Hey, everyone! I have a story to tell today.

This time last year a reader notified me of a contest going on over on Write to Done. They were soliciting nominations for the Top 10 Blogs for Writers of 2010. I said, “You want to?” and you guys said, “Sure!” And a bunch of you stampeded over in what I like to think of as the greatest writers’ rave ever, and you nominated me!

And I was overwhelmed and deeply moved. Awwww. You guys!

Imagine then my surprise to learn during the December holidays that your nominations had placed me in the Top 20 Blogs for Writers.

People! My chin wobbled a bit. I really hadn’t realized the power of this online community we’ve built, the spirit of giving you have in you, or thrill of being our own tribe. You’re all too darn sweet for words.

And I was grateful and touched and filled with the zeal to do even better for you in the coming year, to earn the faith you’d shown in me. To really be what you need: the mouthpiece for the greatest writers’ rave ever.

So imagine my total shock and amazement to learn a week later that your nominations had earned me a spot as one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers. The top ten! That’s like the ninetieth percentile of the Writers Digest Top 101—with cherries!

Yes, I cried a little. (No, I did not let my loved ones take pictures.)

But I did hold myself to that promise to do even better in 2011 than I’d done in 2010, to work as hard as I could to teach you what it’s taken me thirty years in this art and craft to learn—how to create wonderful fiction—and to do it in a way that becomes so intuitive once you get it you can’t remember a time when you didn’t know this stuff.

Also, I got the chance through the Top 10 Blogs for Writers to meet the most fantastic other folks out there today blogging for writers:

Writer Unboxed, with the simply adorable Therese Walsh and Kathleen Bolton (where I now write the editorial column Ask Victoria on their monthly newsletter opposite agent column Ask Chuck with Writer’s Digest’s Chuck Sambuchino—and where I will be, as of January 2013, a Writer Unboxed regular contributor)

The Creative Penn, with the self-marketing powerhouse Joanna Penn (who has interviewed me on video)

Cats Eye Writer>, with the wise and kind blogging guru Judy Dunn (now my editing client for her up-coming memoir)

Storyfix, with the long-time best seller Larry Brooks

{Courage 2 Create}, with the idealistic Ollin Morales

Renegade Writerwith the uber-professional Linda Formichelli

Make a Living Writingr, with the savvy business writer Carole Tice

Wordplaywith the young self-publishing novelist K.M. Weiland

I brought them here to meet you and sent you over to their sites to meet them. And almost all of them have become permanent good friends of mine here in the online writing community, people I turn to again and again throughout the year to share our thoughts and ideas, interviews and book giveaways, the myriad aspects of our developing careers out here helping you do what you do best.

You people are the very reason this blog exists. You keep me sane. Plus you bring me cherries.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

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Jami Gold runs her blog under the slogan, “Beach Reads with Bite.” Her eclectic crowd of paranormal and, as Jami says, otherwise “not normal” writers/readers makes her blog one of those wonderful cult hubs of rampant creativity out there in the online writing community. And this week Jami’s hosting an excerpt from The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual that she says “gave her goosebumps” and even “the A-ha! moment”! Which I consider something of a major coup considering that Jami spends her life in the business of giving people goosebumps.

We’re over there right this minute having an impromptu session with everyone in the comments trying this quick technique out on their own WIPs. They’re really sinking their teeth into it!

Please bring your WIP and join us today for Story Climax: The Whole Point.

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I know I mentioned this the day Joanna put it up on YouTube, but I’m going to mention it again because today she’s putting it up on her blog, The Creative Penn. Joanna Penn has interviewed me on video! Go visit her! She’s providing a written explication of the points she and I discuss, as well as the link to the interview, in which you may watch me wave my hands with great enthusiasm and make ‘doot, doot, doot’ noises in describing the manner in which I expect writers to design their stories.

In an impromptu moment, Joanna even gives me her one-line synopsis of her new novel, and I show her how to develop it into a gripping plot. See how developmental editing works on the grand scale!

There’s also a great deal of arm gesturing to describe character arc, pointing to show where the solution to all the world’s ills lies (right below the camera, as it turns out), as well as my “You’ve stumped me” face for discussing Scrivener.

Not to mention the ghost in the rocking chair.

Please join us for The Art and Craft of Story with Victoria Mixon at The Creative Penn.

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Jan O’Hara recently made Twitter history by starting the #FreetheRealPorter movement about my recent interviewee Porter Anderson. She also stood up for my lace curtains, because of course all the right people understand about lace curtains. She’s the voice of the Unpublished Writer on Writer Unboxed, secretly a family physician in real life, and addicted to citrus fruit. And today she’s going all-out, hosting a guest post from The Art & Craft of Story: 2nd Practitioner’s Manual, in which I explain exactly how to use your protagonist’s freedom of will to get them in a half-nelson and continue ratcheting the tension on them until your story implodes.

As Jan likes to say: “See? Win-win scenarios really do exist!”

Please join us today for Using Character to Fuel Plot Momentum.

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For years, I’ve been holding my husband and son captive over the dinner table as I wave my hands and rant and rave about fiction, writing, publishing, all the many and wonderful intricacies of this extraordinary art and craft. For years. Recently, I’ve been interviewed online in a number of places, including Rachell Russell, The Meta Game, Editing Hacks, Constant Revision, and Book Trends Blog.

And now for the first time Joanna Penn of the Creative Penn has interviewed me on video.

Aaaaghgh! Yes, I really do wave my hands that much in real life.

Please join us at the Mixon kitchen table for the first step in this new (rather unsettling) phase of my life as an independent editor: The Art & Craft of Story with Victoria Mixon.

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