New Writer's Workshop Site

A few of us from East of the Web have frantically scrambled around and have a new site for workshopping.

It's the Writers Refuge and the URL is:

http://www.sisqbluegrass.com/sisqbgasp/

Drop by and see if you'd like to join us.

East of the Web Shutting Down

Unfortunately, my favorite writers' group is shutting down on March 12th.

The good news is that a few of us have started our own group. Beginning with a google group, we may even find a way to get ourself set up with a better, more functional website. We'll see what happens on that.

I'll be removing the EotW link when it goes away, but I'll put our Google group link in its stead. If anybody does ever look at this blog, maybe they'd think of joining us.

Good News - Bad News

I received a spate of rejections over the last couple of days and was feeling kind of glum when I got an email from Wild Child informing me that I got the Editor's Choice award for non-fiction. The best part is that involves actual money, which most of my acceptances did not. Only Rattlesnakes, the first one accepted, paid a dab of money.

So, I'll crow where I can and go off to Amazon with Bryan Catherman's writing book list and try to spend my $25.00 wisely. Oh, heck, I'll probably buy some fiction, too.

Cadida and the Djinn AND The Thief!

Scribal Tales has accepted this fairytale for publication. Again, no pay. Darn. Anyway, it's lovely site. Take a look.

Scribal Tales: Cadida and the Djinn

Addition on 02/19/2006: I just received another acceptance to Antithesis Common.

Antithesis Common: The Thief

I'll post the proper links when these stories are published.

Non-Fiction Short Published

My non-fiction piece, "A Good, Honest Dog," is now appearing in Wild Child. I've updated the links to the left. Or, click on this:

A Good, Honest Dog

Validation

Writers, like others in the "entertainment" industry, are quite often tremulous souls seeking validation. The ones with big egos are the ones seeking the most validation, in my humble opinion.

What is validation? Of course, it comes from people reading your stuff and liking it. Here's the problem. The first people who read are usually friends and relatives. Boy, are they easy on you! The second level comes from strangers who read and like. Join a workshop group and some very nice people, writers themselves therefore seeking validation, say your stuff is good (or even great). What is their motive? Possibly to get you on their side so that you are nice in return, providing them their second layer of validation.

The third layer of validation comes from editors and publishers. They don't know you from your dog and seem to be very willing to tell you your writing is not worthy. But, sometimes they do find it worthy and there you are in print (virtual or paper).

Is that the end? Can you claim validation victory once published? Not necessarily. Has the accepted piece been wandering about from publisher to publisher like Moses seeking the promised land? Did you get several nopes before you got a yup? Maybe those first few that rejected are right and that last editor just lacked anything else to put up on their website ezine.

This is what I've been pondering lately. Something that probably occurs to every writer at some point. When do you get enough validation? Probably never.

Don't Get Taken

In our eagerness to get our "stuff" in front of the reading public, writers are vulnerable to scams perpetrated by so-called literary agents or publishing companies. I almost got taken by one, so I'm providing the link to Editors and Preditors, which will tell you which of these folks to avoid. It also lists the good ones, so it's worth knowing if you are thinking of publishing that book.

Editors and Preditors

The Waiting Game

When you write short stories and submit them to various and sundry publishers, you start a waiting game that can last months. Of course, some publishers are on top of things and get back to you very quickly. I've even got responses in a couple of hours. Nice to get a response. Not as nice to have the response be a "no thanks."

But, the painful ones are those that drag on into months. I've mentioned Duotrope before (see links). They provide a submission tracker that an author can use to enter and track responses on her story. They also provide statistics on the various publications when they have them. I hesitate to submit to a magazine whose response time is 180 days and that one submission in the stats was a rejection. Seems like I'd be wasting my time to send my precious story off to those cold-hearted types.

There's another statistical tracking site, called Submitting to the Blackhole, that might have more information than Duotrope. The only problem is that it tracks specifically science fiction, fantasy, and horror publications. Still, it has a lot of them and you can get an idea of how long a specific publisher usually takes to accept or reject a submission.

I'll add Blackhole to my links list in case anybody would like to take a look.

Submitting to the Blackhole

Bryan Catherman - Famous Author

Underground Voice Magazine, an on-line magazine has published my friend Bryan's story, "Why Campbell Didn't Drink."

Congrats to Bryan and hoping he puts out many more as time goes by.

Why Campbell Didn’t Drink

IPublishing

If they can sell songs over the internet, why not stories? The site listed below allows writers to put their stories up for sale to whoever might want to buy. The writer can give the readers some percentage of the story for free (get them hooked) and then charge some nominal rate for the rest. The ones I saw posted are less than a buck.

IFiction