Fiction Scribe

Writers often complain about not having inspiration/not having anything to write about. I’ve pointed out a few possibilities for places to go for ideas, and here’s one more:

Elisa at The Book Stacks made a mention of mental_floss magazine. After having a brief browse, I must say I’m quick impressed and glad about the find.

Did you know you’re taller in space because the fluid in your spine is floating?

Sheesh.

I wonder if they make your suit so many inches taller then…

Anyway, check it out. You might find good inspiration in unexpected places.

I was originally hunting down a contest when I came across Glimmer Train Press, Inc. and became happily immersed in exploring their site.

When I came upon the writing guidelines page I became even more impressed by their “tidy $700″ for accepted standard submissions.

Considering the Chicken Soup for the Soul series pays out $200 for stories and they are “famous” compared to Glimmer Train, I would think…

Preditors and Editors didn’t have any warnings about it and google searching brought only good words about it.

I suppose I just suspect anyone who pays that well, but I still might give it a try.

As always, do your research, exercise caution, and take these tips into consideration when looking at any contest, publisher, agent, and anything else to do with publishing.

If I get any further news on this, turning me for or against the site, I’ll post.

I was searching back in my archives to the post I made which talked about the Word Count Journal site, so I could post a few more notes on it. To my great embarrassment, I found I had forgotten to post a link to it at all…

Ah.

So, here is the post I wrote including a few words on WordCountJournal.com.

I would like to add that you can join at any time, and if you are a bit obsessive like me, you can even set back the calendar so it looks like you started on the first of January. Genius! You can also start at ten words instead of one, or even one hundred if you like.

The site is growing, and it’s an excellent place to put up your work and meet new people.

Hello, dear readers. I’m going to do a bit of a short one today because I’m not feeling well, but the links are definitely well worth the post.

Hawke of Hawke’s View recently wrote a blog post all about writing. The post is filled with great bits of advice along with personal memories which make it all the more interesting to read. You can find the post To Write here.

However, as life often goes when giving advice, someone comes along who has a different take on things or outright disagrees with you. Hawke was more than excited to post another post with comments from Chris Miller from Blogs from the War Room. His post is also full of information about his take on the art of writing.

Both posts are very interesting and worth the read.

In my internet wanderings, I came across PaperBackSwap.com which basically lets you post up a list of books you’re willing to trade and request books you’d like to receive. I can’t promise it works, but I nosed around the site and it looks like a nice operation that has been set up.

I’m pretty sure it’s only available in the United States (maybe I should start one in Australia…) right now, but I could be mistaken. It looks like a lot of fun, and I wish I would have discovered it a long time ago.

Happy book hunting!

I’d like to point anyone interested in some “Will Write for Chocolate” gear (as well as other things) to head on over to this site which is the creation of the Will Write for Chocolate comics and site. I very much enjoy her comics as well as the odds and ends on her site, so I’m happy to share this discover with my readers.

Plus, I would love to have a shirt that says “Will Write for Chocolate” on it.

Enjoy!

Hello. I’ve been catching up with some of my internet travel spots and have found what I think are two great ideas for writing.

The first was something I didn’t find, but rather someone at Sara’s writing group Brand New Aspiring Writers. You can read this yourself on the site, but basically, “Word count journal is … where you write one word your first day, two words your second day … etc. By the end of a non-leap year you’ll have written a total of 66,795 words…”

I think this is a great idea and a great way to really hit that New Year’s resolution of writing a novel. If I can get my head in the right place as far as organization, I’ll be doing it, too. I’ve already signed up for the email notification. You just put in an email address for notification, so it might be a nice little surprise email for the writer in your life.

The other idea I found was via Sara’s Blog and this post. Basically, A. Writer has created a fake blog in the persona of her character. It’s an interesting idea and could make for an interesting exercise IF you don’t let it get out of hand.

I think this is a great exercise, but I can also see it becoming a huge time waster. My advice is that if you are going to do this - which I encourage if you’re having trouble “getting into” your characters - then first, make it a “group blog” for all of your trouble characters. Let them interact with each other as well as writing about their world. Second, do it only as long as you absolutely need. Your overall goal is to get a novel/story written, not write a blog.

Unless you’re like me and blogging is your job so you’d like to get both done.

Enjoy both ideas and let me know how they turn out for you.

I’ve spent some more time wandering around the internet and found some sites that make for interesting reading, if nothing else. However, depending on who you are and what you write, perhaps you’ll find some inspiration in one or more of these sites.

