Thank You For Thinking

Wow, we were tagged this week as a site that makes you think, not only by one great peer site but three! Grazie, merci, danke and just plain thanks go out to Melissa Marsh at Grosvenor Square, Nienke Hinton at The Writing Life – All Kinds of Writing, and Straight From Hel’s Helen Ginger.

I tried to compose a haiku of gratitude for you all, but frankly I fear it would’ve felt more like punishment to post it…maybe another time!

In the spirit of the Thinking Blog Tag, we’ve been asked to name five blogs that make US think. I posed the question to all of us here at WU, and here’s what we’ve got for you:

Kathleen Bolton said:

Rachel Vater, self-proclaimed AGENT X, has a LivePage Journal that’s a window into the grimy world of queries, proposals, and contracts. I’m endlessly fascinated with the pitches that writers come up with, and I’m even more fascinated with her response to them. I’ve snagged one at random:

Young adult fantasy-KINGSLINE
After an unintended murder results in the first of his three deaths, a curiously immortal young drow wakes up in a strangely familiar world with a terrible warning- he has only a short time to undo every trace of evil he has brought about before his life is truly gone. Gifted with powers that he no longer wants, aided by possessed young woman and a mutated warrior, Nykra must deliver the Kingsline to the fortress of Druamort and stop his old master from overtaking the world of Tinerthial, before his second chance at life is gone forever.
==
MY COMMENTS: Guy has to undo his evil deeds before his life is gone, which includes delivering something to a fortress (journey story) and stop his old master from overtaking the world. (Once again, tired of seeing a bad guy who wants to take over the world.)

Vater’s LiveJournal page is a gold mine of information about what’s grabbing agents’ interest in commercial fiction, and, more invaluably, what isn’t.

Victoria Holmes said:

SMART BITCHES TRASHY BOOKS makes me think because I’ve been dismissive of the romance genre myself in the past and they’ve taught me how to have a sense of humour about one’s own favorite genre. Why should fantasy be elevated beyond romance? All genre fiction has a formula – the clue’s in the name – it’s just a case of learning a different sort of math.

Juliet Mariller went outside the writer’s realm to suggest this site for thinkers at SPIKED. According to the site:

spiked is an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms. spiked is endorsed by free-thinkers such as John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, and hated by the narrow-minded such as Torquemada and Stalin. Or it would be, if they were lucky enough to be around to read it.

Allison Winn Scotch said:

FreelanceSuccess.com. Even though I’ve been a freelance writer for half a dozen years, I still learn new things about the industry via the forum, am continually inspired by the camaraderie and advice offered, and always find ways to tweak my career and improve upon it.

My turn. Kath and I had to duke it over which of us would exalt the glories of Agent X and which would crown Ray Rhamey and FLOGGING THE QUILL. Ray, I hereby dub thee Sir Makes Me Think A Lot. As a professional editor, Ray naturally focuses on the art of editing at his site. Lately his focus has been on the Flogometer Challenge: Will the first 16 lines of your manuscript entice Ray to turn the page? He’ll tell you why–or why not–and suggest ways you might prune your script and improve your craft. Using too many adverbs? Ray will call you on it. Is your text overwritten? He’ll point out where. Ray occasionally does more extensive public “floggings” of submitted material, providing even greater insights. We thank him for his 200 entries on the craft of writing and look forward to the next 200.

Congratulations to our five picks for being named a Thinking Blogger. If you’d like to in turn name five Thinking Bloggers of your own, here are the rules:

1. If you’re tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all – blogs that really get you thinking!
2. Link to the original Thinking Blogger post,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

So what blogs out there make you think? Chime in with your thoughts. Just don’t think all this thinking means you have the day off. ;)

Write on, all!

Therese Walsh

Therese Walsh (she/her) co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006 and is the site’s editorial director. She was the editor of WU’s only book, Author in Progress, and runs the Writer Unboxed UnConference.

Her second novel, The Moon Sisters, received starred reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and Book Riot.

Learn more about Therese on her website, and sign up for her newsletter to be among the first to hear about any new projects.

www.theresewalsh.com/