Since I’m collecting writing links for my local group, I thought I’d share them here as well.
May 5′s meeting is on pitching a novel, so let’s start with…
Pitching/Queries:
New query testing site (post your query, see how many up/down votes you get, and comment on other queries – it’s kinda fun to vote on the queries): http://www.querytest.com/ (and the FAQ)
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When we left for Botswana, it was still winter here. A few of the bulbs were poking out of the dirt, a few twigs had small buds, but most plants were still sleeping.
When we got back two weeks later, spring had arrived. The trees are budding or flowering, the hostas are sending up shoots, the mums and hydrangea are getting bright green leaves.
And check out my fern; I thought it died last year:
Best of all is the vegetable garden. Continue reading
Last fall, I planted bulbs in the front planter and a small patch of the back garden. I drew a map so I’d know what they were when they started to grow, and I know I put it someplace clever where it’d be easy to find…
The bulbs are starting to sprout. A few in the front, a few in the back. I’m starting to believe winter might end someday.
A recent blog post at Writer Unboxed talks about how audience development is an important step for authors – even writers who aren’t yet published.
The author (Jane Friedman of Writer’s Digest) says writers (and aspiring writers) should:
* Interact with friends and other writers on a social network
* Develop relationships with writers and potential readers on Twitter
* Participate in forums that tie into your work’s genre, topic, or subject matter
* Comment on blogs
* Have a website or blog
I have some comments and questions at 9 and 60 Ways – please go there and let me know what you think.
Between the shade, the hard rains that smushed the lettuce into the dirt to rot, the bugs carving holes in the rutabaga and cabbage leaves, the squirrels digging up seeds, and something (rabbits?) taking chunks out of almost everything), I don’t think we’re going to have much to eat.
Next year, I’m digging a vegetable bed in the front lawn, since the tomatoes and peppers out there seem to be happy (there’s a lot more sun).
I’m going to build better rabbit fences too – I haven’t seen any rabbits in the garden, just the yard, but something’s eating my veggies.
(My compost pile is doing great.)
Belated garden recordkeeping: Continue reading
I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers group ages ago. I’m not a huge superhero fan, but I enjoyed the book. The lack (more or less) of secret identities plus the way the aces worked with various government organizations made it seem more realistic to me.
It’s a mosaic novel, with nine authors writing chapters from the point of view of various characters. Several of the reviewers on LibraryThing said they found it hard to follow (it’s also the 19th book in the Wild Cards series); I had no trouble keeping all the characters straight even though I haven’t ready any of the previous books.
The good and the bad thing about such a structure is that you don’t stay with any given author/character for long. That’s good because I got bogged down in the second “chapter,” which is the first of three by Caroline Spector, but once I got through it the book didn’t go back to that character for quite a while. It’s bad because I could have read a whole novel centered on the character Melinda Snodgrass was writing (Noel). (I’m sure, like in Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, other readers have completely opposite preferences from me.) Other intriguing storylines belong to Walton Simons and Ian Tregillis (Niobe and Drake) and Victor Milan (Tom and Dolores).
The only major problem was towards the end, when there were some too-abrupt character transformations and plot resolutions. It felt a bit like the authors had been writing happily along and suddenly realized they had almost reached their maximum wordcount.
Last Saturday I took before photos of the yard and gardens at our house for future reference. Yesterday I planted the vegetable garden (with some space saved for things that need to be planted in a few weeks).
I got a free ARC of this book from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers group by promising to review it.
It’s an entertaining enough read that I had no problem finishing it quickly. Although there were aspects of the book that bugged me (sympathizing with Crusaders, and the main character being so self-centered), I was interested to see what would happen when Ian, the main character, made it back to the present day after he got tossed back to the year 1307.
(Minor spoilers from this point on, though not much more than you’d get from the book jacket.)
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Any Given Doomsday, A Respectable Trade, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, The Thirteenth Tale, Drowning Ruth
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My parents visited several weeks ago, so we went to see the prairie at Meadowbrook Park , the prairie grove at Busey Woods, and Kickapoo State Park. The latter, a former strip mine, is slated to close on Nov. 30 due to state budget woes, though that may change.
Monarch on thistle (Meadowbrook Park). Butterflies rarely hold still for me, so I’m happy this turned out.
Spider vs dragonfly (Busey Woods). This is a yellow and black garden spider. We came by the web shortly after the dragonfly was caught, so got to see most of the struggle. There were quite a few of these spiders at one spot along the path.
Sephski, this is for you. (Meadowbrook Park, where there is a lot of sculpture, most of it less identifiable)
Two weeks ago, J and I helped clear bush honeysuckle at Weaver Park, which is a relatively recent purchase by the city of Urbana. They plan to put ball and soccer fields there; people also want to preserve the 7 or 8 oak trees (red, white, and chinkapin) that are 300-400 years old. It’s neat to get in at the start of a project like that.
Yesterday, I went to Meadowbrook Park to collect seeds, which the park district uses there and at other parks (including Weaver) and sells. We had about a dozen plants we could have collected from, but most of us focused on one or two because it’s not easy to learn to id plants by seed head, especially when the leaves have already fallen off.
Writing Misc.