6 Valuable Online Resources For Writers

I'm a writer. If you saw this headline and thought "Ooh!" and clicked on it, you're probably a writer, too. Because time is a scarce thing for most of us, I thought I would share the handful of websites I feel give you the most mojo for your minutes if you don't want to spend a lot of time out of "the process":

These sites can help out whether you're looking for work, trying to get published, or just trying to solve a problem anywhere along the line while you're working on a project.

1. Freedom With Writing - This is an amazing resource if you're looking for work as a writer. The site offers a daily email digest of websites and publications that will pay you for your work.

2. Writer's Circle - Want to find articles on the writing industry, tips on the craft, interesting facts about famous authors? This is a great site for you, then. Writers Circle also has a fun Facebook page, which is actually how I found out about the website. The website has a list of writers' resources on everything from e-book publishing to writers' conferences to accepting feedback from readers.

3. The Write Life - This website offers industry tips for freelancers and other professional writers (or those looking to become professional), along with tips on craft.

4. Duotrope - Duotrope is an amazing tool for writers submitting work to literary journals and other magazines. First, it is a comprehensive and easily searchable database of journals and magazines that accept work and will let you know if (and at what level) a market pays. More than that, it includes a submissions tracker to help you keep up with what pieces you've sent where, whether you've received a response and whether your work was accepted. Beyond the free trial period there is a subscription cost, but if you're submitting your work professionally (or even fanatically), it's worth it.

5. Writers Digest - Another great website offering everything from creative prompts to tips on writing good cover letters and synopses when you submit your work. This is also where Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides blog lives, and every April he does a Poem-A-Day Challenge with writing prompts for poets who want to write a piece a day during National Poetry Month. Although there are plenty of resources at the website, if you can subscribe to the magazine or find back issues at your local library, I recommend reading "hard copies," too.

6. Poets & Writers - There is so much to be found at the P&W website, I hardly know where to begin. There are listings of journals and magazines accepting submissions, writing contests looking for entries, databases of small presses and literary agents and MFA programs, lists of fellowships and writing conferences ... you name it. There are even writing prompts for both poetry and fiction, and a message board to "talk" with other writers. As with Writers Digest, if you can get your hands on a subscription or back issues, I highly recommend the P&W magazine, although the website is fantastic, too.

10 Great Websites for Creatives, Women, and Creative Women

I'm engaged in the ongoing struggle to keep my head from completely disappearing into the abyss of Facebook, but by now I'm so conditioned to goofing around online when there's nothing else going on that it's been difficult. But as part of my quest to get beyond the Book of Faces I have come across a handful of wonderful websites for creative types and for women (and sometimes they overlap).

1. AndreaBalt.com - A great resource for inspiration and tips on creativity and leading the Renaissance-person lifestyle. I was drawn in by her essay "5 Things Nobody Told You About Living A Creative Life."

2. Luna Luna Magazine - A potent mixture of culture, commentary, art, literature and femininity, with a taste of the supernatural. I think I've recommended Luna Luna as a literary journal before, and with good reason.

3. JuliaCameronLive.com - The website of Julia Cameron, author of "The Artist's Way." Some people can't stand "The Artist's Way" -- my housemate thinks it's some sort of authoritarian system of churning out art -- but it has done me a lot of good in the past. I went to a workshop based on "The Artist's Way" last fall and recently visited the website to kind of refresh myself. Cameron's blog offers encouragement and insights, such as this post about inspiration.

4. CreativeSomething - A great website full of ideas, inspiration and talk about the creative process. There's also a podcast and a "library" -- a list of recommended books about creativity.

5. Brain Pickings - This website offers all kinds of intellectually stimulating content -- and that in itself can spark some creative inspiration -- but it includes some wonderful posts specifically about art and creativity, such as this article containing advice on creativity from Neil Gaiman.

6. Vagina: The Zine - This is a gutsy and interesting journal featuring creative work, opinions and advice articles. Not only is it full of engaging material, but anyone who self-identifies as a woman can contribute work.

