I just came across this portal to all sorts of literary links. It’s called New Pages.

Utne Magazine, one of my very favorite magazines (to which I subscribe), says, “NewPages.com, the best overall Internet portal to the alternative press, independently organizes pages of links to hundreds of magazines, independent publishers and bookstores, literary magazines, newsweeklies, and review sources. NewPages.com also publishes unique book and zine reviews, and an interesting weblog broadly covering the world of arts, publishing, and libraries.”

Check it out! (Just don’t spend so much time there that you forget to write.)

A friend wrote to me and said a friend of his was interested in an agent who charged a “registration fee.” This wasn’t a fee to read the manuscript, the agent said.

Sounded like a crock to me.

So I asked Linda Konner, a literary agent in NYC that I met through ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors), and here’s what she said:

“Registration fee? Hmmm… What precisely are you registering for? It does sound like a convenient variation on a reading fee which, as we know, isn’t charged by respectable agents, eg, members of AAR (Association of Authors Representatives). Some agents will charge clients minimal expenses fees associated with the submission and follow-up of proposals and related author materials. But unless this agent is promising something beyond the standard agent duties, no up-front fees should be paid.”

Enough said?

(If you tried this link the other day and it didn’t work, try again; I re-pasted it.)

I don’t generally go for tests and such, but this one was fun, and gave me much to–ahem–smile about.

Click here to take the test.

Report your results. I got 12 out of 20, which surprised me. I thought I knew fake smiles!

There’s an article by Eric Miles Williamson in today’s Los Angeles Times about Cormac McCarthy and Oprah’s concern with moral fiction.

Click here.

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Anyone else see it?

I’ve reached the end of the second draft of Starletta’s Kitchen, or is it the fourth draft? In his new little book, This Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosley says that reading through your novel completely is considered one entire draft. I’ve read through it twice, outlining it, making notes, following Carolyn See’s directions on revising, so I guess that means I’ll be going into draft number five.

Done through chipping away, every day, an hour or two, sometimes more. Making it a priority.

I have so much work to do! But the book is coming into focus. I need to take a look at the plots/subplots. Make sure enough is happening, make sure the structure is solid.

So, actually, there’s still no end in sight…

I’m at the end of the draft novel–the last four chapters or so. I’ve been spending days on it. Endings are so important. The climactic scene is here and trying to decide, Should it go this way or that? How much to tie things up, or not? I like when books don’t end entirely neatly, when there are some things left undone, left a bit vague.

I’m also working and reworking a love scene. How it should go–should they get together or not? What’s enough and what’s too much? If this were a romance novel, it seems that it would be easy. I could have heaving bosoms and rippled chests and purple prose. And that would be fine.

But what the protagonist ends up doing with her high school sweetheart is telling, in terms of her character, and his, and so I keep tweaking.

Love scenes are–ahem–hard to write. Elizabeth Benedict’s book, The Joy of Writing Sex is so good. Benedict is a literary novelist and essayist. I always enjoy her writing.

I never planned to read The Horse Whisperer, but I saw it in the UCI-Extension lending library and I borrowed it. It contains a very short but strong love scene close to the beginning. I was impressed with how Evans handled it. I’ve only read a little bit of the book, but I can see already why Redford bought it to make into a movie.