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Contributing Editor Mir also blogs at Woulda Coulda Shoulda and Ty's Toy Box.
I read lots of different sorts of blogs, covering various topics. My two favorites are probably parenting blogs and author blogs. Imagine my glee when a blog is BOTH!
Although she doesn't post as often as I wished (hint, hint), Martha of The Random Muse is a veteran mom blogger whose first book will be coming out next year. She's allowed us to follow along as she is deflowered in the publishing world, and she's not sugar-coating the glamour:
As many of you know, back in January, I sent the first draft of my book to my editor. I was relieved and giddy and drinking champagne and buying myself congratulatory new shoes and dancing down the street and because I was Finished! I had written a book! I had spent close to a year slaving away on it, and I was done! Hallelujah and all that!
And then I calmed down.
And then I waited for feedback from my editor.
And then I got it.
And then I cried.
The entire entry is honest and full of the snarky humor her fans were drawn to long before she had a book deal.
And where else can you get a gut-wrenching account of editing a manuscript right after pictures of children dressed up as plagues?
If you're in the mood for some seasoned-author tips interspersed amongst both tales from the mothering trenches and anything else that happens to cross her mind, you have to go read Faster Than Kudzu, the blog of novelist Joshilyn Jackson.
Earlier this month, Joshilyn gave a neat little mini-lecture on the roles of voice and conflict in good writing. If it had been delivered by anyone else, it would've been dry and pedantic. But even her writing technique tidbits leave you laughing helplessly:
NOW! Go look in a mirror. If you see Pat Conroy looking back at you, feel free to begin with a description of landscape and, really, if you ARE Pat, you can natter on about it for pages and pages if you so desire. If you see a slightly less established writer, you need to cut that beautiful tree paragraph.
Somehow, that entry later gave birth (today) to this entry, which travels the world from praise for Miss Snark's writing advice to wishing she could hit the mall with her preschooler without being subject to "rump cleavage" and all points inbetween.
You just never know what you're going to get, with these sorts of blogs. But I remain fascinated.
Are there other outstanding author-mom bloggers out there I should be reading? I think I have four or five minutes in the day I haven't filled, yet....
Mir
(image: Columbus Public Library, NE)
