Writing Gooder

Interested in getting your novel published? Then you may well want an agent, and to get an agent you’ll need to write a query letter. This is not easy.

Thankfully, Janet Reid (who is herself an agent) has set up a blog called the Query Shark. Some poor saps send her their query letters to be critiqued by her – and critique she does. Luckily for us, amongst the thrashings of queries being torn violently apart, we learn what to, and what not to, put in our own query letters.

So if you’re thinking of querying an agent, read through this blog first. If you’re already sending out queries at the moment – read through it anyway. Perhaps it’ll help improve your chances of getting one of those ever-elusive creatures we call literary agents.

Probably a bit late to be telling you, but JulNoWriMo starts in July. As in, tomorrow.

It’s exactly the same as NaNoWriMo (the National Novel Writing Month), only it’s in July instead of November. As usual, the aim is to write a 50,000+ word novel in only a single month. You can find the official site here.

I intend to join in – I really need to get the first draft of the Greatest Book Ever Written finished, and this is the perfect opportunity.

Anyone joining me?

[A hat tip to canislupis for posting about it on the forum.]

[Oh, and no, I didn't make that awsome Dragon Ball picture. Nabbed it from ICanHasCheezburger.com, which is another great site you should check out.]

Duotrope’s Digest is one of those websites that I find myself recommending to people time and time again. If you’re interesting in publishing short fiction or poetry, it’s an invaluable resource.

It is, in short, a database of magazines that publish short stories and poetry. Looking beyond that though, the site is more than just a list of magazine names – it contains a whole load of helpful secondary information too, which will really help you find the market that suits you.

Information such as: genres and themes accepted, payment offered, and submission types allowed are all included, amongst other. My two favourite attributes listed: how quick the magazine is to respond to submissions, and a calculated percentage of submissions accepted.

You can create an account with the site too, which will let you store your favourite magazines for easy access, and help you to keep track of which magazines you have submitted to and whether they accepted you or not.

Duotrope’s Digest is constantly being updated and is completely free to use, so if you’re interested in publishing a short story or a piece of poetry – whether just to see it in print, or for actual money – it’s definitely a site worth checking out.

Behind the Name is a good web site with a terrible design, but still a good web site.  In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the largest, most complete resource of names on the Web.

When you’re working on a novel, it’s important to get names right.  Many people just pick a name out of thin air for their characters, and that’s the wrong way to go about things.  All names mean something, and Behind the Name will aid you in providing you with the meaning of the name.

Plus, it has a great random name generator.  It doesn’t have an option for Harry Potter like the YWS Random Name Generator, but theirs has a few dozen other options that YWS’ doesn’t have.

Save the Words

Save the Words (http://www.savethewords.org) is a neat little website run by the folks from the Oxford English Dictionary with a listing of rare & old english words.  In fact, you’ve probably already heard of it (and if not, go check it out!).  Not all the words seem old or rare to me (ten-cent store for one), but I’ve never heard of the vast majority of them (tortiloquy meaning dishonest/immoral speech).

The objective of the web site is, of course, to save these words from dying out.  So many of them seem like they’d be very useful in everyday speech (I’m definitely using tortiloquy) that I’m sure there a few you’d pick up.

After you’ve had the chance to explore the web site, come back here and let us know your favorite!

One of the great things the Internet does is bring together the power of the masses.  Individually, we run amok.  Collectively, we act together to bring about the common good whether it be through capitalism, democracy, or Authonomy.

Authonomy is a new Web site from HarperCollins that works just like a dozen others.  You upload your novel to the site, which allows others to read and rate it.  What’s different, though, is that the powers that be at HarperCollins will read the top rated novels from each month. If they like it, you’ll get a contract.

So is this better than shopping your manuscript around to prospective agents?  I’m not quite sure.  For one, you’re restricting yourself to just HarperCollins, which is just one publishing house of hundreds.  For another, an agent can provide you with valuable advice and negotiate to get you a better contract.

