Archive for the ‘Tweets For Writers’ Category
Posted on May 4, 2012 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
The Week’s Best Writing Posts: Friday, May 4, 2012
Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ”
- Gene Fowler
It has been forever since I did one of these posts; I think all the way back in September. After noticing some exceptional posts for writers floating around twitter, and the new facelift to the blog, I decided it was time to bring This Week in Writing back. Did you miss some of these? I have collected a lot in the past couple of weeks, hoping to do another post like this – here we are! I’ll try to get more regular about this again, since I always get comments and emails that these are great because they are missed by some.
On Agents/Editors/Querying:
- Why Every Self-Publishing Author Needs an Editor
- Hiring a Freelance Editor: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Submissions 101: Keep the Kids out of Your Author Bio
- How to vet an independent (freelance) editor
- Why it might take an agent a while to reply to your submission
- Agents: Remember them?
- The Importance of Reversion Clauses in Book Contracts
On Character Development & Dialog:
- Creating Believable and Well Rounded Characters (Writing for Success)
- The Starburst Method: The Character Grid
- How (Not) to Write Great Characters
- Creating characters that “jump off the page” will be covered here.
- Finding the True Protagonist of Your Story
- 8 Tips for Naming Characters
- Tips for writing villains
- How do you get away with basing characters on people you know?
- The Key Ingredient for Dramatic Tension–Understanding the Antagonist
- Here’s some interesting thoughts about writing strong female characters
On Genre Specifics:
- What contemporary fiction do you recommend for high school students?
- YA Highway: Expectations Within Genres
- Here are a few tips on getting materials together for a travel writing article.
- The YA Genre Is Killing Itself
- Oh, Mother, Where Art Thou? Connie Brockway on Moms in Romance Novels.
- Race in YA from a Biracial Perspective — Guest Blogger Jean-Paul Bass Weighs in on the Issue
- Some Notes Towards a Working Definition of Steampunk
- The 10 Commandments of Thrillers: The Article That Inspired John Grisham
On Publishing:
- The Secrets To Ebook Publishing Success. A Must-Read For Authors.
- Taking critique like a pro
- It’s a Business– Is Amazon an Enemy? Or a potential ally?
- If you are a self-publisher you NEED to know about metadata. Here’s a super sexy intro.
- Wade Rouse explains How He Got Published
- Has Publishing Become a Kinky Game? Ruth Harris Talks about Writer Masochism and How to Cure It
- Big Six Publishing is Dead–Welcome the Massive Three
- Self-Publishing Basics: Introduction to Metadata — The Book Designer
On Marketing:
- 5 secrets of getting free publicity – Sales Machine – CBS News
- 4 Simple Steps to Creating a Vanity URL for Your Amazon Author Central Page
- Ebooks–Pricing, Visibilty & Experimentation
- The ebook pricing monster has been slumbering in recent months
- Launching a successful blog tour
- Useful Tools and Websites to Help You Improve Your Grammar
- Ebook Pricing: How Much Should I Sell My Book For?
- Book Marketing: Why I Gave Up Trying to Build a Big Social Media Following
- If you are about to design your own book cover, please read this first
- Author Branding: The You That Is Everywhere
On Revision/Editing:
- How to Convert an Adjective to an Adverb
- Writing and deadlines
- Self-Editing Your Novel (Writing for Success)
- 36 Adjectives Describing Light
On Outlining & Plotting:
- When you get stuck
- Writing in the Third Person
- Tips for ending chapters with a bang
- 10 Things I Learned While Writing a Sequel
- 5 steps for testing your opening scene
- Are Your Scene Breaks Rude?
- 4 Simple Ways to Create a Well-Written Ebook
- Setting the Mood with your First Lines
- Perfecting Your First Page: 3 Tasks or Exercises
- Want your readers to find it impossible to put down your book? 4 tips to keep them reading
On Social Networking/Blogging & Other Online Stuffs:
- To Link or Not to Link Your FB & Twitter Posts
- Pinterest for Authors: How to Promote Your Writing on the Fastest Growing Website Ever
- Facebook or Twitter, Which Is Better for Book Promotion?
