Must Read Writing Blog Posts 20-26 May 2013

If you're a writer submitting your work publication, chances are you've faced rejection. I certainly have; by the time I made my first sale, I had earned over three hundred rejections for my novel-length projects. Rejection can be disheartening, but there's value in not giving up. Here are some practical ways to stay motivated.

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, the former Labour Scotland minister, said the other day of Nigel Farage: "He is like a bull in a china shop and has just come into Scottish politics with flat feet and muddied the water."

Friday, April 20, 2012 at 10:42AM What did you read growing up? Basically, whatever was available. We always lived in small towns, most of which didn't have libraries. When I was in third grade, we moved to Robeline, Louisiana, and they had one.

Mapping the world's writing systems. Also see this visual history of how sounds became shapes and this short animation on who invented writing.

It's entirely possible that the title of this post is completely off. I mean, what I've really compiled is a list of the books on writing that I love the best.

I always knew I would be a writer "when I grew up." I could see myself sitting in a rustic log cabin, a fire blazing, a loyal dog at my feet, and crumpled sheets of paper on every surface. In my mind, I was a female version of Stephen King.

by Maria Popova "Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind - vividly, forcefully - that good writing, which stops with clarity and logic, doesn't." The secrets of good writing have been debated again and again and again. But "good writing" might, after all, be the wrong ideal to aim for.

In March of 1962, acclaimed author John Steinbeck wrote the following letter to Edith Mirrielees - a lady who, as his professor of creative writing at Stanford 40 years previous, had been an enormous influence on his development as a writer and, he later claimed, one of the few things he respected about the university.

Inbox 0: in a bad way. Has your brilliant content still not scored you that dream writing position, lucrative business partnership, or sweet recognition among your peers and target audience? If you think your articles are top-notch, but there's a lonely tumbleweed blowing through your barren website, it may be because you're just a writer.

Albert Camus, Creative Writing Instructor. Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear. Don't address me as Professor Camus. Call me Al. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just sit in those desk-chairs and pay attention to what I write on the blackboard.

In 2012 I wrote my first novel, Bushido. The gritty tale about a down on his luck Yakuza general that is forced to take up arms against his old boss (and a thousand other Japanese miscreants) immediately caught the attention of Kathy Ullman at Bantam Dell books and went on to become a New York Times bestseller.

Many avid readers are also avid writers. It only makes sense that someone who loves the beauty of language would want to make a craft of it. However, even the best writers get stuck from time to time, and it's always nice to get a push in the right direction.

Freelance writing is not an easy task, but with a huge demand for paid freelance writers in blogosphere, you can earn good online income through freelancing. You need to have a good positive working attitude, start your freelance writing career after planning, and eventually promote your freelancing work effectively.

Some while ago, with reference to Orwell's essay on "Politics and the English language", I addressed the language of the internet, an issue that stubbornly refuses to go away. Perhaps now, more than ever, we need to consider afresh what's happening to English prose in cyberspace.

Philip Hoare won the Samuel Johnson prize for Leviathan, his musings on whales. This new book, "part memoir, part fantastical travelogue", sees him rediscover the sea, from the south coast of the UK to the Azores and New Zealand, investigating both natural and human history. Fourth Estate, 6 June.

By Heart is a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature. Most novels are never finished, only abandoned. Herman Melville scribbled changes onto the final proofs of Moby-Dick until the printer's deadlines could wait no longer; in her journals, Virginia Woolf announced at least four separate times that she'd finally completed The Waves.

Vladimir Nabokov was eighteen when the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 made his wealthy family's continued residence in Petrograd (as St. Petersburg was renamed at the start of World War I) impossible. They fled first to the Crimea and then, in 1919, to London.

List of the best blog posts about writing, fiction, literature etc from May 27 to 31.