Monday Hangovers - Gwenda Bond

Sorry didn't mean to disappear there, but went on a bit of a writing binge last week. Now playing catch-up–but first links! all of them! (Well, a lot of them.) OH, and hello, visitors by way of the fabulous Gretchen Rubin and the Happiness Project. So nice to have you.
Don't miss this truly great post by Robin LaFevers at WriterUnboxed about the ways in which the writer's life is full of second chances. Snippet: "But there is a freedom that comes with failure—even if it is just perceived failure. There is a sense that we can’t get any lower, so we might as well jettison everything but the most important stuff. If my writing was going to have to go back to being a hobby rather than a full-time career, I might as well work on something that totally lit every one of my own personal tilt buttons on fire." Related: I can't wait to read Grave Mercy; it is very near the top of the TBR.
Two fun news of the weird type stories: "Vatican Accused of Cover-Up Over Teenage Girl's Mysterious Disappearance" and "New Jersey Couple Sues Claiming Rented House is Haunted."
Find the John Cleese creativity video and watcheth it.
Related: Katie Ryder's Salon interview with Tom Bissell about creating art, among other things. I remember his great Harper's article about the bizarre phenom around the movie The Room, and apparently that's now part of his new book Magic Hours. I do quibble with this, however: "Well, the thing I would say is that luck is the single most important quality – even more important than talent." Sure, luck is an undeniable factor in success and a random factor (for the most part), but it seems to me that perseverance is the other key part of the equation, more important than either talent or luck. Luck is more likely to find you, like inspiration, when you're working, right? I think so. In fairness, Bissell ultimately seems to agree with this, but is coming at it from a more roundabout direction.
It's time for the Ballou High School Book Fair — help stock up a library that badly needs it.
The requisite links on the DOJ suit: good piece in the NYT, sort of a side story about knock-off bestsellers on Amazon (this reminds me of the people who made/make a brisk trade in misspelled goods on ebay), and the inimitable Chuck Wendig bringing some sense to these matters as always.
I wrote the LGBT publishing feature for this week's issue of PW, which includes an interview with John Irving. Good times.
Strange Chemistry is running an open door period for unagented YA writers for the next two weeks.
And a couple of Blackwood things. My editor is at the London Book Fair this week and tweeted this lovely snap of the Strange Chemistry catalogue, with Steven Wood's gorgeous Blackwood cover art on the front:

Pretty cool, huh? And there's this lovely early blog review just posted by Shelley Watters. I'm going to post sometime this week about the surreal and overwhelming oddness of ARCs being out in the world–exciting and nerve-wracking all at once. But, in short, to everyone who's requested eARCs so far and to those reading and/or reviewing e- or paper galleys: Thank you a million times over for being interested enough to spend your valuable reading time on my book. (And, of course, I really hope you like it! I love hearing from you!)

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