Writerly linkee-poo, because I've grown tired of my own bitchin'

Really, I had a fabulous weekend at Confluence. There was awesome to be had by the pickup-truck load. Good friends, good meets, good revelations (some of which I can't talk about, sworn to secrecy in fact), and plenty of "keep your mouth shut while the adults talk about business" moments. All good stuff.

And driving back home I felt the energy tilting me toward my interior windmills. The wind blew at my back, the road rose up to meet me, and the sunshine smiled gently on my face. And then I got home and got hit with two major council things (Stop! I will not bitch, I will not bitch...).

And no words have come out since last week. I didn't get chapter 17 done, but I also did get some words from (probably) chapter 20. So it's coming out of order, which for me is a Good Thing(tm).

So first up is Six tricks for writing when you don't feel like it (mmm, all universal laughing at me goodness). Grokked from Matt Stagg.

Matt also points us to essay by Mark Chadbourn on finding the real-world roots of fantasy (set up by Jeff VanderMeer).

A NY Times article on William T. Vollman which makes writing sound almost fun again. He's the "run around, gather all the info you can while making inroads into communities and then spill it all out for a literary romp" kind of writer. Although a 1500 page book doesn't sound like my cup of tea, I wish I had his mad research skills. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

S. Andrew Swann talks a little about writing "Once more, but with feeling."

Steven Brust is writing a hilarious series of buddhist knock offs on his blog. Seriously funny stuff there about "Billy-Bob Gautama. Like these gems, "Life is like a flea on a coon hound.  Well, really, it ain’t much like that at all" and "Before Enlightenment: change the oil and rotate the tires.  After Enlightenment: change the oil and rotate the tires."

Speaking of "cut wood, carry water," Rick is back to his old tricks with dragons.

And finally, because time is pressing, Jennifer Jackson is back to her letters from the query wars. Some good stuff for us wannabee published authors.