Walking Sticks (and other blunt instruments)

On every journey there is a degree of jauntiness to be had by sporting a particularly handsome walking stick, a support for when the knees grow weak and the breath comes harder.

Some of my favourite supports are listed in the sidebar on the right.

I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I do; I will be returning to these items in future.

EDIT: A bit of extra detail from me about some of those wonderful resources I have linked to.

1) Podcasts

You may love them or hate them, but I've listened to probably hundreds of hours of writing advice, several minutes of which have, after much effort, penetrated the quivering ossified mess that is my brain. I know that I should be writing, that I'm out of excuses and must now go and write and that, of course, Odyssey is an eight week writing workshop in St. Anselm college.

More seriously though, I love these people for the fact that they are sharing, freely and without financial inducement, some of the most solid advice out there. The links in the sidebar are not exhaustive, they are not all of the fun podcasts out there, but they ARE the ones I like. So here's to Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing, Podcastle, Escape Pod, I Should Be Writing and Writing Excuses.

2) The Blog

Well, it's sad and a bit depressing, but the only person who I follow closely for their blog stuff is Chuck Wendig (from Terribleminds). He's called me (and everyone else like me) 'penmonkeys' repeatedly, he hands out sweary writing advice in the greatest traditions of the expletive-riddled stylings of Bobcat Goldthwait and has generated some of the most convoluted insults I have ever seen. He happens to be a successful author as well, so that helps.

3) Magazines

Just a subscription to Locus at the minute; link to follow. Fair warning to the Locus reading public out there: I'm aiming to submit a short story there as my first sale. Feel free not to buy that issue.