Saturday 7 March 2009

Happy Random Things

So today, I had the choice of blogging about something really serious, heavy and mind blowing about the publishing industry or just chilling and sharing two really random but nice things I read online. Guess which one I chose.

First really nice thing: Nathan Bransford, the uber-blogging agent in New York (I think. You think Nathan's in NY?) - one of the 1376 commenters on his blog the other day pointed out that the world of publishing is turning into mush was no reason to be negative. So he's been positive all week. Which made me feel really positive too. Let me share the last two very positive itemsfrom his positive blog post Ten Commandments for the Happy Writer:
9. Be thankful for what you have. If you have the time to write you're doing pretty well. There are millions of starving people around the world, and they're not writing because they're starving. If you're writing: you're doing just fine. Appreciate it.

10. Keep writing. Didn't find an agent? Keep writing. Book didn't sell? Keep writing. Book sold? Keep writing. OMG an asteroid is going to crash into Earth and enshroud the planet in ten feet of ash? Keep writing. People will need something to read in the resulting permanent winter
Second really nice thing: I was just browsing through the vlog (VIDEO blog - how many times do I have to explain this?)of the brothers Hank and John Green - John being the award winning YA author - when I came upon a 2007 item called "How Nerdfighters Drop Insults". What's so cool about John is in most of his posts he manages to (A) Tell kids it's okay to be nerdy (B)Make literary references that might get kids interested in reading. In this video, he quotes Shakespeare:

7 comments :

  1. oh kudos (again) to Nathan - I was thinking just this the other day - so the world's going to hell in a handbasket, "what are you going to do - erm, keep writing, what the hell else am I going to do!"
    scribble, scribble, scribble...

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  2. this man is hilarious - what did he write?

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  3. Loved the Happy writer hints! Inspirational! :)

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  4. john green is the author of An Abundance of Katherines, Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns, all brilliant YA books. In fact in 2006 he won the Michael Printz award (the equivalent of the Oscar for Young Adult books) for Looking for Alaska.

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  5. Love this too--and for more positivity and happyness, you may like to know that you have been nominated for a blogging Sisterhood Award at http://www.scribblecitycentral.blogspot.com so hop on over there and have a look. That's what imaginary friends are for btw! xL

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  6. Nathan is in San Francisco -- waaaay over to the other side of the country from New York City. -wendieO

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  7. love the nerds and the shakespeare slams!

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