Good Links: September Edition

Well, September came and went, just like that. Now here we are in fall. Wah.

Here are some of the good links I came across this month.

Grammar, Style, etc:

Have you been wondering about spacing around your dashes and ellipses? I haven’t either, but I did discover I wasn’t spacing around my ellipses correctly when I read How Publishing Really Works’ article about it.

Along with spacing issues, do you wonder about which font to use? The Rejectionist pokes fun at Courier font while making a nice, valid point for not using that crappy old font.

Passive tense, anyone? Not sure what it is and why you should possibly avoid it? This article will help you out. (Passive tense can be more wordy, more convoluted, but it can also highlight the action instead of the agent performing the action.) Here is a nice little quote from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL):

You can recognize passive-voice expressions because the verb phrase will always include a form of be, such as am, is, was, were, are, or been. The presence of a be-verb, however, does not necessarily mean that the sentence is in passive voice.

What the heck is an Oxford Comma and where and when do you use one?

On Writing:

Is your character reactive or proactive. Do things happen to your character or does he or she make things happen? Rachelle Gardner explains a bit about reactive and proactive characters.

Finished your project and dreaming up that perfect title? While a perfect title is good to have in the querying stage, don’t get too attached to it. BookEnds Literary explains.

Brenda Hiatt shows us the money in publishing romance. And who says getting your work with a big publisher doesn’t pay?

More on publishing and money, this time the goods straight from a literary agency. Basically, you’ve got to sell a lot folks. And that means you, the writer, have to get your butt in gear and sell your work. It ain’t no free ride.

And here’s the pitch! Rachelle Gardner advises you to tell the actual story in your pitch. Is it an emotional journey? Big deal! What actually happens.

Guide to Literary Agents’ 5 Ways to tell if you and a literary agent are a good match.

Just for Fun:

Universal Studios unveils plans for a Harry Potter theme park in Florida. Thanks, guys. I think bloody ol’ England is closer to my house than freaking Florida.

How much time do you spend listening to muzak while trying to get a hold of a real person when calling a company? Ha! Listen no more. Here’s what number to push to get to a real person. Love it!

Rick Astley (remember him?) only has one dance move. Seriously, though, this is a fun mash-up between Rick Astley and Nirvana.

Cow abduction is a very serious problem. Please check it out and be sure to offer your support for the cause by clicking on the cow. (Some folks have way too much time on their hands and I love them for it.)

And there you have it, September in a nutshell.

Wordle Me This

You can see it bigger here.

This is cool. You paste in your blog URL, and Wordle makes a nice little image of the words in your blog. Cool, huh? (Although, there is something fishy about mine.)

Freedom to Read Week–Correction! (Banned Book Week)

This week is Freedom to Read Week, otherwise known as, Banned Book Week. (Later note:) Nope, I screwed up, this is actually Banned Book Week (which is American). Freedom to Read Week (Canadian version) is actually in February. Oops!

Even though this week was the highlight of the year when I was a YA librarian, I somehow forgot about this week. (Later note: Maybe because we celebrated the Canadian version, being Canadian and all. Maybe the cold I’m finally getting over didn’t give me as much brain damage as I first thought.) I know! Impossible. Unreal. Thankfully, Yvonne Osborne saved the day. She’s having a writing challenge over on her blog–try to write something worthy of being banned or challenged.

There are piles of lists out on the internet that are challenged or banned classics, 50 banned books that everyone should read (includes great background on why each book has been banned), the most commonly challenged books in the US (some of these are ridiculous), and more. Many more lists.

Harry Potter was a huge ‘offender’ years ago and he topped all the current lists. It’s nice to see that the hubbub around that has died down. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (kissing) is a British YA diary which is hilarious, and not at all as bad as it title leads you to assume, is on the list. Of course, Judy Blume is on the list. A few years back, Meg Cabot kept hoping to get one of her books challenged and she finally got one a few years ago. She claims it is an honor to be on those lists. I can kind of see that. Look at the big names on those lists. As well, it means your words have got someone thinking and challenging their personal or world beliefs.

Yvonne asked readers over on AQ, as well as on her blog how many banned/challenged books they have read. Good question. Which list do you use? Does it count if you started reading them?

Here’s my ‘have-read’ list (from the three a fore-mentioned lists):

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Couldn’t get through it–ban it!)
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne (Darn that talking, bumbling bear. What is he trying to do–scare our kids into thinking hephalumps are real?)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Again, imagination is deadly, folks.)
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Babel fish, talking robots, dang, better ban it.)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. (One of the few fantasy books I’ve enjoyed. Better ban it. You don’t want me reading that good stuff.)
The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling.(Read and own all 7)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe. (Wasn’t able to finish this one. The message kept hitting me over the head, again and again and again. I was already sold on the idea of slavery being bad. Can I still count it?)
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. (Couldn’t get through this one. It was the rape scene–also why it was banned. I don’t think that makes it ban-worthy. Just put-it-down worthy in my case.
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. (Fantastic story. Loved it.)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging Louise Rennison
Go Ask Alice Anonymous
The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky (Seriously one of the most popular books in school back in the early 2000s.)
Where’s Waldo? Martin Handford (Puh-lease. Don’t we have anything better to do than ban find-the-geek-in-the-crowd? Oh, right. They are addictive. Never mind.)

34, if I include the 3 I couldn’t get through. I think I need to read more banned/challenged books as there are some great ones that I’ve always meant to read on those lists. There were also some kids books I may have read ages ago, but I couldn’t recall so I didn’t include them. I’m pretty sure I read Blubber by Judy Blume though. Maybe I need to re-read it.

Just realized that I HAVE read S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. So, 35.

Trim, Trim, Trim Challenge: Final Update (#13)

I’m done! I’m done!

It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but hey, whatever! There was no ‘I have a cold’ slowdown factored into the original ‘schedule’. Okay, okay, there was no schedule.

I started with about 252 single-spaced pages. I now have 239.

My original goal was to trim 5000 words by taking out the ‘it goes without saying’ stuff. I trimmed 10,741.

Word count was 103, 669 when I started. I now have 92, 928.

I think this puppy is more saleable now. Onwards and upwards!

Trim, Trim, Trim Challenge: Update 4086

Hi.

While I try not to burn supper (fabulous breakfast-supper), I bring you this update. Hang on, gotta stir the scrambled eggs…okay. I am down to 23 single-spaced words to edit through. I am also down to…stir the hashbrowns. Rescue toast…93,485 words. At this point, I’m thinking about 92,500 could be a nice resting place with the manuscript. Turn off eggs. Honey on toast. In a few days, we’ll see how close. Salt hashbrowns. Unwrap bacon. Head to watch ‘My Little Pony movie’.

‘Til then…yours in editing,

Jean