Link Love

Has it really been more than a week since I last blogged? What is becoming of me? Well, for one, it’s fall. And fall means holidays and birthdays galore. All of our friends’ kids were born in the fall/early winter, which means nearly every weekend for the next two months I will be eating pizza and cupcakes while my children jump themselves silly in Disney Princess bounce houses. This weekend we have three birthday parties. Last weekend we did about twenty-five Halloween activities. Next weekend we have another birthday party, and the weekend after that, another. Then Thanksgiving and on and on until January when I—along with everyone else—will make New Year’s Resolutions to eat less, exercise more, spend less money, and blog more. Meanwhile, I’ve been gathering these links over the past few weeks, and they’re all worth checking out:

First up, a working mother’s guide to writing a novel. I love this article. My favorite line is “You write because when you’re not writing, you’re even more cranky than when you are writing.” My first thought when I read this was, “But her kids are in school. They’re not 1 and 2.” But all her points are valid because, whether we like to admit it or not, we DO have time to write. Kids or no kids. One kid or three. We just have to make a lot of sacrifices.

Which brings me to another great article about finding time to write and motherhood and every artist’s pursuit of happiness. Thanks to Kasia for sending me this one by Anne Lamott.

And now a plug for my colleague Matthew Zapruder, whose poem “Pocket” I posted a while back. Check this review out in the New York Times: “Matthew Zapruder has a razor eye for the remnants and revenants of modern culture. There are poems in “Come On All You Ghosts” that conjure Frankenstein’s monster, White Castle’s square burgers and the Hadron Collider. He also has a sense of humor. “You Have Astounding Cosmic News” is set at Dazed Lute Press, which owns a soul-shaped water cooler. Then there are the moments that feel like small miracles, as in “Poem for John McCain.”

Now if you’re a San Francisco Giants fan, or even if you’re not, this video is pretty damn funny. I have to add that I had NO interest in the Giants until they were playing Game One of the World Series right down the street from my office. It was impossible not to catch the fever at that point and I managed to watch bits of games 2, 3, and 4, and all of Game 5. AND I went to the parade. Not because I wanted to go to the parade. I was heading to work thinking, “I’ll be passing by the parade route an hour before the parade, maybe I’ll stop and take a peek.” Hahaha. Turned out my train stop was shut down for crowd control and I got dumped off at the next stop, in the middle of one MILLION people. I’m not exaggerating. That was the estimate of the number of people along the parade route. I was swept up to about the fourth row off Market street, but it was still very difficult to see much, especially with everyone in front of me holding their cameras up to take pictures. I did see Barry Bonds and Gavin Newson and most of the players, including Brian Wilson. But I didn’t have my camera, just my phone, which died just before the players passed by. And I’m pretty sure I got second-hand stoned. Good times. Good times.

And in case you haven’t had enough of Giants fever, some sketches by one of my favorite authors, Dave Eggers.

A random side note, for those of you using Scrivener (and if you’re not, you should check it out), version 2.0 is out. If you have version 1.0, it’s $25 for the upgrade. I bought mine but haven’t had time to play around with it yet. I’ve heard there are quite a few improvements.

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard the bomb drop yet, Agent Nathan Bransford announced today that it was his LAST DAY AS A LITERARY AGENT. Did you hear that?? The number one agent blogger in the hemisphere is NO LONGER an agent blogger. He is leaving Curtis Brown and all of publishing to work as a social media strategist at CNET. Why is this both shocking and not surprising at all? It’s shocking, of course, because we blogger writers look up to Nathan as the guru of publishing and now he’s not even going to be working in publishing. That would be like if Julia Child decided to quit cooking and become an accountant instead. On the other hand, it’s not surprising at all because the publishing industry is in the dumps and smart, motivated people like Nathan are bound to jump ship. Also, Nathan puts a LOT of time into his blog. So much time that I’ve often wondered, “What is his motivation? To get more and better clients because every writer on Earth queries him? To sell his own book, Jacob Wonderbar?” But, of course, Nathan’s blog was popular before he wrote Jacob Wonderbar, and I’m sure he knows as well as we do that people who read a blog about publishing aren’t necessarily going to buy a YA novel about three kids who trade a corndog for a spaceship. But it all seemed like it had to be leading somewhere, all the energy put into building up this online community. And I asked myself when he was going to start consulting à la Gary Vaynerchuck, helping other businesses and individuals build their online presences. And then KAPOW! he announces he’s going to CNET to do just that. Well, Good on ya, Nate. I’m sure you’ll make more money over there than at Curtis Brown, and I’m looking forward to the next incarnation of your blog.

Happy weekend to all, and to all a good night.