NEVER say Never

Ever feel like you’re climbing an impossible mountain?
That you’ll NEVER get that contract?
That you’ll NEVER get a better advance?
That you’ll NEVER win that literary prize?
That you’ll NEVER reach the top?
NEVER say Never

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Cell phone novels: Japan, Finland, Itlay, Switzerland, China

Have you heard the new craze about cell phone novels? They are spreading worldwide. Is the writing any different?
Cellphone Novels in Japan, Finland, Italy, Switzerland and China

Cell phone novels across the world:

Japan:
Switzerland
Finland, where there is the highest per capita use of cell phones
Italy
China

Cell phone novels for [...]

Planning for 2008

Planning for 2008
I’m planning to take off blogging until January 3. It’s family time and I hope a time for me to plan for next year.
I’ve been blogging now for about a year and in that time, I’ve had about 50,000 visits to the sites, first on livejournal and now on my own domain. [...]

Excaliber is only 18th?

Excaliber is only the 18th favorite fictional weapon of all time? How could that be?
What about Luke Skywalker’s light saber–how did it fare? OK, what do you think is number 1? I would never have guessed.
See what weapon earned the number one spot.
Don’t you love things like this? Is this a [...]

Flap copy

Someone recently asked, “What is flap copy?”
Flap copy is the blurb that appears on the flap of the dust jacket for a book. It’s written like a “hook,” trying to persuade the reader that they will enjoy reading this book, so go buy it! Sometimes, it’s referred to as jacket copy.
It is the second [...]

odds

Some interesting links:
Alice Pope suggests provides links to information about agents for children’s literature.
Janni Simner looks at drafts of a first paragraph.
Have you seen the Google Earth Flight Simulator? Awesome.

Harry Potter Flap Copy

The Harry Potter 7 book has no flap copy!
Flap copy is the stuff written on the inside and back flap of the dust jacket and traditionally serves as an advertisement, a teaser, to the reader. HP7 has nothing on the back flap. On the front flap is a simple statement: Here we [...]

10 Reasons I Did Not Buy Harry Potter 7

No. I did not go to a HP party at Midnight on Friday. No. I did not buy HP7. No, I do not know who died. (PLEASE tell me. I don’t mind a spoiler!)
I didn’t buy Harry Potter because I’ve been busy shopping for other things.
Here’s the 10 things I’ve bought instead:
1. Schwinn Sierra Women’s [...]

Rain

Rain, rain, go away.
Come again another day.

Adding RSS feeds

by Darcy Pattison
JMPrince asked how to set up feeds. Here’s my non-technology expert answer:
You can use several platforms for reading RSS feeds. I’ve been using Google Reader. For that, you simply go to google.com/reader and follow instructions. There are other RSS feed readers, such as BlogLines (which I used for a [...]