WIP Clip Wednesday and Mr. Linky Tutorial

In preparation for the first official WIP Clip Wednesday tomorrow Pot and I thought I should post a tutorial giving the rules and how to use Mr. Linky.

This idea is a spin-off of Friday Snippets, a meme in which bloggers post snippets of their own fiction on Fridays for others to read and offer comment.

We thought it would be nice to have a meme that focused more on the Romance genre, so that Romance writers could share bits of their work and get comments and offer comments in the genre they read and know best.

Rules:

1. Comment. Make sure that your comment links to your blog or snippet, or that you sign in on the Mr. Linky box if that poster participates in Mr. Linky. Links must be to a blog with a snippet, not to ads or promotional websites.

2. Return your visits! If you post a snippet, please make every effort to read and comment on the snippets posted by everyone who comments to yours. It’s only polite and it’s sort of the point.

3. Have mercy! Please keep your excerpts under 1000 words. We’d love to have a bunch of people participating, and reading several long posts gets hard to fit in. Try to keep your snippet between 500-750 words. Remember, this is just to give us a taste; it doesn’t have to be a whole scene or a whole chapter. It could be a bit of conversation, a kiss, or some other interaction. If there’s background we need, you can always explain it in a brief paragraph before the clip. In fact, such explanations are encouraged and appreciated.

4. Posts from Romance writers (published and aspiring) in all Romance subgenres are invited.

5. Your clip could be your favorite bit that you wrote this week, or something that you’re not sure about and would like feedback on. But it doesn’t have to be from your current work in progress at all. Post any of your own work, past or present. And do remember to include some kind of copyright reminder with your work.

Hope to read you soon! For future reference the above rules and information can be found here.

Now, regarding how you get your Mr. Linky code! You have to go visit the Mr. Linky site. If you’re not already registered, do that. It’s totally free (there are upgrades if you’re into that).  After that, you go through Step 1 and choose your server/host (Blogger, Livejournal, etc.). Then select Image Linkies on Step 2. and look for WIP Clip Wednesday. It’s supposed to be a shared private meme, but in the event that it doesn’t show up all you have to do is choose one of the other memes to get the code, then change the linky reference number to 282. You’ll have to check with Mr. Linky help as to how to insert the code into a post based on who your blog server is.

Now if you are at WordPress (the free, uninstalled version) you need the following code:

<a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.blenza.com/linkies/links.php?owner=seanachi&postid=09Oct2007&meme=282″><img border=”0″ src=”http://www.blenza.com/linkies/graphic.php?owner=seanachi&postid=09Oct2007&meme=282″></a>

In order to use it, you must go into the code tab of the Write Post screen (the default is Visual, look to the right beneath the Title box) and paste it in wherever you want the Mr. Linky box to go. Each week you will need to update the date using the above format, so I find it useful to just save the code in a Word file and paste in in each week.

If you find it a bit confusing at first, no worries!  The important thing is to visit and comment on everyone’s post, but leave your link SOMEWHERE so people can follow back to your WIP Clip.   And if you have any problems post to me or to Pot and we’re happy to help troubleshoot.

Good luck!

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