Author Ann Charles has an article on five tips she learned from best selling authors. I think it’s neat and worth a look.
Article by Ann Charles
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Category Archives: Writing
Advance Review of Cobalt City Timeslip
In my Google Alerts today, I found that someone had written a review of Cobalt City Timeslip. So if you want a bit of a sneak peek, check it out!
Art vs. Business! Fight!
I’ve tried to set this blog up so that it automatically posts to Twitter. We’ll see how that goes.
Anyway, last night I went with the girlfriend to the Cyndi Lauper concert. It was one of several outdoor concerts our local zoo puts on. My girlfriend is a big fan, especially of her older stuff, and I have a few of Lauper’s songs that I like a lot. I’m not a huge music geek. I love music, but most of what I love is based more off of nostalgia than technical skill or innovation or whatever. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “She Bop” take me back to the mid-80s, watching wrestling with my grandfather. “Time After Time” reminds me of high school and college when I heard the song for the first time in the soundtrack for Strictly Ballroom. (And, really, that movie is directly responsible for one of my tattoos. Just saying.)
What we didn’t realize prior to buying the tickets was that Cyndi Lauper had just released an album called Memphis Blues in which she sings blues songs. Specifically, she sings blues songs with her thick Bronx accent. It has apparently been at the top of the blues charts for a while. This concert was part of her tour to promote this blues album.
…
So the opening act was an old blues singer who was part of the blues band that she was touring with. And then when she came on stage she spent almost an hour and a half singing blues songs.
When she did the Obligatory Encore, she sang four or five of her older songs and ended on another blues number. Through most of the show the crowd was pretty mellow, just hanging out on the lawn and listening. A few people, who I suspect were chemically altered, were grooving around like they were at Woodstock again. Or still. But otherwise, really sedate. When Lauper busted out the old songs, everyone sprung to their feet and the entire field was filled with people dancing.
State of the Status
Just a few notes and an update of ye olde honeydew.
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ArmadilloCon
Lots of stuff to talk about, but that’s a different post. I popped on here to pimp the mighty Sanford Allen. He was at the workshop in Kansas with me and the writing he brought to the workshop was some of my favorite stuff that I read. He will be at ArmadilloCon this weekend. He will be doing readings and sitting in on panels. If you are in the South-Central Texas area and are interested in the convention, I encourage you to seek him out.
Running with Chainsaws
Before I dig in with this, I’d like to give a hearty hurrah for Ann Charles, who has just won the Daphne du Maurier award in the unpublished division. Not only did Nearly Departed in Deadwood take first place in the “Mainstream Mystery/Suspense” category, but she was also the overall Daphne winner for that division. Rock on!
My big hurrah coming up is my first honest-to-gosh reading. This is the official blurb:
An Evening of Authors, Wayward Coffeehouse, August 21, 7-10pm.
Hosted by Jennifer Brozek and Nate Crowder. Come to an evening of authors and good coffee at Wayward Coffeehouse. We will be reading from recent and forthcoming releases, answering questions and generally having a good time. Come one, come all and enjoy an evening with your local authors. Find out what’s next. Authors include: Cat Rambo, Rosemary Jones, Keffy R. M. Kehrli, Alma Alexander, Nate Crowder, Jeremy Zimmerman, R. Schuyler Devin, Leah Cutter, Sunder Cameron Addams and Angela Korra’ti.
I don’t recognize all of those names, but the ones I do are people I sat on the other side of the table from during panels at Norwescon. I’m a little stunned to be amongst such luminaries. Holy mackerel.
Less auspicious is that I’ve received five rejections in a row. Two of them encouraged me to submit to them again. Two were people I’ve submitted to in the past and will probably submit to again in the future. One told me the anthology will not be coming out after all. D’oh. Two of my rejections came in today. After a night of fitful sleep because my bedroom is an oven right now, the rejections hit me a bit harder than they might normally. One of these five also qualifies as my fastest rejection ever. I’ve never been turned down the same day before.
And now, the honeydew.
New stories up at Wily Writers
Couple new pieces up at Wily Writers
For those unfamiliar with Wily Writers, all of their stories are available in both text and MP3 formats. You can also find the audio versions on iTunes as free podcasts.
PNWA Summer Conference: After Action Report
The weekend before last I attended the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s Summer Conference, four days of writing seminars and pitching to agents and editors.
My short summary is, “This would have been worthwhile if I had been able to really utilize what it offered.” Because this came right on the heels of two weeks in Kansas, work was not inclined to give me any more time off. And I was out of vacation hours to boot. Plus, my novel did not get finished. And no agent wants to invest time and energy into an unfinished. novel.
State of the Writing
With the workshop, I haven’t updated this in a while. Here’s what’s going on.
I think we learned something important today.
Through the workshop, the same criticisms came up over and over again. On a certain level, I wish I had known some of these things long in advance so that I could have done things differently. It would have been nice to have the basics tackled so that they could critique things on a deeper level.
On the other hand, I had the opportunity to read James Gunn’s The Science of Science Fiction Writing before I got there, but didn’t. I was just too stubborn. It’s one thing to have a person you don’t know and haven’t heard of to tell you that you’re doing something wrong. It’s another to have a dozen people all say you’re doing the same things wrong.
So this is what I got from the workshop in terms of things to remember when writing a short story. Many of these also seem to apply to a novel. Keep in mind this is what I came away with, and I may have gotten some of this wrong. If you want it straight from the source, pick up Mr. Gunn’s book. Also, this is what I’ve been taught, not necessarily what I believe. (Or, at least, I’m too stubborn to believe in.) But I’m giving it a shot to see if it improves my writing and my acceptance rate. If you’ve done his workshop or read his book, feel free to correct me.
Also, these are on top of things like “narrative arc” or the dreaded Turkey City Lexicon.
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