In keeping with this month's theme of "new tricks" for writers, I decided I'd write a bit about how the Internet has changed things for those of us who ply our trade with words. Not that it is all that new for young writers who've grown up with the internet, but there are a few dinosaurs around, as Linda Lane mentioned in her post on August 12 . And there are writers in between the dinosaur stage and those who perhaps learned how to get on the Web before they learned to walk. More and more I've come to appreciate the fact that there are so many online resources for writers - from help with research, to help with craft, to help with marketing. When looking for some inspiration, as well as good advice, there are three websites and blogs that I visit often: Kristen Lamb's blog , Writer Unboxed , and The Writer. Each offers new information to help writers and most of the folks there are very generous about allowing other bloggers, like me today, to reuse...

It was quite a delight to win one of the ARCs for Author In Progress by Therese Walsh, Editor & the Writer Unboxed Community. If you are not familiar with the Writer Unboxed Blog , you might want to hop over there, when you are finished here, and spend some time reading the wonderful posts. I found that community a number of years ago when one of my writing friends had written a guest post there. While I was at the site,  I read a few of the other posts, and immediately subscribed to the blog. Every day there is a new bit of writing advice and wisdom and inspiration, and the writers who share so freely on the blog have contributed to the book. The book is organized in such a way as to take a writer from the very beginning of a journey of words through to the end. Part One is Prepare, with an opening essay by Barbara O'Neal, Why We Write . She says, "Story is why writers exist, and story is why you are driven to the page. In a world so overwhelmed with everyday trivial...

Last month here at The Blood-Red Pencil I wrote about moral and ethical lines that we writers need to consider before we cross them just to make a buck. We had a great discussion about what we are comfortable writing, as well as our responsibility to consider what we're contributing to society with our work. One of our regular BRP contributors, Diana Hurwitz , had this to say on the topic: Stories have the power to shape the collective consciousness. You can write with brutal honesty about what has happened and what could happen without suggesting that it should happen. Your work has a slant - perhaps a subliminal one. As a writer, you should at least be aware of the message you send and make sure it is the one you intended. How we use our words is indeed important, and it is also important to consider how we act as professional writers. Addressing that need to always put a professional foot forward, was an interesting article on Writer Unboxed, written by Katharine Gru...