These statistics are all for short stories, poems, or contest entries. Book reviews are not included. Sales in January: 0 Rejections in January:Â 0 Submissions sent out in January:Â 0 Total stories/poems/contests pending responses:Â 3 I’ve been working on a new poem to submit to the annual poetry contest held at an Ohio art museum. No new updates… Continue reading January 2010
Category: Writing
Write Your @ss Off Weekend!
Earlier this week I found out about Write Your @ss Off Weekend hosted by Moonrat and I forgot to share the news. It’s a day to devote to writing tasks but putting that behind in the chair is also encouraged. Much of Ohio is under a snow emergency so this would be a great weekend for… Continue reading Write Your @ss Off Weekend!
Writing Advice: Learning From The Masters
In October 2009 I was fortunate to meet, very briefly, one of the smartest and prolific authors of my time, Francine Prose. She was in town to talk about her latest book, Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife. The format for her visit, she said, was different from her other stops to talk… Continue reading Writing Advice: Learning From The Masters
NaNoWriMo 2009 Wrap-Up
Just after 11:30pm Eastern time on November 30th, I crossed the finish line at 50,088 words. To be honest, it wasn’t until near the end of the month that I thought I might make it. A challenge was thrown down and I took it. I was averaging about 1000 words a day and was well… Continue reading NaNoWriMo 2009 Wrap-Up
Riding Downhill
This weekend I have been pushing to write the rest of the words for this year’s NaNo project. On Friday I had 59.9% of the words written. That’s just under 30k. My husband saw so little of me yesterday he didn’t realize I never got out of my pajamas. Today my total word count starts… Continue reading Riding Downhill
Nearly on the Downward Slope
I am still plugging away at my NaNo Project. At 24,020 words, my Excel spreadsheet estimates I will be done on December 11th. I will keep writing one word at a time to get to the finish line. My goal is still 50 thousand words before December 1st. Because I spent very little time getting… Continue reading Nearly on the Downward Slope
Almost the Ides of November
Yes, it’s November and that means it is National Novel Writing Month. Writers of all kinds sit down and write. At this point, everyone that is on track to “win” should be at 23338 words. Tomorrow they will hit the 25,000 word mark. According to the official NaNoWriMo web site the participants have written 1,040,165,647 words… Continue reading Almost the Ides of November
Writing with the Senses
The five senses can help us perceive the world around us. Take away one of them and you’re bound to have an incomplete picture. Touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight can provide a richer picture when describing settings and characters. Any writer trying to set the reader into the material will make use of the senses. For… Continue reading Writing with the Senses
Which Comes First – The Market or the Story?
Every writer has a different method for getting the words down for the story that needs to be told. Which do you think should come first – the market or the story? I used to write what I wanted and then tried to find a market for it. I would spend a lot of time… Continue reading Which Comes First – The Market or the Story?
Rising Above it All: How Rambo’s Creator Earned His Pilot’s License – guest post by David Morrell
Rising Above it All: How Rambo’s Creator Earned His Pilot’s License By David Morrell, Author of The Shimmer Readers familiar with my fiction know how much I love doing research. For Testament, I enrolled in an outdoor wilderness survival course and lived above timberline in the Wyoming mountains for 30 days. For The Protector, I spent a week… Continue reading Rising Above it All: How Rambo’s Creator Earned His Pilot’s License – guest post by David Morrell