Mini Linkspam!

I'm still going through my nearly 800 posts from vacation (which are now at nearly 900 posts...I feel "mark all as read" coming on soon...). I plan on skimming, marking highlights, making a linkspam, and moving on.

But meanwhile, I've found some great recent stuff that I thought I'd share! Just a few links to whet the appetite...

• Why new novelists are kind of old... A run-down on how long it takes to go from aspiring writer to published book in hand. I actually found it kind of inspiring, in a depressing, go-eat-more-chocolate kind of way.
• I love it when people agree with me.
• Here's a wake-up call with some punch: Why you need more than a good book to be published. Preview:

Writing is a weird Jekyll-and-Hyde sort of career. There’s just YOU and THE PAGE for a great deal of it. Then there’s the other bit, where you have to get along with agents and editors, not to mention readers at conventions and signings.

• Ernest Hemingway's Top 9 Words of Wisdom. I love this so much I may have to do a whole separate blog post on it. For now, just the link. The line that makes me smile right now?

“The first draft of anything is shit”

• I have a feeling I'm going to need this soon: When to Cut Something Out of Your Manuscript.
• For the strong female characters you write: Joss Whedon on Writing Strong Female Characters. That last line is pretty cool.
• I'm going to use this as I begin revisions: making a strong, memorable protagonist.
• You know what? This run-down on Alice Hoffman's too-strong reaction to a bad review made my day. You know why? Here's why:

Richard Ford had to wait two years after Colson Whitehead's negative New York Times review of 2002 novel "A Multitude of Sins" to spit on the him at a Poets & Writers party. But that's peanuts compared to what happened to another of Ford's critics. After a less than stellar write-up of his 1986 novel "The Sportswriter" appeared in the New York Times, Ford's wife took a pistol to a book the reviewer had written and blew a hole right through it. Ford later did the same honors with another copy of the same book.

Chilling though the message was, it didn't stop the critic from continuing to dole out opinions. Her name? Alice Hoffman.