Look Who's Back

Hi everyone. So, yeah. Sorry about that sort of long hiatus.

It might get longer. It might not. We'll see how the rest of the year goes.

Why do I say that? Because of my ridiculous amount of self-imposed deadlines.

On a different note, I've gone ahead and set up an email specific to this blog where the blog comments and such will be coming to. If you don't already have my personal email address(es), I can be reached there. I'm working on figuring out how to have a "Contact me" button that links directly to email, but until then the email address can be found on the "Find Me" page of this site.

I realize my site could be more fun, more unique, but until I have the time and compulsion to figure out how to do so, it's staying as is.

I should have another announcement soon. I just have to get the details sorted out. (Not agent or book deal related at all.)

I'll be back on Tuesday with and update post.

Footloose and Fancy-free Friday Websites

Okay, so I did some updating to my author website last night.

But when I click the link on my Facebook profile, it's a no-go.  It doesn't take me to the website.

So I'm thinking it's time to buy my own domain name instead of using Apple's MobileMe program.

The problem is, I don't know where to go for such a thing.  I know that there are a lot of search results that pop up when I type in "domain names" in an engine.  But which are reputable, easy to use, and so on?

Which did you use for purchasing your domain?  Does it matter, even?

Oh, and please take a look at the site and let me know what you think.

Stephanie McGee

Dialogue tags

The bane of our existence as writers.  Though perhaps they only run a close second to those pesky little adverbs.

Now, there are two types of dialogue tags I want to discuss.  The first being those annoying little non-said tags.

You know the ones.  I've a whole slew of words to use instead of "said" that I received in my 11th grade creative writing class.  I cringe to think about that now.  I've looked for the list, actually, but I can't find it.  I think that's a good thing.

But we know the drill.  Said disappears.  Readers don't notice it.  I'm sure I'm guilty of far too many non-said dialogue tags.  I'll catch those during one of these rounds of revisions.

On to non-said dialogue tags.

Here's an example from my first novel, A Rose by Any Other Name.

“Emilia, it’s great to see you!” she heard from behind her as she was perusing the “New Fiction” section of the store.  She turned to find the store manager, Tom, standing there.  She returned his broad smile.

“You too, Tom.”

“Anything I can help you with today?” he asked.

“No, I’m just doing some birthday browsing,” she replied.

“Happy Birthday!” he exclaimed.  “We’ve got some new titles that just haven’t made it out onto the shelves yet today but they are supposed to be there.  I’ll go grab them for you.  Fiction and biography were always your favorite genres, right?”

“That’d be great, Tom,” she replied.  “I can’t believe you remembered that about me, too.”

See.  It's awkward.  I know that.  But it seems that our English instructors have been steering us away from non-said tags for years.  It's a bad habit we have to break.  I don't necessarily know that this passage would be stronger without the non-said tags, but there must be a reason we're being steered away from them now.

Is it just that they've been so overdone as to seem trite and banal?

Stay tuned on Thursday for a discussion of the other type of dialogue tag.  Action descriptors.  (Or so I'm calling them.)

By the by, I've a website now. Link is my name, below.

Stephanie L McGee

Author websites

I know I probably don't need to be worrying about this quite yet.  But I just can't help it.  I've been thinking a lot about a website.  I know at some point I'll need to build one and purchase a domain.

There's an application on my Mac that will help me to design my website.  I've taken a class on the program.  There are others still to take.  I've been playing around with it a bit.  It's definitely nowhere near ready.

The problem is, there's not much to a site when you're unpublished.  I mean, there's the welcome page, the about me page, and I can do a blog feed page.

But what else do I put in there?

Jasper Fforde's website has a ton of stuff on there.  It's all related to his books.  It's fabulous.  There is a wealth of information on there.  It sort of makes me scared to ever put up a website.

J.K. Rowling's website is great, too.  There was always so much to discover there, especially leading up to the release of each book.

Tamora Pierce's website is straightforward, but very informative.  I like its simplicity.  Things are easy to find, there's not much by way of extra information.  (Which is neither good nor bad.  Just different.)

Q4U: What's your favorite author website?  Why?