I'm It!

I was tagged by a couple of wonderful friends Deniz and Zan Marie.  Thanks for thinking of me.  I’m going to answer all the questions but I’ll warn you it’s probably more info than you want to know.  Not that I want you to stop reading by any means.

Do you think you’re hot?  Moving on.

Upload a picture or wallpaper you’re using at the moment.    Well, the thing is my wallpaper is just one of the stock pictures that came on my computer.   I put it up, I don’t remember how many  years ago, with plans that it would be temporary.  You see I had thoughts of taking a Cool Picture that would always show how awesome my photographic skills are and make me think of the time I (insert whatever cool adventure I took pictures of)  Yeah.  In reality I don’t do that much and my photo skills are pretty sucky.  Which is also why I don’t have a photo of me up on the blog yet.  I always come out looking sullen or a half wit.  Sigh.  

When was the last time you ate chicken?  Last night in the egg rolls I made.  Yum.

Name a song you listened to recently.  The Phineas and Ferb soundtrack.  Hey I have a two-year-old.  And a husband that really likes cartoons.  

What were you thinking while doing this?  How none of these questions have anything to do with writing.  Which is ok, I guess, because I know you wanted to know all this stuff about me.

Do you have nicknames?  What are they?  My nickname is Spesh.  It dates back to ninth grade when people called me Special Package which was a play on my initials.  You can see why it was shortened to Spesh.  

Tag eight bloggers.

This is where it gets hard.  There are many wonderful and amazing blogs out there and I know I can’t tag everyone so I’m just going to list eight blogs that were the most influential to me when I was starting to learn about the publishing world.They are in no particular order.

Query Shark.  If you want to learn how to write a query spend some time here.

Nathan Bransford.  While he is no longer an agent his archived posts are chock full of publishing advice.    

Pub Rants.  One of the things I like about this blog is how open she is when talking about advances, contracts and all the nitty gritty legal details of becoming an author.  

Compuserve.  This website has been invaluable to me.  It has provided me with a wealth of knowledge and many friends who have encouraged, goaded, taught and pushed me to be better.  Thanks everyone.

Rachelle Gardner.  She has very clear and common sense posts. 

Editorial Anonymous.  While they've been a little sporadic of late this blogger has spent a lot of time answering questions from her readers. 

Between Fact and Fiction.  This is the best site for publishing info you'll find written by someone who is as yet unpublished.  She's spent a lot of time on submission though and has been through pretty much anything.  It's a great place to find encouragement and advice because she has truly seen it all. 

Historical Romance by Jo Bourne.  She has so much knowledge about the craft of writing I'm surprised her head doesn't explode.  Plus she can put it down in a straightforward, easy to understand way that always results in my knowing what is wrong with my WIP.

There are other fabulous sites out there, and there are amazing people running each of those sites.  Unfortunately there is no way I can list them all so thanks to everyone who is trying to make the internet a better place by blogging about writing, publishing, or anything else interesting.