Genre Tuesday Mashup

An interesting article from io9: Great Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Who Never Wrote Sequels or Trilogies

Cheri Laser tells us what she’s learned from the Writer’s Digest Conference on the importance of the first 50 pages of a novel.

Robin Meister, a new staff editor at EverydayFiction.com talks about when to call yourself a writer.

 

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 Tune in this week on Wednesday for the photo prompt we’ll use for our 100-word stories on Friday. Thursday this week David Rozansky will be guesting here with a post on Book-keeping for Writers.

 

An interesting quote I saw earlier this week:

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. — Isaac Asimov

I’m back!

It’s possible I’m addicted to the internet. But I’m soooooo happy to have my connection back. Even if it is extremely slow and the phone lines have been temporarily threaded through the tree limbs from the junction box across the creek.

So much to catch up on now.

First, some writerly goals updates since I didn’t get to do that this morning.

I have 2 short stories out on submission, and 2 photo essays queried. Today I got a request for one of the photo essays, so that’s promising.

Still making progress on editing Symbiosis, but I really need to step up the pace if I plan to have it finished by the end of summer.

Also in the plans is a self-published collection of all the flash fiction I’ve been writing. I want to experiment with making something ready for Kindle and since there’s already a supply of stories handy, I’ll use them.

Sunday Musings: Dayjob Benefits

It’s not often I consider the benefits my day job offers (aside from a steady paycheck).

But today I’m happy to be at work on a Sunday. No. I haven’t lost my mind. It *is* supposed to be a day off and on one hand I do wish I were at home enjoying this gloriously sunny cool day.

However, I have no internet or telephone at home right now and I was in the middle of doing some things on my blog and emailing Rob when the connection was severed. Unplanned outages drive me insane!

So having to work today comes with the benefit of being able to access the internet and for that I am grateful.

How did our net get severed, you wonder?

Sigh. Well. My son wants a goat to show for FFA (Future Farmers of America). I told him he had to build a pen for it BEFORE we bought the goat. So he began the work of laying out the area, cutting cedar trees for gate posts. Then he began putting down the posts. And that’s when we lost our net.

Apparently he cut through the buried phone line either when digging the gate-post hole or with the t-posts. I’m not sure which, but I am positively sure we have no phone or internet now. As soon as the little hourglass popped up on my screen and the wait didn’t resolve in a few seconds, the sinking feeling of understanding what had happened took hold.

I went outside and took a look at where he’d chosen to put the pen and sure enough, that was the vicinity of the phone lines. Hindsight… I know.

So, I don’t have my regularly scheduled post today. I wanted to write about my budding writerly career/business plan.

Instead, I’m just letting you know that if I don’t post for the next few days, it’s because weekdays at work have been too busy lately. When I get the lines repaired at home, I’ll be back. And if the day job eases I’ll post when I can.

100-words #FlashFriday Whoo-hooo! Go #Fictioneers!

I think I’m back to the land of the writerly. It was hard to return to reality after going so deeply into the wonderful dream state I’d enjoyed the previous couple weeks.

I hope you enjoyed creating a story for today’s photo prompt. Mine is in my usual vein of weirdness. Can’t wait to see what all you’ve come up with. I’ve missed my Friday Fictioneering!

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Here’s how it works: My story is here. When you comment, post a link to yours. Then comment and add your link to the other Fictioneer’s stories.

Tweet your link, too, and add the #FridayFictioneers hashtag so we can easily find you and RT.

I’m always open to constructive criticism if you see mistakes or ways to improve upon what I’ve done. This is a learning exercise for me. However, not everyone feels that way, so if you don’t see an invitation to critique on their post, don’t do it. A lot of people just want and need encouragement!

We are the Friday Fictioneers and we gather every Friday here to post a very short story. It’s a great way to showcase your voice, but to do it in 100 word is almost an extreme challenge. It forces you to choose strong verbs and concise phrases.

Hop on board and post one of yours or visit ours, or do both.

Thursday’s Resources: Guest Bloggers and upcoming topics

For the next couple of Thursdays I’ll be introducing you to other people who have interesting things to talk about.

• Feb. 2, David Rozansky of Flying Pen Press will blog here about ‘Bookkeeping for Writers’.
• Feb. 9, @Odin1Eye  of the View from Valhalla will tell us about his review process for books and podcasts, and whatever else he wants to share.
• TBA – anyone interested in becoming a guest blogger here, please let me know. I’m looking for guest blogs on topics to do with the business of writing. In the meantime, I’ll be pestering potential contributors I run across…

For today I have a couple of links to share. I liked this one because it reminded me of why I want to develop my plan. I read this blog for insight to the industry, although this particular publisher doesn’t publish my genre: http://behlerblog.com/2012/01/23/have-a-plan/.

And you can read what Jeannie Leflar, a.k.a. The Writernubbin, has come up with regarding her writerly business plan here. When I’d brought the topic up a few weeks back, she jumped on the ball and got it done!

I’ll share my plan as I build it, beginning with Sunday’s post.

Photo Prompt for 100-word Flash #FridayFictioneers

Many “thank-you’s” to Susie Lindau and Jan Morrill for hosting the Friday Fictioneers over the past two weeks! Your willingness to step in and help enabled me to take a wonderful worry-free vacation.

Here’s the photo prompt for this week’s Friday Fictioneer’s:

End of the Line

Why only 100 Words

100-words isn’t a *rule* and some of us write more than that. My goal is to have The Friday Fictioneers use 100-word stories as an exercise in choosing concise phrases and strong verbs. It’s an excellent way to show your stuff to the world without exposing too much. It’s okay if you use more words, but if it’s much more let us know in the comments so we’ll know how to allocate our time if we’re trying to read all the posts.

