While I studied English lit at Uni, I'm largely self-taught as a writer. I never took any creative writing courses (not for lack of want or respect for them), so I started studying all the resources I could get my hands on once I decided to give writing a serious try. It's now been more than a year since I first entered this wonderful world of writerly advice and I have a couple of favorites to highlight (in no particular order).
Favorite Writing Blogs
- Writerology, run by Faye Kirwin. Her background in psychology makes for really awesome posts on character development and she has a number of articles on the psychology of writing, what makes authors tick and so on. I also took part in her Writember Workshop that helped me a lot (I got the premium package in a giveaway after buying a bundle of ebooks which included Faye's).
- Well-Storied, run by Kristen Keiffer. The range of the topics she covers is fantastic and she really has great writing advice. Everything from outlining, editing, to building your author platform and publishing.
- Jane Friedman. This is an invaluable hub of publishing advice.
- Helping Writers Become Authors, run by K. M. Weiland. Another blog with a great range of topics covered - plotting, drafting, editing. One of my go-to resources for when I need some writing advice.
- Susan Dennard. She's a famous YA fantasy author but has been writing about writing for years and has a huge stockpile of great advice.
- Jami Gold. A lot of her articles are specific to romance (which is really great for me because not many blogs/books are!), but she has some really good general writing articles, too.
- Fiction University, run by Janice Hardy. This has some great resources for all stages of writing!
Two Great Writing Books (disclaimer: I haven't read very many writing books, I've mostly been relying on blogs, which I'm doing my best to change, but my book budget doesn't allow for indiscriminate spending. But I enjoyed these two a lot.)
- Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker is about outlining a story in a very detailed, new-to-me way, and I'm currently giving this method a try. It makes sense to me and I enjoyed reading the book!
- 2K to 10K by Rachel Aaron. I've been a fan of Aaron's fiction for a while (her Heartstrikers series is amazing!) and her blog, too, so when this popped up in my Amazon recommendations, I picked it up. It's so good! Common sense but very powerful. It's not that I think I'll ever be writing 10k words a day, but her method sounds so sensible! I'm currently trying to edit my first WIP according to her rules. We'll see how that goes!
I also created this list of editing resources for our Facebook editing group - I update it as I find new and exciting links.
What are your favorite writing blogs or books?
Are you self-taught or did you take any creative writing courses?
I'd love to hear from you!
