Friday's Interesting Links, and on the move

There's no reading section this week, because I'm not done with the book I am reading, and you'll find the selection on links is a little sparse. I've had an incredibly productive week, but it took me a bit to get back into the swing of things on the Web after the Muse Online Conference, so I didn't have time to read as many links as I usually do. You might also notice that my interesting links have a new home, along with all my posts from both my Thinking and Writing blogs. I've been planning to consolidate onto my website for a while, but I was having some difficulty getting Blogger to give up the old material. As you can see, that is no longer a problem.

So, if you're reading this on Stray Thoughts, please click over to Tales to Tide You Over and visit my home. For those of you already here, welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay and check back frequently. If you haven't been here before, please click the HOME link at the top of the page to see the rest of my site.

Writing

A good reminder about sanity in this gig:
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/03/ten-commandments-for-happy-writer.html

YES! We are artists making point by point decisions, not computers churning out results to specification, and I'm a programmer so actually understand the work that getting those results take. It sounds very hoity-toity, and I don't mean it in the way that avoids editing, but applying a "rule" blindly can weaken the text more than using all the tools in the chest as they were intended.
http://blog.writersdigest.com/norules/2009/10/20/TheMuchMalignedAdverb.aspx

Fun comic about plot twists:
http://dresdencodak.com/2009/05/11/42-essential-3rd-act-twists/

A thought on the meta message being sent by YA fiction:
http://www.plottopunctuation.com/blog/show/32

Because we all need the reminder that our carefully edited and polished manuscripts will be edited again after acceptance:
http://kmessner.livejournal.com/126769.html

Submitting

An approach to synopsis writing with potential:
http://frohock.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/another-take-on-the-synopsis/

Some agents want to see how you found them, some want to see who you think you write like, and others want the exact opposite. It only goes to show just how different agents can be.
http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/08/query-dissection-kelly-gays-better-part.html

Proof that publishing runs in cycles. The "standalone" label has become powerful again. A lowdown on the state of series:
http://kidlit.com/2009/10/21/querying-with-a-series-series-in-general/

A peek into "almost there":
http://magicalwords.net/cemurphy/one-step-shy/

Science

Robots are cool, but that this is a local discovery is even better :).
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427305.600-hydrogen-muscle-silences-the-domestic-robot.html

And on the other end of the spectrum, a Bronze Age town:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18023-underwater-town-breaks-antiquity-record.html