- YA Authors on Pinterest
- Jody Hedlund explains why writers need to use Pinterest
- 5 free ways to monitor your brand on Twitter
- 10 Twitter best practices for journalists…or anyone
- 12 ways Twitter makes you a better writer
- Has The Internet Made You Into A Pretend Writer? via BubbleCow
On Writing in General:
- Writing For Success: Don’t start the story at the beginning
- How to Find Your Daily Writing Motivation: A guest post by James Chartrand of Men with Pens…
- It’s Time to Start Your Novel: Here’s Why
- Pushing Past Procrastination, by Melissa Foster
- Want to be a professional writer? Act like one.
- The importance of keeping a notebook
- Writing a novel that people want to read.
- Finding Ways to Find and Manage the Time
On Everything Else (including new, cool things, inspiration, creativity, free things and funny stuff):
- Self-Published Author Lands a book deal after 125 years!
- A free directory of ebook pros–for covers, editing, formatting, & more
- A Writer’s Enemy: Feeling Like A Fraud
- Target to stop selling Kindles, citing “conflict of interest”
- Use the YouTube Time Machine to research your book or writing project
Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did. Please leave a comment with a link so others can find it!
Added this week: If you are interested in getting your own posts included, the best way to get me to notice you is for you to tweet me the link. I visit sites daily looking for new articles to post on twitter. I primarily use Twitter to find awesome articles – it’s full of them.
Have a great weekend, and come back next week for more!
Posted on September 16, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Favorite Tweets For Writer’s – 9/16/2011
“Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ”
- Gene Fowler
Did you miss them? I haven’t done this post lately, because I got so busy with other things, and I sure didn’t mean to. Now I’m back and I’m on a roll. I have a huge list of great posts from the past few weeks to share. I might have to include some with next week’s post too. There’s so many great posts right now, and I definitely don’t want to overwhelm you.
Some of these links I may have re-tweeted throughout the week(s), but most are new.
On Agents/Editors/Querying:
- Will My Agent Rep a Different Genre
- When An Agent Offers To Rep You
- Looking Around While Still Represented
- Should Agents Respond to All Queries
- Some Poetic Query Advice
- For Writers Whose Work Has Been Rejected: Read This
- Two Words That Can Change Your Writing Career
On Character Development & Dialog:
- Character Attributes
- When It’s all Your MC’s Fault
- Red Herrings as Scapegoated Characters in Mystery Genre
- Voice Is Not Everything (but it is vitally important)
- The Uncensored Voice
- What Your Characters Favorite Fairy Tale Says about Them
- Kate Hart on Dialogue and Dialect
- 7 Ways to Develop Dazzling Dialogue
- Laying Some Smack Down on the Page
On Genre Specifics:
- The Art & Craft of Fantasy Writing
- The Newest Trend in YA
- Then All Genres are Flawed
- How to Write Spiritual/New Age Fiction
- Researching the Historical Novel
- How To Mix Genres to Write Fresh Novels or Short Stories
- So You Wanna Write a Web Serial?
On Publishing:
- Should you use a Pseudonym + Cool Fake Name Generator
- How To Build A List Of Readers For Your Next Book Launch
- Random Acts of Publicity
- Don’t Want to be a “One Book Wonder”
- New Ways to Sell Short Stories
- Reaching Out to Booksellers: A Publicists Advice
On Revision/Editing:
- Revision: It’s the Little Things
- Self Editing 101
- Conflicting Advice on Revisions: What the Professionals Say
On Outlining & Plotting:
- Choosing the Best Outlining Method for You
- Backstory: Where and How Much?