7. Entheos - This site might be a little New Age-y woo-woo for some tastes, but it has a lot to offer. There are lots of things for sale, but access to some lectures can be as low as $10/month, and Entheos occasionally offers fantastic and free conferences or symposiums. Check out their page of conferences dealing specifically with creativity for ideas of what you can find there.

8. Being Boss - This is an awesome site for those looking to become creative entrepreneurs (not necessarily entrepreneurs in the creative "industry" but running whatever business venture you've got in a creative and successful fashion).

10. Amy Poehler's Smart Girls - Okay, I'm wayyyy over 30 and I love this website and wish it had been around several decades ago. It might not have a lot to do with the creative process, but it is inspiring to see what girls and young women are capable of when it comes to making changes in the world. Plus there are downloadable coloring pages and Galentine's Day cards, among other things 12-year-old me would have loved (and adult me still does, because why not?).

Prologue to a manifesto of sorts

Last week, I posted a fragment of the novella I've been fretting and sweating over to get it polished up and pretty. This is another fragment of it -- the first fragment, actually, that lays out what the book is truly about. The plot has to do with a hippie lady and her artsy friends and cooperation and chaos and community, but what it's actually about is a kind of global spiritual shift. It's a shift I believe has been coming, and I'm not alone in believing that it's happening right now. And so I give you what appears to be a socialist-artistic manifesto that flowed through me to give me the framework for the short book, "Enlightenment: The Messy Birth of a New World."

The San Marcos River, the centerpiece and source of life in the town where our story begins

Creation is a nonstop process. Just because our galaxy is flying around in space, just because the Sun and all the planets have formed and seem to be moving as they should, it doesn't mean this is all there is. Water flows in riverbeds and oceans, plants grow and flower and spread, animals frolic and feed. Humans move vast distances and wear business suits and have developed the technology to buy and sell portions of the planet with the touch of a button. Yet there is much farther to go.

On our little round piece of the universe, there are certain places where it seems as though the power to make and remake comes up through the earth in eruptions, like a geyser. And the only vessels around to receive that power are the humans in the vicinity. Sometimes the ambient creative energy is powerful enough to override basic human behaviors -- the desire for wealth, the tendency to rush and worry. The people who are drawn to, or born to, these plumes of creativity and choose to remain open to the power and let it move through them believe that everything else will fall into place. They let the energy carry them. A group of people who share this belief will take care of each other, whether through emotional encouragement or help in providing the necessities of life, because they understand that they are all in it together -- atoms drawn together into molecules and joined in a perfect mass of living creation.

San Marcos, a town in the middle of Texas that people have heard of but don't really know, is one of the places where this energy is strong. The power rises from the ground with the water that feeds the local river, freshly sprung from a vast underground source. It's as if the Demiurge has a compulsion to continue expressing itself with the minds, hearts, hands and voices of anyone nearby who will open up to it.

This isn't to say that everyone in the town spends every waking moment philosophizing, writing, singing, dancing, making soap or knitting hats, though more of that goes on here than in a lot of places. People have day jobs. Some are lucky enough to get paid for being vessels for the creative energy. Others, out of necessity, may hold jobs that have nothing to do with their creative purpose but allow them to pursue their passions with financial and/or moral support. Others may not have what is typically considered an artistic bent but have found time and energy to serve their muses. Some feel their children and families are their highest purpose and are stay-at-home parents. Some really love talking to people and go into retail or customer service. Some really love clothing or beverages or food and have been able to find work that lets them be surrounded by those things all day. Still others -- a handful here, but from what I understand they're the dominant species elsewhere -- have closed themselves off to their purpose and do what they do out of greed or ambition, ignoring the urge to submit to the creative energy and dismissing the importance of that urge in others.

This is where the story of the Great Breakdown begins -- this is where a new wave of creation and compassion crashes down over the useless systems that only benefit a handful of people who have shut themselves away from the universe's growth process. The cataclysm begins in a small town at the foot of the Texas Hill Country known mostly to outsiders for its outlet malls and university football team, even though music always fills the air and the Creator is busy feeling and shaping the world with the people's hands.

