entering the whirlpool

I exhausted all my social points yesterday by helping a friend decorate the large closet she's stuck in as a long-term substitute special ed teacher as a gingerbread house. Of the three of us working on it, no one managed to take pictures (tho further decorating is likely to be ongoing.) Then I went to bed at a reasonable hour, but grauwulf fell asleep in his chair & didn't come to bed until 3:30, at which point he spent the requisite 20 or 30 minutes squirming and muttering half-asleep things that didn't make any sense before getting properly back to sleep again, followed by the Megatherium coming in shortly before 6 because her humidifier turned off and woke her up, and she squirms even better than her father does. Fortunately she's also more susceptible to arguments like "You can either hold still or go back to *your* room." I have just written a to-do list of small itemized things in hopes of getting something done before I give up and go back to bed.

Have some thoughts from less mushy brains:

The Insect Apocalypse is here; this is European research; semi-locally we have Doug Tallamy's native plant/insect/bird correlations, and I would definitely add my own anecdotal evidence from driving across country on family camping trips in the 80s and mid-90s vs by myself in 2004.

The Writer's Book of Doubt, currently on kickstarter, looks like it will be full of comforting advice (that Isabel Yap essay, currently only available as a twitter thread, looks particularly relevant to my life) and I want a b&w version of the Map of Submissionland poster to color on.

Zen Habits (which I just rediscovered in my bookmarks) has a nice overview of using reward-based training on yourself. Good to be reminded from time to time.

Questions to ask yourself before giving up. I love this poem. Perhaps you will, also.

There have been a lot of these recently, so I figured I'd do a round-up in case there are things here that others who wish to read about craft-of-writing and related topics have missed. There may be another set later with author interviews & people talking about books, too.

*How to Write a Long Fantasy Series (or perhaps more accurately, how not to.) A good analysis of problems like bloat and pacing in the mad many-book-epic-style series, with examples drawn mainly from the Wheel of Time. (which I gave up on reading about 15 years ago and this wasn't a problem for comprehending what she was talking about, so don't worry if you haven't read it.)

*Wordcount guidelines for Children's/YA books.

*On Discontent: another take on "why are you writing if you're not going to enjoy it?" (See also the bit in Neil Gaiman's "make good art" speech about "you should enjoy it.")

*The Occult Wisdom of Cover Letters-- if you've been subbing things for a while you probably know this already, but it is still completely worth reading for the passage about interviews in the middle. I read that bit out loud to grauwulf and we both found it hilarious. (The baby was not as impressed, but I think she was asleep at the time.)

*Sadly, there's no secret handshake: writing a good story is how you get published. (You probably know this one already, too.)

*What's in a Bio? from fwilde, some thoughts on what to & not to include in a short-story bio if you *do* get published.

*My Brain is a Jerk: a post about writing with (or in spite of) perfectionism This is long and rather ranty in places, but I thought some of the points she made about motivation and working on your writing anyway were worth reading.

*Writing a Novel One Bite at a Time-- thoughts on process, creating useful goals, and how to make writing achievable instead of that thing you avoid because you want to have done it rather than to get it done. This would be particularly relevant to my interests at present. (and can apply to other things than writing)

*relatedly, Promises, Process, and Progress at Black Gate (from last January) talking about book recs for short-increment sustainable writing process.

---

Also of note? I do not need to click on any of those links where people complain about creepy entitled guys being creepy at women on the internet while holding my week-old daughter. I know better than that, really I do, and it's not as if I'm not already fully aware of the kind of thing they're complaining about so that I need to read about it anyway. Stupid internet.

Xposty from dreamwidth.