Music: the Pogue's "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash"
TV/Movie: Leon
Link o' the Day: Why a Duck?

I learned something today. I receive a notification whenever someone subscribes to this journal. How cool is that? I've subscribed to about a dozen other journals at Journalscape, but didn't realize that the subscription request was sent to the actual blogger.

Speaking of which, my thanks to Michael Jasper for adding a link to my journal from his own page of links. It reminds me that next time I update my own webpage, I'm going to have to create a new links page myself.
You learn something new every day.

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Today's link of the day features one of the best webpages devoted to the Marx Brothers around. There's some great multimedia material here as well as articles, photographs, and biographies. It's a must for any Marx Brothers fan, or someone who wants to know what all the fuss is about.
Hail Freedonia!

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Over at Jenn Reese's journal, the topic of Chris Vogel's THE WRITER'S JOURNEY came up and I thought it might be interesting to run some ultra-mini reviews of some of the books on writing I have within easy reach.

Hang on tight...

THE WRITERS JOURNEY by Chrisopher Vogel.

The author discusses mostly archetypal characters and the pattern of mythic storytelling. It can be subtle, or it can be as blatant as an Eddings fantasy novel. The big danger with this book is thinking it's the one-and-only roadmap to successful storytelling. It's not. There are many ways to tell a story--this being only one of them. Still, it has a lot of good ideas which are presented in a very straightforward manner.

WORLDS OF WONDER by David Gerrold

This is one of the best, most practical books on writing SF/Fantasy I've ever come across. This has all that information on the mechanics of creative writing that I begged my college seminar profs to divulge. Highly recommended.

BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES & ENDS by Nancy Kress

Aside from being one of the best SF writers around today, she's very well known for her teaching abilities and it shows in this book. It's short and straightforward, with a step-by-step approach which can help any writer at a variety of stages.

I HAVE THIS NIFTY IDEA... NOW WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?,

THE SCIENCE FICTION PROFESSIONAL (Seven Years of "Ask Bwana" Columns) and

PUTTING IT TOGETHER (Turning Sow's Ear Drafts into Silk Purse Stories) by Mike Resnick
Mike is big on the whole "paying forward" thing where veteran writers advise newer writers. NIFTY... includes examples of successful novel proposals from such folks as Robert Silverberg, Walter Jon Williams, Robert J. Sawyer, Kevin J. Anderson, Katherine Kerr, and Kathleen Ann Goonan. THE SF PROFESSIONAL are seven years worth of the "Ask Bwana" columns from the semiprozine Speculations and contains a lot of the nuts and bolts sort of info for surviving in the publishing world. I particularly like PUTTING IT TOGETHER as myself and the crew from Mike's listserve helped with this one. Mike showed us early drafts, then later drafts of several award-winning stories along with some notes. He then fielded our questions about the revision process. Very useful and you get the feeling of looking over his shoulder as he revises.

HOW TO BE YOUR OWN BEST EDITOR by Barry Tarshis

I need to consult this book more often. It's a very useful guide for revising and improving sentence strength, theme strength, clarity, and grammar.

THE COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF NOVEL WRITING by Writers Digest

This is mainly a collection of articles by Name Authors from the pages of Writers Digest. It's oretty good to have all in one volume if you're not the sort of person to keep back issues on hand.

THE FIRST FIVE PAGES by Noah Lukeman
it's pretty much what it says. How to make a good first impression with strong writing and more on getting your foot in the door. Very practical and frank.

I have about a dozen more laying (lying?) around this apartment someplace, but what you see here should be enough if you're considering what makes a good writers library.

Of course writers write. They don't read--especially books about writing. Don't they? Ha! Of course writers read! And there are many who read books on writing. We can get much out of practice and feedback, but it's nice to have some pointers tossed our way by those with some inside knowledge or experience. I have most of the books listed above crammed with little index cards with notes scrawled on them. Whenever I get stuck or feeling in a writerly rut, I grab one of these books and start reading. More often than not, I'm writing again before the end of the day.

Welcome to it.

Cheers!

--John