Many monumental things have altered the state of my life this past year. Those things have made me want to become more balanced and disciplined. As a result, I have kept my body, mind, and soul in balance. It has not been easy, but it has been necessary. That said, I have a few projects I need to finish.
I began my short story project a while ago but got sidetracked due to medical issues. However, I still intend to complete my project and add a bonus story bringing the total number of short stories to twenty. Every time I publish a new story, I will write about it on my blog, Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter pages, so you will not miss a thing.
My latest short story, Weird Timing, is currently available on Amazon.com. It’s about a young woman named Yasmin, and it’s her first week of college. She just moved from the city to live in a small town where she shares a dorm room with her new roommate in the middle of central Illinois. She meets a guy with potential while navigating college life, but it gets complicated when she tries to seek shelter in the middle of a tornado warning. Yasmin is trying her best to get acclimated to her new life, but will she be able to figure it all out?
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I used to be one of those writers that never found the time to read books. No, it’s true. I would write, revise, write, revise, and wonder why my stories weren’t turning out quite how I wanted them to. I soon realized that it was because I never read books! Books do more than entertain, they teach.
Not to worry though, I’m reading again and making up for lost time. My goal this year is to read at least forty books and I’m more than halfway through. Next year, my goal will be eighty. As I’m trying to reach my novel reading goal, I’ve noticed that I’ve been neglecting one of my favorite pastimes – reading magazines. That used to be my thing. I used to be all about magazines. I still am, but my time has recently been occupied by reading novels, articles, and blogs. This is in addition to re-writing and revising my short stories and novel while spending time with my family.
What’s a writer to do? I’m not so sure. I was thinking that I could dedicate one big block of time once a week to reading magazines, but I’ll have to test that out.
And I’m thinking of subscribing to The Technology Review. That’s a lot for me to read considering that some of these magazines come in weekly. When do you fit in time to read your glossies?
In other news, I got two awards. One was the Liebster award from Marie of First Draft Café. Thanks Marie!
“The basic idea of the Liebster Blog Award is to showcase bloggers with less than 200 followers.” When you get the award, you keep the love going by giving it to 5 3 other bloggers (I’ve changed this to three) who have less than 200 followers.”
Here are the bloggers I’m passing the award along to:
The other award was the Versatile Blogger award (which I’ve gotten before) from Elizabeth Varadan of Elizabeth Varadan’s Fourth Wish. Thank you!
The rules for award recipients of the Versatile Blogger award are as follows:
1. Thank the person who gave it to you and link back to them.
2. Tell seven things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 1 (I’ve changed this to one) recently discovered blogs and let the blogger know.
I was recently tagged to reveal 10 random facts about myself, so I’m going to skip telling seven new things about myself. If you’re into learning 10 random things about me (and I know you are :p) you can read all about me here.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably noticed that I changed the number of bloggers to give these awards to. Why? Because even though I appreciate getting blog awards, I just don’t have the time to seek out twenty plus bloggers that don’t already have these awards. Also, I need to spend more time on my current WIP’s.
One of the best things about the online writing community is the ability to connect to one another through websites, forums, blogs and conferences. Yes, I said conferences, ONLINE conferences! In case you haven’t heard, there was a huge conference going on this past week called, The WriteOnCon.
The WriteOnCon is a free online writer’s conference held every summer. This summer it was from Tuesday, August 16th thru Thursday, August 18th. There were lit agents and editors abound. They provided several tips on the process of writing, how to professionally conduct yourself online and the future of the publishing industry among other things. The amount of information available was incredible.
My favorite parts of the conference were the live chats, the vlogs and the articles. So basically, I loved the entire thing.
Watch this awesome vlog:
The live chats provided several insider tips for writers. Here are some of my favorites:
Michelle Andelman said, “Use the query letter to pitch your project. Use social media (in the background) to pitch yourself.”
She also said, “Reliance on dialogue tags is a common prose issue I find with lesser known writers, reliance on them to reveal emotion where characterization should be doing the trick.”
“Opening on dialogue often jars me.”