Put your best efforts on display for 100 words (more or less) and hop on board Friday with links back to your blog so we can all see what you’ve written. If you don’t have a blog of your own you are welcome to post your 100 words in the comment section of my story’s post (Friday).

If you accidentally post your link here on this page today, you’ll miss out on a lot of the blog hopping because the action will be stemming from links on the story page on Friday.

How to become a Fictioneer

1. Write a 100-word story (more or less, and it’s okay if you didn’t use this picture for inspiration)
2. Post your story to your blog on Friday (or just link to it tomorrow if you wrote earlier)
3. Comment on my story Friday and post a link to your story.
4. Tweet your link and include the tag #FridayFictioneers if you’re on Twitter.
5. Visit and comment on all the other stories that link to my story. If the comment forms allow, leave your link on all your comments, so others can find you and us later on.
6. Check back often because participants post throughout the day.
7. Get psyched up to do this again next week

Keep in mind that sometimes I can’t read or comment until late in the day and throughout the weekend because of the day job on Friday.

You can click the tab at the top to read a little more about Friday Fictioneers.

I hope to see your creativity shining tomorrow!

Not yet back

This post is aimed at the guys over at the 451st in Kandahar, Afghanistan… Just in case you happen to check here to see if he’s on his way back out there yet. I’m still debating We’re supposed to head over to the airport in a few hours but I’m thinking I might rather not.

For the rest of my regular blog followers, I’m sorry for this cryptic message that went to your inboxes!

So the title of this post applies to me too. I’m not yet back in the land of the writerly living. Maybe tomorrow. Life is taking precedence right now, but it won’t be much longer. I’m already thinking in terms of what needs to be done next, calculating how much editing I’ll have to do each day in order to have my ms ready for my self-imposed deadline of late August, and getting the gears moving again.

Sunday Musings

It’s time for me to get back into the swing of writerly things. I am not sure where to begin. Never have I taken so completely a break from life in general, let alone writerly life, and I didn’t even get too, too far from either real life or writerly life.

Of course, it’s hard or impossible to separate my ordinary life from my writerly life anyway.

While we were soaking in the healing hot springs of Pagosa Springs, CO, I had an idea for a scene in my back-burner work in progress. At the moment there was no way for me to record it, but the spontaneous dialogue that made up the crux of the scene stuck with me until I could get back to our room and get out the laptop.

I’d purposely tried to give all things writerly a break. But I wasn’t entirely successful with that. I still checked email (even though I refrained from responding to them for the most part), watched my Twitter feed (and again, refrained from Tweeting as much as possible) and watched the happenings on my blog from afar and tried to leave it alone.

That was not easy and I don’t feel that I was very good at taking a total vacation from it. Maybe with another week I could have weaned myself further.

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So this update is bringing me back up to speed as I try to figure out where I am at the moment.

I don’t think much has changed since the last update. I still have three submissions out, one short story and two photo essays. When I get a better camera I’ll be able to submit to more photography markets and I like the combination of writing and photography so it’s a good diversion from the novel-writing when I need to take that sort of tangent.

Tonight I’ll try to work on editing Symbiosis for the first time since taking my vacation. I hope the break makes it easier to see necessary changes. It’ll be a good opportunity to look at it with fresh eyes to see if I really do like the POV change I’d made.

It’s time to begin working on my career plan, too. Tonight I’ll start reviewing my thoughts on that.

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Have any of you ever taken a complete and total break from writing, including all the peripheral writerly activities? Were you successful at it?

100-words #FlashFriday Whoo-hooo! Go #Fictioneers!

While I’m out on vacation this week, Susie Lindau will be hosting the Friday Fictioneers over at her blog.

Don’t forget to post your link at Susie’s blog. She left a direct link below in the comments

After you’ve posted your link at her blog, put your link in the comment section of my placeholder page if you want me to be able to find and comment on your story when I get back.

Thanks, Susie and y’all have fun!

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I’ve been using my flash as short story starters – have you been using yours to any end besides the fun we’re having on Fridays?

Now post a link to yours in the comment section of my story page and add your link to the comments of the other Fictioneer’s stories. Tweet your link, too, and add the #FridayFictioneers hashtag so we can easily find you and RT.

I’m always open to constructive criticism if you see mistakes or ways to improve upon what I’ve done. This is a learning exercise for me. However, not everyone feels that way, so if you don’t see an invitation to critique on their post, don’t do it. A lot of people just want and need encouragement!

We are the Friday Fictioneers and we gather every Friday here to post a very short story. It’s a great way to showcase your voice, but to do it in 100 word is almost an extreme challenge. It forces you to choose strong verbs and concise phrases.

Hop on board and post one of yours or visit ours, or do both.

Durango to Cascade Valley

Today we rode the narrow gauge rails to Cascade Valley from Durango. We booked the tour through the resort where we’re staying. On the way there, our driver got very sick and we nearly didn’t get there because he had to keep pulling over to the side of the road. Turned out he had food poison… or at least that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

He’d sent a different driver to pick us up after the ride. That driver nearly didn’t get us home because his driving was so terrible. First he nearly sandwiched us between a snow plough and oncoming traffic, and then later he almost ran off the road. He periodically drifted toward the center line, which gave me several scares when there was traffic in the other lane.

Needless to say we will drive ourselves next time.

The photos from the train ride are beautiful though. It was my favorite part of our trip. If you’d like to see them, they’re over at the other blog:

http://ancientearthwisdom.com/2012/01/20/durango-to-cascade-narrow-rail/