Pay It Forward Blogfest and More Fun Links

ay it forward blogfest is here!

The brainchild of Matthew MacNish and Alex J. Cavanaugh (whose blogs you really should visit), this one is really simple:

"List, describe, and link to three blogs that you enjoy reading, but that you suspect may fly under the radar of a lot of other bloggers. Or they can be famous blogs, as long as they're awesome. But don't stop there! Certainly visit and follow all the blogs that are featured in people's posts the day of the blogfest, but those don't have to be the only blogs you visit. You can visit everyone who enters in on the fun, and signs up on the linky list."

Here are the three blogs I'd like to showcase:

The writers at All The World's Our Page. Five brilliant authors with amazing stories to tell - and two of them are on their way! The stories, that is. Kristen Callihan's Firelight comes out in February.

Jennifer Hendren's By The Pale Moonlight comes out in just a few days! (Trailer in the post below.) Here's the scoop:

"Makenna Wilhelm knows all of her friends have their quirks, but when Ty shows up naked in her yard one morning, she finds it beyond weird. Stranger still are the deep gashes across Ty's chest and his sudden ability to hear and smell things that no human should.
When her boyfriend tries to take advantage of her during a moonlit night, Ty's secret is revealed when he comes to her rescue. He's no longer the boy she's crushed on forever, but rather a werewolf with one serious aversion for all things silver. Makenna is left wondering if he's to blame for the recent death of one of their classmates, the apparent victim of an animal attack. With the help of Melanie, the dead girl's friend, they manage to shed doubt on Ty's guilt, only to discover Makenna was the intended prey.

Even worse, she's still a target.

In a race against the full moon, the trio struggles to find who murdered the young woman. However, without a way to cure Ty, they have no way of knowing who poses the greater threat: Ty or the unknown enemy."

Kait Nolan. Any time I think of myself as an overachiever, or feel as though I'll never get anything finished, or wonder if I'm the only list-hungry person out there, I turn to Kait. She blogs every day (and also has an amazing cooking blog, Pots and Plots), she writes stories I have to read, though they're not my usual genre at all, she introduced me to Susan Bischoff's stories, and she's amazingly organized about sharing everything she learns along her indie publishing journey. Yea.

Joanna Bourne. Yup, I included one famous one. You see, I've been writing stories since I was... well, since I learned to write. But it was only after I read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series and joined the Compuserve Books and Writers Community five or six years ago that I realised I could do more than write stories, share them with my family, then shove them in a drawer. And all the authors and readers I've met on the Community have been so helpful along the way - with advice, with information, with humour and wit. I've got a file going of tips from Jo, and if you're a writer, you can't do better than to start with Jo.

Also, three more, just for fun:

The Inky Fool, who dissects all your favourite English words, plus words you've never even heard of, and has a book coming out next month, entitled The Etymologicon. In his own words: "It's a beautiful book all about the strange connections between words in the English language. It explains the link between film buffs and buffaloes, monks and monkeys, science and going to the lavatory."

Pop Sensation, where crossword puzzle solver extraordinaire Rex Parker showcases his vintage paperback collection and makes snarky comments about the covers. Every post makes me laugh.

One Hundred Romances, where we review all kinds of romance novels and stories. Got one of your own to submit? Please do! Here's my latest review, of Jana Richards' Flawless.

And now, a gag:

Finally, before I forget, there was a very interesting post the other day by Michael Offutt on understanding men in fiction: men want to be somebody. It's worth reading if you're waffling in any way about your male characters' motivations.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some new-story plotting to do...