Connect the Dots by Leslie Dow, Ph.D.

As authors, we often find ourselves writing in the POV of the opposite sex. If you're a woman, did you ever wonder if your male characters sound like women or vice versa if you're a man?

Yeah, me neither. That is until Lori Wilde smacked me upside the head.

Leslie, he sounds too girly, man him up…

WHAT? My very masculine hero? Never… But Lori pointed me to some very interesting research and a tool that has changed how I write the opposite sex.

The tool is Gender Genie, and it’s based on a set of analyses and an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology. A PDF of the original article, Gender, Genre, and Writing Style in Formal Written Texts, is available online. The paper is well-written and the algorithm is developed from a nice, fat data-set, which makes my scientist's heart sing.

When I started Lori Wilde’s class last fall I had absolutely no idea how it would change my writing. None. Sure I knew Lori was a best-selling author, sought-after instructor, and one of the hardest working women around. That was obvious from her string of releases, classes, and just the energy around her. I’ve always considered myself one tough cookie, hardworking and goal driven. I fully expected Lori to expect me to work hard honing my craft (which she absolutely did), but did I really need career advice from a published author, too? Apparently I did. And what I learned was nearly as valuable as the writing advice.

Last week, the NY Times began to report eBook sales in their Best Sellers List. But what exactly are they reporting and how does it compare to the USA

This was the title of the remarks made by Jeff Bezos last May to the Yale Graduating class of 2010. It’s an interesting speech and a glimpse into the choices that framed this successful man. Essentially, he explores the difference between the gifts we are born with and what we choose to do with them. He then cautions that while the Yale grads were born clever, choosing to be kind, courageous and following their convictions will make the difference in their lives. I found this intriguing from the man whose name has become synonymous with the downfall of traditional publishing.

Imagine writing a logline query so sticky that no agent or editor could forget it. Or creating characters and stories that stick in people's minds like

We are writers; language is our tool. We noodle on the right word and phrasing so one character delivers lines with a slicing wit while the other broods