Click Here! Hot Stuff Edition

Originally, I was going to post a very cool pic of a two-tone lobster for this post...and then Floyd Landis won the Tour de France yesterday. If you've been following the tour, then you know all about the drama--the dope charges that kicked so many out of the race at the start, Floyd's own battles with a wasted, paining hip (it'll be replaced in upcoming weeks) and his struggle to reclaim the yellow jersey after having a dream-crush ride earlier in the week. This guy's determination and strength, the fact that he was able to make up a stunning 8-minute deficit over mountainous terrain has put him in the Tour's record books and endeared him to all. Fodder for a novel or a new protagonist? Could be! And so it's only fitting that the lobster move on over and give Floyd the top spot in my Hot Stuff post this a.m.! Enjoy...

The Writer's Medical and Forensics Lab is a site "where writers and readers can learn, be entertained, and obtain the specialized medical and forensic knowledge they need to make their stories come to life or to better understand someone else’s story." Great page of links to more info, too.

Wish someone could pay you to sit and polish your wip? Maybe someone can. Check out C. Hope Clark's list of Funds for Writers. While you're there, check out her contest page as well, where you'll find lots of good possibilities for submitting that poem or short story.

Longing for the day when I actually need to use this one…here’s a Royalty Calculator, thanks to Kresley Cole! Using statistics, such as the dollar amount of your advance, the print run and more, determine if your book will “earn out.” The calculator shown on the site is fixed, but Kresley has generously offered to send a free interactive copy of this calculator to anyone who emails her!

Elizabeth Lucas-Taylor's Marketing and Promoting Yourself is a super 75-page PDF file loaded with tips, including how to print your own ARCs, promote a booksigning and maximize impact of those book blurbs.

Stay with me now...

Want to keep tabs on the latest best-selling novels? Check out this fabulous database on the USA Today site, which lists the top 150 sellers each week.

For a run down of things to avoid and watch for in your contract clauses, check out EPIC's comprehensive list.

Ever imagine how the epic Lord of the Rings might have turned out if someone other than J.R.R. Tolkien had written it? Others have. A lot of them! For a great laugh, click here, if only to read the Nora Roberts entry.

Ladies, need to get into the mind of a man but feeling at loose ends? If you’re feeling brave enough to traverse the self-proclaimed “man portal,” visit Ask Men and learn more than you ever wanted to know about how Adams think.

Learn why classics such as “The Age of Innocence,” “Pride and Prejudice” and “Jane Eyre” worked by reading notes on structure and characterization. CliffNotes for novels, plays, essays, short stories and poems are now available online for FREE. Similar synopses of stories are available at Book-a-Minute Classics. (More great free reads at the amazing Project Guttenberg site.)

And because I couldn't delete my salty friend, here's his pic. A Maine lobstermancaught this guy recently and thought a prank was being played on him; the crustacean looks like he spent a little time in a vat of boiling water, after all. Turns out, he's just a two-tone fluke of nature, a 1 in 50 million catch...I wonder if Mr. Lobsterman wishes he'd just bought a lottery ticket instead?

Write on!