Which Writing Blogs Do You Follow?

 

Two weeks ago (17 May), I was at the Zoom ACW event on ‘How To Get Your Book Published’.  Our speakers included Nicki Copeland (Instant Apostle), Amy Scott Robinson (Kevin Mayhew), Natasha Woodcraft (Broad Place Publishing) and authors Rachel Knowles (Christian historical fiction), Wendy H Jones (author in several genres)… and many others.  At the Writers Day we were provided with a very useful all-round refresher about the publishing industry:  traditional; hybrid; self-publishing… and also the dreaded vanity publishing and how to spot a vanity publisher.

We writers learn a lot from each other and what I appreciated at that event was seeing and hearing speakers speaking, not exactly in the flesh, but in real time through our computer screens – and answering questions. 

To keep in touch with my fellow writers at other times, I follow several writing blogs/newsletters.  At one time I followed a lot more, but I came to find much of the advice given in many of them bland, or repeating the same thing over and over again.  I have followed and unfollowed a lot of blogs in my time. These are the ones I find most useful now:

Anne R Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris

Anne’s strapline is ‘Writing about writing.  Mostly.’  And there you have it.  Anne writes light-hearted crime fiction, her main character being an impoverished debutante running a bookshop on the Californian coast.  What I enjoy about Anne's blog is that she sees the writing world as it is, debunking much of the bog-standard ‘writing advice’ dished out to we scribblers.  And she always invites feedback, other writers' experiences and viewpoints.

A good example is her take on writing groups.  As we have all experienced, writing groups can give us much-needed support and valuable feedback – the right sort of writing group, that is. Not one that adopts its own group-think and where one member dominates, enforcing his/her own preferences on everyone else.

Harry’s Friday Email (Jericho Writers)

Harry Bingham is one of the leading lights of Jericho Writers.  Harry writes crime fiction (I haven’t read any) and is a literary agent (and, no, he’s not looking for authors to represent at the moment).  Harry writes with authority.  At the moment, he is running a series on editing, all solid stuff, with weekly assignments and opportunities for feedback on your writing… but all with a sense of humour.  His emails always finish with several PSs, the last one always something like this: PPPPPS: Hate writing? Too many tears in your soup? Then jingle your braceleted arms, scratch your fuzzy pate, and unsubscribe.’

Many people recommend Jericho Writers and, certainly, they run many events, some free to members, but membership is expensive.  However, you can get Harry’s Friday Emails by joining free as a Townhouse member here.

Ramblings from a Writers’ Mind

This blogger, Paul White, writes long posts (as the name of his blog suggests), but he is not afraid to go against received opinion in the writing world.  I recently re-blogged one of his posts about self-publishing with Amazon.

Wendy H Jones, one of the speakers at the ACW Writers day, and other writers recommended  The Creative Penn  Joanna, who focusses on self-publishing, presents weekly podcasts but, me, I’m not good at taking things from the spoken word.  Throughout the ACW event last Saturday, I was taking notes.

There are many more writing blogs out there, some better than others.  I’m looking forward to finding out which ones you follow. 

 

Rosemary Johnson writes flash fiction, short stories, novels and book reviews, and lots else besides, including recipes for her local church magazine.  She is the author of Wodka, or Tea with Milk, a novel set during the Solidarity years in Poland in 1980-1, and Past andPresent, a collection of her short stories,  will be published by Bridge House Publishing, in June/July.  In real life, she lives with her husband in Essex.