Tag Archives: Resources

Links of the week #12

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Hope you are having a happy weekend. Below are lots of good tidbits, don’t miss the video at the bottom. Enjoy!

Writer Business/Life

Rachelle Gardner started a series of posts this week: How to Make a Living as a Writer, Part One, Part Two & Making a Living as a Writer: Challenges 

Shelley Munro gives a gold mind of good stuff in her post this week: Tools for Writers. She includes links to posts on her journey, a post on dealing with the mean pirates, a post on some cool free tools from Google, and a link to Roni Loren’s fantastic post in which she provides books for your writer woes…Plus she provides information for joining a yahoo loop that provides free classes- Marketing for Romance Writers

David Gaughran provided this cool bit: Selling Ebooks Direct: How To Set Up A Simple E-Bookstore

Kait Nolan shared her playlist in this post: Daughter of the Hunt Playlist

Promotion

Toni Kelly is back this week with Promotion: Stage 3

Character Development

Sharla Rae was at Jenny Hansen’s site this week for Keep Your Characters True To Themselves

Point of View

Are you over complicating your story? From The Other Side of the Story Lost in the Crowd: Working With Multiple Point of View Characters

Backstory 

Also from The Other Side of the Story: Baby Got Backstory: Dealing With Backstory in Your Novel 

The above link pairs really well with this link from The Sharp Angle: Good Flashback vs Bad Flashback

Social Media

Thank you Kristen Lamb for this one, I do feel better Understanding Author Platform Part 2–All the World Wide Web’s a Stage

Over at The Other Side of the Story I found a real treat: Guest Author Tiffany Reisz : A Twitter-Sweet Love Story

I hope everyone found something.

To end I have a little treat. My dear husband found this video for me. My original love, Eddie Vedder is singing Falling Slowly with Glen Hansard!

Links of the week #11

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I’ve gathered a little bit of this and a little bit of that this week. Hope everyone finds something.

One of my fav reviewing sites, Delighted Reader, is taking applications!! Check it out: Taking applications for reviewers!

Editing:
Systematic Revisions (redux) from Sierra Godfrey

Over at Anne R. Allen’s Blog: When Should an Author Hire an Editor? How to Avoid Scams

Grammar:

Freshen up on word confusion with Julie Glover this week and her post Miss Spelling Returns: Words that Get Confused

Promotion:

Toni Kelly at Nights of Passion is back this week with Promotion: Stage 2

Social Media:

Love Kristen Lamb, you know that, right?  When Jacqui Murray mentions Kristen in her Write Anything post How to do Social Media Right I had to click through and it was excellent food for thought.

Roni Loren asked this week: Are You Hiding Behind a Wall on Your Blog? she provides examples AND solutions

Query Letter

Scott Eagan lists the points that need to be caught in the troubling blurb paragraph: Your Story Blurb Has To Be Precise – Rejections Come When These Aren’t

Plotting

I enjoyed Lydia Sharp’s post this week about The Secret Plot immensely, must read for plotters!!

Characters

Janice Hardy from The Other Side of the Story provided: What’s My Motivation? Tips on Showing Character Motivations

Write Fresh

Jenny Hansen’s blog had Margie Lawson this week for #Writing 50,000 Inimitable Smiles by Margie Lawson

Place Descriptions

Janice Hardy from The Other Side of the Story also provided: The Literary Tour Guide: How Much do you Need to Describe Your Setting? 

Everyone needs a good laugh

Still laughing my ass off about this one, thank you Jenny: The Almost X-Rated Garage Sale

Well that’s all for this week folks, have a good one.

