Friday Feast: Inspiration, Page One, Unlikable Female Protagonists, Straight Pins, and Falling in Love with a Reader

3246197462_336b894ebf_o

Source: lisatozzi

Happy first full week of January 2016! How are y’all feeling about your writing resolutions? My only resolution this year is to commit to promoting the books that I read and love, especially those books that don’t get as much exposure for whatever reason (and to drink and eat delicious things in Argentina).

And, if for whatever reason you haven’t hit your groove with your resolution yet, be it reading or writing, don’t fall off the wagon into a pit of despair. You’ve got eleven months and some odd days to be the most amazing writer and person you can be until your next reckoning. No pressure.

  • We begin with Alexander Chee and his thoughts on inspiration: “… we think we need inspiration to go back to work and what we need is to just go back to work.” That’s the tough love pull quote, but read on for an eloquent meditation that is sure to both move and motivate you.
  • There are probably a number of you out there who have “Get an Agent” as a new year’s resolution. Literary Agent Carly Watters offers 6 tips to hook a reader on page one.
  • The Atlantic makes a case for novels that present unlikable female protagonists. ????????
  • Writers have always looked for and implemented tools to help them revise their novels. For example, Jane Austen used straight pins: “With no calculated blank spaces and no obvious way of incorporating large revision or expansion she had to find other strategies – the three patches, small pieces of paper, each of which was filled closely and neatly with the new material, attached with straight pins to the precise spot where erased material was to be covered or where an insertion was required to expand the text.”
  • This list of things one can do to fall in love with a reader (perhaps that’s your resolution this year? A fine one.) would also work well during a Q&A at book readings, such as, “27. If you could force every person you know to read one book, what would it be?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.