I decided to try a writing challenge from the Terrible Minds blog. This one was to rewrite a fairytale in a different genre as flash fiction piece (1,000 words, maximum). The story I picked is The Willow Wren. I wrote it as young adult contemporary. Let me know what you think. Willow Warbler also called …
Category Archives: Assorted Whatever
Bookshop Santa Cruz Annual Short Story Contest
From Bookshop Santa Cruz: Bookshop Santa Cruz is sponsoring a short story contest to showcase our local talent. We are not looking for any particular theme or style — just great writing. The winning story will be published in our summer 2014 newsletter, with a circulation of more than 12,000 readers, and on our website, …
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Moon Shot: Murder and Mayhem on the Edge of Space Anthology Call for Submissions
Untreed Reads is pleased to announce a call for submissions. Moon Shot: Murder and Mayhem on the Edge of Space will be a short story anthology showcasing mystery and crime stories that combine the genres of science fiction and mystery/crime/suspense. We’re looking for great stories that take these genres into new territory, whether on our …
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HarperCollins Accepting Unagented Submissions for Speculative Fiction
For two weeks, beginning on October 1st, Harper Voyager, the speculative fiction imprint of HarperCollins will be open to unagented submissions. Check that out here: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/harper-voyager-to-accept-unagented-manuscripts-for-two-weeks_b57443
What Are You Working On?
Tell us about your current writing projects! Note: Please don’t post more than a few sentences of any given piece (or paragraphs if it’s book-length) because that could cause your piece to be considered “published.” (Many publishers only want new content and will not consider something that has already been made available to the public. …
Doing Medical Research as an Author
I’m a technical writer, but I also write books for families who are coping with children’s medical issues (The Parents’ Guide to Clubfoot and The Parents’ Guide to Hip Dysplasia). If you’re a writer who is researching a medical topic, it’s important to find accurate, reliable sources of information. I often start with the National …
Learning from Publication
Recently I wrote a short story called “Steampunk Fairy Chick” for the UnCONventional anthology. Even though the story went through many revisions, lots of beta readers, two editors and a copyeditor, when I read through my author’s copy I found there were still things I wanted to change. Nothing major—just line edit stuff, a selection …
Catching the Horse, or How I Wrote a NaNo Thing
“If you fall off the horse, get back on.” It’s an old saying, tried and true, that failure does not mean to stop trying. Fall off the horse, jump back on quickly. The longer you wait, the harder it is to work up the courage to try again. But what if you wait so long …
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Keiko Called Time
So there I was at the Write to the End group scribbling away in my notebook. Just before this round of writing, Anthony had announced his Doorways to Time Anthology call for entries. I was working on story idea I got from that. The way it was turning out, this story wouldn’t work for the …
How to Run Beta Reading Cycles
So you’ve written your piece, read through it and revised it, worked on it some more, and now it’s reached the point where you’re thinking of submitting it for publication. Before you do that, consider rounding up some beta readers and having a beta reading cycle. Beta Readers What are beta readers? They are people …