- Make Your Ending as Big as Possible
- Openers
- Cramped Middles
- 10 Tips Guaranteed to Rescue Your Story
- The Plot Thickens
- Non-Linear Writing: Focusing on Your Story’s DNA
On Social Networking/Blogging & Other Online Stuffs:
- Your Public Persona: Proudly Wearing the Author Badge
- Brilliance in 140 Characters
- 19 Ways to Get More Readers To Your Author’s Blog
- How Do You Get More Followers to Your Blog
- Twitter Etiquette and Marketing
- Social Media and Your Author Brand
- The Major League Baseball Guide to Pulling Out of a Blogging Slump
- How Social Media and YOU can Bring a Book to Life
- Why Copying Inspires Creativity?
On Writing in General:
- Your Novel’s Going Nowhere
- Frustration: Your Novel’s Best Friend
- Read Like a Writer
- How To Write Fight Scenes With Alan Baxter
- To Trend or Not to Trend
- A Writer’s Main Objective
- Don’t Be Afraid to Write a Bad Book
- What Does It Really Take To Succeed
- Pushing the Mute Button on Writing Advice
- Writers: Finding Your Identity
- Cover Art is Like Chocolate
- Let’s Bore Reader’s to Death
- The Writing Process: From Idea to Print
- Is There a Template for Creativity
- Writing Lessons from a Blogvel
- What Authors Can Learn From the Best Sellers List
- Become a Better Writer By Practicing Gratitude
On Everything Else (including cool things, inspiration, creativity, free things and funny stuff):
- The High’s and Low’s of the Writing Life by Jody Hedlund
- Internal and External Inspirations
- Creativity? Train Your Brain to be an Idea-Generating Machine
Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did. Please leave a comment with a link so others can find it!
If you missed last weeks Favorite Tweets for Writers, find it here.
Added this week: If you are interested in getting your own posts included, the best way to get me to notice you is to follow my blog on GFC. I visit those sites daily looking for new articles to post on twitter. I primarily use Google Friend Connect but I’m looking for new methods, added soon. (send ideas my way, LOL)
Posted on June 10, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Favorite Tweets for Writers – Week Ending 6/10/2011
Every week I scour Twitter for the best articles and posts that are shared. These are just a few of the best tweets for writers I have seen this week.
Some of these links I may have re-tweeted throughout the week, but I will tell you that most I have not (yet).
On Agents/Editors:
- Before You Hit Send
- Dream Agents
- How to Read a Book Contract
- Please Don’t Serial Query
- Rejection is Not Personal
- Slush Pile Triage
- Queries Beware
- What Are the Odds of Getting an Agent
- What to Look for in an Agent
- 5 Articles on Knowing When To Submit
- 7 Questions To Ask a Prospective Agent
On Character Development & Dialog:
- Adding Character Depth With the Zodiac
- Bare Bones of Dialog
- Character Clinic Day 2
- Character Clinic Day 3
- Character Clinic Day 4
- Introduce Important POVs As Soon as Possible
- Man Up: Writing Male POV
- Places To Find Character Names
- Talking About Heroes
- Villains: Empathy and Motivation
- When Setting is Characters
- Your Character’s Family of Origin
- 25 Things You Should Know About Character
- 5 Fluctuating Forms of Gender-Specific Language
On Genre Specifics:
- Adolescence Sucks, Which is Why YA Rocks
- Bold New Frontiers
- How To Craft a Mystery in a Novel
- Preaching in YA
- Sex in YA (pt. 3) Stereotypes
- Should YA Books Explore Difficult Issues?
- What is Steampunk?
- YA Literature: Realistic or Too Dark?
On Publishing:
- The Completely Backwards Way to Self Publishing Success
- Trading Excerpts With Other Authors in the Back Matter of Your Ebook
- Self-publish first book, seek an agent for the second? Good, bad, risky?
