Resource Du Jour

Since there is no board just for resources, I'm starting a thread on here for resources I find that I can't resist pointing out to others. If you also have some, feel free to post the link and a brief description of what can be found there.

Please be sure to use "RDJ:" and the correct name of the site as your subject line, to make later re-finding of a good source easier; also, posts that don't contain sources and don't start with "RDJ" can then be skipped, if so desired, by impatient readers. If you forget, it's OK; I'll go in and edit the subject line for ya!

I'm also copying this to several other forums where it may be useful; any mod who doesn't want it there, feel free to either vaporize it or ask me to. Enjoy!


Today's site:
OneLook Dictionary Search
www.onelook.com/about.shtml

They describe themselves: Think of this web site as a search engine for words and phrases: If you have a word for which you'd like a definition or translation, we'll quickly shuttle you to the web-based dictionaries that define or translate that word. If you don't know how to spell the word, we'll help you do that too. No word is too obscure: More than 5 million words in more than 900 online dictionaries are indexed by the OneLook® search engine.

RDJ: Bartleby.com

www.bartleby.com/reference/

Their description: Bartleby.com combines the best of both contemporary and classic reference works into the most comprehensive public reference library ever published on the web.

Includes Shakespeare, the Harvard Classics (all 70 volumes!), Gray's Anatomy, the King James Bible, the sayings of Confucius, and loads of other stuff. You could spend days here...

RDJ: Absolute Write

our very own Absolute Write, where you can learn all kinds of important information! There are

book reviews:
www.absolutewrite.com/novels/book_reviews.htm
including some by yours truly, like this one:
www.absolutewrite.com/novels/guide_to_publishing.htm

articles of interest:www.absolutewrite.com/freelance_writing/articles2.htm

market listings:www.absolutewrite.com/Markets.htm

and all kinds of other stuff. If you've never spent any time just clicking around in there, go do it. Go on... what are you waiting for?

RDJ: Edit. Dead Zone

The Write News' Editorial Dead Zone gives you the news in the publishing industry (and it looks like most of it is bad.) Don't read it if you're easily depressed, but if you need to get a feel for the future of the industry, you can get it here. Then go to their home page for other good stuff.

www.writenews.com/deadzone/

Have a productive and satisfying week, y'all!

RDJ: Lowchen's Of Au.'s List of Name Lists

You name it, this site probably has a list of names pertaining to it.

Examples:
Polish names
Spanish surnames
Cajun names
Names of legendary Amazons
Greek Mythology names
Celtic names -
it even has name generators you can play with.


www.lowchensaustralia.com/Names.htm

RDJ: Best Smileys

Smiley hunting is a popular sport on these boards nowadays, inspired, of course, by royalty. (Me.)

If you'd like to take it up as a hobby, here's a good smiley preserve. (Take a net...)

bestsmileys.com/

Home of:





and



among others.

For other smiley links, see
Smiley Central
www.smileycentral.com/

Startkabel.nl
emoticons.startkabel.nl/
[German. I think. I'm pretty sure. Not English. I'm sure about that!]

Use each site's links to find more. Tie a rope to your ankle, so you don't get lost; smileys are all over the world! Pack a lunch. Take a canteen. Be very, very quiet. You're smiley-hunting!!

RDJ: Computer Tip of the Day

Bob Osgood, publisher of Your Business Newsletter, sends out a great computer tip each day, which is then archived here:

www.adv-marketing.com/business/tod.htm

They are short, deal with one idea at a time, and are written in a very user-friendly format. Even techophiles may be able to pick up a new trick or two here.

[not recommended]

See? You've learned something new already...

by the way, for those of you who notice such arcane details, you will have noticed that this and the above tip were both posted today, on the 15th, with nothing from yesterday.

Well, I was busy. I had a headache. The sun was in my eyes. The dog ate my computer...

actually, it was my youngest kid's 18th birthday. Happy birthday, sweetie!

RDJ: RobertNiles.com

www.robertniles.com/data/

Where to find accurate information on everything under sun - crime, government, family, environment, you name it - for the working reporter (or the writer who needs a few facts to back up an article or add versimilitude to a story.)

Includes such goodies as a conversion chart, a slew of calculators, maps, zip codes for US & Canada, the CIA World Fact Book (yes, that CIA) even the entire KJV Bible.

Working reporters need to be able to look up facts in a flash (which is the name of a great book, by the way) and this is one of the places they find them. Now, so can you!

RDJ: Refdesk.com

www.refdesk.com

Daily Poetry Link
Old Farmer's Almanac
Writer's Almanac
Astronomy
Homework help
Music History
Newpapers
Daily Motivator
Check your e-mail

Dictionary/Thesaurus Search

Too many links to list...

RDJ: Hobbies: Writing

www.essortment.com/in/Hobbies.Writing/#Personal

Despite the somewhat condescending title of the site, Hobbies:Writing has a lot of good stuff, from journaling to tech writing to poetry to inspiration and overcoming writer's block.

(If you're really serious about overcoming writer's block, read Jenna's book by the same name. I guarantee that by the end of it, you'll still be giggling and your block will have taken itself off for greener - and less amused - pastures.)

Re: RDJ: Hobbies: Writing

I really love all the smileys, but everytime i've tried adding a smiley site, my computer starts blinking wildly. Just looking at all the smileys, ironically, is making me frown.

