Monday, May 19, 2008

What are your favorite writing things?

What are your favorite writing books?

What are your favorite pieces of writing advice?

What are your favorite writing resource sites?

What are your favorite writing sites?

What are your favorite writing blogs?

What are your favorite quotes about writing?

What are your favorite writing groups?



Please feel free to note your feelings here in comments.

Can't wait to see the answers!

Thanks so much,

Mike

2 comments:

Beth K. Vogt said...

What are your favorite writing books?
Sweet Agony: A Writing Manual of Sorts by Gene Olson
On Writing Well by William Zinsser

What are your favorite pieces of writing advice?
Writing is rewriting.

What are your favorite writing resource sites?
visualthesaurus.com (It's a mind-mapping thesaurus)

What are your favorite writing blogs?
cba-ramblings.blogspot.com
writermama.wordpress.com

What are your favorite quotes about writing?
"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." ~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

e_journeys said...

Favorite writing books: I love the structure and breadth of Naomi Epel's The Observation Deck. And I think Ursula Hegi's novel Intrusions serves as a terrific writing guide.

Favorite pieces of writing advice: Tampa-area writer Lary (one 'r') Crews posted a series of posts on the photography site Flickr, on overcoming writer's block. My favorite of the lot is, "Tell yourself writer's block doesn't exist." (You can find the full set of posts here.) And, in its entirety, Marge Piercy's poem "For the young who want to."

Favorite writing resource sites: Poets & Writers (I also subscribe to the magazine, and did so back in the 70s when it was called Coda). I participate irregularly in P&W's Speakeasy Forum. Various other forums increase my familiarity with the marketplace, to which I've returned after a too-long absence.

Favorite writing sites: Sites on my list to spend more time with include but are by no means limited to Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly (especially since I have a story forthcoming there), Strange Horizons, and Farrago's Wainscot.

Favorite writing blogs: Sunday Scribblings, whose co-founder Laini Taylor also has a wonderfully inspirational writing-oriented blog called Not For Robots.

Favorite quotes about writing: I've heard that "Red" Smith quote in different iterations and attributed in different forms to different people. The one I'm most familiar with is, "Writing a column is easy. You just sit in front of a typewriter until small beads of blood appear on your forehead." Of the writing-quote sites I've found, my favorite is Quotes on Writing. I particularly adore Winston Churchill's: "Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public."

Favorite writing groups: I belong to a local critique group of good people.