A double-13 day today, but you should feel lucky because there’s so much Great Stuff waiting below. Techniques for getting started or keeping going, for pulling in the reader, setting mood, and more. News about Smashwords and indie publishing. Making better use of social media generally and Goodreads and Twitter in particular. Even a link to an old video game based on The Great Gatsby! Check it out.

CRAFT

Just in case you don’t already have enough to read, or you’re looking for something specific that you haven’t found yet, Katie Weiland (@KMWeiland) lists 10 of My Favorite Writing-Craft Sites. Two you see mentioned a lot here—Writer Unboxed and The Creative Penn—are on the list, plus others I hadn’t heard of.

Not only is James Scott Bell (@jamesscottbell) an excellent writer...

If you read nothing else this week, read Joel Friedlander’s piece on the destruction of the writing web site Publetariat down in the Technology section. Protecting your blog or web site needs to be high on your priority list because there are slimeballs out there who will destroy web sites just for the pleasure of destroying them. If you have a WordPress.org-based site, I point you to a resource that will help you keep your site safe.

In addition we have posts on picking titles, getting everything right in a story, ending it well, ebook publishing options and resources, going to writers’ conferences, writer’s courage, and the differences between Microsoft Word formats and why that matters to you.

CRAFT

Kris Montee, one of the sisters who write as PJ Parrish, has plenty of great advic...

Variety in your writing life. Rachelle Gardner advocates it and we’ve got it: craft-wise, business-wise, life-wise, even wise-cracking-wise. Great—even wise—tools for your toolkit.

CRAFT

Allison Vesterfelt (@allyvest) guest posts on Jeff Goins’ blog with the question, Is Your Writing Timeless? Yes, she really does mean, is your writing dealing with issues that will still matter a long time from now? Now, that seems like a tall order, a task reserved for “literary” fiction and not for the other genres that are too often dismissed as “mere entertainment.” Yet non-literary fiction can certainly deal with questions of how people deal with big issues in their lives—mortal or psychological danger, loneliness, fear, conflict—without descending into plotless maundering...