Writers' Roundup: August 20

Friday means links!

• Author Dani Shapiro on the importance of alone time, and finding the balance between thinking about life and actually living it.

• Short but super post from The Mobile Lawyer about how travel inspires memory. A must-read for travel memoirists.

• Six steps to a prettier blog — without a designer. Awesome tips from Marian Schembari, the social-media-for-authors thug who had an uber-popular Q&A here a few weeks ago.

• How to ensure 75 percent of agents will request your material. I’m wary of magic bullets, but this one is practical. From Writer’s Digest.

• Absolutely love this from Chris Brogan: What are you waiting for? Don’t wait. Plan. Brogan also had an insightful post this week about how he writes with his co-author.

• One of my favorite YA authors, Julie Kraut, tells a hilarious story about traveling in Africa. Watch the video. You’ll laugh.

• At Marianne Elliott’s blog, 10 tips for long-haul travel, zen-peacekeeper style.

Be sure to check back here Monday for an interview with an author who wrote more than a dozen books — more than a dozen! — before she was finally published.