Reviews and Reviewers and a Recommendation

Hey, all my writing friends. Here's a brilliant response for reviews and reviewers that I thought you might enjoy. A couple of months ago, one of my friends who is a published author posted the following link and I read it and was nodding my head again and again and again. Something sparked the memory yesterday, so I hunted for the link and finally, in exasperation, messaged my friend who (fortunately) was able to pull the info for me quickly. So set aside a bit of time and read Nora Roberts' response to the good and bad of reviewers at: fallintothestory.com/bite-me . Don't blame me if you splurt your coffee all over your desk. She's a great writer, even in her blog, and there are some silly/funny parts to this. 

Yeah, there's some wisdom here, and a sense
of fun running right through it. 

Why have a link to a post on reviews? Well, because we've all had reviews or read stories that had reviews where we went "Huh? Were you reading the same story/book that I was?" It's also a good idea to remind yourself (and I certainly include myself in the broad 'yourself') about what a reviewer can and can't effectively do and how it can or cannot be valuable to an author. As I make friends with more and more people who write and publish a lot (and as I get more and more envious at their skills at time management and their ability to bring a plot to a conclusion), I see where a review can make a big difference in their personal monetary profit as well as help them in their constant quest to develop the next story or choose the next plot. 

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So on that note, I'm ending this short post before I head to the gym with a book recommendation. Patrick Rothfuss is a fabulous author who is meticulous in his craft. He has two books out in his Kingkiller Chronicle ("The Name of the Wind", and "The Wise Man's Fear"), and then late last year he wrote an extraordinary side tale called "The Slow Regard of Silent Things". He starts this story out with an explanation of why you shouldn't read the book without having read the others first. He's WRONG. Read this book. It's short - less than 100 pages. It breaks every storytelling convention. It has no conversations, it has no real plot, but it has a fascinating background for exploration, a character who operates with a very different thought process very successfully, and through breaking the conventions, he crafts a jewel of a story. It's been in my TBR pile and I just worked my way up to it, so it's been out there a while. Treat yourself to a little bit of the unusually rich, and discover how words can make something out of nothing. 

Looking for something to read? I highly recommend this short book. 

So, there you go. My blog for Tuesday. I gained three pounds eating crap for Super Bowl, so to the elliptical and the treadmill I go. Have a great day.