100-words Flash Friday, Whoo-hooo! Go Fictioneers!

I’m looking forward to reading your stories this week. Postcards are available for this story prompt – yours or mine. Check out the link for more information.

***

Here’s how it works: My story is here (if the word ‘here’ and ‘comment’ isn’t highlighted or underlined in your browser to let you know… those words are links. Click either one to get to the story page, which is where all the action is taking place.)  When you comment, post a link to yours. Then comment and add your link to the other Fictioneer’s stories.

***

We have more members than ever before, so it is taking longer than Friday evening to get through them all. Sometimes it is taking me days! I start with the first commenters first and move down the list as quickly as I can. If the day job is hectic, it’ll take me longer.

And we’re off to write, link and read 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.

Vote for it: Would You Buy it?

Welcome to the Thursday feature where we will share and vote on our 25 word blurbs – those words that we hope will prompt the editor or agent to ask for a partial.

So this is how it works. Read the pitch/blurb below and then vote as to whether you’d buy the book and tell your friends about it. If you have constructive crit to offer, do so in the comment section.

A caveat.

Don’t vote ‘No’ because you don’t read or want to read the genre. If the genre is a negative bias for you, please refrain from voting unless you are able to be objective about the quality of the blurb.

***

Vote for it:

Title: WHO IS ERIC? Author: JENNIFER PENDERGAST

Genre: Mainstream Fiction

Alzheimer’s disease is destroying Eric’s mother but somewhere within her failing brain is the truth about his mysterious namesake, and more importantly, himself.

 

***

***

 

 

What about you?

If you want to put your 25 words to the test, email me your pitch/blurb (25 words or less) at the addy over there on my right hand side-bar.

Be forewarned. 25 word summaries are difficult! I struggled with mine for days. Okay. I’ll be honest. I’ve struggled with mine for a while now…months, even. But I think I finally have one that’ll work and when there’s a lull in the pitches I’ll throw mine out there to be slaughtered, too.

You’ll be welcome to run yours again later when everyone in queue is done, and you’ll especially want to do this if you’ve made changes. Plus, as the campaign runs for while, word will spread and we’ll get more views and votes.

At the end of the week I’ll email you with the results.

The poll will stay active indefinitely, so if you want to direct people to your link to cast their votes, you’re free to do so.

If you need some ideas on how to distill your large blurb down to 25 words, here’s a great link from David B. Coe (fantasy author published by Tor): http://www.magicalwords.net/david-b-coe/on-writing-and-publishing-refining-your-elevator-pitch/ He took pitches one day and gave feedback to a bunch of us.

Photo Prompt for 100-word Flash #FridayFictioneers

This one won’t be new to a few of you who have visited my other blog. But it’s one of my favorite pictures from this early spring season, so I’m going to use it. I just don’t know how I’ll make a story from it yet. I suspect some of you might have an easier time with it than I will:

Take a look at the postcard idea. You can get your own stories or mine with the photo prompt on a postcard. Mailed in the real mail.

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 (Friday) story page. Go to the side-bar calendar and click on the current week’s Friday date. Then follow the link from there to the story page.

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.

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. If you’re a WordPress user, include “Friday Fictioneers” as one of your tags so you’ll show up on the tag search. 
4. Comment on my story Friday and post a link to your story.
5. Tweet your link and include the tag #FridayFictioneers if you’re on Twitter.
6. 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.
7. Check back often because participants post throughout the day.
8. 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 “Flash Fiction” tab at the top to read a little more about Friday Fictioneers.

I hope to see your creativity shining tomorrow!

A curse

“Self-serving”

Why does that feel like a dirty word?

Some of the comments from my writerly friends yesterday clued me in on an issue that’s apparently common to more than myself.

When someone else needs us to do something, like get up early or stay late at work, or anything at all that’s ‘obligation’ oriented, we seem to have far less trouble getting it done than if we are wanting to do it solely for ourselves.

Why is this? Is it just conditioning? Is it a curse known only by women or do men suffer this affliction also?

Of course, the flip side of this coin is that our curse makes us accommodating, likable, and dependable people. Usually we’re the ones sought out when something important needs to be done, because those doing the seeking know we’ll bend over backwards to make things happen.

So how do we balance this aspect of ourselves with a healthy self-interest? Why do we not serve ourselves with the same dependability?

Case in point .

I want to wake up at 4 a.m. to get an early start on my writing before I start preparations for my day job at 6 a.m.  This is so difficult for me to do for myself, but if someone else needed me to get out of bed at that goddawful hour, I’d be doing it easily. Or if not easily, at least willingly. Why do I find it so hard to do for myself?

Those of you who have moved past this particular kind of curse, how did you do it?

Writerly Goal Check

My goal check-ins will be the same old-same old for a while yet. Nothing new here on my task list.

The only difference is that I am trying to get back into my habit of early rising so I have time to write and edit more. Today I woke at 0445. That’s better than I have in the past since the time change. My eventual goal is 0400 and I know I can do it because I’ve done it in the past when I had to be at work by 0500. (Back in the days of 12-hour shift work.)

It’s always easier to do something when an outside force needs me to do it. But I want to make my own needs as compelling.

Weekly Goals

• Wake up at 0445 each morning
• Finish editing Wand of Ash

Annual Goals

• Finish polishing Symbiosis so I can send it on it’s way to the next phase of life
• Begin readings at a public venue for our local Friday Fictioneers
• learn to convert to ebook format
• Compile all the flash I’ve written so far into a collection for Kindle

Sunday Musings

Not a whole lot to blog about today in the writerly arena of my life. At least, I say that now. It seems that when I’m done with my musings even when I think there wasn’t much to say, there are more words on the page than I expected.

