Writer Unboxed

A really interesting set of studies came out of Johns Hopkins recently, showing what happened to jazz performers when improvising music. Are there lessons here for writers, too? This, from Science Daily: A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring [...]

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a proper Click Here, and since I have several links relating to words, that’s what you’re getting this time around. Here goes: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, includes 100 new words or expressions, including these favorites: 1. Bollywood 2. chaebol 3. crunk 4. flex-cuff 5. ginormous 6. gray [...]

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I haven’t posted a Click Here in a while, so here you go. Continuing with our screenwriting trend, these research links that should appeal to the Hollywood-intrigued among us. Does your story have a clear protagonist and antagonist? It it emotionally, rather than intellectually, driven? Is there clear conflict? Does it possess an interesting “air?” [...]

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Now that I have the June issue of Writer’s Digest in my steamy little hands, I can tell you the rumor is true: Writer Unboxed was named one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers! There are a load of fantastic sites referenced in WD–a hundred others–and while I’m sure they’ll soon have them all [...]

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A fantasy novel that includes a convincing, original imaginary world AND a great story AND complex, memorable characters is a treat to be savoured. Sadly, for every one of those I discover, there are ten books I can’t get through. Poor research in fields I know about, such as music, is one major turn-off, and [...]

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It’s that time of year again: Time to gather receipts and hope you actually brought in more than you spent on writing! Here are a few links I’ve culled from here and there (many from Charlotte Dillon’s excellent Links for Writers page) to help you in your quest to make this year’s tax season a [...]

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I’m back from my Floridian adventures. Yes, we saw Cinderella’s castle and had breakfast with Goofy and all that jazz. It was surprisingly chilly, but we still had a blast, then headed to the beach for a few days to enjoy shell hunting and the faint whisper of warm sunshine on our skin. We didn’t have [...]

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The girls have been asking me to write a post about HTML, so instead of talking about writing prose this week, I’m going to see if I can come up with some HTML basics for those of you who don’t already know them. A bit of background HTML means hypertext markup language. A HTML document [...]

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Your manuscript is hungry for information, and it’s time to go fishing for historic details, a better description of a particular item, a list of Mexican tourist attractions (whatever). Armed with your favorite search engine and some idea of what you’re looking for, you sink your net deep into the Internet ocean. When it comes [...]

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I went to a Yankees’ game yesterday. Ungodly hour of waking, couple hours on the bus sitting behind children who wouldn’t leave the shades alone, $12 bucket of popcorn, the whole nine yards. Unfortunately I found it more compelling to watch pigeons target fans with guano bombs than focus on what wasn’t happening on the [...]

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Originally, I was going to post a very cool pic of a two-tone lobster for this post…and then Floyd Landis won the Tour de France yesterday. If you’ve been following the tour, then you know all about the drama–the dope charges that kicked so many out of the race at the start, Floyd’s own battles [...]

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There’s Kath–riding her pony back from her beachly travels. She’ll be back tomorrow, and I can honestly say I have a brand new appreciation for having a partner on this site. Buddies/ partners/ helpers are great, and so this week’s Click Here is all about helper sites on the ‘net. Enjoy! First of all, a [...]

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