Category: Writing

Lessons learned while writing.

How I Promote My Writing

The Question

One of the members of the online writing community I belong to (Scribophile) asked me how I get the word “out there” about my new works. Here’s the question:

Hello again, Jenise. I see they published your story in Mojave Review. Congrats to you. My first chapter of [name deleted] will be published in the emag next month. How did you handle that? Any advice on what to do? Scrib and such? Write to the magazine and say thanks?

What’s My Promotion Process?

As of the date of this blog post, this is my process, and it will change over time:

    1. Post news on Twitter
    2. Post news on Facebook
    3. Share links in Groups on Scribophile
    4. Write and post on my website and my blog
    5. Send out links via my email newsletter

This is my process as of now, and it’s 100% online. In the future, I may add Instagram, a YouTube channel, and other online media that would effectively bring an audience my way. I’ll explore real-life, in-person, channels once I have something to put on a table (books, greeting cards, photo prints, etc.).

Acknowledge the Editors

Yes, I always thank the Editors for publishing my works. They’re very busy people, so my email messages are short and sweet.

I also thank them when they reject my works. That’s a difficult decision for them to make. I tell them I’m grateful they read my work and had put time into considering it for publication.

Your Turn

How do you promote your works? Let me know in the Comments below.

Image credit: geralt on Pixabay.com

 

Why I Write Fifty-Word Flash Fiction Stories

50-Word Stories Are a Challenge

And, that’s why I write them. I have to think of a strong opening sentence that grabs my readers and compels them to keep on reading.

I also have to write an attention-grabbing middle. The middle needs to keep the reader engaged and hint at either a crisis or a climax to the story’s action.

The ending has to be somewhat of a surprise to the reader by ending the story with a twist. If I can fool readers 75% of the time, I figure I’m batting a thousand.

I don’t “nail it” with every story, and that’s why I love to write 50-word micro flash fiction stories. They’re a challenge and fun writing practice.

Give Fifty-Word Stories a Try!

Here are some resources to get you started:

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/50-word-stories-6064613

https://letterpile.com/creative-writing/50-Word-Mini-Stories-Creative-Writing-Exercise

And, study the stories published by Tim on fiftywordstories.com

Share Your Stories

If you write and post your story (or stories) online, paste the link in the Comments below. I look forward to reading your tiny stories.

Image credit: viarami on Pixabay.com

 

Using Vocal Queues to Show Hidden Emotion

Article on Janice Hardy’s Site

“Tapping into the hidden emotions and subtext of a scene is a wonderful way to pull readers into that scene. Becca Puglisi visits the lecture hall today to share her tips on creating subtext and using vocal cues to show the hidden emotional layers of your characters.” ~Janice Hardy

Link to article

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2019/01/using-vocal-cues-to-show-hidden-emotion.html

Becca Puglisi, Contributor

Article date: January 24, 2019

The contributor is Becca Puglisi, author of The Emotional Thesaurus and many other works for writers/authors.

Visit Becca’s Writers Helping Writers blog and her One Stop for Writers, an online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling (for-pay content after a Free Trial period).

What Are Vocal Queues?

Becca says that “vocal cues are shifts in the voice that happen when someone is feeling emotional.”

Vocal Queue Examples

I love how Becca used The Hobbit for her example. For me, it’s a timeless story that’s in my top five (5) beloved books.

Continue reading “Using Vocal Queues to Show Hidden Emotion”

My First Chicken Soup for the Soul Submission

I’ve Submitted a Story to Chicken Soup for the Soul

Today, February 28, 2019, I submitted my first story to Chicken Soup for the Soul (CSS). I submitted to their upcoming book topic “Angels All Around”.

How did this happen? I don’t remember. I was browsing something on the internet, then I happened upon a link to CSS’s list of new book topics. On Scribophile, I’ve had a short story about an angelic visitation in queue for critiques, and it was ready for my revisions.

“Maybe it’s time to take that story for a ride,” I said. Meaning, submit the puppy and put it out there. Stories that languish in queue and don’t see the light of day do not accomplish much.

I revised my story, then put it back in queue for a final round of critiques. While I waited for my fellow “Scribbers” to provide their feedback, I did some research. I looked up what authors had to say about their stories published in CSS books. Here’s what I learned, all of it helpful to me, so I wanted to share it with you:

Continue reading “My First Chicken Soup for the Soul Submission”

Writing and Photography Blogs: Delia Talent

The Intersection of Writing and Photography

Last Thursday, a beautiful gift appeared from one of the members I know on Scribophile. Delia Talent (alias), one of my online friends (on “Scrib” and on YouVersion) and my sister in Christ, tweeted a link to her newest blog post. It features one of my free photo images that resides on Pixabay.com

I love these words she wrote:

Continue reading “Writing and Photography Blogs: Delia Talent”

7 Things You Need to Know When Writing Your First Book

Wally Bock’s Writing Edge

Link to Article – 23 July 2012

“Writing a book is a journey of discovery. It’s also a big project that can become a grand accomplishment or a horrid disaster. Here are some things to know if you’re writing your first book.”

