Writerly Linkee-poo is working hard for the weekend

An Observer article on authors meeting deadlines (now more important than ever). While Douglas Adams may have been able to quip, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by," I think I can fairly say none of us are Douglas Adams. And these days, his publisher might not look so kindly on his shenanigans about his deadlines. Once again it's good to remind authors, especially young authors, that they can view their writing however they want, but publishing is a business. If you want to publish, you've got to approach it as a business (this is also why I don't get all hinky about rejection, because it's "just business"). (Grokked from Jay Lake)

An NPR story on ghostwriting, the working writer's friend and profitable secret. This is another way to make writing pay. While I don't have any figures, ghostwriters are working in established markets (like Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys series) or for authors who have large advances. While a ghostwriter may only get a lump sum payment, my guess is that sum is probably higher than the average genre novel advance for first time authors ($5000, probably lower now).

I'm sure you've all seen the Uproar and Consternation(tm) over a certain genre anthology and its predilection for having re-published only white-guy fiction. It's everywhere. I pretty much agree with Jeff VanderMeer in that the editor' choices weren't intentional prejudice or sexism, they were just lazy and not stretching themselves. But that's the worse kind of racism and sexism. With the current novel project I found myself making the bad guys all Chinese. Not in and of itself a bad thing (since it's a move to take over a territory and the main mover is a Chinese Tong), but then I realized none of the Good Guys were Chinese (mix of European and Hispanic, although our hero has a very English name, I don't describe him very much, and in my mind's eye he has Native American and Hispanic roots as well and English). For a setting on the West Coast and in a post-Asian Cultural shift, that was being lazy (and playing to my own geo-political view that we are engaged in a Cold War with China). So now I think I just need to have a Canadian in there somewhere and I'll be set.

And good for a giggle is Edward Champion's The Impotance [sic] of the Editor. Laughed my butt off. (Grokked from Matt Stagg)

If you need more writerly links, scriveners error has a boatload.

And, at last, a writerly lament. All the cool kids are in Montreal so teh intertoobies are lacking in their merriment. And while I hang my head in sorry, I can console myself with I'm going to Viable Paradise in October. Sure, it may be a week of bashing one's brains out with a scholarly rock when it comes to writing, but I'll be bashing my brains out on Martha's Frickin' Vineyard (which I believe was the original name, they shortened it for the map makers).