I'm not making this up! Well, actually, I guess I am ...

I've been working on a novella forever, or at least since 2013, which is forever in Internet years, and most people haven't seen a single sentence of this phantom manuscript. Really, it does exist -- it's not just an excuse to get my introversion on. So, in part to get a fragment of this thing out into the world, and in part to prove that I'm neither insane nor posting on Facebook about writing and revising when I'm actually marathoning "Firefly" again, here's a little excerpt from the current iteration of the novella, currently called "Enlightenment: The Messy Birth of a New World."

"What do you wear when you're dressing to impress five guys at once?" Charlotte muttered, apparently asking her open closet for fashion advice. "Dammit!" She closed her closet door and looked around her room -- the hats hanging on the wall, her bass guitar, her Buddha/Jesus/Yoda shrine, the fez sitting on her bookshelf, the plastic tackle box full of makeup she never wore unless she was going out at night.

"Dammit," she whispered again, failing to find inspiration for her outfit for the night.

She got up and went over to her dresser, where a motley assortment of necklaces and earrings hung on a jewelry tree. Her eyes wandered to the spot on her mirror where she'd written "You're a hippie" in lipstick in case she ever forgot.

Finally, a gold coin necklace caught her eye.

"Yeah, belly dancer," she thought. "The guys always love a belly dancer."

It was Friday night, and Charlotte was dressing up for what promised to be a great evening at Triple Crown, the local live music hot spot. She was most excited about the headlining band, Moksha, the glam band whose guitarist and lead singer Charlotte had known since childhood. Charlotte had become a devoted supporter of the band -- not only did she love spending time with them, and they with her, but they were amazing musicians who put on a theatrical and energetic show. Besides, hanging out with a glam band is a great reason to wear the kind of outfit most people would only wear on Halloween. Charlotte often borrowed from the sparkle and jingle of her belly dance wardrobe for Moksha shows, figuring if the outfits were beautiful enough for her to wear when she danced at a belly dance show, they were beautiful enough for her to wear when she danced for Moksha in the front row.

As she assembled herself for the evening, Charlotte felt warmth percolating just under her skin. It wasn't the kind of excitement she had experienced in her years as a journalist, which often ranged from frustration to danger -- it was joy. She smiled at herself as she found a clip to hold back some of her long, vivid red hair. She knew part of her happiness was about getting to see the Moksha guys, but part of it was a warm fuzzy feeling about getting to see Baron Samedi, another local band she was friends with and loved so much that she sometimes felt like she was "cheating" on Moksha whenever she went to see Baron Samedi play.

"Thank you, God, for planting me in a small town full of wise and kind folk with guitars," she whispered, shifting her eyes heavenward, away from her mirror. She was ready to go.

As she traipsed out to her Honda, Charlotte noticed the world looked weird.

Full moon? She thought. No, it's the wrong time. She looked up to see if a streetlight that was always out had come on. No. But something beyond the streetlight, up in the sky, caught her eye -- a bluish-white light brighter than any star or planet she had ever seen in her four decades of looking at the night skies. It wasn't as big as the moon but was somehow just as bright.

            She said, "Whaaaaat?" but what she thought was, "Meteor?" In her mind, she flipped back through her day at work and didn't remember seeing any news stories about a meteor or comet about to graze the Earth, but she didn't know what else it could possibly be.

            Well, if I'm going to be taken out by an extraterrestrial catastrophe, I've got no problem with Baron Samedi and Moksha being my last memory of this world. 

Happenings

I have to write this quickly because I need to get ready for dance practice ahead of the Sultan's Feast belly dance show, which is one of the reasons I haven't been posting much lately, but there are some things you should know:

1. I'm hard at work on some rewrites on my novel after getting feedback from a judge at the Writers League of Texas competition this year. I aim to get this round finished by Aug. 1.

2. My friends Chasca released a new CD and you can find it on Spotify! Or be amazing and order it from Chasca's website. Here's my very favorite Chasca song on Soundcloud: Barbarian. Dig those drums! And everything else!

