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I think these text-message airplanes from Moleskin are so cute! Or maybe they just appeal to the writer and reader in me. It’s word fun!

Thanks to @MikeCane on Twitter for the link.

I often find signs that are wrong–through use or typos–interesting (though sometimes annoying).
I think it has to do with my love of words and reading–and the importance of words for me. How about you? Do you find them interesting? If you do, you might like this site.

Clearly Closed is a site that features photos of businesses with “Open” signs, when the business is clearly closed–for the night or for good.

I only got through the first page, because, well, they’re all doing the same thing (unlike signs with various typos). But I think it’s still an interesting site to check out.

For those of you who love Scrabble, and are on social networks, may be interested to know that the official Scrabble game is coming this month to Facebook in the US and Canada, and is already on Pogo.com. It’s produced by Hasbro and Electronic Arts.

There’s no news yet as to what will happen to Scrabulous, the unofficial version of Scrabble that’s been on Facebook and has become very popular. Hasbro claimed it infringed on their trademarks, and wanted to shut it down, but realized they’d get a backlash if they did that without providing an alternative.

Thanks to Cynopsis Kids for the initial info. Read more on the complete story here.

Wordle is both a fun time waster for people who like words, and a useful tool for writers. You can upload any text you want into Wordle, and play with the fonts, colors, and layouts, and it will produce a picture based on the words, visually showing you the words you’ve used most frequently. The most frequently used words appear the largest. You can see where this can come in handy for fiction writers, especially, finding overused words, as well as themes, plot threads, etc that are used the most frequently throughout a book.

The results can be aesthetically pleasing as well as interesting and possibly useful. If you want to keep the image you’ve created just for yourself, don’t save it on Wordle. (Save it via an screenshot utility. You can also save it as a .pdf file; see Wordle’s FAQ for help.) Otherwise, anything you save will be available for anyone to print out or use. You might not want to do that with, say, your novel. On the other hand, I think it could make a small though neat promotional tool, especially if you save it under the book’s title and with your name. I saw a few on Wordle like that–and while I didn’t stay to peruse them, I did see the books’ titles–which is part of book promotion.

Thanks to Justine Larbalestier and her wonderful post on Wordle and how she used it for her novels, for introducing me to Wordle’s usefulness and fun play factor.

You need to have Java installed on your computer or your browser in order to view the Wordle creations.

From New Zealand’s lively children’s book community, today we feature two great resources. At Bookrapt, brainchild of the Bay of Plenty Children’s Literature Association, you’ll find a great list of resources for writers and aspiring writers: competitions, publishers, advice, awards, literary organizations, industry news and more. If you’re feeling rejected (or just have those northern hemisphere winter blues), check out their list of prominent writers and the number of rejections each received getting a book deal. It’s sure to bring a little sunshine into any writer’s or aspiring writer’s life!

And Storylines, the Kiwi IBBY site, is such rich territory that the rest of this post is littered with links. The annual Storylines Festival in June connects children and families with writers and illustrators. Four literary-related prizes are awared annually. The national Mahy Award in March and the Gilderdale Award in October recognize outstanding contributions to children’s literature. The Gaelyn Gordon Award is for a much-loved book that hasn’t yet won a major award. Support for developing and unpublished writers come in the Tom Fitzgibbon Award for a chapter book and the Joy Cowley Award for a picture book.

Storylines also recommends lists of books (not all New Zealand-published) for children. Their annual Notable Books List this year is of books for and about children with disabilities.