A trio of writing-related links.

Legendary editor Ellen Datlow has joined the blogging world (I can't quite bring myself to write "blogosphere" and expect you, gentle reader, to take it seriously. Maybe in a year or two I will).

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"Things I've learned since I got my first book published" by C.M. Priest.

(Via Writing and Rambling)

Everything she says here makes perfect sense to me, the aspiring writing who's been on the outside looking in for more than 10 years now. Reading this list still makes me jealous though, still makes me wish it was me. I did recently send off a full manuscript to an agent; hope springs eternal, and I'll die trying if I have to.

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"James Patterson quits writing to focus on ideas."

I did a quick Google search to confirm that this was a fake story, but upon first read I thought it was for real. LOL funny. I hate to speak ill of anyone here on my blog, but Patterson is a hack of the first degree. It's almost an insult to writers to call this guy a writer - literary puppy mill is more apt.

I read one of his nursery rhyme books once, and it was hysterical (the book was Cradle and All). Lines like, "She had made out with boys, but damn it, damn it, damn it, she knew the difference between kissing and...fucking," and "Father Nicholas Rosetti had never been so focused yet so devoid of original and illuminating thought in his life," scream for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.

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Currently Playing: Amy Winehouse, Back to Black ("Rehab" has become a temporary obsession. I'm playing it 6 or 7 times daily).