Attention Writers: Win a Manuscript Critique

Attention all you would-be published writers: a literary agent named Nathan Bransford (he’s with Curtis Brown Ltd.) is offering a critique of a proposal (synopsis and first three chapters).

Nathan Bransford, literary agent

Nathan has one of the best publishing blogs out there, which builds community, educates writers, spreads publishing news, preaches the super-important gospel about how to write a non-crap query letter, and a zillion other things besides. He even made newspapers with his blog recently by taking a good idea and running with it: the Be an Agent for a Day Contest.

I mention this because it’s a great blog, and through it (and my other dealings with him) Nathan has proved again and again that he’s a good guy and a straight shooter.

So … how do you get such rare, personal attention from a high-flier such as him? Well all ya gotta do is bid for it. See, Nathan donated said critique to benefit diabetes research.

So tell all your writer friends.

How to Edit Even Goodlier

Ye Olde Bloge has been unusually quiet of late because I’ve been editing. I writ a book, book clunky, book needs revision.

So I reread. Hmm, thinks I. That sucks. I edit. It sucks a little bit less. I edit whole page. Page sucks less, but takes a while. Now I repeat process 387 times. Whole things sucks a bit less, but in a slightly different way. Eyes very glazed.

Yetsomehowduringallthis, I keep stumbling across goodly things about editing.

First, some advice on rewriting:

Next, the (karaoke) experience of rewriting with an editor:

And last but not finally, a word on the the impotence of proofreading (yeah, you read that right)

The Onion on Corporations Going Green

God, I love The Onion. I bow down to them for this: