Posts to Check Out!
Deep Characters for Plot-First Writers a guest-post by Suzanne Johnson on Roni Loren's blog. Definitely worth a read!
The Nine-Grid Plan on freelance editor CA Marshall's blog. This is a really fascinating method for hammering out the important parts of your story. I'm definitely going to do this with Beggar's Twin before I get started.
Turning Ideas into Plots by Zoe Marriott, of Zoe-Trope. This is a really interesting method, with fun little graphics included. I can definitely see how it would be useful, though I haven't
Love Scenes in Fantasy by Paul Anthony Scott Also from Roni Loren's blog. This isn't really a "how-to" as much as a comment on both how the fantasy genre tends to display sex and what we should keep in mind to prevent our characters from falling into the demeaning stereotypes prevalent in some fantasy fiction.
Improving Creativity: The Connect Brainset by Livia Blackburne. If you haven't checked out her blog, you should. Livia Blackburne is a "brain scientist" and a writer, who studies the neural effect of writing, reading, and many other things. This post is sort of her version of "filling the well". Worth a read!
Think of the Parents by Scott Westerfeld. As well as writing really great YA, Scott Westerfeld often blogs about issues associated with the YA genre, and his post addressing the "Dark YA" issue that's been circulating these past two or three months is well worth a look. I love that he's not only writing to other authors, but for the Young Adult audience itself, and addressing their questions and comments in a way that doesn't treat them like they're not intelligent and not involved. After all...it's their fiction.
And if you REALLY have a lot of time, or if you're supposed to be driving or doing chores rather than reading blogs, check out Pendragon Variety's Villain Workshop! It was a ton of fun to participate in, and it was really helpful to take part in.