Blog Treasures and ROW80 Party!

Hello Everyone!

I must say that I missed you all greatly while on vacation and am glad to be back here with you. Those of you that know me know that I love to stay busy and over the past six weeks I’ve had three of my daughters move back in with us (all active teens), signed on as a sponsor for Round 4 of ROW80, am taking the fabulous dipped-in-glitter Kristen Lamb’s blogging class and decided to join my ROWbro, Kerry Meacham in taking the NaNoWriMo challenge. Yep, I’m busy again and loving every minute of it.

Through NaNoWriMo (and possibly beyond) Blog Treasures, my weekly mashup, will be appearing in a somewhat truncated version. This means more great links but with less of the text that went with it. After all, I want you all to enjoy the great information on the sites I share, not listen to me babble. To that end, here is this weeks Blog Treasures, followed by a ROW80 Party Announcement!

BLOG TREASURES

Featured: Must Read for Writers! The incredible Roz Morris (with help from Victoria Mixon) brings us The power of suggestion – what can you leave the reader to fill in?

On Publishing

Meet the Maven: We’re Here Whether You Want Us or Not by Kristen Lamb (on social media).

Writer’s Service Announcement: Sell Your Books on All Major Platforms by Kait Nolan.

Keeping Up With E-Book Technology by best-selling author Bob Mayer (Who Dares Wins Publishing).

How Self-Published Authors Get Their Covers Right by Andrew Pantoja.

YA in the 1980’s by Catie Rhodes.

The Secret Agenda of Banned Books by Cat Woods.

Sucking Readers In? (audiobooks) by Clay Morgan.

On the Craft of Writing

Jody Hedlund has one of the best writing craft sites on the net. This week she guest posted at Jami Gold’s site on Religion in Novels: Terrific or Taboo?

The Problem with Hooks and First Paragraphs by Annalise Green.

Does your MC get the best lines? by Jeannie Campbell (The Character Therapist).

The Bookshelf Muse is a great resource for tips on blogging, description and much more. This weeks offerings are: Loyal, Making Your Text Pop, Fall (Autumn).

Plot is Linear, Story Doesn’t Have To Be by Roz Morris.

The Doctor is in the House – Novel Diagnostics by Kristen Lamb.

Writing Literary Fiction by Roz Morris guest posting on The Creative Penn.

On the Writing Life

Piper Bayard interviews the NYT Best Seller: James Rollins.

Rhetorical? You decide. Are All Writers Delusional? by Jami Gold.

Do you take your writing seriously? Or maybe too seriously? by Elizabeth S. Craig (Writers’ Knowledge Base). Also from Elizabeth: Getting Into the Writing Mindset.

The Upside of Downtime by August McLaughlin.

The Risk and Reward of Putting Yourself Out There by Dan Blank.

For your health: Writers’ Gains From Whole Grains by August McLaughlin.

5 Ways to Keep Your Writing Engine Running by Write It Sideways.

Seat of the Pants Writers: Tips and Tricks to Overcoming Challenges by Jeannie Campbell.

Fun and Interesting Links

My ROWbro, Kerry Meacham, finds some of the funnest clips to share. Here are two that will have you laughing (Darwin awards are sure to await some of these people). Nunchuck Knucklehead & King of the Hill (no not the cartoon, an actual hill).

Bedtime Rhymes, Grimm Style by Leanne Shirtliffe (Ironic Mom).

Cabinet of Curiosities brings us fantastic art and artifacts by Mary Jo Gibson. You have to see the detail on the piece she reviews in this one. Simply incredible!

Encyclopedia Brown, Master of Mystery by K.B. Owen.

Ok. I’ll Do It. I’ll Run for President. by Piper Bayard.

Memorable Smooching Scenes by Lyn Midnight.

Studying the Behaviors of the Criminally-Inclined by Tiffany A. White.

ROW80 Party Announcement and ROWbro’s

First the Party Announcement from Party Animal Hostess Jenny Hansen!

The party is coming! The party is coming! On October 5th, the #ROW80 hashtag is going to light up like the stage at a teen rock concert. There’s going to a be a 24-hour celebration for:

• All the participants who just finished Round 3 of ROW80.
• Anyone who plans to post their goals and dive into Round 4.
• The amazing people who supported the ROW80 writers throughout the year (y’all REALLY deserve a drink!)

Party Details:

• Theme: “Rock the Row”
  However you want to work that in is great. I leave it to your outrageously creative imagination!
• Date: October 5th, 12:01 AM to 11:59 PM ET in the U.S.
  This also happens to be the first day of check-in so there should be a ton of ROW80 fun happening around the blogosphere.
• Party will be held at the #ROW80 hashtag.
  Fire up your Tweet Deck or HootSuite and let’s get jiggy with it.
• Photo Competition:
  You can start now…we won’t tell. Start digging for or taking photos that reflect the theme. We’ll do our best to gather them and decide on the best to spotlight in a post at the ROW80 blog. Once the readers vote, the 1st place winner gets a copy of Kait Nolan’s latest book, Red, in e-book format!!
  
• Friendly Blog Competition
  We will also post a mash-up of favorite ROCK THE ROW posts at the Row80 blog.

Jenny Hansen is developing some polls ready so everyone can vote on these things. 🙂

There’s also going to be dancing! Jenny made a “Rock The Row” playlist! All these details can be found at her ROW80 post. Co-host Nicole Basaraba’s post can be found here.

What is a Twitter party?
This is where we all stop in to the #ROW80 hashtag all day long and play and party together – trading news, pictures, music and jello shots. It’s going to be a great time! Please promote it as much as you can between now and then. Click here to get to the linky tool to list your post!

ROW Partners

Round 3 was an incredible experience and I know many of the participants were able to achieve goals and press their writing dreams to new heights. Throughout the round my friend Kerry Meacham and I acted as ROWbro’s (accountability partners). I know this helped us both in setting solid and achievable goals, in overcoming the inevitable obstacles and increased the fun and chances of success for us both. I’d like to encourage everyone to find a ROW partner that you can share the journey with. If you are interested in more information on this subject I did a post on it that can be found: Here.

Let’s have an awesome Round 4!

That’s all for today. Peaceful Journeys!