Introduction to some cool sounding book/writer sites!

Guardian Teen Books has partnered with Random House for a new interactive, serialised story called Root - a fast-paced thriller set in the shadowy world of computer hacking and espionage.

Every weekday for six weeks a new chapter will be released on guardian.co.uk/teen-books. The content will be directly influenced by readers’ contributions, such as their ideas for characters' personalities and skills.

The heroine Molly Root is a 15 year old computer genius whose friend Danny is killed after being caught stealing priceless data from a ruthless global corporation. Now she's in over her head. So far Molly Root's mission to get to the bottom of her best friend's murder has taken her on a perilous trail across London. Her key lead is a dodgy police detective - and her attempts to expose his shady contacts are testing her ingenuity to the limits.

As well as incorporating suggestions from readers, the story will also be brought to life via several social media platforms. For example, Guardian Teen Books' Twitter and Facebook accounts will be providing behind the scenes updates of how Molly is progressing, along with clips on Audioboo featuring the voicemails that Molly has discovered. This will be accompanied by onsite quizzes and photo puzzles on Flickr.

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Everyone knows that the key to becoming a better writer is consistently writing every day, but that's often easier said than done. A kind of Couch-To-5K for writers, It's Not A Sprint, It's A Marathon is a one-page site that details a simple method for creating a daily writing habit. http://www.notasprint.com

Instead of throwing yourself into another impossible self-imposed writing schedule, you'll be asked to a step back and focus on consistently sitting down to write. In the beginning, your output will be really low, but over time you'll gradually increase your daily word count until, before you know it, you'll be where want to be.

It's not revolutionary or mindblowing, and I'm not pretending to be some kind of guru, but it's what worked for me (after a decade-plus of frustration) and I thought maybe other aspiring writers could benefit from it as well.

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