Monday’s Top 5

Tamara Paulin (very excitingly) finished the first draft of her 3rd novel this week. (Three cheers to her: Hip hip! Hooray! Hip hip! Hooray! Hip hip! Hooray!) She wrote a fantastic post called On the Eve of Finishing my 3rd Novel about the things she learned during the process.

Billie Jo Woods is back after a brief break from blogging (other than posting her flash fiction, which you should totally read). She’s come out swinging with a fabulous post about Taming the imagery, primping the prose, and finding the balance. She talks about how much description is too much or too little, and how to try to find a balance.

I’m not going to lie — I’m a bit of a Chuck Wendig fangirl, and a terribleminds devotee. Since I link back to his site each week when I post my Flash Fiction Challenge entry, I generally don’t include his posts in my Top 5. But this week he posted The Secret Menu of Writing Advice, and I couldn’t resist. It includes such wisdom as ‘Write Big and Write Bold or Go the Fuck Home’. Not to be missed.

On to non-writing related links, I got a good chuckle out of Kim Pugliano’s post The Pain of Being “Unfollowed”. I know I’m guilty of regularly checking my stats to see how many page visits I’ve had, and I get a warm glow of fuzzy satisfaction every time someone makes a comments, ‘Likes’ a post, or (even better) chooses to subscribe to my blog. Kim talks about how she feels when the opposite happens, and she has two people un-subscribe. It’s funny cos it’s true.

Finally, I have something a bit different this week. It’s a link to a YouTube video. Hear me out! Maybe this guy is super-world-famous in the US, but I just came across him this week and he’s amazing. So please enjoy impressionist Jim Meskiman reciting Shakespeare in a variety of voices including Owen Wilson, George Clooney, Christopher Walken, and Morgan Freeman.