Google Reader Roundup

First of all, I would like to re-announce the launch of my new design blog, Don't Leave Me This Way, a blog about usability and design and blogs and web sites. I've got a beautiful graph up there now for your designy pleasure. And, as promised, I'm giving away my super excellent chocolate chip recipe to people who follow that blog--winners announced on Monday.

• I don't normally lead off the Roundup with my own post, so forgive me for being obnoxious...but yesterday I did a post about finding a writing mentor. I really loved writing that post because I got to shout out to some of my mentors. And, the author who sparked the whole idea, Sarah Pekkanen, dropped by to comment on it all.

• Anne Allen hosts mystery writer (and stand-up gal) Elizabeth S. Craig, who gives us 17 tips on how to blog.

• Martha Alderson has a wonderful series on writing and structure and plot--truly excellent. I started watching the videos some time ago but she hadn't finished them at the time; now there are 27 of them. Her agent Jill Corcoran has them all in a convenient list for us.

• Lynn Price, the editorial director for Behler Publications, talks about publishers looking for new voices and what that means.

• I really liked this story of how author Robin O'Bryant got her agent, from her agent Jenny Bent. There are a lot of background similarities between myself and Robin. Except Robin is damn funny, and you can tell that by her story.

• Hollah! Bookends welcomes a new agent, Lauren Ruth, and she's open to submissions.

• Janet Reid sets us straight on whether we should include certain accolades for our book in our query letters.

• James Scott Bell, whose writing books I admire so much, gives us an updated 10 commandments for writers.

• Meghan Ward interviews Ethan Nosowsky, editor-at-large for Graywolf Press, on the future of publishing and author promotion and lots of other interesting things.

• Roni Loren channels James Scott Bell again with a great post on the key ingredient to a solid plot from Bell's Plot & Structure (which is my all-time favorite writing book).

• I absolutely LOVE Mia Hayson's list of 15 ways to end your manuscript. And she always has cute custom graphics.

• The Lt. has a great discussion on the phenomenon of Amanda Hocking-- giving us much to ponder. Plus he uses bold for emphasis, which I love.

• Roni Loren discusses convenient contrivances, and contrives to give us a convenient list of things to avoid conveniently contriving.

• Nathan Bransford gives us five openings to avoid using.

• Bookends has a really neat discussion of whether word count matters in ebooks.

• Agent Kristen Nelson reports on cultural zeitgeists, showing up in story lines. I always love these posts because I like checking to make sure my plot lines aren't in them.

• I love this post from Janice Hardy on better queries through movie trailers. I've long been fascinated by the ease with which movies seem to convey plots-- and trailers are supposed to entice you to view, just as queries are supposed to entice people to read.

• Linda Grimes gives us sour camel balls gum. Only Linda, peeps. Safe for work.

• And finally, Meghan Ward gave a great guest post for me last week on the Hunger Games. This week, I see my uncle Vince has picked up The Hunger Games and loved it as well--here's his reaction.