According to Emily Meehan, “Amp up your online presence. Make friends, but good friends and don’t say anything you will want to take back!”
Jim McCarthy says, “I’m cribbing someone else’s tip. I have a number of clients who do three, sometimes four books a year, and for obvious reasons, they end up dealing with writers’ block from time to time because of that. I love my client Victoria Laurie’s approach which is that if you get stuck, you keep writing anyway. Because you can delete anything you come up with, but the chances are better that you’ll come up with something that clues you in to where you should be going if you’re writing something than if you’re just staring at the page.” Also, “I’m not seeing horror, in spite of my regular requests for it. I’m also not seeing a lot of comedy (possibly because I’ve been asking for so much horror). But voice driven, comedic novels are a thrill for me.” McCarthy also believes that the genre he’s been seeing too much of lately is dystopian. He says, “I love dystopian books, but if another derivative novel about the apocalypse and a love triangle crosses my desk, I will actually be rooting for a nuclear holocaust.”
“Can’t stand anyone who opens with waking from a dream or any discussion of the weather.”
“I desperately want to find brilliant LGBT fiction for any age group. Whether it’s fun and commercial like Rainbow Boys or literary and lovely like Luna.”
According to Jim McCarthy, a bad cliché in writing is “not every cheerleader needs to be a bitch. But also, you don’t have to spend a whole novel showing us how unlike stereotypes your characters are.”
Annette Pollert’s tips for revising:
“As I edit, I am always asking:
1) Why are you telling me this? (relevance)
2) Why are you telling me this now? (placement)
It’s helpful to ask these questions on a chapter/paragraph/line-by-line basis as you revise. It keeps a narrative tight, and helps to build tension and drama (on the page that is).”
“My favorite novels begin with conflict. And I will add to Jim’s answer by saying, waking up in bed at sunrise is one of my least favorite places to start.”
According to Annette Pollert on bad clichés in writing, she says, “How frequently do you gaze into someone’s eyes/register someone’s eye color when you first meet?”
In reference to traditional vs. self-publishing, Sara Megibow said, “There are LOTS of good reasons to traditionally publish – editors, support, marketing, cover, placement in bookstores, reviews, print run, but there are also lots of good reasons to self publish – turn around (meaning finish the book to release of the book), control over content and price point, artistic vision and access to ereaders.”
She also says, “There are a few bad reasons to traditionally publish… if you’re someone who simply wants to hold the book in their hand doesn’t probably understand how long and how hard it is to break in to NY. They can learn, but, simply to publish isn’t a big enough reason to tackle the beast. There are a few bad reasons to self publish… namely, those writers who simply want to flip off agents and editors for passing on their book – this is NOT a good reason to self publish.”
“The name of the game in traditional publishing is (supposed to be) quality and professionalism. The name of the game in self publishing (supposed to be) is get yourself educated on what’s involved before doing it – editing, cover design, placement, uploading to different kinds of devices, marketing, promotions.”
“The selling point for many writers right now is “because I can.” If you self publish – get educated. Find out what it takes, follow authors who are successful at it and make it about quality and successful sales, not just about because you can.”
Those are just some of the quotes I found inspirational. To learn more about the participants in the conference, please check out the WriteOnCon faculty here.
I also learned the following:
1. Get a composition notebook. Title it, “The Idea Page.” Enter all of the ideas you have for future works in progress. You’ll do this to honor your ideas and it will also help you to not forget.
2. If you add 500 words or less to your work in progress in a single sitting do not look at that as failure. It shows that you are committed to writing and that there will be a time when you will finish. Go with your instincts and trust yourself.
3. Ask yourself questions as you are writing your wip including, is this better in first person or third and what if the character did this or that?
Here are some excellent articles from the WriteOnCon:
What I’ve posted is a small part of the conference. If you’d like to look over some of the pre-recorded live chats, view more vlogs or read more articles, please visit the site here: http://writeoncon.com/.
I want to thank everybody who worked to get this conference up and running. Your hard work showed and I am now inspired to take action.
