Nice Rants

One of my favorite literary agent blogs is Pub Rants by Kristin Nelson. She shares her publishing-insider perspective along with loads of useful advice for aspiring writers. She has been blogging regularly since January 2006 and her archives are filled with helpful and interesting posts.

Among the many topics she has covered, here are some of my favorites:

• Writing a query pitch like back cover copy (also see Agent Kristin’s Blog Pitch Workshop on her sidebar)
  
• Actual queries that worked (also see Agent Kristin’s Queries: An Inside Scoop and Submission Pitch Letters to Editors on her sidebar)
  
• Beginning writer mistakes
  
• Stories behind the covers
  
• Choosing the right title

For added fun, Kristin shows her eclectic taste in music by saying what's playing on her iPod at the beginning of every post.

Financial Literacy

I read a lot of blogs related to writing and publishing, but I also follow blogs about many other topics. My favorite blog about money matters is Get Rich Slowly. It promotes “sensible personal finance” and practical frugality by offering advice related to saving money and eliminating debt.

In honor of Financial Literacy Month, Get Rich Slowly is featuring stories about the fundamentals of personal finance. Yesterday’s post The Financial Literacy Compendium links to past advice on basic money skills, investing, and more.

Writing is rarely lucrative and it is important for writers to be financially literate, especially during the current economic climate.

Newbie

Yesterday I joined the party and I was pleased to get some thoughtful and supportive comments. It’s encouraging to be welcomed into the community of blogging writers.

I’m a newbie as a writer and a blogger. As such, I have to balance self-confidence with humility. I recognize that I have a lot to learn, and I’m so grateful to everyone who offers wonderful writing advice online. I hope I will be able to pay it forward by contributing my own advice someday!

In the meantime, I will work and learn and share my musings along the way. And it’s nice to have company on the journey.

Party

Jane Smith is hosting a Pitch Party today, for bloggers to promote their blogs. Welcome to anyone who found their way from there to here.

I love finding new blogs to follow (even though I already spend too much time reading blogs) so I enjoyed checking out the other blogs that were pitched. Here are my three favorites:

• Isaac Espriu’s Place - a very welcoming blog by someone pursuing a career as a full-time writer
  
• Help! I NEED a Publisher! (And Maybe an Agent ...?) - advice about getting published from an award-winning author (and self-proclaimed crabbit old bat)
  
• Writing Advice for the Absolute Newbie - tips and resources for new writers (perfect for me!)

I subscribed to all three RSS feeds and I look forward to reading what these bloggers have to say.

Introspection

I've been following many blogs (mostly lurking, occasionally commenting) for quite awhile, and now I’m experiencing a blog from the other side. It has been one week since I started as a newbie blogger. I feel a strange mix of exposure and solitude. With every post I write, I remember that it could be read by anyone, but I know that so far I have no visitors. I’m not expecting or trying to get visitors yet, because I want to establish a track record of blogging first.

Writing a blog with no visitors is rather like writing a novel—you hope that someday someone will want to read it. Since there is no guarantee, you have to make the effort worthwhile for yourself. I’m trying to be very honest in my writing, and there is satisfaction in digging deep to figure out what I really want to say.

Learning

Yesterday I wrote about creating the idea for my novel and I mentioned using the internet to learn about writing and publishing. I expected to find writing advice and I was not disappointed. But I was surprised to find useful information about the publishing industry. In particular, I learned that when I finish my novel (thinking positive), the next step will be finding a literary agent. I was thrilled to discover several interesting and useful blogs by literary agents, and I have been following them since January. I will share my favorites in a future post.

Although I am nowhere near ready to query a literary agent, I think it is helpful to know what literary agents want. I don't mean which genres, or vampires vs. zombies. I mean what they want to see in a query letter. I think some query letter advice can be applied to writing the novel itself. In order to have a good hook, interesting conflict, and a strong voice in my query, I need to make sure I have those elements in my novel.

I'm glad I started following literary agent blogs at the early stage of my novel, instead of waiting until my novel is finished. And yes, I'm determined to finish it someday!