I’m still in edit mode, revision mode for the short story,  specifically. I think I was deluded by a myth. I thought ‘edit’ meant grammar and structure. And of course it does. But it means so much more than that! Sometimes it means rewriting entirely when an ‘edit’ causes domino-like effect throughout the story.

One day I hope to be able to write it right the first time through. But that’s probably the perfectionist in me speaking and the reality will be hopefully at least somewhat better than the present.

So I was right, I didn’t have much musing to do today. I have a list of things I need to do on the non-writerly front though, so I’m heading outside to take care of that now. The weather is beautiful and I’m not complaining.

What’s the rest of your weekend looking like? Do you generally do family and non-writerly things, or are you trying to cram in as much writing on your days off as possible?

100-words Flash Friday, Whoo-hooo! Go Fictioneers!

For some reason this post didn’t go live as scheduled at 0500. Sorry to those waiting patiently to link up!

***

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.

***

The second thing I did (this morning) is write my story. So it’s impromptu again. When it goes live, if there’s no story there yet…I’m still working on it! Just go on and post your link in the comment section anyway. Whew! Made it just under the bell.

An aside to Triberr members and Twitter hashtag users: The first thing I did was change the title of this post. I took out the hashtags. Since joining Triberr, I get a lot of tweets of my blog posts and if the hashtags are in the title, it really clogs up the tag feed. I don’t want to turn off potential readers by having them curse my name every time they search a hashtag to narrow the tweet stream. If you’re in Triberr please consider doing the same.

I’m looking forward to reading your stories this week. Postcards are available for this story prompt – yours or mine. Check out the link for more information.

We have more members than ever before, so it is taking longer than Friday evening to get through them all. Sometimes it is taking me days! I start with the first commenters first and move down the list as quickly as I can. If the day job is hectic, it’ll take me longer.

And we’re off to write, link and read 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.

Vote for it: Would You Buy it?

Welcome to the Thursday feature where we will share and vote on our 25 word blurbs – those words that we hope will prompt the editor or agent to ask for a partial.

So this is how it works. Read the pitch/blurb below and then vote  as to whether you’d buy the book and tell your friends about it. If you have constructive crit to offer, do so in the comment section.

A caveat.

Don’t vote ‘No’ because you don’t read or want to read the genre. If the genre is a negative bias for you, please refrain from voting unless you are able to be objective about the quality of the blurb.

***

Vote for it:

Title: BLACK HATS AND VOODOO DOLLS    Author:  RENA MALONE     

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Somewhere between New England debutantes

and LA lifestyle Mary rediscovered who she really was. 

A little bit Voodoo and a little bit rock and roll.

***

***

What about you?

If you want to put your 25 words to the test, email me your pitch/blurb (25 words or less) at the addy over there on my right hand side-bar.

Be forewarned. 25 word summaries are difficult! I struggled with mine for days. Okay. I’ll be honest. I’ve struggled with mine for a while now…months, even. But I think I finally have one that’ll work and when there’s a lull in the pitches I’ll throw mine out there to be slaughtered, too.

You’ll be welcome to run yours again later when everyone in queue is done, and you’ll especially want to do this if you’ve made changes. Plus, as the campaign runs for while, word will spread and we’ll get more views and votes.

At the end of the week I’ll email you with the results.

The poll will stay active indefinitely, so if you want to direct people to your link to cast their votes, you’re free to do so.

If you need some ideas on how to distill your large blurb down to 25 words, here’s a great link from David B. Coe (fantasy author published by Tor): http://www.magicalwords.net/david-b-coe/on-writing-and-publishing-refining-your-elevator-pitch/ He took pitches one day and gave feedback to a bunch of us.

Photo Prompt for 100-word Flash #FridayFictioneers

I have no idea yet what I will write for this prompt, but I loved this accidental photo I took the other evening:

 

Take a look at the postcard idea. You can get your own stories or mine with the photo prompt on a postcard. Mailed in the real mail.

 

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 (Friday) story page. Go to the side-bar calendar and click on the current week’s Friday date. Then follow the link from there to the story page.

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.

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. If you’re a WordPress user, include “Friday Fictioneers” as one of your tags so you’ll show up on the tag search. 
4. Comment on my story Friday and post a link to your story.
5. Tweet your link and include the tag #FridayFictioneers if you’re on Twitter.
6. 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.
7. Check back often because participants post throughout the day.
8. 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 “Flash Fiction” tab at the top to read a little more about Friday Fictioneers.

I hope to see your creativity shining tomorrow!

Writerly Spaces (#amprocrastinating)

Since I didn’t have a guest lined up for today I thought I’d do something fun. I started to add ‘for a change’ to that sentence, but then I thought… what am I saying – I never do fun things on my blog?

We all have a special spot where we do our writing – at the computer, or on the recliner with a laptop maybe? Mine is a desk in my office/spare bedroom.

I’d love to get a glimpse of your writerly spaces and so to encourage you to share yours I thought I’d share mine:

My writerly space

So you can see on the computer screen that I am *not* writing, but procrastinating! I saw that after taking the pic. After I post it, though, I’m going back to editing. Playtime is over.

I’d love to see your writerly space! Post your pic to your blog and link to it here if you want to share.