If anyone were to go by my inbox and junk folder, it would become apparent that, even in the deep recession of 2009, people are still concerned about the following:

• the size of their penises
• the size of their bodies
• not having the correct timepiece

Other concerns come and go, apparently with the seasons—I’m currently being offered giant tomato and blueberry plants—but the need for a smaller waistline, a larger penis, and a wonderful watch apparently endure.

I understand the first two, which in one way or another are both about sex; the need for sex endures wars, recessions, depressions, natural disasters, and just about everything else humanity and the world can throw at us.

But watches? When was the last time you found yourself longing for a great watch? In an age where most people don’t even bother with timepieces strapped to their wrists—they all have super-accurate ones in their hands or glued to their ears—it’s an interesting commentary that a) someone out there really believes that hordes of people will respond to unsolicited emails about watches and b) hordes of people apparently do, because otherwise the spammers wouldn’t keep sending this stuff out.

Since it seems that getting a handle on dealing with spam is very much a thing of the future, you might as well get what amusement you can from the stuff as you press the delete key and wonder what our spam says about us. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Need a literary agent? Don’t ask your favorite author for a referral to his or hers — it puts that person in an awkward position (I know whereof I speak; I’ve been there). Instead, visit Agent Query and click the resources link. You may also wish to check out the Association of Authors’ Representatives both for listings and for a sense of how the industry views particular agents.

If the literary agent sites don’t tire you out and you still want to move toward publication, then sample some of the fare at Sensible Solutions, where you can click the — wait for it — “especially valuable links”!

Do you do children’s writing? Then it’s essential for you to know about Harold Underdown’s Purple Crayon site; it’s a fabulous website itself but also gives you helpful links to still more. Also be sure to check out the Children’s Literature Web Guide.

Are you a poet? Then take a look at the Poetry Society and click the resources link.

Here’s a site that’s filled with links to publishers, journals, conferences, magazines, and lots more: it’s the Literature Line.

Bookwire has a number of resources for writers under its “featured links” section.

Google as always needs to weigh in: check out its writers’ resources … but only if you have a lot of time to spend following links!

Good luck with all of it, and as always, feel free to share your own “especially valuable links” with me; I’ll be sure to credit you and your website for a little free SEO in the bargain. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

The presentation is very user-friendly: you can use the site search functionality, of course, but you can also click on a scrolling timeline, which allows you to browse for something that may be of interest. As a historical novelist myself, I’m very excited about the potential here, both for research and also — frankly — for trolling for ideas!

You’ll also see a separate photograph archive, some featured articles, the ability to do a single-day search (along the lines of “this day in history”), and Times recommendations.

Why am I so excited? After all, the History Channel’s been offering something similar on its site for years.

The point is that this is primary source material. It’s not someone’s account of what may have happened, it’s what the newspaper reported happening. Authentic, not too biased (no reports are completely unbiased), and arranged in such a way that the user can get information quickly and easily.

Note that there is currently a free introductory period for use of the archives; it’s unclear what the cost will be later on down the line, but it’s sure to be well worth it to those of us needing the resource. It has my vote for Site of the Month, that’s for sure! Check it out yourself, and you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

ADDENDUM: My colleague and friend Dick Margulis (he of Ampers&Virgule fame) has helpfully noted that “The date widget is day-month-year rather than the American-style month-day-year. So if someone is looking for news on a particular date, they should be careful to enter it in the right order.”

(You can tell that he’s beyond the elements of style!) Thank you, Dick!

But I do want to say that taking time off to acknowledge everything for which we are thankful is an excellent idea, and one we should implement all year, not just on one day. I’m grateful for so many things and many people: the growth of my company, Customline Wordware, and for all my wonderful clients who make it possible; for my sales team, headed up by Julia Blackburn, and mostly, my business partner, friend, and husband, Paul Cézanne. I’m grateful to my publishers for continuing to put my words out there, and for my literary agent, Philip G. Spitzer for enabling that to happen. I’m grateful to my readers (“if a writer falls in the forest…”) who mean the world to me: I don’t know who all of you are, but I thank you!

As for the rest … well, I explain my attitude best in this op-ed I wrote that appeared in last week’s Provincetown Banner:

Thanksgiving, Provincetown-Style

Having decided not to travel for the holiday (the sanest course of action when one considers how difficult flying anywhere has become), I found myself recently wondering how to spend it. While I’m totally onboard with the general sentiment of the time – it’s an incontestably Good Thing to stop and feel gratitude for all we have and all we are, and an even Better Thing to thank people who have been good to us this year – I’ve never been able to feel right about celebrating a holiday that has its historical roots in a genocide.

So how does one mark the day?

At one time the Wampanoag did a sort of anti-Thanksgiving at Plimoth Plantation, but I’ve not been able to find anything out about it in recent years. And while one could of course go to one of the local restaurants and gorge oneself, it seems a little pointless. So I was delighted when the solution was suggested to me: perhaps I should celebrate Thanksgiving exactly like the first Europeans did!

You don’t have to go far to research the roots of the holiday: the museum up at the Provincetown Monument tells the story. The Pilgrims, we learn via a diorama there, were close to starvation and despair when they suddenly found some corn! It was carefully stacked and well preserved, apparently just waiting for them. They rejoiced over that discovery, took the corn back to their ships, and thus famously survived the winter.

So here’s my plan: on Thanksgiving morning, I’m going to break into the Grand Union grocery store over on Shankpainter Road. I’m going to proceed to the canned vegetables aisle (it is, after all, past the season for fresh vegetables) and take the corn I find stacked there. Surely the store owners and the local police will understand, just as no doubt the rightful owners of that original harvest did, right? Stealing is, apparently, a holiday tradition.

Okay, so I’m not going to really do it, but it’s a tempting thought. After all, as long as you get to write the history books, you can – apparently – do whatever you want. Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving indeed, on this and on every day! Being grateful puts us all … beyond the elements of style!

But it’s a good subject for writers of all sorts to think about, as deadlines are as inevitable as the proverbial death and taxes. Amd when we sign the contract or make the agreement, the deadline is so blessedly out of sight in the future that it seems like a Small Thing.

Believe me, it very quickly morphs into a Very Big Thing indeed!

How do you deal with deadlines? While I could go off into the predictable every-writer-is-different spiel, there are some concrete bits of advice that will apply to all. To wit:

1. Write something on that first day when you’ve signed or sent off the contract. Even if you don’t eventually use what you write, write something having to do with the project anyway. That keeps you grounded in it, makes it real.

2. Plan the project. This is the next day, after you’ve had the champagne and the excitement has fizzled a little along with it. Use project management software if it’s complex, plain pen and paper if it isn’t. In one column, note the parts that you can do off the top of your head, no problem. In another column, note long-term pieces (if you need to get permissions, for example, or quotes: the sooner you’re on to that sort of thing, the better off you are). A third column will have to do with items, actions, etc. that have to be done in order for the first column to be completed (looking up references, speaking with someone, etc.).

3. Now take the information from #2 and look at your deadline date. It’s calendar time: look at how long you have to complete the project, and plug dates into the pieces of the project you;ve separated out in #2.

4. Start the long-term part right away. Seriously: right away. Don’t wait for the Muse: she’s notorious for disappearing once you’re on deadline.

If you plan everything out well in advance and follow that plan, you have a much better chance of not losing sleep — or sanity! –the last week or two of your project.

Speaking of which, I’d better get back to mine! Need to stay beyond the elements of style ….