Third Girl from the Left started as the story of a woman who failed -- and it stayed that way. The short story that later grew into my most recent novel was quite a surprise to me -- but as I've continued to write novels, I've come to believe that that's how you know it's working. I wrote the story "Show Business" (anthologized in Mending The World) in graduate school. It in turn, had grown out of a short exercise that I did at a place called the Writers Studio in New York City, where I've lived for the past 21 years. Here's the first line of the story: "Every night, I dream of actors." And here's the first line of the novel: "My mother was an actress." In both cases, I went on to tell the story of an actress in the films of the 1970s's that are commonly referred to now as blaxploitation. Actually, the person telling the story was her daughter, who was (I like to think) rueful, wise and a bit more clear sighted than her mother.

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Business writer and author Michael Stelzner has compiled his list of the top ten writer blogs. He says they "all provide extremely useful information for writers." See if you agree. Check out the list here.

Jon Franklin is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer and distinguished journalism professor at the University of Maryland, and the author of the classic writing book Writing for Story. He's a pioneer in applying the literary techniques of fiction to nonfiction stories. We had a fascinating conversation with Jon about writing creative nonfiction.

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I am an incurable optimist by trade. But even I began to see visions of glasses half-full when first one, then two, then three, then four, then five years passed without a book sale. During that time, I was losing my beloved maternal grandmother, on top of some other personal stressors. Let's just say, I was safely off the chart on sad.

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Have you ever seen a five-year-old trying to learn to ride a bicycle? The bike wobbles like a duck in choppy water, the child shrieks and then suddenly takes off. But one false move -- a lean in the wrong direction or a bit of over-enthusiastic pedaling -- and whoosh, she's off too fast down the street and veering into the bushes with a thump and tears.

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Writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant, who contributed this week's "Word Count" feature, suggests these terrific books on grammar and writing. Daphne tells us about her picks:

The Transitive Vampire by Karen Gordon. "This book is not only funny, it's also short and substantive -- a bit of a hat-trick when it comes to grammar. The design conceit is that it is illustrated with line drawings of dragons, gargoyles and, yes, vampires. The drawings are quite serious and the captions are silly. And the juxtaposition of the two always makes a grammatical point."

Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale. "I like this book because it covers more than grammar -- and because it's funny and flexible. Hale is not the kind of gal who's going to get her knickers in a knot over rules. In fact, she's all for breaking them (the catch is that you need to know you're breaking them.) I like the way the book is divided into three main parts with a set of chapters devoted to various parts of speech -- nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc. -- a set to sentences, and a set labeled "Music" covering voice, lyricism, melody, and rhythm."

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