Valuable Links: Word Count

My first manuscript was a 254,000 word adult epic fantasy. I kid you not. It was an epic all right.

So in ode to that giant overwrite, here's some links on the sweet spot for word count.

This post by Jennifer Laughran is often referred to as the one to check for word count reference. Also see this post about word count on the Writer's Digest site as opinions vary on the perfect word count. In fact, you can check around to different posts and then take an average for what they all say to probably give you best idea of a true range.

Too much over or under the acceptable range is not a good thing. Here's hoping you come in under 254K.

Valuable Links: Blog Blitz

Here's a great helping hand for your blog from DL Hammons. Want to get your blog visited by a ton of new people? Join this group.

The Blog Blitz picks someone almost every week to visit and blitz, leaving a blizzard of comments.

You'll have to wait for your turn and visit the other blogs being blitzed, but who knows you may find valuable sources of information or entertainment. Plus it's just plain fun to gang up on a blog and leave a hundred comments.

Valuable Links: Agent Blogs

Here are a couple of active agent blogs that answer lots of questions from writers. 

Sarah Negovetich does a lot with building platform and marketing yourself as a writer on her blog. She also answers questions by video log. 

Janet Reid is the ultimate source of answers for questions about querying. 

Valuable Links: New Release Books for Free

If you love to read and you don't want to spend a fortune on new books, I've got the link for you.

The review site Net Galley offers free ebooks to readers who will post reviews online at Goodreads, Amazon, or your own blog. All you have to do is create an account and browse the list of offered books. Request the ones you like and wait for publishers to approve you.

The more books you review, the more likely you are to be approved.

In many cases these are fresh from the presses new releases or advance copies. And you'll find some big name authors here as well as debut ones.

If you're a published author, Net Galley is the place to offer your book to increase your number of reviews. They have various packages available, but I'd recommend seeking out alternative co-ops as Net Galley is pricey. (Ask me privately and I can recommend some co-ops.)

Valuable Links: Getting all the Hot News

So you use twitter to get all the latest gossip and news about contests. You follow agents and see what they're talking about. But guess what--you're following more and more people and it's hard to sort out what you want to see from what you don't need.

Fear not. I have the answer (if you don't know about it already).  TWEETDECK!  

Yes, Tweetdeck will let you separate people into clear and easy to read columns. (Isn't that where people belong?) Simply classify tweeters into Lists on twitter and arrange those Lists into their own columns.

Now you can see agents here, contest runners next to them, and friends in their own space. You can lump together such greats as Bunny Buddha with Jerry Seinfeld and POTUS, maybe throw in weather guru Al Roker. 

Never miss another important tweet thanks to Tweetdeck.  (No animals have been harmed in the making of this post.)  

Valuable Links: Naming Characters

So you need to come up with a name that means sunshine and has African origins. One of the hardest tasks in writing a book can be creating enough names, especially if you have an epic fantasy or a historical fiction on your hands. As the number of side characters goes up, so does the difficulty. 

And as writers we are perfectionists. We want not just any name, but the perfect fit of a name. Many times I will have a first letter I want to use but I need a place to go to generate names to go with that letter.

Try this baby name generator. Baby Names World has lists of things like cowboy names, Yiddish names, Harry Potter names, sports names and so much more. You can search by gender and country. The last time I used it, you could search by meaning of names.  It's fantastic!

So give yourself a helping hand and generate a name.

Valuable Links- Mary Sue Test

One of the things I've been warned about along my writing journey is Mary Sue characters. Avoid a Mary Sue character.

Well, what is a Mary Sue?

A Mary Sue is a character that is too perfect to be realistic. And usually too flawless to be likable to a reader. Sly or insinuating people might say that a Mary Sue character is what the author wishes they were, but can never attain.

The problem with a Mary Sue is they often end up inspiring hatred instead of devotion. No one is perfect. In appearance or personality. And no reader likes to compare themselves to a fiction character who is.

A fun game to play is taking the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test to find out if your character is a Mary Sue. The questions are hilarious! Really, don't miss it.  

Confession: My first ms was loaded with Mary Sue characters. I answered yes to so many of these questions that it was embarrassing.

Valuable Links: Check and double check

Scams abound everywhere, even in publishing. You can never be too careful. Most of these are pretty well known websites, but here are some places where you can check out agents and publishers or get more information on what a scam looks like.

• Preditors and Editors- a listing of agents and publishers with ratings on who to trust. 
• Agent Query- if an agent is listed here, they are probably safe. Gives details on genre, guidelines.
• Query Tracker - ditto. gives details on genre, guidelines.
• Absolute write forums- discussions of agents and publishers done by writers. More likely to have rumors than guaranteed facts, but still great information.
• Writer's Beware Blog- info on who to avoid.
• SFWA Writer's Beware- lots of info on what to avoid and dubious things to look out for.

