“Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It’s as ludicrous as saying, “I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor.” Either pick it up or don’t. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper’s full. Take it off or stop talking about it.”
Chuck Wendig
I can’t even emphasize this enough. Wendig is the one who got me back on the writing wagon. I’d been off for a long time. A couple of years splashing aimlessly about in fuckwit territory whining about the publishing industry and writer’s block and blah blah blah. And then I found terribleminds.
He’s funny, he’s clever, and he doesn’t waste time with bullshit. He’s a practical writer – none of this ‘waiting for the muse to strike’ nonsense. I think he’s writing five books this year, in addition to other projects? Just thinking about that makes me tired. But in between squeezing out brilliant fiction, he finds the time to write this blog, which is totally free and has tons of great writing-advice like articles, but it also has book reviews, flash-fiction challenges, and delicious recipes.
This guy’s the best, and if I weren’t so gay I’d be totally in love with him. As it is I think I have a strange straight ladyboner for HIS WORK YOU GUYS TOTALLY HIS WORK AND NOT AT ALL HIS DELICIOUS BEARD. Shut up.
Here’s a few of my favorite blog posts:
25 Turns, Pivots, and Twists to Complicate Your Story
25 Things You Should Know About Worldbuilding
And basically any of his “25 Things” lists, which all have to do with some aspect of writing. Many of these posts are also collected into sexy little ebooks, which you can buy on Amazon and will make you a better writer, if you like, you know, write. Or whatever.
But if you don’t write, you can still fall in sweet literary love with the manbeard (beardman?) because he is, of course, a writer, and writeslovely novels which I have spent lots of my own pennies on because torrenting things, especially things from really cool people who provide you with loads of awesome things that are already free, is really naughty. And not the fun kind of naughty, either.
So go forth and consume this bearded wunderkind with haste. OM NOM.
Books I Should Have Read A Long Time Ago 