This post from Jennifer Fallon’s blog is something I found a bit cute. The post is about her hiring out minions, and I found it tickling not only my sense of humor but my mood for writing in my fantasy novels.

This page on the Union College site is another humorous list of things to avoid when writing that whould make you smile. This is a link more along the lines of if you feel like editing.

The 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts is a good page if you are a writer who gets tickled or inspired by true-life mysteries of the paranormal kind. Even if you don’t, it makes for interesting reading anyway.

At first glance, you may wonder why I would put up a link to How to tick people off, but I saw this and, after having a good laugh, I thought, “How great would this list be for a starting point for an annoying character?” If your story is modern day (or not - use this list as a starting point to make your annoying character in any time setting) and especially if your setting is an office, take a look.

I’ll be updating with more sites soon. Enjoy these ones - let me know if they helped strike inspiration - and happy writing!

If you’re in a bind (or stressed and want a little goodie in the mail for yourself) here’s a little link for you that isn’t only for writers, but artists of all kinds.

Gifts for Artists

By the way, I only post up merchandise sites if I’ve found something that I’d like on there, just so you don’t think I’m posting up random sites I don’t look at.

Happy Holidays!

Since I started writing books, I knew that the publishing company I would always strive for is Tor publishing. They publish some - most - of my favorite authors, and to be published by them…

End daydream.

Anyway, in my search for both publishers and agents, I came across the Tor website (which includes links to Forge publishing as well). While wandering through, I found a SF Resources on the Web page which some of you may be interested in. I haven’t personally gone through all the links yet, but I am planning on it. I just thought to post up the page so you don’t have to wait for me.

Enjoy!

G.U.D. magazine is a fairly recent publication now accepting submissions of every kind - not only writing. Given that this was set up in part by a person I trust not to be a scam/scum artist, I thought I’d give him a little plug here so everyone could check him out.

Here are the submission guidelines, and don’t be intimidated by the fact they pretty much know exactly what they want.

Good luck to anyone who submits!

Well, I’ve taken another look at Writing.com and, no offense to anyone signed up there, but I just don’t think it’s worth it.

Feel free to disagree with me, but I’m cheap and broke and thus not paying for any sort of account. Given that, I will apparently be subjected to “heavy” graphic and pop up ads, slow instant message times, no access to many things I don’t even know what they are, can’t post in classifieds (which I think would be very useful on a writing site), and worst of all…

I can’t create any crossword puzzles!

Seriously, though, I don’t mean to be flippant, but I’m not currently going to take the time to sign up for a site I’m not likely to use. You can check out the account comparisons and tell me if you think I’m wrong.

Perhaps in the future I’ll sign up for a more in-depth check, but as it stands, I’m drifting over Writing.com.

Feel free to comment and tell me what I’m missing, if you feel I’m being unfair.

writer’s resources, writing sites

I found the link to Fiction Factor through Kate @ Kate blogs about writing & web design, and I have to say thank you to Kate.

Fiction Factor is a site I found to be more relaxed than other writing sites while still providing a lot of information. There is an easy drop down menu right in the middle of the screen towards the top of the screen so you can easily navigate through.

The articles are interesting, but the site provides more than just articles!

Go check it out.

I was cruising on google for the sake of my ego, seeing if I was on the first few pages, and I came across Writing.com.

Coming up, I am going to start signing up and exploring some of these forums/communities/writer’s software deals, but I’d rather not sign up for anything right before a vacation because you always forget the internet things you sign up for right before a vacation. Hehe.

So, out of curiousity, have any of you signed up here or perhaps written a blurb about this site? I’d be happy to link to you in a post if you have. This looks like an interesting and potentially great place to check out (including genre themed newsletters!) so if you already have, or will in the next week, let me know. I’ll link to your blurb/blog/whichever and/or take comments into consideration when I decide when/if to do a second blog on this site.

Thanks.

Cheers, mates.

I can’t say much for muses, more often claiming to be one than have one, but I do find authors’ accounts of their muses - especially authors who go into detailed description - amusing and good all over.

In doing some internet cruising with muses in mind, I found a fairly nice site. What I want to share with you is something I’m going to create myself because I love the idea so much.

The Muse Box

You can read the blurb about it on that page, but basically a muse box is a take on a box which was filled with things to get the person in question through a dark time or any dark times. The Muse box serves the writer in need. I absolutely love the idea, and you can bet I’ll have a piece of chocolate stashed away in mine along with various other trinkets.

muse box, muse, inspiration, creative writing, fiction writing