Links of the week #10

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Finding incredible posts to read while you are on vacation is like finding the perfect shell on the beach, found a couple of those too. Per my pattern I have a great list below, enjoy

1st things first, the end of the paypal trouble. Morticia Knight at Daring Adventures in Writing provided: #Paypal #Censorship Fiasco is Over!!! (At Least For Now). Sara York the Author of Sexy Books for Smart Women and Men published: PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, Censorship and Writing, which includes a great quote from Sara and an update from Mark Coker Founder Smashwords

Toni Kelly from Nights of Passion started a new series this week!! Promotion: Stage 1

Ann Cory reminded me we are not alone with her post: Insecurities and Synopsis Writing

Jenny Hansen had a guest this week, Tiffany Lawson Inman, and she included a guest too, Teel James Glenn: What Is More Dramatic Than A Fight? by Tiffany Lawson Inman

Sonia G Medeiros posted yesterday The Art of Stumbling in the Street, she talks about StumbleUpon and the street art she’s found there- love when art gets my mind all a plotting, thanks Sonia

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story helps us strengthen our prose this week with Do or Do Not. There is No Try: Clarifying What Your Characters Do. Do you have  half-finished manuscript? The Other Side of the Story can help with that too: So Where Were We Again? Salvaging Half-Finished Manuscripts.

Molly Greene provided the Best Editing Tip Ever #2 – Mobi Files!

Lydia Sharp had a fantastic post this week with Writing Toward Your Midpoint

I’ve had a wonderful vacation week. Sadly today is my last full day and tomorrow is a travel day, bummer. Great memories and lots of pictures in my camera and mind will carry me home and back to finding posts to share with all of you.

Links of the week #9

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I’m going on vacation and I can not wait!! I’ll be missing a couple of Six Sundays, everyone needs a vacation every now and again, but I’m still sad to miss out on the fun. One thing I will NOT be taking a vacation from is all the blog reading. This week was freakin fantastic, lots of good stuff below: recipes, craft help, quick tips, my own links & a vid from the super awesome Dave Grohl

So many good things all in one place: gluten free recipes, a Dirty Fighting contest reminder and tons of great links from NakedEditor Tiffany Lawson Inman all from Jenny Hansen’s blog post #ROW80 Update: Life Without Gluten. Jenny also posted a keep at Writers In The Storm: Using The 12 Stages of Physical Intimacy To Build Tension In Your Fiction

Sharla Rae also over at Writers In The Storm this week posted Place Descriptions – Part 2: Waterways

I spend time on social media, a little bit everyday, but my main focus right now is my craft and actually writing. Couple of great posts this week from Bob Mayer THE Secret Handshake of Successful Digital Publishing and from Gabrielle Bisset What Counts.

The beautiful Kait Nolan (who’s nominated for a  DABWAHA!!), her blog is one of the 1st blogs I started to follow, this week she asked: Are You A Writer? OWN IT!

Lydia Sharp provided a Quick Tip at The Sharp Angel, this might become a weekly or even daily habit to keep my mind open and flowing with ideas

Love finding new blogs to follow, Jane Friedman provided this advice: How to Identify Top Websites & Blogs in Your Category

I’m still reading James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure, but I’m already looking for my next read. Thanks Roni Loren for providing Twelve Writer Woes and the Books to Cure Them

Jason Boog over at GalleyCat provided a cool tool in How to Check Your Grammar Online

Janice Hardy at The Other Side of the Story provided a plotting idea: Being Evil: Plotting From the Antagonist’s Perspective

I’ve forgotten to list here items I’ve posted, silly S. J. Last week I posted here Is it time for swim class?. Each week I also blog over at Simply Sidney & this week I posted Scale Day v36.0 and Homemade Taco Seasoning

As writers (yes, I’m including myself in that group *BigGrin*) we know NOT to bore our reader and to keep our story moving FORWARD. Apparently the same is true for song writers. Here’s a lesson from Dave Grohl on how to write a hit song, and that’s Kyle Gass from the band Tenacious D!!

