Music to write by: “Chaos” by Mutemath

Hey guys,

Thought I’d start the blog rolling by…referencing other blogs. Not that I don’t have anything entertaining of my own to say… but… well… you know. Though I’m far from having written a complete novel, I’m reading a bunch of blogs of literary agents and editors just to keep my thumb on the throbbing pulse of the market. I few of the more interesting/entertaining ones are described below.

Miss Snark is an anonymous literary agent. From what I glean from her blog, she represents mainly historical fiction, some non-fiction, and perhaps some romance. Despite this, she’d got spunk and is–you guessed it–full of snarky things to say which makes for an entertaining read.

The Rejecter is a literary agent’s assistant at a New York firm. She’s got a blunt manner that makes for hilarious posts and I love a good rant. She covers a lot of the same ground as Miss Snark, but she’s also writing her own stuff (and doing an MFA, poor lass).

Lit Agent X’s blog is nice mainly for working on your hooks. She doesn’t post often, but sometimes she holds hook contests where she offers a critique. If anything, it’s worth trolling the archives just to see what kind of books other budding writers are writing, and how they hope to attract a lit agent’s interest. One this thing I learned from this blog: There are tooooo many “journery” stories in fantasy. This is a tired plot device but everyone seems to write fantasy this way. Obviously, yours truly is going a different way .

Finally, for now, is the Evil Editor. The Evil Editor’s blog consists entirely of little writing games, but occasionally (he/she?) does a little exercise called “New beginnings” where she takes an existing (usually crappy) hook and rewrites it. Valuable insight.

That’s about it for now. More blogs are a comin’ never fear!