Earlier this year, GalleyCat explained how science-fiction author John Scalzi was opening up his blog to guest essayists for a series of posts called "The Big Idea." Here's another iteration of that basic concept: Literary agent Jenny Rappaport is devoting a portion of her blog, Lit Soup, to "Book Blocks," which she describes as short pieces in which authors can discuss one of the "building blocks" of their upcoming book: "the characters, the plot, the theme, the actual writing structure, the idea behind the novel (or non-fiction work), the worldbuilding, etc."

"Your aim should be to both promote your book (the free publicity aspect) and to try to teach aspiring writers how to grow in their own writing (the passing it forward part of this)," Rappaport advises authors interested in taking part. "I believe in giving back to the publishing community... I'd like to be able to help authors, represented by any agency (or unagented) to find new readers for their work."

The more detailed guidelines she lays out later in the post are equally straightforward—let's see how it turns out!

(photo: Sally Weiner Grotta)