Analogies are the perfect way to create a vivid image in a reader's mind, but it's so easy to get carried away. Some high school English teachers got together and listed their 25 favorite analogies, which are featured at this site:

The 25 Funniest Analogies (Collected by High School English Teachers)

Here are a couple of my favorites from the site:

Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut. I actually like this one a lot... so much I wish I'd written it.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. Even though this is a bad analogy, I think it's really funny... and doesn't that make it good?

I don't usually spend too much time agonizing over character names. Most of the time I go with a pair of names that I like and don't look back. But, believe it or not, as I begin developing a plot, naming the secondary characters is more difficult. Suddenly, you can't have names that look or sound too much like the main characters' names. With Internet technology being what it is, finding names is easy. Here are some sites for name generating:

The Character Name Generator - This one is the most straight forward. You type in the desired gender and a first and last name appear.

Baby Name List - This site allows you to choose the ethnic background and gender (African Girls or Egyptian Boys) then view an alphabetical list of names in that category.

The Random Name Generator - The fun thing about this generator is that it allows you to generate several names at a time based on an obscurity factor (1=Common, 50=Not so common, 99=Totally obscure)

While I was checking out my "43 Things" yesterday, I discovered that they've just started a new site called All Consuming.

This is a place where you can list all the books, movies, music, etc. that you're consuming, and see what everyone else is consuming as well. The most interesting feature of this site is the ability to ask the community what you should consume next. I haven't discovered a large number of romance novel consumers yet, but I'm hoping that's because it's still new. I also think people like to show off a bit and flaunt all the great literature they've read.

My work-in-progress is about a woman who finds the list of things she wanted to do before thirty and rushes to accomplish the remaining items in the two weeks before her thirtieth birthday. Now, I've never made one of these lists for myself, but while I was trying to figure out what kinds of things would be on such a list, I found 43 Things.

This site is cool because you can see all the things (more or less than 43) that people around the World Wide Web are trying to accomplish. You can make a list of your own and get cheers and advice from others. And, you can also give others advice on how you acomplished various things you've done.

My list only has four things. The two most important things on that list are write and stop procrastinating. It's very powerful to put something in writing and see how many other people are working toward the same goals you are. It's meaniful to get encouragement, even from strangers. And most importantly, it's great to check off all the things you've done and help others do the same.

Am I in the right business? I'm pretty sure that I am, but I decided to take the Work Values Assessment on www.myplan.com mainly because it was free.

My highest scoring items were Acheivement and Independence. Sounds like I'm on the right track.

People who score high in the Achievement cluster should look for jobs that let them use their best abilities. It's also important that they look for work where they can see the results of their efforts directly. They should explore jobs where they can get a strong feeling of accomplishment.

People who score high in the Independence cluster should look for jobs where they are left to do things on own initiative. These people also value creativity and the freedom to work alone. They should explore work where they can make decisions on their own.

That sounds good, but how does that translate into the real world? The next level of analysis allowed me to compare my needs and values with real careers. Naturally, I selected Creative Writing and it gave me a graphical comparison of each category. It wasn't a line by line match up, but it was prety close.

Finally, it gives me a list of 900 jobs ranked by my best matches. I had a 74% match for the following jobs:

Operations Research Analysts
Public Relations Specialists
Creative Writers
Copy Writers

So, we've got a match. I should be a Creative Writer. And look at the income I have to look forward to:

U.S. National Averages
Writers and authors
Average Annual Salary $53,850
Average Hourly Wage $25.89
Total Employment 43,020

I've never been accused of not speaking proper English. Quite the contrary in fact, there were several occasions when I was teased in school for speaking too properly. So when I discovered this site that gives examples of "beastly mispronunciations" I was intrigued. Surely there weren't any words that I've been mispronouncing.

Well, according to this site, there are a few that I've been getting wrong. Balsamic for instance. I'll probably never get that right because the correct pronunciation just sounds wrong to me.

Balsamic bawl-SAM-ik. Don’t say bawl-SAHM-ik.

Despite the title of this entry, I do pronounce congratulations correctly on most occasions, but I realize when I'm lazy, I might break the "rules" a bit.

Congratulations kun-GRACH-uh-LAY-shinz, not kun-GRAJ-uh-LAY-shinz.

Finally, I take exception to the writer's claim that Porsche is pronounced porsh instead of porsh-uh. I watched a special on porsh-uhs and the German manufacturers explained exactly how they want it said. I want to get it right because I hope to own one before I die.

One of these days I'm going to enter a contest. I like writing contests because the can be a lot of fun if they challenge your creativity. Some of the coolest text writing contests with the most interesting premises come from Worth1000.com.

I originally discovered this site for it's beautiful and amazing Photoshop imagery. The site holds contests and talented Photoshoppers creative images beyond your imagination. I love Photoshop, but I'll never be on that level.

