Sunday Sharing #7 (or, Hashtags, Mary Sues, and the Tracking of Queries)

Greetings, friends!

It’s Sunday night and homework abounds, but blogging is important too! Let’s jump straight into the links, shall we?

1. Right off the bat, we’ll start with a list of 40 Twitter Hashtags for Writers. While I’m certainly not the most active Twitterer (Tweeter?) in the world (I primarily use it to follow other people), these are definitely useful hashtags to know when one is looking for more editors/agents/authors to stal–I mean, follow.

2. Kristen Lamb’s thought-provoking look at why writers should look to non-writer groups to generate real publicity. It’s an article that seems almost hypocritical to post while participating in the Third Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign, but the points she makes are valid ones, and I think it’s true that writers can get so wrapped up in their cozy little writer-y worlds that they forget how things look down on the ground. Anyhow, worth reading and pondering.

3. A great article from Women On Writing about How to Diagnose Your Novel’s Strengths and Weaknesses. Covers several different and interesting techniques, including one from none other than Scott Westerfeld(!). If you’re in revisions or considering doing some revisions in the near future, it would be well worth your while to take a look at this.

4. While I think the terms “Mary Sue” and “Gary Stu” get tossed around so much that we’ve kind of lost the ability to define them clearly, I still think that this test is hilarious and fun for writers to play with. But maybe I only think that because Albert and Julia did not score very high. :-p Anyhoo, go poke at it and see how it works! EDIT: I’m going to score Albert and Julia individually and then put their scores in the comments. If you test your MC, leave me a comment telling me how s/he did!

5. Protagonize is a wonderful and unique community for writers because it allows for the creation of collaborative stories (e.g. “You write chapter one, I’ll write chapter two, etc.). I’ve been a member for over a year now, and although I wish I could say that I spent more time there, I do enjoy visiting and reading/commenting on the work of others. If you’d like some feedback for your writing, consider joining. And if you’re already on Protagonize, come find me and say hello!

6. While it might appear slightly sketchy at first glance, Query Tracker is actually an invaluable resource for writers who are already querying or who plan to query in the near (or, if you’re like me, distant) future. It provides tons of information about hundreds of literary agents, including their average response time, when they’re open to queries, what they’re looking for, and what other queriers are saying about a given agent. Super, super useful.

7. Finally, we’ll end with something nice. If you’ve never heard of Improv Everywhere, go look them up! They do tons of awesome/hilarious stuff all in the name of making someone’s day just a bit more fun or interesting. And in this instance, they let the people improve their own days:

 

 

That’s all for now, but keep your eyes peeled! Might a certain interview with a certain velociraptor be coming to you in the near future? It very well might…

 

Sunday Sharing #6 (or, Campaigners are Awesome)

Hi friends!

In honor of the Third Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign, all of the posts on today’s Sunday Sharing are from fellow campaigners. There’s some great stuff being produced by this crew, and it deserves to be read and used! So without further ado, here we go:

1. Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have already seen this, but I just have to share this awesome post by Bill Jones Jr. on the distinction between critique and criticism. If you have ever critiqued a story (or ever intend to do so), please do yourself and your fellow writers a favor by reading this and giving it some thought.

2. A hilarious post (to me, anyways) by erica and christy on revisiting a previous work that doesn’t quite…uh, live up to our standards. Made me giggle and wince in self-recognition.

3. Also on a lighter note, Michael Orfutt has this to say (through a series of well-chosen gifs) on how to write the bio section of a query letter. Enjoy.

4. Advice from David Powers King on how to deal when the power of the collective unconscious strikes your novel (i.e. when you discover that someone else has had the same idea as you).

5. Jess Byam runs the Before They Were Published series on her blog, where she interviews up-and-coming writers with awesome ideas and bright futures just so that she (and her readers) can say they knew so-and-so before s/he became a published author. The interviews are all great, although I think this one is my favorite so far. But you should check them all out!

6. A couple of down-to-earth posts from Elana Johnson, one about general publicity for writers and another about social networking (and how it doesn’t need to take over your life). Useful advice and well-worth reading, particularly if you’re going to be published in the near future.

7. Finally, something I stole from Annalise Green. It’s nothing to do with writing, but it’s hilariously adorable nonetheless. Enjoy!

Entry for the First Campaigner Challenge!

Friends, raptors, blog-dwellers, lend me your ears–

This is Frederick Regency Raptor speaking, with a message from Miss Mango (who is currently asleep, poor dear). Enclosed is her submission for the first of the Campaigner Challenges. Having never done the Campaign before, we didn’t know what to expect from these challenges, but the project turned out to be rather (dare I say it?) fun. The instructions were as follows:

1. Write a short story/flash fiction story/poem in 200 words or less, excluding the title.
2. Begin the story with the words, “The door swung open.”
3. If you want to give yourself an added challenge, end with the words, “the door swung shut.”
4. For an even greater challenge, make your story exactly 200 words.

