Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I’m always on the lookout for great writing resources. Over three years ago, I discovered one of the best: The Bookshelf Muse, written by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. They’re also the genius duo behind The Emotion Thesaurus.
If you’re not familiar with The Bookshelf Muse or The Emotion Thesaurus, let me put it this way: *gush gush gush*, The Emotion Thesaurus is the ultimate how-to book for how to show our characters’ emotions, from body language to visceral cues. Seriously, I have The Emotion Thesaurus on my desktop, and I leave it open all the time because I use it that frequently. *grin*
Anyway, you might now be wondering what these tidbits have to do with “Writers Helping Writers.” Three things…
#1: The Bookshelf Muse Is Now Writers Helping Writers
Angela and Becca have moved The Bookshelf Muse to their new website: Writers Helping Writers.
Their new website has (or will have) new features like Writing Tools and an improved area for all their Thesaurus Collections. In addition to their published The Emotion Thesaurus, they’ve created several more Thesaurus Collections that they offer for free.
Each Thesaurus Collection includes unique descriptions and tips for how to use the entry in our writing. Find collections for Weather and Earthly Phenomena; Physical Attributes; Setting; Symbolism; and Color, Texture and Shape.
They’re constantly adding new material too. Going along with their new website, they’ve just started a new Thesaurus Collection: Talents and Skills. Follow their blog to see each new entry as they post it.
#2: Two New Books: The Positive Trait Thesaurus and The Negative Trait Thesaurus
Angela and Becca have taken their old Character Trait Thesaurus entries and completed a massive upgrade to turn those blog posts into fantastic new books. They’ll be releasing next week, and I, uh, might have gotten a sneak peek at the books, so I can confirm you don’t want to miss these. *smile*
Once they officially release, you’ll want to keep an eye on the Writing Tools section of Writers Helping Writers. They currently have several tools listed as “Coming Soon” that *cough* might have something to do with the upcoming releases.
#3: The Writers Helping Writers Amazing Race
Angela and Becca don’t follow the usual rules for book releases. When they released The Emotion Thesaurus, they started a Random Act Of Kindness Blitz.
This time, to celebrate the release of their new character trait books, they’ve assembled a group of writers willing to donate their time to help other writers. Just as how the Amazing Race TV show is all about teamwork, they’ll be kicking off the Writers Helping Writers Amazing Race next week, where we’ll see how many writers we can help with a little teamwork.
Be sure to stop by Writers Helping Writers the week of October 21st, you’ll be able to request help with:
- Query Letter critique
- 1st page critique (250 words limit)
- 1st Paragraph HOOK
- 25 word log line pitch
- Tweet Me!
- Book exposure
- Mini Blog Review
- Ask Me Anything!
- Request a Future Guest post
I’m one of the Racers, so I’ll be posting more about the WHW Amazing Race next week, but I hope you’re getting the picture that you want to stay up to date with Writers Helping Writers. *smile*
Now It’s Our Turn to Help Angela and Becca
Angela and Becca have done so much to help writers with their blog, writing tools, and craft books, and now it’s time for us to help them. Thanks to their awesome Tech Guy (the same one I have), they’ve transferred all their content—including blog posts and comments— to their new site. So there’s no reason for people to visit their old site anymore.
Although they’re not deleting their Blogger-based The Bookshelf Muse site, they’re ramping down adding any new content to it. That means we want to direct people to their new site, and we can do two things to help them make this a cleaner break:
- Spread the word about their new site via Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.
- Update any links on your blog to point to their new site.
For that second item, you could try searching your blog for Angela and Becca by name, searching for “bookshelf,” etc. to find those links. Then you can edit the post to change the link to their new site.
Those of you on WordPress.org can download a plugin I highly recommend called Broken Link Checker. Not only will Broken Link Checker notify you when a link on your blog is broken (and might need to be updated), but you can also use it to update links across your website.
For example, I was able to go into the Broken Links plugin page on my WordPress Dashboard (under Tools) and search within the plugin to find all links on my website with “bookshelf” in the URL. Then I clicked Edit URL for each entry and pasted in the appropriate new Writers Helping Writers URL (that’s the http://writershelpingwriters.net/ address).
With that plugin, I was able to update the links for all of Angela’s comments here, the link to my guest post, the link to their Random Acts of Kindness Blitz, etc. in about 3 minutes. Yay!
If you know of other tools that will update links in WordPress.com or Blogger blogs, please share them in the comments. Until then check out Writers Helping Writers, update your links, and tell your friends about The Bookshelf Muse‘s new online home.
Are you familiar with The Bookshelf Muse or The Emotion Thesaurus? Did you know they’d moved? Do you have any questions about the Broken Link Checker plugin for WordPress.org sites? Do you have any suggestions for how to update links in WordPress.com, Blogger, or other blogging platforms?
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