However, it certainly provides a new and interesting way into the world of published authors, and lets be honest: your novel has a slim to nil chance of ever being published.  Authonomy can thus give you a forum for others to review your novel, and you can then use those critiques to write a better one.

Nate, I confess, this started all because I wanted to prank you. I saw that one thread in the mod forum (you know the one) and instead of being a nice human being and comforting you, I had the craziest urge to give you the biggest prank that I think YWS has ever seen. The plan? To fill up your PM box with thank you notes from all of YWS. 

Consider yourself lucky that I talked with Meshugenah first. She dissuaded me from this idea and we came up with another plan, a better plan. We would PM all the active members from YWS that we could grab and tell them to write a thank you note and send it to me, so that way, I would get stuck with all the thank you notes. And then we would show it to you, at once, so we could completely overwhelm you. A good prank? Maybe. We code named it “Project Awesome.” 

But it’s not completely my fault, honest. It’s the whole site’s fault. Yes, I had a crazy idea, but the idea caught on fire. Several people, when they first got my PM, demanded to help me and made sure I never slacked off. In the first five days, I received nearly a hundred replies and thank you notes for you. And not just from established members either–I was astonished how many wonderful notes that I got from newbies, who I thought would simply ignore my PM. Boy, was I wrong. 

Nate, nobody once said this was a terrible idea. Often for the topic of the PM they sent me back, they changed it to, “Great idea!” Or, if they didn’t do this, they simply told me, “Great idea!” in the actual private message. As Layleun put it, “When Project Awesome was launched I literally yelped with joy and danced around the room because Snoink finally thought of a way we could help you!” 

Nate, we all think you’re awesome. And we want to prove it to you. 

I asked everybody to choose their favorite color–that is why this is a whole rainbow of colors. Everybody is listed in alphabetical order because we are all YWS members, no matter what color we sport in the actual forums. 

Here is what we have to say:

Project Awesome

For the last few days, I’ve been busy putting together a poetry database over at The Writers Society, and yes, it is the best poetry database on the web!  If you don’t believe me, check it out.

Currently, there are 505 poems & 122 poets, and both Snoink and Incandescence have helped in adding the poems currently there.  Caligula’s Laundrette has also agreed to help build it up, so my goal is now 3,000 poems in the database by the end of the month.

So while it’s not available at YWS, still go check it out!  Everything is done dynamically, so browsing and searching the database is a cinch.  You can even rate poems now, and you’ll be able to comment on them pretty soon as well, regardless of whether or not you are registered.

In fact, I’m pretty proud of it.  The coding has been done 100% by myself, so you aren’t going to find another poetry archive like it on the net.

The Writers Society (TWS) is a new writing community for writers ages 18+ that I’m starting. The site is quite similar to the Young Writers Society in that it’s forum based, and oriented around a strong sense of community. It’s just getting off the ground, but if you got the time, check it out at:

http://www.TheWritersSociety.com

Expect one more site to be added in the coming year to the Writers Society family: the Kids Writers Society (name may change). The Kids Writers Society (KWS) will be for kids younger than 13, and will be quite different from the other two due to privacy concerns. However, kids will be able to share their writing and comment on what other people wrote as well.

Working on a story?  Having trouble with the first line?  The opening line is often the beginning of the hook, and thus very important.  You don’t want a common line, of course…that’s boring right away.  But do you want something short?  Something long?  Something awkward or elusive? 

Check out these 100 Best First Novel Lines.  Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Call me Ishmael. —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

5. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)

14. You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. —Italo Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979; trans. William Weaver)

26. 124 was spiteful. —Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)

29. Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. —Ha Jin, Waiting (1999)

38. All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

41. The moment one learns English, complications set in. —Felipe Alfau, Chromos (1990)

42. Dr. Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. —Anita Brookner, The Debut (1981)

49. It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road (1992)