Bookish links 5 Apr: rewriting from scratch, authors rights, writing the dark side more!

RIASS stuff:

Book Review: A Change for the Better by Susan Hill'Rating:

Guest Post: Balancing writing and family by Kate Belle

Review: My Happy Life by Lydia Millet'Rating:

Review: Journey from Venice by Ruth Cracknell'Rating:

Interview: Sandra Antonelli on advocating for older protagonists in romance fiction

Other bookish stuff:

A tale of two editors'What's changing most of all for editors is our workflow. There's a proportion of editing that's still happening on paper with pencils but much of it is moving onscreen, says Samantha Sainsbury.

Newly named Mercury craters honour Madeleine LEngle, Lovecraft & more

On the importance of the backlist to publishers bottom lines and how copyright reform might affect this.'

Brave New Infographic: Huxley vs Orwell

How to rewrite your book from scratch in 75 days'Wake in a panic every day at 6:00 AM, wondering why you havent yet finished your daily word count. Get sick again, twice. Eat an entire bag of Cadbury mini-eggs in four days (unrelated.) Buy a new laptop when your graphics card dies with no warning. Find yourself doing things like wandering aimlessly in a sleet storm in search of chocolate-covered potato chips.

One of the best advertising campaigns Ive seen lately

An interview about the Amazon Goodreads buyout (people are asking my thoughts on this, but as an aspiring author Im a bit too scared to say anything. Which says it all, really.)

Writing a characters dark side'A deeply conflicted character can only exist in someone who is aware of and in touch with his deepest self and knows the purity that existed there, then behaves in a way that is contradictory to that knowledge.'That is self-betrayal.'And you know its going to come back to bite. A shadow begins to grow.

Has British literature become less emotional?'Im going to write a post on this, but I have a feeling that a lot of this to do with a) the shift in popular emotion words, and the emphasis of showing over telling, and the move towards dialogue-heavy, exposition-light books.

Excellent post on the Australian cultural cringe and on literary traditions'In its current form, the cringe does not mean that Australians openly disparage their own culture, but rather that more value and prestige attaches to those Australian cultural products which have been validated by well-respected overseas institutions with high reserves of symbolic capital.

Minecraft childrens books, anyone?

Don't be boring. It may not lead to immediate publication, but at least your integrity will be intact.'

1960s library posters

On author rights'These days, we're expected to do more with less. Now, it's with nothing. Higher royalties are great, but you don't see the money until it's too late to do book release promo. So let's see more no-advance publishers broadening and consulting with authors on their own promotional efforts, in return for no up-front payment.

Hey Harpers, how about publishing some female writers?'I feel as if there will be a hole where my'Harper's'subscription used to be. But I also know that plenty of women writers are out there getting published elsewhere. So, elsewhere is where I'll look. I can no longer, in good conscience, support a magazine that feels such contempt for women.