I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness!
We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words.
I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
The Published Ramblings of a Confused Michiganian |
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Summer sat, her vibrant green dress of delicate moss covering her bare feet and her sunflower hair flowing down to the marble floor now that she was no longer standing. Autumn rose and sauntered up to the crystal podium to make his case. He wore an tapestry of colored leaves for a shirt and pale yellow harvest corn stalks for pants that crackled as if still afield and swaying in the breeze. His hair was short and brown and his skin tanned by millennia under the harvest moon. "I am the season most prized by women and men. For I am the bountiful harvest, fullness of the belly and spirit and hope to survive the long, bleak Winter. I am the time year when the trees themselves explode in colors as at no other time, and fall from the trees like confetti to celebrate me. From shades of the deepest crimson to the palest yellow, orange hues that have no name, brown and purple, the leaves decorate the earth in my honor. Mature colors that are not the novice flowers and budlings of Spring. Trees and bushes, vines and stalks become heavy with my fruit, more nourishing and hardy then the offerings of Summer. My sun still brings warmth, reminiscent of the heat just past, though the chill of my wind reminds humankind to prepare for the coming cold. I am not rebirth or death or a wild adolescence, but a ripe age. Mindful, beautiful, and plentiful, I am the season of fulfillment." Autumn's eyes gleamed like sunlight off a maple leaf as he paused. He turned as if to leave, then faced the assembly once more. "Also, I am apple cider, corn mazes, pumpkin pie, Halloween, and football, so really, you other seasons don't stand a chance." Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness! We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words. I Write to Burn Off the Crazy.
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"Mademoiselle Montrevoue, your mother wishes an audience." The maid, having spoken her announcement, then averted her eyes from the half-naked woman standing in front of a wall of mirrors in the spacious bedroom. The dressing woman did not take her eyes from the mirror. "What does she want?" "I'm sorry, she didn't say. Shall I send her in?" "Fine, fine, whatever." The maid opened the door to allow a tall, elegant woman into the room, and then withdrew hastily, closing the door behind her. "Collette! You are not even dressed yet. How is it that you have your own private designer, a veritable army of tailors, and you are not dressed yet?" "Not now, Mother. I'm having a crisis." Collette's mother adjusted her black gauzy shawl and smoothed imaginary wrinkles on her onyx silk dress. "What kind of a crisis?" Collette pointed to a sleeveless, crimson, velvet dress with a dark brown fur collar hanging on an iron stand near an open voluminous closet. "That is what Theophile would have me wear tonight." "I think it is lovely." "Lovely? Lovely!" Collette threw her arms up and stalked over to the stand, grabbing the dress's fur collar. "Am I not Wolfkin enough to produce my own fur?! I shall be a mockery, Mother!" Collette's mother sauntered over to her distraught daughter and ran her fingers through her long brown hair. "Hush now. No daughter of mine will ever be a mockery. Fur is classic high fashion, and will only go out of style among the rabble. Though you come by it naturally, there is no reason to eschew it as an accent." "But-" "No arguments. You wear that fur proudly, and any fool who does not see the beautiful irony is beneath our notice. Now, I expect you dressed and ready in exactly twenty minutes in the foyer. What would be a mockery is arriving to a Loup fete already transformed." Collette's mother kissed Collette on the cheek and turned to leave, but then turned back to her daughter. "Is there accommodation for your tail?" Collette lifted the dress and flipped it so that her mother could see the plunging back line. "Of course. It is still WolfWear." Keep Writing and Edit On
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness! We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words. I Write to Burn Off the Crazy Inspiring or funny writer/artist quotes, because I like quotes. "The definition of an artist is someone that creates something then stares at it until they hate it." ~U_P_G_R_A_Y_E_D_D on Reddit (Not sure of original attribution.) By the time I was fourteen the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and went on writing. ~Stephen King Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money. ~Moliere There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. ~Ernest Hemingway The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. ~Mary Heaton Vorse It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. ~Robert Benchley “The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.” ~Philip Roth “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” ~George Orwell “Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” ~Larry L. King, WD “Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” ~Ray Bradbury, WD Keep Writing and Edit On
