Used to be if you wanted to find an agent you might grab for the latest edition of the Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. That's what I used to do years and years ago. Fortunately, there's plenty of information online nowadays, and you don't have to buy a new book every year to get the latest info (though you may have to pay an annual subscription fee depending on which site you use).

Here then are the sites I've found most useful when looking for an agent:

• AgentQuery
• QueryTracker.net
• Association of Authors' Representatives
• Publishers Marketplace

Make sure to cross-reference any potential agent in one or more of the following resources. Agenting is a fairly nefarious business, it seems.

• Writer Beware
• Preditors & Editors

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I thought as I came across notable words from Wordnik's Word of the Day service, I'd post them here. Short and sweet. Here you go.

The Wordnik Word of the Day for September 2, 2010 is

razee

http://www.wordnik.com/words/razee

(noun) A ship of war cut down to a smaller size by reducing the number of decks.

(verb) To cut down or reduce to a lower class, as a ship; hence, to lessen or abridge by cutting out parts: as, to razee a book or an article.

'Razee' as a verb is now more commonly known as 'raze,' which comes from the Middle English, 'rasen,' which means 'to scrape off.'

Example:

"As a matter of fact the Confederate navy never had but one real man-of-war, the famous Merrimac; and she was a mere razee, cut down for a special purpose, and too feebly engined to keep the sea."

- Captains of the Civil War, by William Charles Henry Wood

For the longest time I was receiving daily Word of the Day emails from Dictionary.com. Then they stopped. It's one of those things—I was getting it for so long, usually casually glancing at the word then deleting the email, that I never really did anything when the emails started not arriving. I figured a system glitch or something.

I finally got around to looking into what's up and discovered that while my email address was still subscribed, I still wasn't getting the emails. Nothing in the spam folder, either. I tried re-subscribing, but it said I was already subscribed. OK. Unsubscribe. Subscribe again. Wait for confirmation email. Nada. OK, I'm done.

Finding another Word of the Day service was as easy as a Google search.

Wordnik, whose API I had once looked at for an unrelated project, caught my eye immediately. Their Word of the Day service requires you to sign up for an account. I did. Now, I'm once again receiving Word of the Day emails on a (surprise) daily basis.

I like the look of Wordnik's WotD page. Here's today's:

The word is big and hard to miss. Definitions are clear. The "Notes" section gives you a little bit of additional information about the word; basically stuff that falls outside of the definition itself. There are examples that use the word so you can see it in action and, in this case, a user contributed sound bite of the word's pronunciation.

If you're into this sort of thing, I recommend Wordnik's Word of the Day service. I'm also going to start using Wordnik as the definition source for my Interesting Words posts.

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This is a reference post providing some links to resources that discuss manuscript formatting with a few notes of my own at the end. I'll update as needed.

If you have any resources of your own, feel free to post a comment below. I'd love to make this a more comprehensive resource.

Here are the links:

• Holly Lisle's How to Format a Manuscript
• Wikipedia: Manuscript format
• Mary Soon Lee's Standard Manuscript Format
• Writing World: A Quick Guide to Manuscript Format
• Pam McCutcheon's Manuscript Format for Fiction Novels
• Robert J. Sawyer's Manuscript Format Checklist
• SFWA Manuscript Formatting
• Vonda N. McIntyre's Manuscript Preparation (.PDF; redistributed by permission)

And some notes:

• Robert J. Sawyer and Holly Lisle both recommend using 12 point Dark Courier as the manuscript font.

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I'm starting a new blogging series to focus on reference sources I find useful on a day-to-day basis as I'm writing, editing, and proofing. Think of it as a recommended reading list, though it may encompass other blogs that focus on the craft of writing or even web sites. Really anything of value to the mechanics, style, or general process of writing.

This, then, is Part 1, to focus on my 'go to' thesaurus of choice, The Synonym Finder, edited by J.I. Rodale. I've got a copy of Roget's International Thesaurus (Fifth Edition), but it became a secondary reference source not too long after I bought The Synonym Finder.

This begs the question: How is The Synonym Finder different from any other thesaurus? I'll use Roget's (Fifth Edition) since that's the other thesaurus I own as comparison.

The Synonym Finder reads like a dictionary, except instead of word definitions it's chock full of synonyms. To find a synonym, you simply flip open the book, find your keyword alphabetically, and you're presented with a listing of synonyms. Straightforward and simple.

Roget's, on the other hand, has an index at the back of the book. You start by looking up your keyword, which in turn either has a page number next to it or, alternatively, a short listing of words or phrases which might be synonyms or might simply be words you might be looking for. Each of those words or phrases has a page number next to it. Once you've decided on a word, you go that page number where you are presented with a listing of synonyms. If you're unsatisfied with the results or simply chose the wrong 'similar' word or phrase, then it's back to the index where you need to repeat the process.

To explain better, let's run through an example. This will also serve to demonstrate which reference book provides better results. This may be a wash, but let's give it a try.

I'll randomly flip open to the index of Roget's and select a word. I've got "noodle". Roget's quirky index shows:

noodle
n member 2.7
head 198.6
brain 918.6
v think over 930.13

Let's say I'm really looking for synonyms of the second entry. I'll go to 198.6 as it suggests. It shows:

198.6 head, headpiece, pate, poll, crown, scone, noggin, brow, ridge

Not bad. But I don't like that I had to flip to an index, figure out what word I really want, then I have to flip again to find the synonyms.

Let's see what The Synonym Finder has to say. I flip to "noodle" (it's easy since everything is alphabetical) and immediately see a block of entries--easily more than what Roget's has listed. We have:

head, skull, cranium, cerphalon, brainpan, poll, pate, sconce, mazard, costard, think tank, thinker, upstairs, upper story, belfry, noggin, dome, bean, nut, nob, crumpet, gourd, conk

The Synonym Finder comes up with 23 possible synonyms for "noodle". Roget's? 9. Seems as if, in this case anyway, The Synonym Finder wins by offering me more than twice the number of possible synonyms.

Granted, this was only one word, but there's a reason I keep The Synonym Finder nearby whenever I'm writing or editing. Nothing beats its ease-of-use and it gives me results fast.

No wonder The Synonym Finder is the first book I look to when I need a synonym.

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