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Clarion West Write-a-thon Progress: How Deep Is Red

Kittywampus
Kittywampus
As many know, I’m participating in this year’s Clarion West Write-a-thon. Last week I let people choose the title of the story I’d write for the write-a-thon’s first week, and the people’s choice was “How Deep Is Red”.

So here’s a chunk from this morning’s writing so far. The story will be the sequel to “Sugar”, which is available in Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight. If you’re interested in getting to see the whole story, then I invite you to support me in the Write-a-thon! I’ll be sending a weekly e-mail that will include the stories that I write for the Write-a-thon over its six-week course, so for a small donation, you’ll be getting what I’d like to think of as high quality fiction. 🙂

Laurana used a bowl of mercury to watch her lover’s battle. The thick, silvery liquid showed the ships from above, a fat-bellied Tabatian merchant, and the two pirate ships, lean-lined and fanged with cannon, converging on it from either side, the wind behind them making them race forward.

Tiny toy ships. The name of the merchant was Saffron Butterfly The pirate ships bore no names, only figureheads of women, one with a flaming skull for a head, the other with bracelets and necklaces of snakes. Flame’s Kiss and The Serpent.

The liquid didn’t transmit sound. For that Laurana relied on imagination: the deep-throated boom of the guns, the crash of cannon balls, the shouts of despair and defiance.

The Kiss neared the merchant. Laurana leaned forward, trying to find Cristina among the mass of pirates: some readying spidery hooks and ropes, others with hackbuts raised and aimed, all braced for collison, another sound dependent on Laurana, whose mind rendered it down to the taste of salt on one’s lips from the relentless wind, the crash louder than anything one had ever heard. There. A purple bandana tied across orange curls. Cristina, swinging herself aboard the pirates’ prey.

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Frivolous Friday: Miscellaneous Links for 3/15/2013

Here’s a grab-bag of interesting and utterly unrelated links with which to amuse yourself.

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Links from Blogging 101 Class - General Social Media Links

As part of the Blogging 101 class I just finished up teaching for Bellevue College, I organized a bunch of my links into a handout. Here is the General Social Media Resources section.

Mentioned in class:
(We didn’t actually get to this, but it’s a good way to track which of your links are getting shared.)Way to shorten URLs and monitor which are being reshared: http://www.bitly.com
(Also didn’t get a chance to hit in class, but is a good way to see if your name is available on various social networks as well as a pretty comprehensive listing of such networks.) Way to check your name on social networks: http://namechk.com/
Way to look at your social media presence: http://www.klout.com
Cartoon History of Twitter and Social Networking: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/cartoon-history-social-networking_b6160

Technical:
10 Social Media Mistakes We Bet You’re Making: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-social-media-mistakes-we-bet-youre-making-2010-9
10 Things Social media Marketers Should Know about Millennials: http://socialtimes.com/socialmedia-marketing-millenials_b31715
Best Free Social Media Tracking Tools: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2011/02/18/social-media-tools/
Five Myths About Pushing Social Media Marketing Content: http://socialtimes.com/five-myths-about-pushing-social-media-marketing-content_b55978
How to Actually Become Friends with Social Network Connections: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-powerful-connections-through-social-media-2011-1
How to Crack the New York Times Popularity Code: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/12/20/how-to-crack-the-new-york-times-most-emailed-list.html
What Social Network is Right For You? (2010): http://lifehacker.com/5472223/which-social-network-is-right-for-you
Winners and Losers of Social Networking: http://mashable.com/2011/04/12/social-networks-infographic/

Food For Thought:
Fantabulous Lists of Social Media Case Studies: http://socialmediatoday.com/igiedrius/268023/fantabulous-lists-social-media-case-studies
Google+ discussion of Wal-mart’s use of social media data:
https://plus.google.com/109581870574956225297/posts/2KKuJAUUruo
How governments are using social media: http://mashable.com/2011/07/25/government-social-media/
Innovative Uses of Social Media: http://mashable.com/2011/04/07/innovative-pr-social-media/
On Social Media, Most People Don’t Want to Be Heard: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2030594/social-media-people-dont-heard
Six Verbs You Need to Understand for the New Web:
http://www.spinsucks.com/social-media/six-verbs-you-need-to-understand-for-the-new-web/
What Social Commerce Can Learn From Social Gaming: http://socialcommercetoday.com/what-social-commerce-can-learn-from-social-gaming/
Why Social Accountability Will Be the New Currency of the Web: http://mashable.com/2011/07/28/social-media-influence-accountability/
3 C’s of Social Networking: Consumption, Curation, Creation: http://socialmediatoday.com/index.php?q=briansolis/233806/three-c-s-social-networking-consumption-curation-creation
5 Social Good Sites Aimed at Youth: http://mashable.com/2011/07/22/social-good-youth/
How 3 Cities Are Crowdsourcing for Revitalization: http://mashable.com/2011/07/20/crowdsourcing-city-tech/
5 Innovative Food Truck Social Media Marketing Campaigns: http://mashable.com/2011/07/21/social-media-food-trucks-marketing/
25 Terrific Social Media Infographics: http://socialmediatoday.com/pamdyer/266010/65-terrific-social-media-infographics

I’m glad to discuss any of these links in comments here.

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