Just be an author.

A young person had a question for Neil Gaiman on his Tumblr blog, and he had a lovely answer:

I want to be an author when I grow up. Am I insane?
Yes. Growing up is highly overrated. Just be an author.

How to Spot a Writer at a Party

This post over at Not Your Usual Suspects made me chuckle. From the looks of the comments, I'm not the only anti-social one out there. Phew!

How to Spot a Writer at a Party

When it comes to your writing time, "be ruthless"

photo by Lucia..

I came across this quote at AdviceToWriters over the weekend. When I'm down about having to fight for my writing time (which I don't do very well yet), it makes me feel a little better to know that J.K. Rowling still has to fight for her time, too:

"Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it. Some people do not seem to grasp that I still have to sit down in peace and write the books, apparently believing that they pop up like mushrooms without my connivance. I must therefore guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg." - J.K. ROWLING

Celebrate International Women's Day with women writers

I've been in a Nyquil coma for days, so I almost missed noticing today is International Women's Day. The Google Books blog has a great post on Five Female Trailblazers in Literature You May Have Never Heard Of:

"Though it's impossible to compile an exhaustive list, we're highlighting a few individuals who went places no woman, and sometimes no man, had ever gone before in the world of words. These woman made history with their pens, quills and ancient stone tablets...The 100th anniversary of International Women's Day is an apt opportunity for us to look back and celebrate the profound influence of these often unsung female stalwarts. Without the pioneering work of Enheduanna, Hrotsvitha, Lady Muraski, Aphra Behn and Selma Lagerlöf (not to mention: Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, Doris Lessing, Emily Brönte, Charlote Brönte, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Pearl S. Buck, Frances Burney, George Eliot, Amy Tan, Eudora Welty, Gloria Steinem, Louisa May Alcott, Agatha Christie, Flannery O'Connor, Emily Dickinson, Anne Frank, Mary Shelley, Sylvia Plath, Alice Walker, Harper Lee, Danielle Steel, J.K. Rowling and many others), who knows where we might be?"

RWA Conference on The Today Show

Why does the media always sound so surprised that romance sells well? This looks a lot like the segment they do EVERY year. They always take the tack of "Wow! Romance actually sells? Why?" rather than "Hey, look a romance conference. How cool!" or at least something other than bemused surprise.

Romance Q&A: Victoria Alexander

Here's a great interview with my friend Victoria Alexander in a recent Library Journal. Wish I could be at RWA in San Francisco to hear her speech this summer, but alas, it's not to be.

Romance Q&A: Victoria Alexander - 6/15/2008 - Library Journal: "With The Perfect Wife (LJ 2/15/08), a reprint of a 1996 title, hitting No. 1 on the New York Times's best sellers list and Seduction of a Proper Gentleman, the eagerly awaited finale to her 'Last Man Standing' series, due in September (see review, p. 50), Victoria Alexander is quickly becoming a favorite among romance fans. See what this 2008 Romance Writers of America® conference keynote speaker has to say about the romance market and her plans for the future."

Romance Trash Talk

This is hilarious!


Thanks to Cheryl St. John for the link!