- 2 Ways to Become a Published Author
On Revision/Editing:
- A Bad Book? No, It’s a Good Book You Haven’t Fixed Yet
- Checklist for Editors
- Chip Scanlon Offers Revision Tips
- Edit in an Instant: It Ain’t Gonna Happen
- Is Your First Person Narrator Overpowering Your Story?
- Reading From The end – An Effective Way to Troubleshoot Your Writing
- Revision – The Long View
- The Critique Pact
- Working Within a Critique Group
- 4 Ways to Make the Most of a Critique Group
On Outlining & Plotting:
- A Writing Map to Use For Large Projects
- Actions vs. Choices: Crafting a Better Plot
- Are You a Pantser or a Plotter?
- Conflict Lock: The Fuel of a Story
- Does This Opening Work?
- How to Plot Wrong, in 3 Easy Steps
- How to write a rockin’ sequel.
- How to Write a Scary Scene
- On Story Arcs
- Pinpointing the Points of Your Plot
- PreDrafting Your Novel
- Sharpening Our Narrative
- Subplots – How to Find Them and Where to Use Them
- The First Line
- Time to Write: Stop in the Middle
- Warning Signs of an Idiot Plot
- 11 Resources to Make Editing Your Novel Easier
- 3 Easy Ways to Build Suspense
On Social Networking/Blogging & Other Online Stuffs:
- Get the Best Bang For Your Blog
- How Do You Choose Blog Topics?
- Sexy, Saucy Secrets to Successful Blog Posts
- Why You’re Not Too Shy To Promote
On Writing in General:
- A Book That Speaks For Itself
- A Musical Secret – great post about music and writing
- Branding 101: To Pen Name or Not To Pen Name
- Chasing Trends
- Creating Writing Structure
- Do Writers Need to Read?
- How To Write Short Stories
- Is Your Motor Running?
- Journal Prompts For Bookworms
- Six Signs It’s High Time To Give Up Writing
- Summer Writing Routines
- The Cliche: Unloved and Underappreciated
- The Intersection of Faith and Fiction
- What Makes a Book a Success
- Why Writers Blogging About Writing is Bad
- Write Your Query FIRST For a Better Book
- Writer’s Conferences – Are They Relevant in the Internet Age?
- Writing. It’s Hard.
- 3 Ways to Avoid the Waffle in Writing
On Everything Else (including cool things, free things and funny stuff):
- I Would Hate to Live With a Writer
- If You Love a Writer
- Six Reasons You Should Stick With Legacy Publishing
Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did. Please leave a comment with a link so others can find it!
If you missed last weeks Favorite Tweets for Writers, find it here.
Added this week: If you are interested in getting your own posts included, the best way to get me to notice you is to follow my blog. I visit those sites daily looking for new articles to post on twitter. I primarily use Google Friend Connect but I’m looking for new methods, added soon. (send ideas my way, LOL)
Posted on June 3, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Favorite Tweets for Writers – Week Ending 6/3/2011
Every week I scour Twitter for the best articles and posts that are shared. These are just a few of the best tweets for writers I have seen this week.
Some of these links I may have re-tweeted throughout the week, but I will tell you that most I have not (yet).
On Agents/Editors:
- A Literary Superagent’s Thoughts on Publishing
- Defeat the Sting of Rejection By Focusing on the Right Things
- How To Nix the Fear and Pitch That Post
- How to Read a Book Contract: For Avoidance of Doubt
- Response, No Response, Auto Response
- Showing Not Telling – How to Pitch
- Querying a Collaboration
- What to Expect When You’re Submitting
- Who To Query First?
- Why Personalize a Query?
- Writers: What the Heck is a Pitch Anyway?
