When I pondered what to write about for this month's theme of "Best writing hacks ever," it occurred to me that better minds than mine have probably made lists and offered suggestions on the topic. I decided to do a little search and see what I could find. As you might imagine, I found plenty! Without further ado, here is a random compendium of offerings from the vast world of the internet, in ever-ascending numbers of suggestions per list... From Learn How to Write a Novel: 3 Hacks to Write a Rough Draft , by Michelle Griep From Freewrite: 6 Neuroscience Hacks to Beat Writer's Block (This one includes additional links to articles in Psychology Today , The Guardian , etc., about writing and writer's block.) From Positive Writer: 6 Weird but Awesome Hacks for a Happy Writing Life , by Shanan Haislip From Lifehack: 8 Great Writing Hacks Every Creative Writer and Blogger Should Know , by Ivan Dimitrijevic From The Writing Cooperative: 12 Writing Hacks Yo...

We haven't played this game in a while, so it's time to start it up again. I present a topic, ask some questions, and offer my answers. You pick one or more questions to also answer. If you only choose one, please expand. If more, please shorten. You're allowed to include one website URL or blog link of your own. Okay, here goes: Which social media sites do you visit? ( not including blogs or Yahoo groups) In the order of how often I visit them: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus, and Goodreads. Which do you find most relaxing? Hands down, that would be Pinterest. I can't resist all the pretty pictures. I wish I had more time to play there.  Which do you find most stressful? Facebook is definitely the most stressful. People are not bashful about expressing opinions there, which don't always coincide with mine. Trying to offer a differing opinion, even politely, gets me into trouble, so I don't try too often.  Lin...

Between 2008 and 2012, two separate publishers invited me to submit non-fiction book proposals about gardening, the topic of my blog, RedWhiteandGrew.com .   Neither proposal resulted in a signed contract. For the second proposal, the concept was rejected at the last minute for fear it would be overshadowed by Michelle Obama’s book on The White House garden, then due from the publishing house’s competitor. Let me tell you, nothing takes the sting out of rejection quite like being told that the First Lady of the United States is your competition. Over time and as is commonplace with long-time bloggers, my blog topics spread out from my original focus (victory gardening history) to include personal areas interest: elder-care, recipes, early mid-life revelations (a.k.a. navel-gazing), and homeschooling my peanut-allergic child. I began to tinker further with other social media platforms, too. Then, in 2011, a friend invited to me to Pinterest. I ignored the invi...

What exactly is a meme? Merriam-Webster Dictionary says: an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture . The term is often applied to those Facebook posters that get shared so much, and many are political. Recently, this one rolled across my Facebook page, and I thought it was a terrific idea to help authors promote their books. Why not pull a meaningful quotation out of your own writings, and spread it around Facebook? I think this meme would be more useful if the author had added her website URL. My Facebook BBT Cafe group began discussing this and turned it into a little project. We wondered what programs to use and suggestions included Paint and other graphics programs as well as PicMonkey , a free photo-editing service that makes graphics creation astoundingly easy, not to mention fun!  BBT Cafe members started experimenting and here are some of the results: I think adding a website URL is important. Did I say that alread...