Got another place you trust for information? Share it in the comments.

Valuable Links -Grammar Answers

As a finance major living in an English major's world, I have a lot of questions. Need to know when to place a hyphen? 

Whether you mean 'affect' or 'effect'? 

Whether to use 'that' or 'which'? 

Does a question mark go inside quotes or outside?

Why a gerund sentence should be avoided. 

Commas! Where do they belong?

Need I say more.

Grammar Girl is your solution for quick and dirty tips to often asked grammar questions. 

Valuable Links: Have a Little Fun, Will You!

Enough said. This week I went over to the dark side and indulged my inner child.  


Writing is a serious business for serious people ... Who the heck am I kidding? If you can't have fun with your time, then you're doing something wrong.

 

Break out the free smilies and throw a party! These are some of my favorites. You can find them here.

They're fun in emails and dropped into comments at your favorite writing community. I just wouldn't recommend putting them in query letters. 

Now, someone tell me how to get them to work in tweets.

Valuable Links: Get That Email There on Time

This week's valuable link is timely for all the contests (hint: Nightmare on Query Street) happening in October! Say you live in a particular time zone that doesn't really sinc well with New York Eastern time, but you want to enter a big contest. You've not keen on waking up in the middle of the night to do this.

Or perhaps you work a job where you can't be near a computer during the day to hit send on an email. (This describes my job by the way.) Are you just supposed to miss out on possible life-altering contests?

Heck no!!!

But your email server doesn't let you schedule those pesky emails. (Darn them.) Do you have to create a whole other email account just to enter contests? After all, you're kinda partial to that account, you've had it for years and the password is your deceased goldfish's name.  

Heck no!!!

So, what can you do? 

LetterMeLater sends that troublesome email for you and makes it seem as if it came from your very own account. Plus, you can schedule your email so it sends with pinpoint accuracy. Don't want to be too early or too late. LetterMeLater saves the day! All for free. 

Valuable Links: Emotion Thesaurus

You want to avoid telling the emotion of your characters, because telling is supposedly a very, very bad thing. But how do you manage that? 

If you can't tell everyone that Scooby Doo is afraid, then what do you do? 

The easiest method is showing his body language to clue in the reader. Instead of saying Scooby Doo was afraid. 

Scooby Doo's eyes bulged. He shook like a doggie earthquake and wiped sweaty paws on the back of Shaggy's green shirt.

But what do you do if you want to show an emotion, but your ideas are dry?

Why you run straight to the Emotion Thesaurus quick links. There you'll discover that frustration is bunching your hands into fists or running fingers through hair or kicking at something. 

They have over forty emotions so you're sure to find the one you need to describe your character. Happy showing!

Valuable Links: Start a Contest

This week's valuable link is one that lets you do some promoting while having fun. What could be better than fun! 

Rafflecopter can help you design and run a contest. It does the heavy work for you, keeping track of who entered,  how long the contest runs, and listing the rules. It will draw the winner for you, making sure everything is random.

At the same time, it'll offer people entries for following your blog, twitter or facebook, twittering about the contest, or leaving comments. The options are endless.

And it's all free for basic membership!! 

Don't be thinking you can't handle a contest. Rafflecopter does it for you. Afraid no one will enter? Send me a twitter invite and you are assured of one person's interest, plus I'll help you promote.

Valuable Links: Synopsis Simplified

This week's valuable link is a great article about the most dreaded and hated synopsis. I can vouch that I used this post to help write the synopsis for my hamster story, and that certainly ended happily. It was the easiest synopsis I ever managed to write. Done in just a few hours, in no small part because of this article.

In eleven easy steps, this post leads you through the synopsis from opening image to final resolution. And it uses examples from Star Wars! What could be better! An easy button with light sabers!

Check out How To Write A 1-Page Synopsis.

Valuable Links- Paradise of Agents

So I thought I'd start sharing some of the links that really helped me in my writing journey. I'll try to make it a weekly event, at least until I run out of links. If that is possible. My favorite's list is like a mile long. This week's is really useful if you are in the query trenches.

Everyone knows it's hard to met the agent that is perfect for you. It has all the sting of online dating . And so many agents accept queries, but they're pretty busy with the clients they already have. Enticing an agent is difficult. I'm living proof of that, but also proof that it can be done. Sometimes the best bet is finding an agent that is new to the business. Not only are they hungrier, but they are actually looking for clients instead of just sorting through query letters and waiting to be impressed.

So how do you find new agents, besides slogging through twitter?  Well, Writer's Digest puts them in neat little packages, complete with their genre interests and their submission guidelines. It's a querier's paradise.

Ready for it?  Here's the link. New Agency Alerts