FOR WRITERS

Being a writer is tougher than opening those little packets of ketchup. So, I've collected some of my own writing exercises, favorite writing books and online writing resources for your perusal.

Writing Exercises

The Myers Briggs Character Development Exercise - What if your Character... took a personality test?

The Facebook Character Exercise- What if your protagonist used Facebook?

The Description Exercise - Struggling with description? Try this unique exercise to see your descriptive words from a new perspective.

The Editing Exercise - Try this old-school method to edit your finished manuscripts.

The Challenging Your Characters Exercise - This exercise helps test characters in new ways to expand your understanding of them.

Excellent Writing Books

The Secrets of Story by Matt Bird - A fantastic book that picks apart the different elements of story and elements of successful stories
The Magic Words: Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl B. Klein - As a children's book editor, Klein's book is filled with useful insights and practical tips for children's writers.
If You Want To Write by Barbara Ueland - This book is a
The Hidden Tools of Comedy by Steve Kaplan - Kaplan analyzes several different patterns in comedy with examples. A must for writing humor.
Writing Picture Books by Ann Whitford Paul - Think picture books are easy? Discover in this book how many different ways to tell the same story in a picture book.
Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell - This sturdy explanation on plot is a great place to start, if you're having trouble with a plot.

Organizations & Websites

Below are some groups and websites that I've found helpful to my writing journey.

Kidlit411 -This website puts out a newsletter with great links to craft articles, notes upcoming writing contests, webinars and interviews with kidlit people. A GREAT resource.

The Society of Childrens Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) - This national organization puts on local and national conferences/events to help illustrators/writers develop professionally. I've been a member for over ten years and cannot say enough about how helpful SCBWI is for writers/illustrators at every stage of their journey.

Querytracker - This website has a search function for agents by genre. It also keeps track of response times and other crowd submitted data.

Publishers Marketplace- While this is a paid resource, it's extremely useful to discover what kinds of books agents/editors have bought in the past.

Manuscript Wishlist- A website and Twitter phenomena (search for #mswl on Twitter,) that gathers the current requests of agents and editors.