#ROW80 and Sunday Reading Recs

So, to further confound my ROW80 efforts at getting back on track with writing and the online stuff, I went to Florida where I’m almost never online at all. Hence when I checked my file for recommendations this week, I found it a bit old. But if they’re things you missed when they were knew, I hope they’re still interesting.

Meanwhile, though I at least posted a few times on the blog this week, I didn’t keep my schedule, my email is still a mess and I’m pretending I don’t know where Twitter is. Not doing great. Still, we’re hoping for better things after school starts.

I’m  still working on my blueprint for the next book, just not as much as I should be. And though Joss and Dylan were all over each other in the car last night on my way home from seeing Harry Potter, I don’t have a whole lot written down. I need to get on brainstorming for that while Kait’s brain is freeing itself on Red and before she gets on to the next thing.

Recommended Reading

Superhero Romance
Ooh, a post about superhero romances! Always good reading. (via Twitter @AMhairi_Simpson)

Ebook Vending Machines
An article on an ebook vending machine unveiled in Japan. It’s about time. I don’t get why this didn’t happen right away. I don’t get why the big chains didn’t set up ebook buying and put kiosks in their stores with self-checkout and point of sale displays of SD cards and other portable storage devices to encourage impulse buying from all book readers. Being in the bookstore makes you want to buy books, and if you’re an e-only convert, you have to go home and order it? Impulse sale fail. Anyway, interesting news item. (via Twitter @aeTyree)

Pantsting is okay but…
In a recent blog post, Joe Konrath talks about writing deliberately. He writes, “But if a writer is completely aware of why they wrote what they wrote, and can explain the reason for every chapter, scene, and sentence, I’d call that deliberate, and by definition, it can’t be crap.” Discovering a story by writing by the seat of your pants is an exciting process that often feels magical. And if that’s the way you roll, great. I think a lot of stories suffer, though, by the fact that too many unrelated bits of awesome escape the editing axe. A book only needs so many bits to give it character and style and some of those just need to go. One of the reasons I prefer to plot is that it’s intentional. The awesome bits I come up with are more likely to be related to what I meant to write about just because I sat down at the keyboard knowing what I set out to do. And then I don’t have to kill as much, which no one likes doing. Anyway, the post goes on to detail a number of things that can help you decide if you’re an idiot, which is also worth reading (esp. if you’re not as ZOMG-serious as some of the commentors). (via subscription)

On Borders
Kathleen Schmidt, aka @Bookgirl96, explains what Borders’ closing will mean for non-mega-star trad published authors. (via Twitter #MyWana @Elizabeth_Aston)