Thanks for stopping by today, see you guys next Saturday for a whole new round of finds

Links of the week #8

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It’s the end of my birthday week. I experienced a lot of joys this week and felt a lot of love, which is simply a lot o fun. This week also brought on a ton of great links to remember…

James Scott Bell provided My Aha! Moment over at The Kill Zone

Oh Chuck, 25 Ways To Unfuck Your Story yeah I don’t need to say anything else to sell this one

Roz over at Nail Your Novel provided some great reminders and food for thought with your plot: Drama comes from making us care

Are you genuinely nice on twitter? I’d like to think I am. Two posts came up this week from two great gals and between the two they make some great points that are easy to agree with, if you are genuinely nice. First up is Roni Loren’s Enough With the Quid Pro Quo Blogging Etiquette – Free Yourself. Second up is Kristen Lamb’s T.E.A.M–Together Everyone Achieves More, #MyWANA sounds like a nice place to hang out.

I knew I loved Finding Nemo and now I really know why, let Kristen Lamb explain: What “Finding Nemo” Can Teach Us About Story Action

Janice Hardy, The Other Side of the Story, provided on Thursday tips for small problems to think about for your plot: That’s So Annoying: Adding Small Problems to Your Plot. Janice posted What’s at Stake? How Do You Make Readers Care About Your Story? yesterday, on my birthday. Thank you Janice for two great posts this week.

Writers in the Storm blog, love you guys, always bringing great posts. This week Ruthie Knox brings us How to Begin a Romance Novel: Seven Tips

I saved some funny for last. More cowbell always gives me a chuckle and this week’s post is in a word: awesome. Make sure you watch the video at the end!! Thank you Jenny Hansen for bringing the funny and a heartfelt story: You CAN Teach an Old Dog New Tricks (if they take notes…) and all the blogging you do!!

It’s been a great birthday week. I’ve been working on my WIP for just over a year now, let the writing and learning continue!!

Happy March on!!

Links of the week #7

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I’ve had an interesting week. I’m trying to reign in the crazy (but educating) amount of time I spend on reading blogs. I collected blogs to read all week, but did not read them until a specified time. It was hard at first to stay on task and file posts away for later, but man I got things done this week!…anywho…here are the sweet morsels I found and must share this week. They were all worth waiting for 🙂

Marc and Angel Hack Life offered up some fan~freaking~tastic advice with the post 12 Things Highly Productive People Do Differently (I’ll be talking more about this post in my ROW80 update tomorrow!!) and while you are there take a look at 12 Things Successful People Do Differently really good stuff, yum!

The lovely Kristen Lamb provided The Seven Deadly Sins of Prologues. She not only warns of the pitfalls, she also explains when they can be a good idea, plus she provides links to a bunch of other posts on the topic

Have you joined a tribe on triberr yet? I have, but need to spend a lot more time figuring things out and I’m going to do that by reading Jenny Hansen’s triberr posts. She has five posts now on the subject and this week’s postcontains links to the original 4. I’m filing this post away in the must read file, because it sounds like some triberr/twitter fun, from the Triberr blog: How To Turn Your Blog Into a Twitter Powerhouse

The Storyfixer, Larry Brooks, brought us this week: Elevate Your Story Through the Sublime – and Subliminal – Use of Sub-Text

Janice Hardy over at The Other Side of the Story offered up And…End Scene: When to Add a Scene Break, she provides a great list options and a warning to remember

Writers In The Storm had a lovely guest yesterday, Tiffany Lawson Inman and her post Too Quick To Tears: Emotional Timing Is Everything. Great post to read while plotting, editing, writing…

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend! I’m off to write.

Links of the week #6

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There are a bunch of hashtags I keep my eye on in twitter, what are your favorites?

