Writing YA/MG--Online Resources

Since so many of my students are writing for this market, and since I know so little about it, I asked the most excellent Doug Solter* for resources and he came through like a bandit:

Websites: 

 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Under the tab research library there's a just getting started link which has a FAQ and some past issues of the SCBWI newsletter that gives them an idea about writing for children. There are many regional chapters (Tons of them in Texas) that host many events that are open to the public, good place to ask authors questions about writing YA/MG.

Verla Kay's childrens writers boards are chock full of information geared toward YA and MG writing specifically. Good place to lurk or ask questions and get good answers.

 Voice of Youth Advocates Magazine. This magazine focuses on public and school librarians, great resource to find out what kids are reading and the kinds of books that librarians are recommending to teens. The online version of their magazine is FREE.

 This website lists new YA book geared blogs. Good research to finding what some teens are reading and their opinions on a lot of books.

 Twitter chats...many agents, published authors, and editors participate in these chats. Good place to lurk:

     use hashtag: #kidlitchat (Every Tuesday night at 8pm CST)

     use hashtag: #yalitchat (Every Wednesday night at 8pm CST)

By the way--you should follow Doug's blog. He has lots of good info about YA lit and writing!

Comic of Wisdom

You really should be following Jim Hines' blog. Seriously.

He says some of the smartest things about writing, publishing, and life its own self that I've seen anywhere.

Beyond that, if you followed his blog you'd already have seen this:

Told ya he was smart.

Revisiting Scrivener

Have you downloaded any updated software lately? Did it screw up your old projects or have bugs that drove you batty?

I downloaded Scrivener updates several times without a single glitch.  When the remarkable Keith did so many improvements it was finally time to present a 2.0 that I actually had to pay for, I did it w/o hesitation.  And again, even with some significant (and fabulous) changes, old files opened in the new software without a hitch. This is bleedin' remarkable.

As I have said before, I have been writing for about 25 years now and this is the first time I have ever recommended a dedicated software program over MS Word or any other basic writing software.  I know people who have literally bought Macs just so that they can use Scrivener--and have not regretted it.  It's that amazing.

I've praised it high and low and written about it here.

I have only scratched the surface of what Scrivener can do.  I first bought it to use for organizing my research materials because you can import anything into your scrivener program and have it at your fingertips to just click and open and see, or sometimes have open at the same time as the project you're writing.  Not several different windows and programs open all over your desktop, but one program that has images, documents, music, video, etc. all in the sidebar (which is called the "binder") and all of which will open and work within Scrivener.

Let's say I'm writing.  In this case, you might note that I have a character image and even music--"Ride of the Valkyries"--in my right sidebar so that I can have the music going for mood and the image in front of me since this is a new project and new character, and I type the document in the center:

And say I need to see a map of London that I downloaded off the internet when I was researching, I go to the sidebar/binder and click and:

Or other character images or even complete books, yes, complete books, downloaded into the program to be at my fingertips.  Here is The Magus, which I found in public domain, opened from the sidebar/binder:

This is the tip of the iceberg of what you can do with Scrivener, and yet, if this is all it did, it would be worth the price.

And so, here, I give you an opportunity to buy it:

Regular license:



If you're a student or educator:


It's only $45 (reg) or $38.25 (student), and worth three or four times that much money.  I'm not kidding.

Let me know what you think.

*Scrivener for Windows is available in beta here.

The Slutty Novelist Recommends...

Thank you, Candace!

 Note: Feel free to send me stuff to use here and get credit, and link to your blog or site if you have one!

Words matter.

Use them well.