2 Referrals

I'll make this short (are you hyperventilating with delight?).  There is (at least) one blogger (Jessica Howard) and one author (Taylor Stevens) whose posts are worth following.  The blogger is the Quirky Bookworm.  Her blogpost is quirkybookworm.com.  In her latest post, she lists 5 tips for getting out of a reading slump.  Although I have to say that I have never had this problem, I can still recognize that it might happen to some of you.  Her 1st 2 tips are:

1. Finish a book. Normally I'm a big proponent of reading multiple books at once, but when you're feeling slumpy, it's easy to read a few pages here and a few pages there, and then fizzle out. If you focus in and finish one book, it can give you just the little boost of triumph that you need to tackle a new book.
2. Reread a favorite. I reread a couple of Georgette Heyer books I love, and re-listened to Fangirl on audio. I find that my brain gets into tv/game mode, where all I want to do is binge on Netflix or play Two Dots on my phone. Rereading something I love just helps my brain switch back into words-mode, which is just the boost I needed to start reading some light fiction. 

If you want to see the other 3 (I got permission to post some of the 5), then you will need to go on her blogsite.  It will be well worth it.

Taylor Stevens is a NYTimes best-selling author.  She has written 5 books, starting with The Informationist, that features Vanessa Michael Munro.  Besides being a good author (I've read 2 of the 5), she writes a very informative blog that really tells us non-authors the ins and outs of the business. Her latest post is to help writers write (see the synopsis below). But most of her blogs tell us the inside part of the business that we would never know.  For example, one of her recent posts explained what kind of sales are needed to become a national bestseller.  Wouldn't that be fun to know?  If you want to regularly receive her posts, go on her website - taylorstevensbooks.com - click on Contact, and sign up.  I'm pretty sure that if you're like me (is anybody ready to admit that publicly?), then you will be happy to become an insider.

Hack the Craft is an online learning program designed for novelists and storytellers who are looking to shortcut their way to cleaner, stronger, better writing.