Links Make The World Go Around

Gentle Reader,

Happy Monday morning! To blow away those start-of-the-week cobwebs, here are a few links for your edification and amusement:

1.  Laughing is good for you, so click here...

I’ve recently discovered a great new blog called Awful Library Books: the Shame of Library Collections. 

You know how you’re standing in line at the library lending desk, and you see the “bargain books” bin? And you dash out of line, heart in mouth, all filled with the anticipation of something wonderful? And then, of course, your heart sinks as you realise you gave up your place in line for nothing better than out-of-date decorating magazines (fifty cents each) and a couple of 1980s parenting books of dubious ideology (two dollars apiece). These bins tend to be an elephant’s graveyard of books whose last outing from the library predated the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And let’s face it: for every out-dated book garnering sneers in the bargain bin, there are twenty more gathering dust on the lending shelves, reminiscing about the last time they were borrowed (during the Reagan administration, most likely).

Well, bless librarians everywhere if they haven’t taken the opportunity to celebrate the weird, obsolete and sometimes downright funny books languishing in the recesses of public libraries! Awful Library Books takes a hilarious look at books that really oughtn’t be in the library shelves any longer.


2. Learning from other people's mistakes is SO much more fun, so click here...


This week's Murder your Darlings post is up! Learn from the mistakes of my very first manuscript: how not to treat your reader; the embarassing lesson of why research is so important; and killing dialogue tags. Go on, it will make you feel good about your own early stuff...

3. In a recession, FREE is good, so click here... 

Meanwhile, let’s hear it for generous writers who are giving away their knowledge FOR FREE. There are so many out there – a great deal on my blog roll. 

Today I want to share the link of recent blogger Carolyn Arnold, who has launched a nine-part discussion on creating characters so real that they seem like they’ll stroll off the page. The Developing Characters You Can Pinch series can  be found here, so add it to your favourites.

4. I like people who like me, so click here...

And finally, I was delighted to have my flashfic featured this week at The Chrysalis Project. Thanks, team! The prompt – a good one! – was “I knew you could buy magic spells for that; I just didn’t know you could get them on EBay”. You can read my short story on their page here, but I think the formatting and italics work a bit better on this page.

More full of links than a string of sausages,

Charlotte