Best of the Web for Short Story Writers – June 2013

What Happens When You Hate Your Writing

From the Women On Writing Blog: an inspiring article about how to get through those days when your confidences goes out from underneath you.

LINK: http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2013/06/what-happens-when-you-hate-your-writing.html

29 Ways To Stay Creative

A fun, short video from TO-FU, full of cheerful ways to keep your creative well topped up.

LINK: http://vimeo.com/24302498

Six Questions for Kristy Harding, Founder, Paper Tape

This is part of an ongoing series at the Six Questions blog, which asks, youguessed it, six questions of aquisitions editors at fiction publications,t o find out what they really want from writers.

LINK: http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/2013/06/six-questions-for-kristy-harding.html

Flash Fiction Challenge from the Terrible Minds Blog

Every Friday, or so, Chuck Wendig challenges his readers to write a flash fiction story. The prompts can be weird and wonderful, but this one is one you can use over and over again.

LINK: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/06/28/flash-fiction-challenge-down-the-tv-tropes-rabbit-hole/

Spend An Hour With Ray Bradbury

Jurgen Wolff shares a wonderful video of a lecture given by Ray Bradbury, and a nice summary of the contents, along with Bradbury’s prescription for becoming a fulfilled writer.

LINK: http://timetowrite.blogs.com/weblog/2013/06/spend-an-hour-with-writer-ray-bradbury.html

The Pomodoro Technique for Writers

An interesting article at Write To Done about how using this block-writing technique can help writers get more done. The article focusses on non-fiction writing, but could just as easily help you with a fast first draft of a short story.

LINK: http://writetodone.com/2013/06/24/how-the-pomodoro-technique-can-help-you-draft-your-book-in-just-3-weeks-while-still-having-a-life/

Best of the Web for Short Story Writers April 21 2013

Jane Friedman’s ePublishing Class April 23

I’m all about creativity over here. I try to not to encourage you to obsess about the market and the audience and how to get published. But, when you’ve been writing for a while, it’s a logical next step. I’ve worked in and around publishing since 1998 and know enough to know that epublishing and self-publishing are often the best option for today’s writer. If you want to publish/be published, you need to educate yourself about the realities of the business. Jane’s is extremely knowledgable and rather smart, so I heartily recommend this class.

LINK:http://store.digitalbookworld.com/self-publishing-ebooks-in-the-flourishing-digital-book-market-webcast

The Character Therapist

Written by a licensed therapist, this blog offers wonderful insights into character motivation, specifically aimed at creative writers.
LINK: http://charactertherapist.blogspot.com

The Best Of The Web For Short Story Writers — April 14, 2013

Here are the best of the articles, quotes and links I found this week for short story tellers. Enjoy!

Here’s What Makes Stories So Powerful
Benton Weyi, host of Orastories (a new site dedicated to oral storytelling), writes a passionate call to arms to each of us to value our stories and tell our stories. I defy you to get to the end of this without feeling like grabbing a pen!

The Short Story On Structuring Your Short Story
Larry Brooks, aka The StoryFixer is the host of Storyfix.com and the author of Story Engineering, among other things (a great book that I recommend if you’re trying to structure a novel or longer work). This time he’s writing about short stories. At the beginning of the article I was worried he was going to say we should all be writing stories with some simple four-act structure and I was going to have to lose some respect for him. But of course he doesn’t. My favorite lines from the article?

Which is why short stories are so damn hard to put into a box.

Because the box comes in all sizes, shapes and colors, and can be made from virtually anything.

Which is why I love to write them. How about you?

Things That Make A Story Fail

Jurgen Wolff isn’t talking specifically about short stories here (he’s talking about a movie), but it’s an interesting reflection of good story practices that I found useful.

A Guide To Practical Contentment
Again, not directly about storytelling, but here Leo Babauta is talking about how to live a good life, how to connect to your passions and how to make small changes in your life that lead you towards the bigger ones (writing a little everyday, perhaps?)

Selected Shorts: The Sun and The Moon<
I just loved both of these short stories, one by Italo Calvino that will seem strangely familiar if you saw the Pixar short film “La Luna”, and one by Ray Bradbury about children who have never seen the sun. Sometimes listening to great short stories is so darned inspiring!

Quotes

If you’re not lying awake at night worrying about it, the reader isn’t going to either.
James M. Cain

-quoted in The Paris Review

The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.”
Roger Ebert

I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organize and concentrate—or else get fragmented into bits. I have learned to use my ‘ten minutes’. I once thought it was not worth sitting down for a time as short as that; now I know differently and, if I have ten minutes, I use them, even if they bring only two lines, and it keeps the book alive.”
Rumer Godden, author

-quoted in The Happiness Project

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am.
Thomas Merton

-quoted in The Happiness Project