If I had $300 dollars I would buy________.
What would you buy with $300? Or even $200 or $100? Now is your chance to find out! Comment on any 451 Press site during the month of August and you could win! Three comments will be chosen at random to win a cash prize of $300, $200 or $100. The more you comment the more chances you have to win. So start reading and let those fingers fly.
At some point next month, I’m having a birthday. I’m a bit apathetic when it comes to the day, but any excuse for a contest, right?
Yes, a contest. I’ll be giving away a $20 amazon gift certificate to the lovely person who sends me the best pet peeve.
The rules are:
*Entries must be sent via the “contact me” button on the right (unless you know my email address, then you can send it via email)
*Entries must be in by August 10th at midnight Australia time. There are a lot of world clocks on the internet. Find one and figure out your deadline where you are.
*The winner will be announced on Tuesday the 14th and must be willing to send me their email address and links to your sites/blogs (preferably with the submission to save time), and the winning entry will be featured on that post as that week’s Pet Peeve.
*You cannot use any Pet Peeves I have listed in the past. Look at the category to double check.
*The pet peeve MUST be related to writing in some way.
*This contest is open to everyone, though preference will be given to non-451 submissions in the event of a tie.
*The judges will be me and my husband. Be warned, he’s almost as picky as I am when it comes to writing, so bad spelling/grammar/etc on your submission could be grounds for disqualification.
Enjoy!
It’s never too early for talking about NaNoWriMo, is it?
I didn’t think so.
The word on the internet street is this year’s NaNo challenge will have some extra help when it comes to the inspirational articles participants will get to read during November. It’s said Sue Grafton will be giving words of inspiration and motivation as participants strive to hit the 50,000 word mark.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the email from Chris of the NaNo team:
FIRST CELEBRITY PEP TALKER REVEALED
In the last email, I alluded to the fact that we were turning over the weekly pep talks this year to a group of fantastic novelists. I also claimed that we were going to keep their identities secret until October. Then I got overly excited and began dropping broad and ridiculous hints because I wanted everyone to know who they were. And who am I kidding, really? I can’t sit on this kind of information for another three months. So in each of the next few newsletters, I’ll be introducing some of our pep talkers.
The first pep talker revealed: Sue Grafton. Yep, the author of the “alphabet series” (”S is for Silence” is the latest) will be penning an inspiring and funny pep talk especially for NaNoWriMo participants this year. We swoon. You can find out more about Sue at her website: http://www.suegraft on.com. Thanks, Sue!
And that’s it from here! Hope you’re having a great summer!
Chris
NaNoWriMo
The Scribes blog carnival will be posted up this Wednesday. The carnival focuses on almost everything to do with writing. If you didn’t get your posts submitted this time and would still like to get in on the link love and sharing your writing experience, you can still submit your posts at any time for October’s edition.
The Scribe newsletter complete with its new look will also be going out on Wednesday. If you would like to sign up for the newsletter and/or have your work/writing site featured in it, feel free to contact me using the “contact me” button on the right.
Poems in my Head, created by Healthy BPM’s Neelima is still going strong. If you’re looking for a place to get a little bit of everything poetry, check out her blog.
Gillian has extended her contest so more people can have a chance to win the new prizes she’s thrown in: David Kamp’s The United States of Arugula. She has ten copies to give away, so get your story and recipe(s) in while you can.
In case you missed any of the installments, I’ve put up quite a few more publishing opportunities so be sure to check those out and let me know if you get published.
Starting with an interview with erotic writer PG Forte this Friday, August is going to be filled with excellent author interviews including a book by a motivational speaker as well as a fantasy writer.
Also starting in August will be the chapter by chapter discussion of Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. The first discussion will take place on August 14th, so have your copy and read up to chapter two by then so we can talk about chapter one.
LiteraryMary.com still has a group of people getting together to do a self-paced erotica writing course. For those 18 and older, there is also an erotica section to workshop the pieces you write during the course. Feel free to register and contact me, moderator silver, if you need anything.
Finally, I’d like to mention I’ve been a very happy member of the Aspiring Writers group for some time now, run by the lovely Sara. They have a group blog where you can have your work or an interview of you posted. It’s a very nice group full of interesting people. If you’re looking for a smaller group that will provide writing support, check them out.