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness! We're Making Better Words, All of Them, Better Words. I Write to Burn Off the Crazy But Jen, don't you mean "The Love, Hate of Editing?" No I do not. Let's face it. Editing is a chore. It's the "Oh you thought you were done with that novel did you?" bite in the butt that comes after the heady joy of finishing the writing of a book or other piece of writing. It is when you return to what you've just finished celebrating about finishing and find that you hate every single word of it (okay, maybe that's just me). In any case, tragically it is a necessary evil that you should not forgo or skimp on in any way. Publishers can smell an unedited story from a mile away, and if you think that you can do all of the editing yourself, then you've got another think coming. The human brain is a magnificent creation, but sometimes it does things a little too well. You won't believe all the mistakes, repetitions, inconsistencies, etc. that you will miss in your own writing because your brain knows how it is supposed to be. And if you think that one round of editing will catch everything, or at least enough to make your story presentable, you are just plain wrong. After about five rounds of edits, I still found a mistake in one of my short stories, so imagine how many I missed in my novel. Now there is a sad fact that professional editors and copy editors are not cheap or free, and I am particularly lucky to be married to my editor, but don't despair. While a writer friend or contact may not have the time to edit your entire 50,000-100,000 word novel, maybe you can work out a system to edit each others work on a regular basis. What about the love? Well, here's what I have to say about that: love the fact that editing makes your writing better. Bottom line: you may hate editing, but you'll hate it more if you never get that big advance from Tor or if your book gets published and someone points out a mistake to you (trust me). Keep Writing and Edit On
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness! Were making better words, all of them, better words... Today I am hard at work editing, so I offer you three helpful or humorous lists from other writing blogs that have caught my eye, made me think, and/or made me laugh recently. The first is from The Creative Penn, a blog from author/entrepreneur Joanna Penn. I am following her on Twitter post a writing webinar she partially hosted, and have generally found her advice to be solid and sensible: Writing and Editing: Five Problems to Avoid in Your First Novel The second post is from the BookBaby blog. Now BookBaby is a self-publishing service website that is pretty pushy and sends me lots of emails with discounts for self-publishing my books, BUT they also have a blog with pretty good articles that are usually guest written: 10 Mistakes a New Author Makes (And How to Avoid Them) NOTE: This post refers specifically to writing non-fiction, but I thought that the concepts worked pretty well for writing fiction as well. The last post included today is my favorite. It is an uplifting bit by L.Z. Marie who recently followed me on Twitter. I don't know too much about her yet, but this post is fantastic: Yoga for Writers Keep Writing and Edit On
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness! We're Making Better Words...All of Them, Better Words. (Can't Stop the Editing.) Usually on this post, I hale to writing, writers, and the written word, but today I was reminded that some things are more important than writing. Since everyone enjoys a good list: 1. Family - Spending quality time with family is more important than writing (though writing may lead to having more time to spend with them). 2. Friends - Friends are a bit of a double-edged sword, but a friend in need or whom you haven't seen in a while is definitely more important than writing. 3. Charity - Giving of your time and money to those less fortunate than you is more important than writing. 4. Your Health - Keeping yourself healthy and fit is more important than writing. 5. Your Job - Is slightly more important than writing until your full time job is writing. Keep Writing and Edit On
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again! Witness! So the other day I broke Rule #1 of Writing. In a flash of creativity, I wrote two stories, one flash fiction and one short story before working on my current unfinished projects. I have often said that doing things like this is a sure-fire way to kill your writing career by having too many stories going at once and not ever finishing anything. However, I forgot the caveat that you really never want to stifle your creativity. Finishing stories is the most important part of writing because stories need endings to be published, and you can't always count on constant, amazing inspiration to see you through something as long as a novel. Sometimes you have to just slog through something to the end and hope that once it's finished you will be inspired to edit and tweak it into the perfect story. But when you do get those moments of divine inspiration, even if they don't relate to your current projects, don't stifle your creativity. At these times it's alright to let go with your writing and see where it takes you, as long as you return to finish those stories for which the inspiration may have faded. Keep Writing and Edit On
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again. Witness! Sometimes, even though it shouldn't be, writing can seem a little boring. Take a break from writing that next best-seller or epic poem, and write something completely different. Use a different voice or setting or genre or POV. Stretch your creative muscle a bit and see where it takes you. You never know, you might just get a whole other book out of it (e.x. Ender's Shadow, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner). Here's my latest experiment: Mud I am boot prints in butterscotch mud on the off-white linoleum floor. I start at the Tim Horton’s counter in the back corner of the Shell Station, or rather, that is where I end. The heavy tread of steel-toed boots made me, large enough that I was not made by a woman, at least not any normally proportioned woman. I wind through the candy aisle, past the small chest freezer with assorted cheeses, over the wiry black mat, and out onto the concrete step. A large step from the concrete to the asphalt and I wander away from the gas pumps towards the side walk. A long stride between muddy patches, I am purposeful. Though dry now, not an hour ago I was slick and slippery. A mother of three rambunctious boys ranging in age from three to six and a darling baby girl slid her pristine white sneaker right through me but caught herself on the display of car wax. The infant, previously peacefully asleep, awoke at the jostling and wailed while the boys dashed past their mother towards the row of sweets, besmirching their own shoes with my tan essence. Ignoring the woman’s near injury because he didn’t want to drag out the mop, the attendant didn’t make eye contact as she wrangled the children while paying for gas and a five-hour