wrapped up in books

Whenever people say that they are bored, I always translate that as “I am without Internet access and/or a book”. I’m never bored. Here’s a sampling of the articles and blog posts I found interesting, inspiring, or thoughtful this week.

This is some of the best advice on how to use Twitter sucessfully and to get more out of your blogging experience from Nina Badzin. CHECK IT OUT. Even at my most blunt and sarcastic self, I still believe in etiquette and so does Nina. Most of these tips were things I felt intuitively, but having it all organized in one place is great.

My sister the sociopath was an essay that I stumbled across that really touched me. Luckily, my sister isn’t a sociopath, but I do have one in my family, so I could relate to these feelings. I found this very thought provoking.

I’m pretty comfortable with writing kissing scenes, but it took a lot of practice and thinking about it for me to figure it out. Malinda Lo summed up the how-tos nicely in this post with some examples from YA books. I am so excited to read The Difference Between You and Me.

Sara Ockler wrote this kick ass piece about Race in YA Lit. She is witty and observant. This post makes me want to read her books. I love the tag line for her site: “making stuff up. writing it down.” LOVE.

Edith Wharton is perhaps my favorite novelist. I love her unlikeable characters, her social commentary, the time period she writes about. During a survey of Major Women Authors in college, we read The House of Mirth and I remember giggling about Mrs. Peniston which my professor insisted we not giggle about and pronounce it correctly. This post explains all the dirty penis jokes in the work of an author that Jonathan Franzen called a “prude”. You’ll definitely get a chuckle out of it if you’re as nerdy as me.

I know you already know how smitten I am with Emily Danforth and her book The Miseducation of Cameron Post, but I read this interview and found out than in addition to our shared appreciation of irony, we both prefer our names not be capitalized.

Apparently, all this technology is making us stupider. I’d heard a long time ago that Chinese characters were dying out, that the art of writing them was lost in a digital age where people increasingly rely on typing to create the written word, but apparently we’re killing off bunches of words in English even faster than we can make up knew ones.

Is this really Nietzsche’s typewriter? Really? It looks like a crazy steampunk torture device! This is why I don’t like tumblr, because I never know where images originally come from. But you have to admit that it’s cool.

I also loved this post on expanding your literary horizons. I used to be very picky and judgmental about what I would and wouldn’t read. But I think a writer needs to explore lots of different territory. Of course, you can always befriend your librarian rather than a bookseller…they have lots of good recommendations too!

And if Dr. Seuss wasn’t already cool enough, did you know he wrote a book full of nakedness? You know you want to check that out.

The Teen Librarian’s Toolkit is doing a series on Why YA, and they are inviting guest posts from all kinds of readers. I’m definitely going to write about my first YA love, Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger.

If you have a favorite post or article you’ve read or written recently, feel free to leave a link in the comments.