Last week I challenged you to write in a different genre.
This was hard for me to do because I like to incorporate a lot of different elements into my stories, elements which are traditionally romance, sci-fi, and so on. I have, however, tried my hand at a little autobiographical work. It turned out to be a lot of fun for the most part (bad memories are never a lot of fun) and I got a lot of writing done. It’s a rough draft at this point, of course, but it still felt good to do as much typing as I did.
This week’s challenge is something a little different again. Instead of free writing, note taking, or even a minimum page or word count…
I’m challenging you to write a poem.
It can be any kind - rhyming, haiku, ballad - you like, just as long as you write one poem a day for the rest of the week.
There’s a bit more to the challenge, too. If three readers post up one or more of their poems from this week’s challenge, I’ll post up one of my poems. If five readers post up one or more of their poems from this week’s challenge, I’ll post up two of mine. If ten readers post up one or more of their poems, I’ll post up five poems - one for each day next week Monday through Friday.
Sound good to you? We’ll see. Poems must be posted on this post. If you would like your poem put in the Scribe newsletter for October, let me know along with your poem.
I say … and you think … ?
1. Traditional ::
2. Popeye ::
3. Gin ::
4. Harsh ::
5. Topless ::
6. The thing ::
7. Defiant ::
8. Huge ::
9. Food ::
10. Lenny ::
Courtesy of LunaNina
Good BACKPACKER articles contain the following attributes:
* Foot-based travel: BACKPACKER primarily covers hiking. When warranted, we cover canoeing, kayaking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and other human-powered modes of travel.
* Wilderness or backcountry: The true backpacking experience means getting away from the trailhead and into the wilds. Whether a dayhike or a weeklong trip, out-of-the-way, unusual destinations are what we’re looking for.
* North American destinations: We only occasionally cover foreign locales. Our defined market is North American destinations.
* Advice for improving the backcountry experience: Our readers want to know how to, when to, where to, and with what. Every BACKPACKER article incorporates one or more of these things. We write not merely to inspire our readers to do something, but to help them identify and research new places to go, techniques and skills to use, or the gear to take.
* While a portion of BACKPACKER is written by staff and regular contributors, we encourage freelance authors to submit query emails for features and departments. Approximately 50 percent of our features and more than half of our departments are written by freelancers. Please note that it’s rare for a writer new to BACKPACKER to break into the magazine with a feature assignment. Direct your efforts toward establishing a working relationship with us via department assignments first.
Feature articles must address issues that are of importance to the older student: obtaining financial aid, distance education, finding the right program (comparing costs and quality of curriculum), graduate school, or attaining academic excellence (study skills and success strategies). Career management and articles on successful transition are appreciated. We are especially looking for stories on the re-entry student experience. Articles may be anecdotal, or include examples and resources where readers can obtain more information. Web resources cited are desirable for an online publication. Make sure your article idea has not already been addressed on the Web site.
Submissions for consideration may cover all aspects of dogs, cats and birds including breed/species profiles, breeder-kennel profiles, medical-technical articles, training, humorist, stories of pet dogs, cats and birds that go to work with their owners, heroic tales, etc.
The compensation structure is 10 cents a word on the final edited published word count, payable upon publication of the article. Short articles are defined as 500 to 1,000 words, and features are defined as 1,200 to 2,000 words.
We’re looking for character-driven, well-plotted stories that show the dark side of human thought and belief, but that also entertain and catch us up in the plot. We prefer a supernatural element, but we have a weakness for good stories. Do it well, and we’ll likely take it.
We need primarily horror and dark fantasy, but will take some science fiction, as long as it too, is dark. We particularly like ‘hard’ sf and ‘cyberpunk,’ particularly when it speaks to the human condition. We don’t take too much mainstream, as that is not our target audience.
The story must center on the characters; otherwise, please find another market. And please, no ‘High Fantasy.’ Unless, of course, it’s really damn good. Sex and extreme violence are OK if they are integral to the story. Blood and sex for their own sake don’t tell much of a story, so we don’t publish it.
The primary goal of BlueSuitMom.com is to help executive working mothers find work and family balance. We are looking for information from experts in a variety of fields relating to working mothers.