In addition to Photoshop, multimedia, Illustration and photography contests, they provide text contests. The format is usually pretty short and the concepts are intriguing. Some of the recent contests were to write book/movie style review of some important events in humanity's history, ridiculous letters to corporations, or to imagine what our things are thinking about us.

Maybe one of these days, I'll finish my current novel and enter one of these contests. In the mean time, it's fun to read the entries.

Yesterday I posted a quiz for vintage sex slang, and I just couldn't resist posting another quiz today. I did fairly well on the vintage sex slang, but I did absolutely miserable (literally, the site officially proclaimed my performance miserable) on today's quiz. Three out of ten correct. It started out so easy and then suddenly I had no clue.

They don't call it the toughest game on the web for nothing. I was the 134,654,110th person to take a quiz on Etymologic.

Here are the site's instructions:

In this etymology game you'll be presented with 10 randomly selected etymology (word origin) or word definition puzzles to solve; in each case the word or phrase is highlighted in bold, and a number of possible answers will be presented. You need to choose the correct answer to score a point for that question. Beware! The false answers will often also seem quite plausible, and some of the true answers are hard to believe, but we have documentation!

It's obvious that I spend too much time surfing the Internet because my favorite thing to post is interesting Web Sites. At least they're remotely romance and/or writing related, but I could probably fill a year just surfing the sites in my bookmark list. Should you ever need advice on how to waste time, I'm your girl.

I'm particularly fascinated with slang, and while perusing www.slangcity.com, I came across the Vintage Sex Slang Quiz. You can test your knowlege of retro sexual terminology. I got a 9/10 on the quiz. I should have gotten that last one right, but what can I say? You always have room for improvement.

Yesterday, instead of posting to this site, I was sitting in the hair salon reading my new favorite magazine, Real Simple. In the magazine I read about something I thought was pretty cool, Invite an Author to Your Book Club.

I checked out the Web site at www.bookclubcookbook.com, and it has some wonderful tips for hosting a book club and having the author attend the meeting over the phone.

Now, I've never really participated in a book club as a reader because it's all I can do to keep up with my writing group. But, I love the idea nonetheless. The romance section of this site only features about five different romance authors, but that's bound to change. I would certainly consider participating in the future.

In a previous post, I mention some Web sites to visit when you want to improve your vocabulary and have a little fun. Since, I'm always on the Internet looking for new and improved ways to waste time, I have a couple more to post.

Scrabbleblast This game isn't quite like scrabble because all the letters are already on the board. Your job is to click on letters to make words that are as long as possible for the most points. The blast comes in when little bombs show up with a letter and a number indicating how long a word you need to make with that letter. If you're unsuccessful making the specified word before the bomb drops to the bottom of the screen, the game is over.

Word Mojo I first discovered this game for my palm pilot. I was thrilled to find that it came be played on the web. All you have to do is make 3 to 6 letter words out of given letters within the allotted time. After six successful rounds any letters placed on colored tiles during the game come together for you to arrange into a Mega Mojo word. This continues until you're unable to reach the minimum score to advance.

Hoyle Games Some of the games I mentioned in another post under Uproar have moved to Hoyle Games. Here you can play Word Yacht, my favorite, as well as some others that I haven't tried like Crosswords, Doublecross, Hangman, Wordsearch and Wordox.

Recently, while working on my current book, I went to the archives of a site that I've known about for a while but rarely had occasion to use. I had a slang term I wanted to use, but I didn't have a clue how to spell it.

Enter the Urban Dictionary.

1. bougie
Aspiring to be a higher class than one is. Derived from bourgeois - meaning middle/upper class, traditionally despised by communists.
When my friend Miya wears a blazer or Lucy gets a massage I call them bougie cause we're unemployed college students.
Source: indi, Jun 23, 2004

1. fo shizzle
:for sure; derived from Snoop Dogg.
This new doggyfizzle televizzle gon' be off the hizzle, fo shizzle.
Source: diambenz, Jun 20, 2003

2. fo shizzle
Slang for "for sure". Though most people attribute it to Snoop Dogg, fo shizzle can be traced back originally to E-40 from Vallejo, California. While originating out of hip-hop culture, this phrase has been overused to the point of triteness. Its most famous usage is
Fo shizzle, my nizzle.
Source: blair, Apr 11, 2004
As a fiction writer, this is a valuable resource. Either because you want to spice up the speech of a secondary character or because you think you know what something means, but you don't want to risk using the word incorrectly.

This site has a load of words you won't find in Webster's. And the definitions are provided by the community, so they can be hit or miss.

1. wordage
A word to describe someone's use of words.
"Hey you have really good wordage."
"I've got good wordage!"
"Your wordage is so lame!"
Source: Daniel Hough, Apr 12, 2004

2. wordage
Slang for the word "words".
"Bury me near my house" was my grandfather's last wordage.
Source: monkeyGOD, Jul 30, 2003

Copyright infringement becomes very important to you when you become a writer. It's something I've only paid mild attention to over the course of my writing career, but now that blogs and all forms of Internet publishing have become envogue, it's important to understand exactly what your rights are.

