Tuesday, February 23, 2010

BlogAddiction

To add to Claire's wonderful list from yesterday -- and quite frankly, there's a lot of overlap already (g) -- I wanted to share some of my favorite blog haunts. Ummm, perhaps this is a large number, perhaps it is a small number -- I really have no way of gauging, so you tell me. I follow about 100 blogs. :) Most are writing pals at various stages in their writing journeys. Some are people who have NO clue who I am. All I know is they are a rather prolific bunch. If I leave messages unread even for a couple of days, I usually have to call it good and mark all messages read because I'm simply unable to catch up.

Like Claire, I follow most of the web-present agents -- Nathan Bransford, Kristin Nelson, Janet Reid... I, of COURSE, follow Maureen Johnson's blog, though I still haven't learned the fine art of Twitter. I don't know what a retweet?? (if that's even what it's called) is... I don't know that I'll ever know what a retweet is... Perhaps one of you can explain this to me. And if needed, provide me with the correct term. Yes, I have tweeted before...but I just don't get it. (g)

Anywho...on to some of my faves.

By far one of my favorite finds of All Time is J.A. Konrath's blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing. He's the author of the Jack Daniels mystery series. I enjoy his books, but his blog is FANTASTIC. If you want to hear it straight from an author in the mix of things, trying to survive in this crazy industry, read and enjoy. He's not going to sugarcoat anything. At the same time, he has some of the best damn advice I've ever read. I leave his blog PUMPED UP to write.

For whatever reason, I follow a gazillion YA authors. I don't know if it's because they simply have a better web presence..or okay, I'm just drawn to them a little more because they're such a whacky bunch. Either way, these are some of my favorites.

MAUREEN JOHNSON, people. Have we made it clear she's completely made of awesome yet? :) She hasn't blogged in a while *sob* which probably means she's cheating on us all over at Twitter. Gabnabbit. I may have to go over there now.

Libba Bray. Why? Because she cracks me up. AND she keeps it real about how damn scary it is to be a writer. It's quite reassuring to hear a Bestselling Author freak out from time to time about how no one is going to like her books. Reminds me that we're not alone in these insecurities.

Natalie Whipple's blog, Between Fact and Fiction. Natalie is a recent find of mine -- found her through Nathan Bransford, who reps her. She's a dynamo. I seriously have no idea how she has the time or energy to whip out book after book the way she does. Even though she's unpublished thus far, she has some seriously kick-ass writing tips and advice about this and that. Plus she cracks me up. (Do you sense a theme here?)

THE VLOG BROTHERS 2.0!!! No questions, just go! John Green...Hank Green. One a YA author (who is completely made of awesome), the other his fantastically wonderfully funny brother who totally rocks. They decided to communicate through video blogs for An Entire Year -- It's hilarious. Check it out. Or John Green's blog, Sparks Fly Up.

And lastly, another super funny YA author, Courtney Summers. Why? Because her Lady Ga-Ga obsession fairly cracks me up. And she writes some pretty kickass books.

Go forth and enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. I was going to add Libba Bray and the Vlog Brothers to my list but I didn't want to steal them off you in addition to all the other ones I nicked :)

    You can follow MJ's Twitter feed through your Google Reader, believe it or not. If you just open Google Reader and type Maureen Johnson into the search field, one of her Twitter comments will likely be close to the top of the list, and you can click on the source to subscribe. Every morning when I open up my Google there are, I dunno. A hundred new MJ Tweets? She's nuts, but she never fails to crack me up, even in less than 140 characters.

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  2. Oh! Thanks for the tip Claire! I haven't gotten into Twitter yet myself - mainly cos I don't have the kind of phone that would let me tweet all day and I can't see myself logging in every once in a while at work or at home just to tweet - since I'd get sucked into reading a dozen tweets at a time, probably. So it's great to know that I can get them through Google.
    I like using the blog roll on my own blog - I just open up the page and I can see the latest updated blogs and click through to each one that has a post I haven't read yet. Very handy, if I just want to peek and don't want to sign in :-)

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