- You Just Signed With a Big Agent. Oh, I’m So Sorry
- 7 Tough Questions for Useful Proposals
On Character Development and Dialogue:
- Archetype vs. Stereotype
- Characters That Last
- Developing Supporting Characters
- How Screenplays Help You Write Better Dialogue
- What Our Characters Do When No One is Looking
- 15 Figures of Speech to Color Your Characters
- 3 Reasons Dialogue is Important, 3 Reasons It’s Not
On Genre Specifics:
- All Romance Novels are Written To a Formula
- Top 10 Cliches About Romance Novels (and Romance Readers)
- Writing Middle Grade vs. Other Genres
- Writing YA vs. Adult Fiction: What’s the Difference?
On Publishing:
- Forget About Being Published
- Publishing on the Kindle
- Should Your Ebook Have an Afterword?
- The Future of Publishing
- The Pricing of Ebooks and Perceived Value
On Revision/Editing:
- Breaking Up With Your Crit Partner
- Getting that Sagging Middle Into Shape
- 3 Signs You’re Renovating a Condemned Novel
On Outlining & Plotting:
- Are Happy Endings a Must?
- Constructing Your First Chapter
- Creating Plot Twists
- Five Proofreading Techniques Every Writer Should Know
- How to rise above cliche.
- How to Write Description
- Linear Vs. Patterned – A Brief Discussion Of Structure
- Melissa Foster: Weaving a Theme Throughout Your Book
- One More Look at Openings
- The Mighty Outline
- The Opening Chapter
- The Outline Dilemma - Plotting vs. Pantsing
- What’s the Story on Backstory
- Why Pants & Plots are the Same Thing
- 25 Things You Should Know About Storytelling
On Social Networking/Blogging & Other Online Stuffs:
On Writing in General:
- Coming Out of the Closet as a Writer
- How to Tell If You’re a Writer
- How to Tell If You’re Really a Writer * a different blog post
- How to Use Comedy & Tragedy for a One-Two Punch
- Nature of Conflict
- Physical Cliches
- Single-Task Your Way to More Writing
- Writer’s Block and Depression: Why You Shouldn’t Bully Your Muse
- Writing Contests: Should You Take a Shot?
- Writing Lessons Learned from Water For Elephants
- 12 Blogs That Every Writer Must Read
- 15 Quick and Dirty Writing Tips
- 5 Ways to Develop a Unique Voice
- 7 Summer Writing Goals for the Neurotic
On Everything Else (including cool things, free things and funny stuff):
Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did. Please leave a comment with a link so others can find it!
If you missed last weeks Favorite Tweets for Writers, find it here.
Added this week: If you are interested in getting your own posts included, the best way to get me to notice you is to follow my blog. I visit those sites daily looking for new articles to post on twitter. I primarily use Google Friend Connect but I’m looking for new methods, added soon. (send ideas my way. LOL)
Posted on May 27, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Favorite Tweets for Writers – Week Ending 5/27/2011
Every week I scour Twitter for the best articles and posts that are shared. These are just a few of the best tweets for writers I have seen this week.
This week I have almost 100 links. It was a good week in tweet land. So excited to share the fun links I have found over the past few days.
On Agents/Editors:
- Agent Love
- How Not to Write a Query Letter
- No Agent is Better Than a Bad Agent
- What Happens When an Author Finishes a Book Contract
- How to Respond to Rejections and Negative Feedback
- How to Find Out if Your Agent is An Idiot – part three
- What It Really Means When Your Book Gets Rejected
- What To Do After a Rejection Slip
On Character Development:
- Are YA Boys Bad for Teen Girls?
- Character Communication
- Creating Characters: The Historical Route
- Five Things That Tell You Who Your Characters Are
- Four Way to Use Meyers-Briggs Personality Types in Your Novels (I’ve done this and I loved this article!)
- Giving Characters a Chance To Grow
- Has Your Protagonist Changed His Ways: Prove It!
- He Was a Man of Good Character
- How Many Characters Is Enough?
