Debbie Ridpath Ohi's Blog, page 197

Morning Coffee

Hm, talk about creative book marketing. Stephen King has decided to promote a recent short story by publishing the first few paragraphs on the naked body of Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriend.

With everyone Twittering and texting so much these days, I’m not surprised that Twitterfiction is also taking off.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger needs to get himself a better calculator, say California education officials after Schwarzenegger claimed that schools could save hundreds of millions of dollars by using

Jane Yolen quote on writing

Jane Yolen:

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.

 

Writing Habits: Chris Brogan & writing productivity

[image error]I’ve always found it inspirational to read about other writers’ daily work habits: their office spaces, their goal-setting strategies, etc. It’s a question I always ask when interviewing a successful writer.

For mostly selfish reasons, I’m going to start compiling a list of writers’ habits as well as useful tips and articles on writing habits. First up: Chris Brogan, who is co-writing a book and is also a prolific writer. Earlier this year, he posted an article called “Cultivating A Writing Habi

Meg Cabot: keeps a bag of rejection letters under her bed

[image error]I currently have a Writers & Rejection: Don’t Give Up page online, but I thought it would be easier to maintain and make it more interesting if I replaced it with a page of category blog entries instead; that way I could ramble on for longer if I feel like it, add cartoons, etc.

So from now on, I’m going to take one famous (or not so famous) rejection at a time. First up: chicklit queen Meg Cabot, author of the bestselling Princess Diaries as well as many other titles…

Here’s a great interview s

Will Write For Chocolate updated

[image error]

CARTOON EMBED CODE:



(Before embedding, see my cartoon licensing info.)

Bing: why is this being called a Google-killer?

[image error]

The much hyped Microsoft Bing has launched. When I first went to Bing.com, it took me to the UK main page. When I changed my Settings to include my location (Toronto, Canada), however, I got the U.S. version of Bing instead. I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly test out this new search engine yet, but so far it doesn’t seem much better than Google, so I’m not about to switch. What about the rest of you? Has anyone found anything super-fantabulous about Bing?

Cartoon Caption Contest #4 (new voting system)

This week’s contest:

This time I’m going to try something different, mainly because there are always so many good captions that it takes me way too long to decide. I’ve implemented a comments-voting system in Inkygirl, so feel free to rate caption suggestions. Next week, the winner will be the caption with the highest rating overall. Only one vote per IP address.

I reserve the right to override the vote if I feel that the caption is inappropriate for Inkygirl for some reason; I promise to only exe

Comic: A Bad Idea (CCC Winner: Bethany B.)

Congrats to Bethany B. for her winning caption idea for last week’s contest:

CARTOON EMBED CODE:


(Before embedding, see my cartoon licensing info.)

GoodReads

Is anyone else out there on GoodReads? If so, please do send me a Friends Invite! [image error] You can find my profile at:

http://www.goodreads.com/inkygirl

Mindmapping on the iPhone

Just downloaded iBlueSky, an iPhone/iPod Touch app from Tenero Software and love it so far. Lots of potential for working out plotting, character and background research for writers.

You can capture, cut, copy and paste branches as well as drag, arrange and edit items. Scroll, zoom and rotate the page, then e-mail the finished project in Novamind, PDF, PNG, OPML, text and Freemind formats.

The app costs $7.99 — a tad pricey for an iPhone app, yes, but the functionality looks well worth it. I’ll