3. We had a catastrophic flood here in San Marcos over Memorial Day weekend. Like made-national-news-and-was-mentioned-on-the-BBC flood. The National Guard and Red Cross were here. There was a curfew. It was crazy for those of us who didn't lose life, limb or property, but it was devastating for many people in San Marcos and Wimberley. I'll be posting about that and the after-effects soon.

4. The Sultan's Feast, as I mentioned, is coming up July 10 at the San Marcos Activity Center. Dinner and a 2-hour show for $20! Get tickets here at Eventbrite.

And now I'm off!

It's National Poetry Month!

There are lots of things going on this month to celebrate poetry. Whether you're a reader or writer of poetry, there's something for everyone. This list is far from comprehensive, but it's a sampling of National Poetry Month stuff you can enjoy while basking in the glow of your computer screen:

• Knopf Poem-A-Day delivers a poem to your email inbox every day in April.
• LunaLuna is featuring one modern poet each day this month.
• Robert Brewer at Writers Digest is, as every year, offering daily poetry prompts for the Poem-A-Day Challenge.
• Huffington Post has a collection of articles about poetry, including my friend Jonathan Hobratsch's interview with T.R. Hummer.
• Julia Glum at the International Business Times has a great list of ideas for taking some time to appreciate the poetry around us and discover more.

You can find out more about National Poetry Month at the Academy of American Poets.

Business and Busy-Ness

I am so bad at updating ... someday I'll get the hang of posting regularly for more than a few weeks at a time. But since January, I have been legitimately busy, and good things have come of it.

I made another round of revisions to my book manuscript and am letting it sit until June, when I should get feedback from the Writers League of Texas manuscript competition folks and a couple of friends. After that, I edited the manuscript for a romance novel that a colleague wrote, and there's reasonable hope that it will get picked up by one of the big romance publishing houses.

Now I'm learning HTML and CSS so that I can eventually design my own web page. (Yay!)

And, in my quest to get on stage at least 10 times this year, and out of my love for sharing my poetry with people who normally wouldn't give a damn about poetry, I'm going to be performing more regularly at the Triple Crown Open Mic on Sunday nights.

Between all this, I found out that my writing is gaining appreciation in Singapore, San Francisco and San Marcos. "The Soft Burden," the essay I posted here several months ago about the very odd family heirloom I'll be inheriting and all that it entails, was one of six finalists in the nonfiction category at the San Francisco Writers Conference contest this year. A poem I wrote about the same subject matter was published in Issue 3 of Junoesq, a Singapore-based literary journal for women. My blog post on the Just For Fun Parade from last April will be reprinted in the April edition of SMTX Magazine here in San Marcos. (I won't link back to that blog post here because it'll look so awesome in print, you should read it in the magazine when it comes out.)

And even with all this writing stuff going on, there is still the dance. I performed my first drum solo, choreographed by myself with help from my teacher Jamie Lynn, in February at Euro Cafe. It was terrifying, but I made it through and apparently did a pretty good job, and I hope to be able to perform it again soon -- if not here in town then at another venue. I'm currently in the middle of the 90-Day Belly Dance Challenge organized by Alia Thabit. It requires at least 20 minutes of improvisational dancing for 90 days. It's been an eye-opening experience thus far and I'm glad to have found something to get me in the habit of dancing without a plan.

Meanwhile, a bunch of my friends have been busy, too. Last weekend was the surprise party and fund-raiser for Christopher Paul Cardoza, the photographer who moved here just a couple of years ago and has done so much to document and promote the San Marcos live music scene, particularly the shows at Triple Crown. And now, with South By Southwest going on just up the road in Austin, many of our local bands are showing an international audience how we do things down here. Chasca, 4orms and Ghosts of Dixie are just a few of the local bands playing official or unofficial SXSW shows this week and I'm super proud of all of them and glad to call them my friends.

Spring is springing here in our happy little village, and everything is coming to life!