Good author karma*

One thing you hear a lot from authors (and it's good that you hear it) is how grateful they are to all the people who helped them along. Any writer who's being at all honest will acknowledge those hardass English teachers, that visiting author who gave a workshop during ninth grade, the best friend who squealed about how awesome that story was or gruffly asked you for another one (depending on their temperament), the D&D buddies on whom you tried out this or that character or plot device, that professor who told you your stuff was crap but then put so much effort into helping you fix it (confusing you forever about whether you really were good or not).... Anyway, we've all got those people in our lives.

Richard Harland (in case the name is not familiar to you, he's the one whose latest novel, Worldshaker, is just out; more info on his site) doesn't just talk about the gratitude thing. He's actually giving something back: 145 quick-read-sized pages of hard-won, dearly bought writing expertise, free for the taking. Just go to www.writingtips.com.au and start reading — he's been compassionate enough to set it up so you can start at Tip #1 and read straight through without having to go back to the main menu all the time.



*This means author karma that is good; but if you want to mentally insert the hyphen and think of it as karma that a good author has ("good-author karma"), that's okay, too.