Recent BlueSuitMom features
* Negotiating salary or signing bonuses
* Dealing with working mother guilt
* How to find work and family balance
* How to keep in contact with your children while traveling
We are looking for lively writing, most of it from a 10-year-old boy¹s point of view, with the boy or boys directly involved in an activity that is both wholesome and unusual. We need nonfiction with photos and fiction stories around 500 words, as well as puzzles, poems, cooking, carpentry projects, jokes, and riddles.
Nonfiction pieces that are accompanied by clear photos with high resolution are far more likely to be accepted than those that need illustrations.
The ideal length of a BOYS’ QUEST piece, for nonfiction or fiction, is 500 words.
We will entertain simultaneous submissions as long as that fact is noted on the manuscript. Submissions should be double-spaced.
We purchase first North American rights only; no reprints. Submissions must follow standard manuscript format. List your full name, address and telephone number in the upper left corner of the first page and an accurate word count (line count for poetry) in the upper right corner. Send a #10-sized SASE or larger. Payment is upon publication. ByLine pays on a variable scale depending on length/complexity of article/feature and also includes a one-year subscription.
Disclaimer: I in no way take responsibility for the validity of any submission opportunities. It’s up to you to use your judgment when submitting your work anywhere.
In just two weeks, the Conflux 4 Virtual Mini-con hits the internet! For 24 hours, various guests and members of the convention will be appearing in the forums at www.conflux.org.au to chat with people. Entry to the mini-con is free, all you need is a computer, internet access and the time! Okay, it’s not really “free? but you get what I mean.
It will take place from noon Saturday August 4 to noon Sunday August 5 (Australia time). There will be lucky door prizes and people who come along will be eligible for a special membership price for Conflux 4, taking place in Canberra September 28 to October 1. (And if you can’t be in Canberra but win the special membership, you could always see if you can transfer it to me and make me a happy, happy scribe…)
Guests attending:
* Garth Nix
* Simon Brown
* Jonathan Strahan
* Kaaron Warren
* Donna Maree Hanson
* Fiona McIntosh
* Richard Harland
* Karen Miller
* Maxine McArthur
* Chirs Barnes
* Gillian Polack
* Fiona McLennan
* Anita Bell
* Keith Stevenson
* Melaina Faranda
* Nicole R Murphy
* Mark Deniz and Sharyn Lilley
* Glenda Larke
* Karen Traviss
* SciFi in Cyberspace group
The full timetable will be available at www.conflux.org.au in the next week. There will also be a lounge area for people to just hand and chat (the online equivalent of the bar at a con, except you have to provide your own alcohol). Hope to see you there.
If you’re looking for some strong words and mental images, head over to Global Poverty Monitor and check out Stacey Cole’s Mozambique travel journal (currently on part seven).
Here’s just a piece of what you’ll read:
The nurse didn’t go near her, and I hoped she didn’t have any communicable diseases, so I approached her slowly, knowing that someone would stop me if this were true. I did the same for her, showing her the bracelet and then outing it on her wrist.
Last week your word to define was lobscouse. What does it mean?
Elisa thought…”A badly thrown Boy Scout.”
Mr. Scribe thought…”A crustacean from that place in England where the Beatles come from. Related to the Paddycray and the Taffycrab.”
Joel thought…”A cross-breed of a lobster and a mouse. It was made by scientists in an attempt to make the most disgusting living thing ever.”
DaveP thought…”Lobscouse - The art of throwing a Scouser (person from Liverpool) off the edge of a cliff.”
Neel thought…”Lobscouse- a lobster dish”
What’s the answer?
Lobscouse - noun - a stew or hash with vegetables or biscuit, a sea dish.
Your word to define for this week: frisson
Have fun!
I mentioned clichés yesterday…
I’ve left my favorite questions.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn’t know it?
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about “The One” who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
13. Does “a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior” describe any of your characters?
19. Would “a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan” aptly describe any of your female characters?
21. How about “a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage”?
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you’ve read the entire book, if even then?
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
41. Do you have a race prefixed by “half-”?
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don’t?
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won’t break the plot?
