I’ve been doing lots of reading recently. Its a lot easier to cuddle up in bed with the laptop than it is to sit up at my desktop and do a lot of scribbling. That’s why I’m rather behind right now, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading of other people’s blogs and columns and websites, trying to get in touch with the wider writing community. There are a lot of us, I mean a LOT of us and its waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than I ever anticipated. The Writing Community as I will now call it, is vast and is comprised (mostly) of very kind, welcoming and talented people who are as eager to see others win as they are to see themselves do so. This is because these people understand that one person’s victory (particularly in indie publishing) is a victory for everybody!

That is a wonderful attitude, so I’d just like to take a second to say THANK YOU to everybody I’ve encountered on Twitter, Facebook and various blogs (including those crazy enough to follow this blog) who have shown that community spirit. It means more to me than I have space to describe and I’m grateful to every single one of you. ^_^

Anyway…! While I was reading, I noticed lots and lots of ‘how to’ posts and ‘dos and don’ts’ posts. I also found lots of interesting, thought provoking posts that have either made me think differently about plans I had for myself, or something I was writing at the time. There are tonnes of these all over the internet, some better than others, but I just wanted to take a moment to write about those posts that have carved out a little space in my mind in recent weeks, either for their advice, their style, their humour, or the way they made me tremble in my boots!

Nick Mamatas – Ten Bits of Advice Writers Should Stop Giving Aspiring Writers

Roz Morris – (Nail Your Novel) – Why playing safe in publishing is riskier than ever

Sarah Baughman – (Write It Sideways) – 4 Writing Routines You Can Live With

fantasywriter91 – The Depths of a Villain

Craig Hallam – (Steel City Writers) – Writers: Are you ready?

Jeff Bennington – Ten Crazy Ways to Improve Your Writing

Cheryl Reif – (How to Thrive on the Writer’s Road) – 25 Inspiration Sources for the Discouraged Writer

Richard White – (Guest at Novel Publicity) – For the love of all that is holy, please hire a professional editor before self publishing

And this is by no means an exhaustive list! This exercise tells me that I need to do better at using the ‘favourite’ button on my twitter feed, because some of the ones I was hoping to find I can’t seem to locate right now. 😦

Anyway, I wanted to point out these ones because I think you guys should read them too. There is some conflicting advice/opinions in some of these, but that’s part of the point. After all, everyone has a different experience and its through sharing all those experiences that we get the best out of it. I’m also putting these posts here as a reminder to myself that if and when I can, I would like to do something similar to help the Writing Community that has done so much for me in the last two years.