publishing

Now’s the time to be thinking about making adjustments to your daily goals. Would 200 words be more manageable? Is 250 words not challenging enough? Want to set your goal to something less tangible than a specific number of words?

It’s all up to you….

T-minus three days ;)

Comments (22) Sep 28 2010

The third and fourth stories

Posted: under writing.
Tags: novel, publish, publishing, short story, theme, write, writer, writing

The third story was another one that I got about halfway through, but it was far more ‘rough draft-y’ than my previous two attempts. I think it was partly just me being exhausted (read: lazy) at times, and partly because days off tend to keep me away from home, meeting those unspoken quotas for visiting friends and family (read: more excuses :P).

And then came the fourth story. I guess I haven’t even talked to you about it, yet. It was a story about young children playing in a playground in a small town. And it seemed very slice-of-life, except, well, have you ever seen a movie based on a true story that ends with updates?

Such as:

‘Over the next 26 years, John went on to become one of the most influential writers of the century, publishing thirty more critically acclaimed novels.’

or…

‘Mary went on to found PAFFF, an organization devoted to destroying the world’s supply of fast food fries. She now lives in Birmingham, Alabama in a double-wide affectionately dubbed the ‘Birmingham Palace’, with her exceptionally healthy husband and two children.’

;)

I figured nobody would expect this kind of follow-up to a short story. Maybe it’s been done before, but I’ve never seen it. You get to know a bit about each of the children during the course of the story, then I drop the bomb of showing you what happened to them over the next thirty years.

Since the theme is still ‘death and cheating death’, one of them ends up dying at a young age which profoundly affects the others for the rest of their lives. Each of the children influences the others in some way, and there’s subtle clues to who inspired who.

And that’s it. I ended up finishing the rough draft for this one.

Last week, my aunt asked me to tell her about some of the stories I’ve been writing, and I actually started to cry! Especially when I was talking about this one, and the story about the girl who didn’t quite make it to the light.

To be honest, most of my stories bring out a lot of emotion in me, and I hope they someday are able to unearth that level of emotion in readers, too.

Comments (3) Jun 05 2010

T-minus four days

Posted: under writing.
Tags: 5-Rings, contest, fiction, novel, Novel Push Initiative, NPI, poem, publish, publishing, short story, style, write, writer, writing

The Novel Push Initiative:

NPI is a mere four days away.

Packsister and I are going to push our novels’ word counts forward from March 1st through March 31st.

The goal is to write at least 250 words (or half a page) per day. If we miss reporting our progress via our blogs even a single day, we’re knocked out of the event.

If I can’t handle this, I guess I have no business entering NaNoWriMo.

So this is a test for me.

And I’m excited.

And nervous.

The Writing Contest: Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (8) Feb 25 2009

Style mimicry

Posted: under writing.
Tags: author, book, fantasy, fiction, novel, publish, published, publishing, short story, style, write, writer, writing

One thing creative writing classes try to teach their students is how to mimic the styles of famous authors.

I think that’s pretty smart. After all, one way to ensure a writer can make informed decisions about the different aspects of their own writing style is to see if they can pick up on and identify the alchemy of other writers’ styles.

I’ve never taken Creative Writing, but I’m taking Lit 110 this semester. As a result, I’ve recently read some short stories that are considered ‘classics’ by the powers that be:

A & P – John Updike
Story of an Hour – Kate Chopin
A Rose for Emily – William Faulkner
A Party Down at the Square – Ralph Ellison
Everyday Use – Alice Walker
Shiloh – Bobbie Ann Mason
Araby – James Joyce
The Man Who Was Almost a Man – Richard Wright
Sweat – Zora Neale Hurston
Good Country People – Flannery O’Conner
The Guest – Albert Camus
Hills Like White Elephants – Ernest Hemingway
In the American Society – Gish Jen
Woman Hollering Creek – Sandra Cisneros
The Red Convertible – Louise Erdrich

I’ll admit I have little patience for old movies and less patience still for old, archaic prose.
To make matters worse, a good portion of the stories featured irritating dialogue, where the writers tried to phonetically transcribe ‘slack-jawed’ or other variant dialect, which made reading them horribly laborious.

But a few were pleasant surprises, such as Araby and The Guest. And every one of these authors had radically different styles, so it was kinda fun to pick up their quirks and nuances while reading.

The point of all this is I tried rewriting the ending to Mr. Updike’s short story, A & P (circa 1930), mimicking his style as best as I could. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (4) Feb 23 2009

Beginnings and endings

Posted: under Uncategorized.
Tags: book, Cirellio, fantasy, Five Rings, high fantasy, Lura, magic, novel, publish, publishing, short story, style, theme, write, writing

As I created Lura, I kept the story in mind. I even wrote my own creation story and could more or less visualize its geologic history.

So then comes plot. They say writing a plot for a novel is easier than for a short story. Heh. I don’t think the person that said that had high fantasy in mind. They say selling a novel is easier than selling a short story, too. But I digress.

The first thing to do was to figure out the beginning and the ending. I tried to play off the characters, their histories, and the world itself. I thought about how I’d like the characters to develop. I tried to make every character ’round’. (Bad, but simple example: If your main character is the ‘ultimate badass’, what kind of experiences could lead to that? After all, s/he probably wasn’t born one.) Thinking about all of those things should reveal some kind of theme, too. That theme should be the focus of the story, which should hopefully reveal some idea for a story arc. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (3) Sep 14 2008

Let’s publishing! -part 3-

Posted: under Uncategorized.
Tags: author, book, Cirellio, contest, publish, published, publishing, short story, style, write, writer, writing

The (ver batim) rules for the short story contest:
-Entries must not exceed 2,000 words. (685 words, here!)
-Manuscripts must be double-spaced on 8 1/2 x 11″ white paper. (Double-spaced, check. Standard paper, check.)
-Each submission entered must include:

A seperate cover page with name of contest, title of manuscript, number of words, writer’s name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address if available. (Done!)
A title page with the manuscript title only. (Done!)
On the manuscript itself, each page should be headed with a title key word and page number. Nowhere on the manuscript should the author’s name appear. (Done!)

No staples, please. (They’re so picky, aren’t they?) Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (6) Sep 11 2008

Let’s publishing! -part 2-

Posted: under Uncategorized.
Tags: book, Cirellio, contest, poetry, publish, published, publishing, short story, style, write, writer, writing

So I went to the dreaded juggernaut Barnes and Nobles and looked through their magazines. I had to crawl on all fours to find the section on writing. You know … they are underneath the prominately displayed muscle-building and car magazines—rubbing pages instead with the New Age, Wiccan, and Faerie magazines. I guess they have profiled us writers as one of the many varieties of freaks that hang out at Denny’s after midnight.

I found a simple but well-done magazine there called ‘Writers’ Journal’. Issues are usually about sixty-five pages long, all in black and white print, and feature writing, poetry, and photography.
Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (4) Sep 08 2008

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Custom NPI — Roster

The third and fourth stories

T-minus four days

Style mimicry

Beginnings and endings

Let’s publishing! -part 3-

Let’s publishing! -part 2-

Tweets->

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