Write To Done: Leo Babauta's Unmissable Articles About Writing

I'm wondering if anyone noticed that I took a voluntary break in writing WritersCrunch...I've been really busy with some projects that I'm starting off February 1st. These projects took me away from being online and have been more of brainstorming, research and writing offline. More gists later.

I took a peep today at my Reader and found that I've got lots to catch up with. My first look was at Zen Habits, where I discovered an interesting new blog Write To Done by Leo Babauta. The author of the ebook Zen To Done, created the new blog as a way to share some of what he has learned as a professional writer, as well as helping writers improve their craft and art of writing.

Write To Done is aimed at writers from professionals to people who want to be writers or enjoy writing, bloggers, aspiring novelists and poets to freelance writers. The blog will be covering many topics such as journalism, blog writing, freelance writing, fiction, non-fiction, getting a book deal, the business of writing, the habit of writing. And so on.

I found the post: How to Write First Thing in the Morning very practical for me. What about you? What did you find interesting in the new blog?

And The 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize Goes to...Sean O'Brien for The Drowned Book!

British poet, Sean O'Brien has claimed the 2007 T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry with The Drowned Book after winning the Forward prize for best collection an unprecedented third time following Ghost Train in 1995 and Downriver in 2001, making him the first author ever to take the UK's two top poetry awards in the same year.

The T. S. Eliot Prize is the biggest cash award in UK poetry, inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and honor its founding poet and is awarded annually to the author of the best new single-author collection of poetry published in the UK or Ireland. View the 10 poets shortlisted for the award here.

O'Brien, who is professor of creative writing at Newcastle University, received a cheque for £15,000 at Monday night's ceremony, held at the Wallace Collection in Central London. The other shortlisted poets also received cheques of £1,000 each, in recognition of their work.

Would That Power Called 'Plagiarism' Prevail?

Plagiarism has been the power phrase of the past week with several accusations on copyright infringement, defamation and plagiarism. Last Monday, Missy Chase Lapine, the author of The Sneaky Chef, a cookbook whose recipes camouflage puréed vegetables and fruits in comfort food for children, sued Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld last Monday, charging copyright infringement and defamation.

It was all over in the news...Gothamist, AHN, Monster and Critics, eFluxMedia, ITN, DollyMix, Reuters, North Country Gazette, just to mention a few. Some have criticized Lapine saying that she just wants to get some attention. Could it be? The biggest lawsuit on plagiarism is probably Dan Brown's bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code accused of plagiarism in 2004 which many thought was a plan to increase sales of the non-fiction work The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, co-written by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Could that also be?

Another allegation came this week that Cassie Edwards, a popular romance novelist with more than 100 books to her name, inserted great amount of unattributed material into her work which has sparked up an ongoing controversy that has led Signet Books, one of her publishers, to announce last Friday that it was examining all of her work that it has published saying that "the situation deserves further review." Read more here and here.

The controversy began when smartbitchestrashybooks.com, a blog devoted to romance novels, posted excerpts from Ms. Edwards’s novels this week alongside passages from other sources to show the similarities, which the site’s authors (Candy Tan and Sarah Wendell) said they had discovered by Googling some of Ms. Edwards’s writing. Although, they feel she may not have infringed copyright law, they consider her actions unethical.

Nora Roberts, a big time romance novelist said that the controversy should force renewed attention to the issue of intellectual theft with ramifications well beyond the world of romance writers. On the other hand, Ms. Edwards told an Associated Press reporter earlier this week that she did not know she was supposed to credit her sources. “When you write historical romances, you’re not asked to do that,” she said.

So, is there any copyright law that exempts historical romances? If so, that means that bloggers too can practically lift off paragraphs, pictures, etc from other sites and claim that they don't know they should credit their sources.

Via (NY Times) Image: LGOS

Fiction Writers Now Mash And Make Money At StoryMash

Now, this really got my attention. Probably because I have a flare for fiction. A new social community called StoryMash, for collaboration, constructive criticism and a place to experiment and discover different writing styles is mashing up fiction readers and writers together.

StoryMash is a place where fiction folks start new stories, continue existing stories, or take a story in a different direction by adding a chapter to its middle! All the while earning money for every chapter they publish on StoryMash. If you are a reader, you can vote for your favorite chapters and choose how you want the story to continue. After reading a chapter you can select from among multiple followup chapters. And while reading a chapter if you have a great idea on what should happen next, you can register and submit a followup chapter!

The idea is similar to Helium where writers are paid from $20 to $200 for each article selected by their partner publishers. The difference is that with StoryMash, you pay yourself for each work you publish on StoryMash depending on the number of votes you get from your story.

Here is how it works:

If you're a fiction writer and want the world to know about your work, you will post your story to StoryMash.com. Then, other authors can add follow-up, or even middle chapters to existing chapters written by others. Branching chapters compete with each other based on the vote ranking of registered readers. Eventually, the best storylines will evolve into the most entertaining, and profitable storytelling possible.

The whole idea is a a collaborative system of user generated content where StoryMash provides a fair contract for writers; writers keep their copyright, and grant StoryMash a non-exclusive license so that StoryMash can adapt and possibly resell combined works. Plus, all authors are paid over 50% of all revenue made by the content they publish.

There are also periodic writing contests, and this February, over $500 in prizes will be given away. So start posting on StoryMash by share your creative writing with the world, and earning some cool cash.

Have fun!

The Times Lists Greatest British Writers Since 1945

Erica Wagner of The Times recently wrote an article which introduced "The Times list of the Greatest British Writers Since 1945". The list was presented to stir up an argument into the new year.

But the list raises questions the criteria for considering the best postwar British writers, doesn't it? Because there was no scientific method for the analysis and then the results, certain factors were considered - sheer quality of writing, longevity, lasting impact, commercial success and wait a minute...nationality???

The list which includes novelists, poets, writers of nonfiction, etc comprises of names such as George Orwell, Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing (on the top 10), Ian Fleming, Ian McEwan, J.K. Rowling amongst others. It was a list of 50.

View the list of the 50 Greatest British Writers here at The Times. You might find your favorite British writer.