- How To Avoid the Trap of Creating Unlikeable Characters
- People Watching with Purpose: 20 Tips
- Quick Tip for Character Development
- The Characters Must Come First (in any genre)
- Voices in Your Characters Head
- Your Character’s Code
- 5 Characteristics of an Epic Villan
On Freelance Writing:
- How a Few Measly Words Can Dramatically Improve Your Article Headlines
- Why Bloggers Should Also Be Freelance Writers
On Genre Specifics:
- Marketing Books That Cross Genre
- The Joy of Writing (Not more, Just better) Sex
- World Building: Don’t Do It
- Writing on the Edge of Genre
On Publishing:
- Ebook Covers are Different Than Print
- How Faith Paved My Road From Tradition to Self Publishing
- How to Get a Foot in the Publishing Door
- How Many Projects Should You Have Before You Submit?
- Previously Published Authors & Their Decision to Self Pub
- Self Publishing: How You Can Reduce Costs
- The Love/Hate Relationship Between Writers & Publishers
- Whats the Big Deal About Book Covers
- Why Publishing Needs Summer Fridays
- Will Livable Advances Be The First Casualty of the Publishing Revolution
- 10 Things You Need to Know About Self Publishing
- 3 Publishing Trends Writers Must Stay on Top of
On Revision/Editing:
On Outlining & Plotting:
- Beginnings
- Creating Endings That Resonate
- Good Stuff on Plot
- How I Write a Book Now
- Plot Basics: The Events of Story
- Research: Is it Really Necessary in Fiction
- Setting: Using Scene To Enrich Your Writing
On Social Networking/Blogging & Other Online Stuffs:
- About Page Blues: Are You Making Any of These Mistakes With Yours?
- Creating Blog Posts That Attract Attention (Free Video)
- How to Connect With All of Your Followers
- Ten Tips for a Better Blog
- The Hashtag Ho: How Many Hashtags are Too Many?
- Who We Are – The All Important Bio
- 6 Key Components to an Online Author Platform
On Writing in General:
- Are Teenagers Too Young to Write Good Fiction
- Chapter Headings: To Be or Not to Be
- Everything I Need To Know I Learned in Fifth Grade: The Writing Process
- Find the Right Writing Group
- Fixing Problems in the Manuscript
- How To Keep Tension Through the Middle
- How to Start a Writers Group (and keep it going)
- Pace Yourself
- Stepping Out: A Look at POV shifts
- How Far is Too Far? Far Narrative Distance vs. Telling
- Strengthen Your Voice
- Take a Chance on Perfection
- The Kung Fu Panda Guide to Writing Action Scenes
- Theft OF Fiction Not Theft IN Fiction
- The Book Review Debate
- The Right to Write
- The Plight of the Shit Shoveler; or, Every Writer Needs a Cheerleader Who is Also a Drill Sergeant
- Thirteen Reasons Why (it’s hard to find the right critique partner)
- Tips for Word Thieves
- Top 10 Best Resource Guides for e-Book Authors
- What ‘Finding Nemo’ Can Teach Us About Story Action
- When Search and Replace is Not Enough
- Where Do Authors Prefer You Buy Your Books?
- Write What You Love
- Write Where You Are But Don’t Stop Moving
- Writers Nitpicking Other Writers
- Writing: Do You Accept Help
- Writing for Adults
- 3 Reasons Action is Important, 3 Reasons It’s Not
- 7 Essential Elements in the First Page
- 7 Things I’ve Learned So Far
On Everything Else (including cool things, free things and funny stuff):
- Creative Writing Exercises – Jump Start Your Imagination with What You See
- How I Got My Break as a Book Reviewer
- 5 Free E-books Every Writer Needs
- Highlights from a Writer’s Conference (lots of amazing ideas and tips)
Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did. Please leave a comment with a link so others can find it!
If you missed last weeks Favorite Tweets for Writers, find it here.
Added this week: If you are interested in getting your own posts included, the best way to get me to notice you is to follow my blog. I visit those sites daily looking for new articles to post on twitter. You can either use Google Friend Connect or Networked Blogs – either of them work, both of them work…
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