writing – Page 198 – Cathy C. Hall Writes

So I zipped over to Cynsations (Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog) this morning to read this lovely guest post from Deborah Halverson on Why Perfectly Nice People Make Perfect Bad Guys. It’s well worth the read, whether you write flash, short stories or novels, because characters can make all the difference in whether you end up with a good story or a bad story.

And as is so often the case, I found all sorts of other interesting writerly things to check out. Like the giveaway at Cynsations for Deborah Halverson’s Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies (just read to the end of Deborah’s guest post!).

And then, of course, I had to zip over to Deborah’s site called Dear Editor.com where she’s having a virtual book launch for Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies. And she’s giving away a a first chapter manuscript critique for a couple days. (It must be a middle grade or young adult first chapter.)

And then, I nosed around the site to read a few of the Dear Editor questions and answers. Again, you don’t have to write for the kidders and teens to appreciate Deborah’s advice.

Honestly, it’s not even lunch and I’m feeling scads more writerly brilliant than I did at breakfast. Though I have no idea why I would say “scads.”

Long before I ever read Stephen King’s quote, “Read a lot and write a lot,” I followed that advice.

One thing that I read a lot of is writing advice (What a coincidence!). And it just so happens that I came across a whole list of great quotes of writing advice (How serendipitous!). Truth be told, I’ve already posted about this fabulous list over at Finders & Keepers. But I found it so nice, I’m discussing it twice! So Thing One is this list from Online College of 101 Words of Wisdom from Famous Authors. Something tells me I should take another look-see at F. Scott Fitzgerald’s advice (“Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.”)

Yes, well, on to Thing Two. I got a heads up today from Jodi Webb who’s participating in a blog hop. (Notice I did NOT use an exclamation point. I wanted to, but as per the above advice, I restrained myself. Honestly, it feels as if something is lacking. Something like a big, fat exclamation point.)

If you’re looking for a chance to win a TON of books, this is the blog hop for you. Over 200 blogs are participating and giving away all sorts of prizes. So here’s your chance to follow Mr. King’s advice and read a lot, assuming you win books. You have till the 24th to join in the fun, so hop over now and start signing up. (!)

(I know you’re probably wondering about that fox squirrel. Because usually, I have a way of bringing a totally unrelated pic like that into a post and making a brilliantly witty remark by post’s end. But this whole exclamation point thing has me off my game. Blame it on Fitzgerald.)