That Was The Week That Was…*

* I stole this title from an early 1960s satirical BBC TV show of this name. The show was notable for the fact that many well-known, and soon-to-be-well-known, people were involved with it, either as presenters or script writers, including David Frost, Monty Python’s John Cleese and Graham Chapman, and author Roald Dahl. The theme music was written by Ron Grainer, who also composed the Doctor Who theme. It seems there was an American version of the show that ran in the mid-sixties, also presented by David Frost.

I thought it might be fun to do a round up of some notable things from the blogs last week.

Blog quote of the week: From Lydia Kang’s article on Monday: “It’s one of those days. I woke up and decided to do a post on leprosy.” Considering Lydia often blogs on medical topics (and it’s a very useful blog if you need such information for your writing projects), it makes sense in context. But I have a strange sense of humor, and this line just cracked me up.

Last Sunday, I learned that I had won Janet Reid’s latest competition! This was totally awesome, not only because I rarely ever win things (and this is the second contest I’ve won in a month), but also Janet is a highly-respected New York Literary Agent. Not to say writers don’t appreciate praise wherever it comes from (insecurity comes with the territory), but to have one’s work praised by someone highly regarded in the publishing industry is truly an honor.

Also this week, I launched my 2011 Book of the Year Giveaway. Go to the “Giveaway” tab at the top (or click the picture on the sidebar) to find out how you can win a copy of my 2011 book pick of the year.

There was an interesting article on the Bookends Literary Agency blog about what happens when an editor at a publishing house expresses interest in your novel.

Along the same “so you have an agent, now what?” lines (not that I have an agent YET, but I’m certainly curious about these things), Rachelle Gardner (now with Books & Such) posted an article describing the agent-editor relationship and how agents pitch novels to publishing house editors.

This week’s Road Trip Wednesday on YA Highway was a LOT of fun. The discussion was around pseudonyms–do we use them, would we use them, and if we were to use one, what would it be?

A number of people (Jessica Love and Jaime Morrow to name two), were excited to learn that Blogger now has threaded commenting (i.e., you can reply to comments directly under the comment, and it indents your response). I know many of you are pleased Blogger has at last caught up with the rest of the blogging world (this feature has been available with WordPress as long as I can remember).

Also this week, I started reading GOLIATH by Scott Westerfeld, the last in the LEVIATHAN series. I’ve already almost finished it. Could it be my book of the month? Right now that’s very likely. We’ll see at the end of the month–there’s still lots of reading time left in January, and I have a stack of books on my desk to get through.

How was your week? Clearly mine was pretty awesome–I hope yours was too! 🙂