No matter what side of the fence you fell on in regards to the election, it would be hard to deny the magnitude of what took place that day as we ushered in our first African American President of the United States. It would be hard to deny where this country has been and where we are today. It would be hard to deny the truth of slavery. It would be hard to deny the truth of blacks seeking rights in American once slavery was so-called done away with. It would be hard to deny the oppression of an entire race in America after so-called rights were established for them. It would be hard to deny – in a world where a black man can still be beaten, shackled to a truck, and dragged down the street like a piece of meat to his death and we treat it like Tuesday, like it’s nothing – that blacks still have a long, hard road to go in this “free” America.

Despite the sour-grapers who will cry that Obama is not all black (though we know that if looks like a black man and does the bump like a black man, then many behind closed doors still see him as a black man…and, unfortunately, derogatory terms, too) or that all blacks voted for Obama because he was black (and forget the many whites that voted for him and the many blacks who did NOT vote for him), Americans have put America on notice; we want CHANGE, and we want it now.

Now, what does any of this have to with writing…OR you?

January 20, 2009, marked for me a new chapter (pun FULLY intended). It resonated, and still resonates within me the chance to wipe my slate clean, see my dreams, and develop a plan to forge ahead and accomplish them.

If a black man can be MY president, then I can sure as hell move forward and accomplish my goals. He runs my entire COUNTRY; surely, surely, I can write a few books and screenplays and have them see the light of day, right?

Yes, nod your head, for the answer is RIGHT. Yes, I can. And yes, YOU CAN, TOO.

On Tale It Like It Is (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/samaraking) today, I talk about the CHANGE that is coming in our country and the change that should be coming in YOU to make this the year you begin or restart or continue moving in your literary endeavors. The whole show (which first features an interview with author Michelle McGriff before moving into my The Write Time segment) is featured on my LISTEN page at my shonbacon.com site.

Below, I want to showcase an arsenal of books, magazines, websites, and the like that serious writers should check out if it is their goal to make a real go out of their literary dreams.

If there are other resources that YOU love and YOU want to share, please leave comments, thanks!

Books

• Writer’s Market 2009
• Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market 2009
• The 2009 Screenwriter’s and Playwright’s Market
• 2009 Poet’s Market
• 2009 Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market
• The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction by William Zinsser
• How to Write a Damn Good Novel: A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling by James N. Frey
• The Screenwriter’s Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, Selling Your Script by Dave Trottier
• Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript by Cynthia Laufenberg

Magazines

• Creative Screenwriting
• Script
• Writer’s Digest
• The Writer
• Poets & Writers

Websites

• Publishers Marketplace* – Welcome to biggest and best dedicated marketplace for publishing professionals to find critical information and unique databases, find each other, and to do business better electronically.
• The Write Life for You – A monthly column dedicated to the craft of writing.
• InkTip* – The mission of InkTip.com is threefold: help the producer easily find a good script, save time for the agent and manager in locating the right people for their clients’ scripts, or new clients, and greatly increase exposure for the screenwriter.
• Done Deal* – Done Deal Pro tracks the various script, book, treatment, and pitch sales and options made in Hollywood each day. Subscribers are able to search a sales database of over 9,300 deals and over 600 TV deals by title, writer, representation, company, genre, date, and more. This is an invaluable tool not only for industry professionals but for aspiring screenwriters who want to know each week what material is being sold and to whom, and to track the latest trends.
• Backspace* – The Backspace Online Community is dedicated to helping writers navigate the often confusing world of Big Publishing. Regularly updated articles and columns from industry insiders make the Backspace homepages your first stop to a career in publishing.
• Blood-Red Pencil – great resource for writers to see what what EDITORS think about writing.
• Agent Query – need an agent? You can start here!
• Fundsforwriters – Grants are FFW’s specialty. Contests and markets that only pay in cold hard cash, too. To FFW, success means earning a living doing what you love. Our newsletters are our world. Free or paid subscription.
• Writer-Reminders -Organize your writing with FREE Writer-Reminders (daily, weekly and monthly checklists, tips and resources). The weekly ezine gives sidetracked writers a road map to more writing time.
• Writing Tips – The Write Way is a FREE, weekly ezine that has advice on how to improve your writing, so that you can write well – whatever the occasion.

*Paid-membership required for many of site’s services

Networking

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Linked In
• Plurk
• YouTube
• Technorati
• StumbleUpon
• Squidoo

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit Stumble This Post

My goal is to finish this novel by the first, second week of July. It’s a smaller book, geared towards Harlequin’s Steeple Hill Love Inspired imprint, so it shouldn’t be hard to finish. I’ve outlined the book on note cards, so I’m halfway there, LOL

I’m anxiously waiting to hear what the readers of my screenplay THE PROBLEM WITH BEING HAPPY think of it. I’m going to take their thoughts and do a final revision/edit of the screenplay before submitting like a wild banshee.

My last BIG project of 2008 is a lofty one. For it, I have to do a lot of reading, rereading, and researching. It’s going to be a collection of essays and short stories based on quotes from my favorite women writers, the writers who have tapped into my womanly and writerly soul. The authors: Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Toni Morrison. I’ll be busy this summer rereading stories and poetry and biographies, taking notes on material, gathering my quotes, and organizing the collection. It’s my biggest project to do in terms of all that it entails, but I’m excited about it,

What’s going on in your writerly world?

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit Stumble This Post

My next project will be a novel that I’m targeting Harlequin’s STEEPLE HILL line for, and then………yes, the ideas keep COMING AND COMING,

Gotta love that!

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit Stumble This Post