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as “fireball” or “lightning bolt”?
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term “hit points” in your novel?
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an “on the road” meal?
67. Do you think that “mead” is just a fancy name for “beer”?
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves’ guild?
72. Is “common” the official language of your world?
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
Read all the questions here.
No, unfortunately I don’t have a post on blog marketing for you. At least not on this blog. Leslie of Blog! Blog! sent a call out for posts on how you have marketed your blog so far. I responded to the call with a post which you can find here.
If you’re curious to see what I’ve done about marketing Fiction Scribe and recommend others do, please check it out.
This week’s Pet Peeve is inspired by/largely due to 101 Reasons to Stop Writing
Definition of cliché:
My definition: Overused sayings, characters, plot lines, etc that you should not use.
Education Planner’s definition: An expression so often used that its original power has been drained away, such as “dead as a doornail.”
Using clichés gets you nowhere. If you use a phrase you’ve heard before in your book, then delete it. If you’ve ‘modeled’ your character from another character in a book you dis/like, start with a brand new character sheet and get to work. If the same settings, plot lines, whatever are familiar because you’ve read them before then don’t continue writing them!
I’m all for reading my favorite books many times over, but I like a break for something different just like everyone else. I don’t want to pick up a new book to find everything seems familiar. There’s a reason my favorite books are my favorites - I like the way the original author wrote things. If I read your work as a reader or as an editor and see familiar things, I’ll tell you the same thing: Start over.
In case you don’t care to listen to me about this, listen to Mr. Reasons:
*Cliché is the plagiarising of what has already been plagiarised
*Cliché is a form of fan fiction
*Cliché is the antidote to originality
Now, having read this post, you have one question to ask yourself:
Is your hero a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
You might be thinking, “Yes! She’s finally posting about Harry Potter!”
Don’t get to excited.
As I opened my Google Reader this morning and saw Miss Zoot had uploaded her as-I’m-reading podcasts about the last Harry Potter book, it hit me that Harry Potter is fiction and world famous fiction at that.
I should be blogging about this.
But I don’t. If any of you were wondering why I didn’t get in on the hype, fork out $25 at the mall yesterday for my copy, and haven’t posted a great many posts on it…
One, I haven’t read them all. I read the first two or three of them because a friend of mine in high school declared them to be one of the best book series ever. Two, I don’t like mass anything, pretty much. I tend resist it and do things in my own time. I’ll read the rest of the books. Probably. Eventually.
This isn’t an insult to fans of the book or the author. These are simply my personal feelings.
So forgive this Fiction Scribe for missing this particular wave of news frenzy, talk, etc.
200 Words is still going. Send me the first 200 words of whatever you’re working on and I’ll post it up with a short critique.
The Scribe monthly newsletter will being going out on August 1st. If you would like to subscribe, would like your work and site/blog featured in the newsletter, or would like to contribute to the newsletter another way, contact me using the “contact me” button under the site description on the right.
If you missed the notice, Saturday Night Exercises has been retired here on Fiction Scribe because I’m now writing on the writing prompts site Write Anyway.
I’m very excited to announce August is going to be filled with author interviews from a variety of genres. Stop by on Fridays to see who is up for interrogation. 
I’m still accepting creative spaces submissions. Even if you can’t send a picture along with it, send in a detailed description of your writing space (shorter if accompanied by a picture/pictures) and I’ll post it up on the site.
The Scribes Blog Carnival submission period is almost up for this month. Submit your blog article to the next edition of scribes using the carnival submission form.
There’s still time to enter Gillian’s food story competition. You have until August 1st to submit a food story along with (at least) one recipe.
Read with Me? I’d like to do chapter discussions of the book Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. If you’re interested in joining the discussions, let me know. It’s only a chapter a week of reading, so it won’t a pinch on anyone.
Is your spelling less than stupendous? Has getting published gone from possibility to problem? Are you alienating your readers with alliteration? Here at Fiction Scribe you can find what you need for prompts, publishing opportunities and advice, fun wordplay, and more. Use Fiction Scribe for the encouragement you love, the information you want, and pointing out the mistakes writers make that you need. Fiction Scribe: Your source for everything writing.
Fiction Scribe Author(s)
» JM