energy shot. Out on the sidewalk I appear less substantial on the rough concrete than the linoleum floor of the gas station, but it’s a trick of the light. I am thicker here, but will wash away completely in the afternoon rain. If it were sunny, I might adhere to the shoes of joggers and pedestrians making their way to the bus stop, but the clouds and unseasonable chill keep the people at bay within their homes. Alone, I walk the pavement for two blocks. Here I veer off into swath cut in the tall grass and transform into a mirror of myself in the light brown mud of the path just beyond the weeds. It is here that I enter the woods, dark, dank, and smelling of rotten leaves and loam. There is mud here in the woods, but this isn’t where I was born. The depressions with my face travel yet further back into the trees following a path seldom used save by those who know it exists and are willing to brave the sprays of wild mulberry bushes whose prickles rake from either side. Here I am still soft and slurped at the boots that made me as they passed, sticking to the soles like tar. Sometimes I am nearly erased by the drier, firmer patches of earth interwoven with tree roots, and other times I dissolve into nearly black puddles of old, foul water, but still I travel. Clearly outlined against the pale, naked wood of a fallen tree I reappear, pointing out the direction of my origin deeper within the trees. Hidden in the stump of the tree is something metal, rusty, and stained, also covered in mud. I paused here by that stump where my impression in the ground is so perfect that two letters of the brand name of the boot are discernable, FT, but those particular shapes mean little to me. I follow that footway until it reaches the swamp, then the path goes one way and I enter the muck creating foot-shaped puddles of my own, each with several feet of bog in between. Here I am trying to sneak unnoticed among the reeds and cattails, but I stand out as footprints shouldn’t be here in the mire away from the muddy path. But now I am out of the woods and out of the marsh and out of the brush. Close now to the place of my creation. A yard rutted and bereft of grass. Here the mud is deep and fresh, and I stride boldly through the middle towards the empty shell of a house, raw wood frames with onyx tarps fluttering in the breeze. Boards, equipment, and chunks of concrete and other debris are strewn about the yard, but I skirt about these with ease, keeping to the mud. I could emerge from any of the covered holes along the ground floor, but I come from the largest, the one directly in the middle of the back of the house. This is almost the place where I start, just outside the trembling black plastic, where the mud first touched boots, but the boots were not clean. Here my mud is red, but when the canvas lifts there is a glimpse of pale skin and chestnut hair in a sea of red on the smooth grey floor. Ugly brown close to the doorway, I revert to vivid crimson next to pale blue staring eyes. At her end, this is where I begin. Keep Writing and Edit On.
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again! Witness! No, I don't mean writing in a cramped, hot subway car or in the middle of a friend's birthday party, I mean writing in an emotionally bad place. I think it is a natural instinct to not feel creative or inspired to write when something bad is happening in our lives or we are just in a bad place emotionally for whatever reason, but I also think that some good can come out of writing during these times. For one thing, writing can help help you express feelings, frustrations, sorrow, etc. that you might not be able to let loose in the real world. Additionally, writing in a different state of emotion than you are typically in when writing can bring out a new style or voice in your writing. Technically, a writer should be like an athlete or a postal worker and work (write) every day regardless of what is going on around them. Don't let your emotional state hold you back from your calling, but rather write as therapy during dark times and you might be surprised at how "creative" you can be. Keep Writing and Edit On
I Write, I Edit, I Write Again! Witness! A very topical topic lately: where can I send my work? It seems that all of the rushing rivers of open submissions from the winter have all dried up, but do not fret, here is a very incomplete list of current open submissions and places to look for more open submissions. Places to Find Places to Submit: Duotrope - costs money but a solid site http://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ Current Open Submissions: http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/about/guidelines/ - horror and dark fantasy http://noshit.alliterationink.com/ - new anthology for stories which start with the phrase, "No shit, there I was..." http://doveslines.com/anthology/ - poetry anthology http://www.scarletgalleonpublications.com/#!publications/c1m85 - aquatic horror anthology http://mantidmagazine.tumblr.com/ - diverse literary fiction http://www.mpapublishing.co.za/index.php/submission-guidelines/ - literary fiction http://www.sirenscallpublications.com/open_subs.htm - edgy fiction http://paulmcveigh.blogspot.com/2014/05/harper-collins-open-submission.html - novels So look! There are places accepting submissions right now! I found all of these by either joining open submission sites on Facebook or by Googling fiction open submission. No excuses now for not submitting your work! Keep Writing and Edit On
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Cold Comfort - Monsters in Spaaaace! AuthorMy name is Jen Haeger and I have a degree in Veterinary Medicine as well as a Master's in Forensic Science, so I decided to forget all that and write novels. I used to read quite a bit as a youth, but was not introduced to truly spectacular writing until my husband showed me the works of Jim Butcher, Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and others. We are both enormous dorks and enjoy Science Fiction, Fantasy, Board Games, and RPGs, but also try to get out backpacking every once in a while (much easier to do when we lived in New Zealand). Cheers! Archives
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