Yeah, that sinus infection is coming along nicely. I was at least able to finish off The Captive last night, but I think I'll be sticking with lighter fare until I feel better. I'm at that really gross stage where [SQUEAMISH PEOPLE: SKIP THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!] I'm finding snot on all kinds of random object. Pick up a mug: snot. Roll over on the pillow: snot. Another reason to stop reading Proust for a bit: It's a library book, and although I've tried my best, I'm not entirely sure I've managed to keep it pristine.

So I'll be lazy and link, like Crabby McSlacker does!

This is a cool interview with Lee Child (via PV), in which he notes that patience pays and that there is no such thing as an overnight success. Not a new idea, but still a true one, and one worth reinforcing and remembering. [ETA: I also really liked Barbara Morgenroth's comment, " The hardest thing to be and the easiest, is to be yourself. If you don’t want to go inward to find out who you are, to find your own path, being a writer is probably going to be one of the worst career moves you can make."] It's also interesting that Child's approach is not that different from Dean Wesley Smith's--just keep crankin' those titles out!

And this Passive Voice post resulted in a comments section that so impressed PG he made it into it's own post (which now has comments...oh my God). Basically if, you feel dismal when you read marketing advice, rest assured that you are not alone. My attitude is, if you like to market, that's great--go for it. If you really don't, remember that plenty of people think that the best way to market a book is to write the next one. If you want to straddle a middle ground, I recommend Lindsay Buroker's advice--she does market, but one of her main priorities is to not let marketing eat up all her writing time. (Of course, I'm neither marketing nor writing at the moment--but I am producing very impressive quantities of nasal mucus!)

I also updated my last post to note that, even if you think you don't notice typos and other small mistakes, you do.