    • #10queriesin10tweets (usually on Thursday afternoons)
    • @Ann_Collette (she runs 12 tweets regarding queries from her slush at least once a week)
    • Today I found  Laura Bradford (@bradfordlit) was on #askagent, very interesting, she answered questions for a couple of hours
    • #writetip or #pubtip
    • #amwriting #amediting # writing
    • #ROW80 of course
    • I love me some #sixsunday

I really enjoy Kristen Lamb, I’ve already linked to her a few times. Her Thursday post is a great read Bracing for Impact-The Future of Big Publishing in the new paradigm

Sara Brookes is running a series all month on first submission stories from published authors. Here is her first post in the series

Via Roni Loren (she offers a great list of links each Friday. You should think about subscribing to her site, great posts!!) I found this post over at Copyblogger about marketing on Pinterest. Also from Roni I found ‘s site Seeking the Write Life and her post Self-Editing #9 – Getting Specific: NOUNS. Aimee also offers a great tab on her site entitled Plot Development Tips

While on the Copyblogger site I found this helpful post Are You Making These 7 Mistakes With Your About Page?

Have you had any cowbell this week? Make sure to visit Jenny here and then don’t miss Margie Lawson’s Valentine’s post on Jenny’s site entitled GET FRESH: Write Heart-pounding Visceral Responses! ~ Guest Post by Margie Lawson

Such good stuff each week, I LOVE IT!! Have a great week everyone!!

Links of the week #5

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Really good stuff this week my friends!! Tools, news, and spreadsheets. Don’t be afraid, because the spreadsheet does all the work. Now don’t be shy. Click away and have some fun!!

At Kathy Carmichael’s Romance, Mystery & Myhem site, there is a series entitled Rom Hands-on Synopsis Workshop & this post is entitled  Fast, Easy, Painless: Writing the Short Synopsis Hands-On Workshop

Lisa Gardner’s site she has a Writer’s Toolbox with all kinds of good stuff

Over at Writer’s Unboxed, their tag line: about the craft and business of fiction. Twitter led me here, to an article by Therese Walsh, entitled Writing the Synopsis

Pinterest is in the news and not in a good way, but maybe not a bad way either, as long as you know. Josh Davis over at http://www.LLsocial.com  provided two interesting posts this week, here is the first Pinterest is quietly generating revenue by modifying user submitted pins and here is the second, a follow-up: What was learned from the Pinterest link modification story.

This week from Writers In the Storm- Sharla Rae provided some great tools with Mining For Character Emotions

One of the coolest spreadsheets I’ve seen can be found through Jami Gold’s site this week in her post How to Use the “Save the Cat” Beat Sheet for Revisions

Links of the week #4

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I had a pretty great week, re-balance, change…more about that tomorrow in my #ROW80 check-in. There is some really good stuff below, info on being a career author, industry news, funny with taxes, query help, and plotting diagnostics. Hope you have something fun planned for Super Bowl Sunday, whether it involves football or not.

 

Kristen Lamb provided some food for thought with this post: Training to Be a Career Author–Writing is More than the Writing

It’s Official: B&N Will Not Stock Titles Published By Amazon

Have you ever read a post about taxes that makes you smile and giggle, no? Well than, you must check on Jenny Hansen’s post from this week: Nifty Links and Tools For Tax Season (Pay attention, Writers!)

I always look forward to Sara Megibow’s #10queriesin10tweets and this week was no exception. This week she provided a link were I have found a ton of good information, including a blog workshop series for writing the pitch for your query

Two of my blog favorites came together yesterday, Kristen Lamb & Writers In The Storm Blog. I’ll be re-reading this post for a while to come: The Doctor is in the House–Novel Diagnostics by Kristen Lamb

Links of the week #3

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The evil day job got in my way this week, good news for the pocket book, but not so much for my finds of the week. The list below may be short, but it is still awesome so I had to share.

12 Steps to Self-Publish Your Book by Mimi Barbour, she provides her word processing tips to quickly clean up your file and get it ready for self-publishing

Vickie Motter at Navigating the Slush Pile provided a really interesting post yesterday: January Query Time: What to include. She provides a query breakdown and two example templates, seriously good stuff

Yes, I’m a newbie, but I just found this site yesterday and it looks like a lot of fun: She Writes, it’s a writing community for woman, very cool