Blog Goodness 6/12/09

Here are some interesting things I read this week on -- I was going to use the phrase the “interwebs” because everyone does that to be funny and I want to do it too. But then I worry there’s going to be one person who doesn’t know it’s a joke, and think I’m stupid, or worse yet, leave a comment that says “I think you meant internet.” No, I meant interwebs. Plural. There, I got that out of my system.

Anyway, here is this week’s blog goodness:

A sad but true tip from Janet Reid: “It’s too soon to query if … it’s your first novel.” I think she’s right and I wish I learned this a year ago.

Great post on word count from Moonrat. I’ll pull out two comments here: “I would say that the absolute upper limit of OK is 100,000 for a debut novel, but you'll find some people turned off to it if it's anything above 80,000” and “Probably the most universal flaw in early-career writing is overwriting or over-inclusion of material.”

Query Shark, who is Janet Reid, but the woman really has a knack of spelling things out for you: “Your job as a writer is to make me care about the protagonist even if I do want to smack her upside the head.”

Via QueryTracker, some positive thoughts on the economy courtesy of Beth Fleisher from the Barry Goldblatt Literary Agency: "I am a huge believer that good books will always sell. I would be crazy to pass up a book I love and an author I want to represent because of the economy."

From FinePrint Literary Agency: "Peter Olsen, the former boss of Random House recently wrote an essay on the future of e-books which is fascinating. Click here to read the whole essay. In part, Olsen says: 'Book businesspeople are about to make the same mistake that has devastated the music and newspaper industries: worrying about whether a new digital format will cannibalize their traditional business rather than focusing on how to make the new format more competitive with other digital media.'"

At Editor Unleashed, a post by Jordan E. Rosenfeld that gives a different point of view to my take on Character, Story, Language. I love differing points of view! “So rather than trying to write character first, then going back to see if you’ve got a functioning plot, or hoping that you built a convincing setting, and so on, you’re better off learning to write integrated scenes.”

And over at Bookslut: “If you had asked me if the world needed another 6-page examination of the usefulness (or not) of creative writing programs, I would have made obnoxious puking gestures. But surprise, surprise, the New Yorker manages to make it entertaining.” I haven’t read the full article yet, but as a proud MFA dropout I'm sure I will eat that one up.

And that's what I call blog goodness!