia and feministphobia and rapesurvivorphobia), or outside attack. Some people are willing to give the benefit of the doubt pointing out that the failing possibly came from the weakness of large companies with sprawling departments (but doesn’t excuse it)-Patrick Nielsen Hayden on how large corporations work, and Simon Bisson on why Amazon hasn’t fixed things imm

The pile of shame

(I haven’t written in two days, as I have had a migraine that comes and goes. Right now I’m fighting it with a prescrip. pain med. Which leaves me a wee loopy. Hence the lack of links in this post. I’m sure Google can help you if you are interested in anything here. Thanks for your understanding.)

Writers have to read. Seriously. How in the hell do you intend to know how to write a book if you don’t read them?

I remember when I helped moderate the forums at Lulu.com and I read a post about a write

POV- but not the way you’re thinking

I’ve been reading the classic book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,*”and I’ve been seeing how it can apply in my personal career. It’s a pretty amazing book. One of the key principles is putting yourself in the other person’s shoes to see what they want out of the situation.

In writing, we as writers ask established writers for advice/critiques, ask agents to represent us, we ask editors to publish us, we ask reviewers to read and review (favorably, hopefully!), we ask other authors to

ISBW #114 - Feedback

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Show Notes:

I’m doing a new thing with War - subscribe to the premium feed at the Heaven site!Promo: Dice JockiesYou must check out the new interactive storytelling site, Storytron!David Moldawer and I are running a beginning writer workshop at Balticon this year!Create your own ebooks at Smashwords.com, you can also place your work at Scribd.com and Fictionpress.For scriptwriting, Celtx 2.0 was just released.I say