Links

Here are a few links to writing information Guild members have found useful. If you have other links, please share them!

Wells Branch Library - Where would this peer writing group be without the Wells Branch Library? Many thanks to this library for giving so much to the Wells Branch community! 

ArmadilloCon - Austin's SciFi and Fantasy convention. ArmadilloCon has a fantastic writers' workshop offered once every year towards the end of the summer. One of the best (yet hardest) ways to improve your writing is to get it in front of peers and ask for feedback. This workshop is how I got started, and then introduced to my first peer writing group.

BookPeople - Maybe you are a book horder who enjoys browsing the shelves of bookstores. BookPeople is Austin's independent booksellers. Also, they have guest authors come out and speak all the time.

GoodReads - A social media platform of book lovers. Most writers are also avid readers. goodReads allows you to catalog what you have read, what you want to read next, and more. The site is a fantastic repository of book reviews and recommendations.

Hugh Howey - Hugh Howey is one of the indie-author success stories. In a four-part blog, he shares his insights into being a writer and the publishing business. It is a long read, which I found inspirational and informative.

NaNoWriMo - Up for a challenge? Or, more like a writing marathon? For those unfamilar, NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month", a yearly challenge to write a novel-length work (50,000 or more words) in under a month (November). That means roughly writing close to 1,700 words each day for 30 days! The best part of this challenge is that it helps train writers to write, even a little bit, every day.

NYC Midnight - Maybe you are in the mood for another kind of challenge. NYC Midnight has various writing challenges throughout the year. From micro-fiction to screenplays, this is a writing contest competing your creativity against hundreds of other writers. Despite how far you go in this contest, the cost is worth getting a bit of feedback on your submissions from professional writer-judges.

Turkey City Lexicon - Turkey City is one of the most brutal of peer writing groups, but has had some of the finest modern science-fiction writers, like Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctrow, and George RR Martin. If you have been part of a peer writers group, you may have heard some of the feedback lingo, which this group has compiled into their Lexicon.