A Road Map

If you are, like me, new to writing and publishing your first book, Wally’s article will give you much-needed “baby steps” guidance. His points are still relevant since he published it back in 2012.

Start with his 7 Things, then continue your research as you need for your work-in-progress (WIP).

The Seven Points

    1. Writing a book is different
    2. The book is a living thing
    3. The book is always right
    4. The book will surprise you
    5. Every book deserves re-writing
    6. Every book deserves professional editing
    7. Once you have released it to the world, it’s not your book anymore

What I’m Taking Away

As of the date of this blog post, I have at least three novel WIPs (I’ve lost count), and it’s true for me that the book is a living thing. The characters in my WIPs are real people to me. They have personalities that take over when I’m writing. Some are kind and cooperative. Many are stubborn and move the narrative away from my “pantser” outline. My takeway is to let the characters do their “thing”. I can fix plot holes after I complete the first rough draft.

The book will surprise you has astounded me while working on my WIPs. When I’m immersed in the first draft process, with the world quiet, silent around me, the narrative takes off under its own power and reveals scenes or character development aspects that I swear do not come from me. Of course they do; as Wally wrote, my unconscious mind is at work.

Why Haven’t I Published My Novels?

My novels are still WIPs because I enjoy the writing and revising process, a dynamic process, living and breathing on my computer screen. When I post my WIPs for critiques to my online community on Scribophile, I enjoy reading feedback from potential readers of my novels, critiques that suggests changes that strike me as quite brilliant.

My Dilemma

Perhaps I’m like a parent who’s afraid to face the empty nest. Maybe I don’t want to let my “children” go, to live their own lives out in the world.

Maybe Wally’s point number seven, once you have released it to the world, it’s not your book anymore, speaks too much truth to me?

“It IS my book, my preciousssss.”

Your Turn

What say you, gentle reader? If you’re an author who has published your novel, or if you’re a writer with struggles similar to mine, please share your experience in the Comments below this post. Thanks!

Image credit: bloomingmimosa on Pixabay.com

 

NaNoWriMo 2013: I Signed Up for NaNoWriMo 2013

My NaNoWriMo 2013 Journal

(Originally published on 3 October 2013, on the now-closed www.remacgowan.com blog.)

Tonight, I signed up for NaNoWriMo 2013.

I confess I have signed up twice in the past, but this time it feels different. This time I’ll finish.

You’ll find out on December 1st, if you return!

Continue to read more for my entire NaNoWriMo 2013 Journal:

Continue reading “NaNoWriMo 2013: I Signed Up for NaNoWriMo 2013”

Author Quotes: Steven King on Murdering Children

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”

—Quotes by Stephen King, “The Horror Writer Market and the Ten Bears,” November 1973 WD

RIP Elmore Leonard

We’ve Lost a Giant

Image courtesy of: www.ElmoreLeonard.com

To honor his memory, may I strive to write better and so I share his famous 10 Writing Tips:

    1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a charac­ter’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead look­ing for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
    2. Avoid prologues: they can be ­annoying, especially a prologue ­following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in non-fiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s OK because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks.”
    3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But “said” is far less intrusive than “grumbled”, “gasped”, “cautioned”, “lied”. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated” and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.
    4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” … he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs”.
    5. Keep your exclamation points ­under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
    6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”. This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.
    7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apos­trophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavour of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories Close Range.
    8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters, which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants, what do the “Ameri­can and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story.
    9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things, unless you’re ­Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language. You don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
    10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.

And Elmore’s most important rule is one that sums up the 10:

“…if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

Author Quotes: Ray Bradbury on Short Stories

“Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”

“Young writers shouldn’t kid themselves about learning to write. The best way to do that is to train yourself in the short story. Read every damn one that’s ever been written, and there aren’t that many really good ones. You must live feverishly inside a library. Colleges are not going to do you any good unless you are born, raised and live in a library every day of your life.”

“I always say to students, give me four pages a day, every day. That’s three or four hundred thousand words a year. Most of that will be bilge, but the rest …? It will save your life!”

“Don’t talk about it; write.”
― Ray Bradbury