Good Books with Helpful Info for Writers

Good books with helpful information for writers:

1) Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King;

2) Stein on Writing by Sol Stein; and, (if you check out their Appendix 2 (p. 264), you may see others you like as well.)

3) A Writer's Guide to Crafting Stories for Children by Nancy Lamb.

I have been reading On Writing by Stephen King but please note that Stephen King's book on writing as well as Annie Lamott's are listed under Books on Inspiration.

Earth-Friendly Friday - natural spa treatment alternative

ANSWER to Thought for Thursday: CARY GRANT or Archibald Leach. No wonder he changed his name.

Okay people it's October. Let's celebrate with a couple of fun Shocktober posts.

If you're interested in reading about a natural alternative spa treatment, read it here.

THOUGHT FOR THURSDAY

I will give you two clues. If you can put these two words together, you will be able to reveal the REAL name of what famous Hollywood Movie Star?

Archie +

WORD - Help with Cheats, Tips and Helpful Hints

I'm old school, having grown up with WordPerfect I'm used to using fast maneuvering on the keyboard, with control-command "cheats". Here are a few of my favorites. I hope they help some of you Wanna-Be "Word Wizards" out there:

SIMPLE WORD TIPS

(By holding down the Ctrl button and the additional key listed, you will have the following results):

Ctrl+O Opens a previously saved document
Ctrl+W Closes the current window without exiting Word
Ctrl+N Opens a new Word document
Ctrl+S Saves the current document with its existing file name
Ctrl+P Prints the current file
Ctrl+A Blocks all the text and graphics in the document you are in
Ctrl+C Copies the blocked text, Copies the blocked text, Copies the blocked text
Ctrl+V Pastes the copied text
Ctrl+Z Undoes the last change you made
Ctrl+Y Is a “Redo” button, if you’ve cut text and want to put it immediately back Ctrl+Y is the answer
Ctrl+X Cuts and removes the text you’ve blocked (hint: you can use this with Ctrl V)
Ctrl+F Find button – you can search for particular text using this button
Ctrl+U Underlines selected text
Ctrl+I Italic button – for all highlighted material
Ctrl+B Bold
Alt+F4 Exits Word

MORE WORD TIPS

Ctrl+End Moves cursor to the end of the document
Ctrl+Home Moves cursor to the beginning of a document
Ctrl+E Centers highlighted text
Ctrl+J Justifies a paragraph
Ctrl+L Aligns the text to the Left
Ctrl+R Right aligns text
Ctrl+Shift+W Underlines words but not spaces
Ctrl+Shift+D Double Underlines text
Ctrl+Shift+> Increases blocked text two points
Shift+F3 CHANGES CASE OF TEXT
Ctrl+T Creates a hanging indent
Ctrl+M Indents a paragraph from the left
Shift+Enter Inserts a line break
Ctrl+Delete Deletes one work to the right
Ctrl+backspace Deletes one work to the left
Ctrl+2 Double spaces blocked text or text in paragraph you’re in
Ctrl+1 Single spaces blocked text or paragraph you are in
Ctrl+5 Makes line spacing 1.5 in text
Shift+enter Inserts a line break (or inserts a hard page return) whichever you want to call it
Ctrl+[space bar] Removes all formatting from selected text

TRICKY TIP:

While holding down the Alt Key, click on some text with the mouse and drag the cursor You’ll get a highlighted vertical column that you can cut and/or paste, or delete, or bold, etc.

Through the Tollbooth -- Zu Vincent

I hope you aren’t all getting tired of hearing about the Kidlit ’08 blogging conference because here’s another post.

Zu Vincent of Through the Tollbooth talked about three important components of a group blog:

1) Passion for writing;
2) Participation using our own voice and style; and,
3) Presence: Shared presence on-line turns a monologue into a conversation.

She says that “You energize one another in a group blog.” And, “Putting your presence out there . . . you will get things happening.”

You want to vary your tone and content of the group blog so that you don’t get the “Blog Blahs”.

Listen to her for a minute.

The Big Bang - for Your Buck

FREE is a very good price. Wouldn't everyone want a free book of their choice?

FLUX - Fiction for Young Adults gave all attendees of the Kidlit Blogging Conference a free copy of any single title in their catalog. Not an ARC but one finished book from their winter 2009 catalog! Yay FLUX for supporting all of our author-ly writing endeavors!

I requested Maggie Stiefvater's LAMENT. As soon as I receive the book, I'll be in reader mode and will blog my book review. So be ready!

Cybils Nominations begin October 1st

Just passing on the information:

Cybils Nominations Open October 1st: How Can You Participate?

Nominations for the third annual Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (the Cybils) will be open Wednesday, October 1st through Wednesday, October 15th. The goal of the Cybils team (some 100 bloggers) is to highlight books that are high in both literary quality and kid appeal.

The Cybils were founded by Anne Boles Levy (http://dadtalk.typepad.com/book_buds_kidlit_reviews/) and Kelly Herold (http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/).

This year, awards will be given in nine categories (Easy Readers, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fiction Picture Books, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Novels, Non-Fiction Middle Grade/Young Adult Books, Non-Fiction Picture Books, Poetry, Young Adult Novels). Anyone can nominate books in these categories (one nomination per person per category). Nominated titles must be published between January 1st and October 15th of this year, and the books must be in English (or bilingual, where one of the languages is English). To nominate titles, visit the Cybils blog (http://www.cybils.com/) between October 1st and 15th. A separate post will be available for each category - simply nominate by commenting on those individual posts. If you are not sure which category to choose for a particular book, a
questions thread will also be available.

Between October 16th and January 1st, Cybils panelists (children's and young adult bloggers) will winnow the nominations down to a 5-7 book short list for each category. A second set of panelists will then select the winning titles for the different categories. The winners will be announced on February 14th, 2009.

The Cybils lists, from long lists to short lists (http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/finalists/index.html) to the lists of winners (http://dadtalk.typepad.com/cybils/2007/02/the_2006_cybils.html), offer a wonderful resource to anyone looking for high-quality, kid-friendly books. The Cybils team has worked hard to balance democracy (anyone can nominate titles) with quality control (two rounds of panel judging by people who focus on children's books every day). We do this work because we consider it vital to get great books into the hands of children and young adults.

How Can You Participate?

We think that the Cybils nominations will be of interest to parents, teachers, librarians, writers, and teens. If you have a blog or an email list or belong to a newsgroup that serves one of these populations, and you feel that your readers would be interested, please consider distributing this announcement (you are welcome to copy it). The Cybils team would very much appreciate your help in spreading the word. And if you, or the children that you know, have any titles to suggest, we would love to see your nominations at the Cybils blog (http://www.cybils.com/), starting on Wednesday. Thanks for your help, and stay tuned for further news!

Jen Robinson (http://jkrbooks.typepad.com)
Literacy Evangelist for the 2008 Cybils