Southern Fried Chicas

Like I mentioned last week, I have an artilce I want to share… if you have any helpful hints you’d think should be included, please feel free to add on!

Like to read articles on publishing and the world around it? Try an online magazine: Publishers Weekly (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/home/index.html)

Have you heard NANO bandied about? Don’t know what it is? It stands for: National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/); the function is to get 50,000 words done in a month (the month of November). Just another way to keep you actively writing.

If you don’t already have your domain purchased, it’s not a bad idea to go ahead and get it. You can spend as little as $9 a year; and you can make your registration private—I pay the additional $8 a year for private registry because people can click on it and see the info associated with it. You can obtain/register your domain at places like Go Daddy, Domain and Network Solutions—Google them for the sites as well as many others . (As someone who has a “.net” web-addy and added my middle name because my name without it “. com” was/is taken… it’s worth it if you think you’ll ever use it).

Not ready to jump into the domain field, you can dip your toe in for free with blogs. WordPress (http://wordpress.com/) and Blogger (http://www.blogger.com) are two, easy to navigate, routes. You can personalize them as much or as little as you have time or knowledge for. They also have multiple pages to be utilized. And did I mention they’re free?

Did you attend last year’s RWA conference? Or the one before that? No… Did you know you can look up the conference handouts online? On RWA’s site (http://www.rwanational.org/cs/conference_recordings_and_handouts), the 2009 thru 2011 handouts are available online (you don’t even have to be logged in).

Just for fun:
I worry about naming my characters after someone who might take offense—I have never deliberately done this, but there are only so many combos of names right? But how to know for sure… I always Google my character names and see what pops up. If you like to waste more time play, try this website: (http://www.howmanyofme.com/) “How many of me”. It will tell you, as the name implies, how many people have that name. Denise McDonald for instance, there are: 268. My kiddo, whose name I spelled a little different than the norm, one or fewer.

Need a little extra push to get words on the page? Try Write or Die (http://writeordie.drwicked.com/), you can set the terms –word disappearing if not fast enough typing on your part or a simple little nudge to move it along (on the site, look to the right sidebar for the timer).

Remember search engines are your friend. Even if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. Try adding words to your search such as author, writer or writing and you may open up a world of knowledge you didn’t even know you wanted to know.

Oh and… Happy Valentine’s Day ~