Check out 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained. This article brings up some interesting issues you may not have considered regarding copyright infringements.

New writers quickly learn that the first step to getting a publisher to read a manuscript is to send a query letter. These letters are your first and sometimes only chance to pitch your book idea. They're your first impression and an opportunity to show how well you understand the industry.

The movie industry has the same process in place for weeding out potentially bad scripts. I recently discovered a very amusing site where a cynical movie big-wig posts the disasterous movie pitches he's received. This site is as hilarious as it is educational.

It's not hard to figure out why most of these letters end up in the trash bin, but it does make you wonder how some Hollywood scripts, like White Chicks and Gigli, ever slipped through the cracks.

Check out Query Letters I Love.

My recent purchase of an iPod has forced me to listen to music a lot more. Now I have mood music for every imaginable activity. Writing is still the hardest one to pin down. I think I probably work better in complete silence, but motivation is a real issue for me. I need music that's going to make me sit down and get to work.

In the past I've compared writing to jogging, and there are definitely songs that make me want to leap to my feet and start running or working out. I'm still searching for the right mix to make me tap away at the keyboard...

All this to say that I found a cute site that will compile a list of songs for you for every imaginable mood. Here are some examples of the playlist titles:

Songs to listen to when you have a writer's block and can't think of anything interesting.

Lyrically powerful songs that will move and inspire you while sitting in an urban, bohemian coffee shop writing poetry or the Great American Novel, and dreaming of being published.

or

Songs to promote tolerance and peace among those who can't seem to stop making racist comments

Music to listen to after the baby has cried ALL day, and has puked on all your clean t-shirts. Now all I want is a BIG glass of red wine and peace!

I have to admit, most of the songs on these playlist I've never even heard of, but if you're looking for a good way to kill time when you should be writing, definitely check out the Automatic Mix Tape Generator at tinymixtapes.com.

After I have had a good stint of writing, I like to take a break and do something fun to reward myself. Okay, I probably take way more breaks than necessary, but that’s beside the point.

Below are some fun sites that allow you to play games with words. Not only are they fun, they can improve your vocabulary. They also warm up your brain and stimulate creativity. At least that’s what I tell my husband when he catches me playing games instead of writing.

These are my favorites:

Acrophobia This is a truly addictive game that asks you to make clever or witty sentences, often fitting a theme, out of random acronyms.

Web Boggle Just like the board game. Find words in a random grouping of letters horizontally, vertically, diagonally, to the left, right, or up-and-down.

Word Yacht In this word-based version of the game Yahtzee you roll the 10 letter dice and create words to complete one of 8 different categories.

I love the Internet. I don't know how we ever got by without it. It's wonderful for research because you can type in a search and find useful information in a heartbeat. But, I also love to use it to stimulate creativity.

Google is a great search engine. Have you ever tried typing in random words just to see what comes up? Today I typed in alacrity and spiteful. What a combination. Want even more fun? Click on the images tab. Or the news tab. Now you've got even stranger combinations.

If you like this concept of Internet searching but don't feel like picking the random words yourself... there's a cool search engine that will do this kind of thing for you. It's called Banana Slug. A neat way to get a new perspective on your Internet searches.

Check out the other ways I use the Internet to stimulate creativity.

I was thinking about what it means to be a true "starving artist" today, so I went ahead and typed the terms into a Google search. I got a lot of weird hits, but I did find one site that sums it up pretty well. Check out David Sherman's Progression of the Starving Artist.

I have to agree with his assessment. Now, that I'm officially a married woman, I can no longer consider myself a true starving artist. Thankfully, there's another person around to buy food when I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Now, "writing full-time" is a concept under negotiation with my husband rather than a dim fantasy that may never see fruition.

On and interesting side note, or to completely digress, I read in Cosmo this month about the new "housewife." It's becoming a trend for modern, well-educated career-women to get married and let their husbands support them. I don't know how I feel about this. I don't think I like it. Mostly because that sounds like the life, and I'm ashamed to admit it. I grew up wanting to be independent, not relying on a man for anything. That's the kind of woman I write about. So how dare I say that all I really want to do is stay home in my newly decorated house and wait for my hubby to return?

Luckily, as a writer, I'll always be able to say I'm a career-woman. Writing is a career that is best done from the home. Years ago, when I was starting out and hopped from job to job... I was never unemployed... I was merely a full-time writer.

So, either way, it's nice to say good-bye to the days of being a starving artist. Even though I became published early on in my career, it's very difficult to support yourself on sporadic advances and two rounds of royalty checks a year. I've always had day jobs. Many of them. But, that's another story...