My favorite resource books are the ones from Writers Digest. Also, I like The Name Book by Gramercy Books, maybe because it was $1 at Barnes & Noble, but also because it has so much info: classifications of minerals, horse breeds, flowers, herbs; phobias, names of currencies, imagineray places, hurricanes, superheroes; even beer styles, wine, and satanic hieracrchy ( i did not know there was so much red tape)... anyway, lists of everything!

I am a listaholic. I write things down on my list of things to do that I've already down, just so I can cross them off.

Thanks for all the great information on this site everyone!

RDJ: Page One Literary Newsletter Web Site

I'm behind a day on my list here... sorry. Family crisis du jour instead...

pageonelit.com/

Writing contest, author interviews (ranging from Elmore Leonard and Janet Evanovich to Nora Roberts and John Grisham), news from the literary world, quotes about writing, a list of web pages for various writers (Ray Bradbury's has a great paragraph in which he refuses to do the work for students who are supposed to be doing a paper on one of his books), and a long resource list of links for about every kind of writing there is.

RDJ: The SLOT - a spot for copy editors

www.theslot.com/

Don't miss Bill Walsh (author of Lapsing into a Comma and The Elephants of Style, self-described as "opinionated guides for editors and writers" - and might I add, funny as heck too!) as he rants about common mistakes found in newspapers, in the best-named column yet, Carets and Sticks. And other rants about writing, in Sharp Points. (Example: I'm a member of the media But I'm not a medium.)

My kind of guy - cranky, amusing, and educational, all at the same time!

RDJ: Write4Kids.com

www.write4kids.com/ebooks.html

The official web site for Children's Book Insider: the Newsletter for Children's Writers. Offers free e-books, loads of helpful articles, a message board, and quite a few interesting links to other children's writer's sites and resources.

RDJ: Writers Write/Guidelines Directory

Writers Write www.writerswrite.com/ is filled with interesting stuff, including links to lots more stuff. My favorite is the Writer's Guidelines Directory*, which has a searchable database of markets, broken down by category, alphabetical order, and paying/non-paying markets. It's not exhaustive (AW is not listed in the Writing category!) but you may be able to find some new markets to write for or categories to write about if you spend some time clicking through their links.

*www.writerswrite.com/guidelines/browse.htm

RDJ: Glossarist.com

www.glossarist.com/

A searchable directory of glossaries and topical dictionaries.
Writing about a ballerina and need to know what a certain move is called? Want to know what words the Navajo code talkers used during WWII and what they stood for? Need the specific name for a certain kind of cloud? There's a dictionary or glossary here that can help. Not only educational, but just plain fun!

Leapin' Lizards!

You gotta slow down, girl. You're making me feel like a kid on his first trip to a carnival.

Oh, btw, that's good.

Hmmm, no, I mean it.

Re: Leapin' Lizards!

Rich, it's Resource Du Jour, so you gotta try and keep up here! Hope everyone is enjoying checking all these resource sites out as much as I'm enjoying hunting them down - much more useful than smiley-hunting, if not as much fun.

RDJ: AARP - Learn the Internet

This thread is again behind a day - been battling flu. Ugh.

Today's link may seem a bit of a waste; after all, if you're reading this, you already *know* how to use the Internet. But if you, like me, are trying to teach it to someone else (in my case, my 75 yo mom), this site is perfect. It is a step-by-step tutorial with screen shots that show exactly what each step looks like. The person using it can go at their own speed, can backtrack as necessary, and can review whenever desired.

www.aarp.org/learninternet/basic_browsing/lesson2.html

RDJ: Center for Life Stories Preservation

Interested in writing your memoirs or helping someone else write theirs? This site has a lot to offer you: interview questions, story prompts, nostalgia sites, photo and memorabilia preservation instructions, sample memoirs, geneology links, and more. I write a lot of essays and I have found this site to be a treasure trove of ideas and prompts.

Also check out the Assoc. of Personal Historians' links at
www.personalhistorians.org/links/special_links.html for a few other good places to check out.

RDJ: The Hunger Site

OK, today's site is really not writing-related, but since we all spend so much time on the Internet... how would you like to make a difference in the world, just by clicking on a link? You can, at The Hunger Site. They offer ways to give your support - at no cost to you - to programs that feed the hungry, care for children, provide mammograms to low-income women, promote literacy, save the rain forests, and rescue animals, and all it takes is a minute of your time. Check it out.

www.thehungersite.com

RDJ: Encyclopedia.com

Encyclopedia.com

Encyclopedia.com, the Internet's premiere free encyclopedia, provides users with more than 57,000 frequently updated articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Each article is enhanced with links to newspaper and magazine articles as well as pictures and maps - all provided by eLibrary.

RDJ: Stopwatch & Timer

Well, took me a while to find my way back in here... I didn't realize that they'd change the address!

We're behind a few days on the du jour part, so... here's the first one. Ever needed a timer or a stopwatch to time a speech or other read-aloud bit? Go to www.jsr.communitech.net/stopwatch2.htm. Works great.

RDJ: Action Verbs

www.emelior.com/shopcart/AVsample.html

Check out the sample list of action verbs, then sign up for the whole list. Show, don't tell!

RDJ: Regency Library

www.regencylibrary.com/Links.htm

Do you write fiction set during the time of the Prince Regent of England, otherwise known as the Regency period? Or, like me, do you just like to read about it? Well, this site will take you to more links than you know what to do with. Fashion, food, etiquette, dance instructions... it's all here, somewhere.