So without further ado, here is her exactly-200-word entry:

 

The door swung open

I almost didn’t notice
I mean, it’s not like I usually pay attention to doors
They’re flat dead trees
Not much to get excited about

Usually

But this one had a dragon behind it

Don’t ask me what a dragon was doing in my closet
It wasn’t big or fierce
Not any bigger or fiercer than Lucy
Who was now freaking out at the sight of it

Stupid incontinent dog
Stupid dragon

Unlike Lucy, the dragon didn’t seem upset
It simply exhaled a little puff of smoke in her direction
Like a saucy teenager blowing off a parent
Then sauntered into the room
Tail waving
Inspecting the begonias on my windowsill

The wood floor singed black wherever its claws touched
And it occurred to me that maybe I should be
You know
Doing something

I looked around for a broom
No, idiot
Brooms are flammable
I grabbed a poker from the fireplace
And waved it like a sword
“Shoo!” I said
“Go away!”

The dragon bared its teeth
Hissed
Then huffed
Then sighed blue steam
It turned around and sauntered back into my winter coats

And with a flick of its tail
The door swung shut
 

Thank you for reading! If you happened to enjoy this little bit of nonsense, please be sure to go give it a “thumbs up” on the Linky List (we’re #295). I’m sure Miss Mango would concur (and will, as soon as she returns from Dreamland).

In the meantime, I must bid a fond farewell to you all. For those of you wondering, I am pleased to tell you that Miss Mango and I have been hard at work on my interview. You shall not be disappointed when it’s finished, I daresay. In the meantime, I ask for your patience.

And in unrelated news, here is a blog I find amusing.
 

Ever your humble servant,
F.R. Raptor

Sunday Sharing #5 (or Locker Libraries, Cool Words, and Authorial Badassery)

Hello everyone!

First of all, a quick shout-out to all of my new campaigner friends: I’m so excited to see all of you here! I’m actually starting to think that I may even need a more interesting name for my visitors/subscribers. Hmmm. I shall consult with Fred on this matter. (Also, I think I’ll need to do a special post to properly introduce Fred to everyone; it seems he’s becoming quite popular these days!)

Anyhow, it’s that special time of the week again…let’s get right to the links, shall we?

1. The first thing on my list is first for a very good reason: it is one of the most wonderful, inspirational things I have read in a long time. For those of you who don’t know, there are few things that make me angrier than censorship (particularly where the reading materials of kids/teens are concerned), and this young woman is quietly subverting her school’s policies by running a library of banned books from a school locker. Please do yourself a favor and check it out.

2. It’s true that getting an agent and/or publisher is difficult, but the task becomes even trickier to navigate when there are scores of unscrupulous people waiting to prey upon hopeful, uneducated writers. Do yourself a favor and read this post from agent Jennifer Laughran (of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency) on how to conduct oneself safely in a publishing world where scam artists abound.

3. A fun article from Cracked.com (aren’t most of them fun?) about five authors who were more badass than the fictional characters they created. So much awesome.

4. Thank you to writer and blogger Kimberly for reminding us that “rules” in writing are less fixed than many think and that often you can break them as long as you can pull it off well. And after all, as Neil Gaiman puts it, “The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.”

5. A collection of 13 writing tips from bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk. I’m particularly fond of numbers 2, 4, and 10, but I think it’s all great advice.

6. An intriguing list of ambiguous words (i.e. in this sense, words with various definitions and usages) that can be useful in creating titles for stories/songs/poems, etc. Fun to explore if you’re hunting for a title or if you (like me) just like words.

7. I love this video. Not going to say much more than that, but please watch it:

 

Woot! See you on Thursday, if not sooner!

On Stars and Spreading the Writerly Love

Hey friends,

Greetings from BEAUTIFUL Yosemite National Park! I’m here soaking up all the nature (and stars) that I can before heading back to East Coast urban-ness, but I’ll hopefully have a proper blog post for you all tomorrow. I’m planning to regularize my blogging so I update on Thursdays and Sundays, with occasional random posts (like this one) in-between.

On that note, I just wanted to do my part to publicize this awesome project I’m (hopefully) going to be participating in this fall. It’s called the Third Writers’ Platform Building Campaign, and the aim is to help aspiring authors meet and network online. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, feel free to check it out. Based on what I’ve read about past years, it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

In the meantime, I’m off to do a bit of reading and stargazing! I miss the stars so much when I’m at school. Hope you all are enjoying this last bit of summer! (I actually caught Fred sunbathing in the buff the other day. Of course, he’s a velociraptor, so that’s hardly unusual, but he was mortified anyways, poor thing. He made me turn around until he’d put on his top-hat.)