Link Line-up

Coming up on the end of the year and we've past the end of Nanowrimo so here are some links to keep you going right up until January 1, 2010!

Do you have to sacrifice a great deal if you want to be a great writer? John Scalzi says you just have to give up an hour of television a day and you'll be off to a great start. And you don't necessarily need to suffer for success, either.

Need some tips or just some motivation to keep going? Marelisa Fábrega give us 54 Tips for Writers, From Writers over on her Abundance blog. I love the quotes from Annie Dillard and I am totally going to go read that book.

I hate writing dialogue because I feel like it is never as witty or quick moving as the novels I read. Laura Cross lists 12 Characteristics of Great Dialogue that helped me see how to improve so I'm working on getting better. This post is geared toward screenwriting but I think it applies to any dialogue you're writing.

Writer's block, dare I even say it, haunts all of us. Dani Shapiro gives us her thoughts on writer's block and they definitely drove the rain cloud from my window! "If writing is, as I believe it to be, an act of courage--the daily triumph of faith over doubt, willingness over insecurity, hope over cynicism--then the inability to do so for days on end is a failure not of character, nor of biochemistry, but of nerve."

I know this time of year we are usually thinking about pie rather than cake, but these 17 Amazing Sci-fi Themed Cakes really take the... well... you know.