Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts

Saturday, May 25, 2024

YOU MIGHT BE A WRITER, IF . . . By KIMBERLY THORN


If you ever start out on Google or Bing researching a topic for your book but hours later you wound up watching talking dog videos on YouTube, you might be a writer.

 

If you have ever fallen asleep with a wonderful, fully plotted novel, but you wake up with you only remembering your dream of riding on a unicorn while saving the world from miniature robots, you might be a writer.


If you have had writer’s block for a week, but get into the shower and come up with that one scene that you’ve been working on for a week, you might be a writer.

 

If you keep a notebook and pencil by your bed to write great story ideas from dreams that you have had when you wake up at 3am, but can’t read your own writing, you might be a writer.

 

If you are working on a murder mystery and have to clear your search history because your scared you may be on the FBI watch list, you might be a writer.


If out in public you find yourself listening to peoples conversations and think to yourself, oh my goodness, that is so funny, that gives me a fantastic idea, you might be a writer.

 

If you are working on a story, only have three hours left in your deadline, debating with yourself if you should or should not submit it, you might be a writer.

 

 


 

Saturday, April 22, 2023

WRITERS UNITE: REJECT REJECTION! By Michael Rigg

Rejection Has Many Facets

 A well-known and respected periodical, which shall remain nameless,   provides a simple online mechanism for writers to submit their short   works of fiction for consideration. No need to suffer through thirty-   nine steps of instructions. And it provides an equally simple   mechanism  for tracking those submissions. Beyond a shadow of     doubt, the submission and tracking process are straightforward, not an     elastic affair with ever-changing rules. 

That simplicity belies something notorious, something to leave a hopeful author spellbound by the negativity and unable to cope. That something lies in the terms this well-known and respected periodical uses to describe the status of your submission.

Received. That’s understandable enough. They have received your magnum opus, the lifeboat to which your fragile ego clings, hoping soon to read the joyful status: Accepted. (I assume that’s what it is. None of my submissions have been chosen for publication—yet.)

But then, there’s that word they use to describe stories not selected for publication: REJECTED.

Rejection—it’s something most, perhaps all, writers have experienced. What a horrible word, rejection—in any form. What a mean-spirited, ghastly thing, rejection, a word, many-faceted, each aspect more horrific that the last.  

According to the Cambridge English Dictionary (Cambridge English Dictionary: Definitions & Meanings), rejection refers to:  

-the act of refusing to accept, use, or believe someone or something;

-a letter, etc. that tells you that you have been unsuccessful in getting a job, a place on a course of study, etc.; or

-the act of not giving someone the love and attention they want and expect.

With one hurtful word, the writer’s repulsed, like a lice-ridden enemy hoard scaling the castle walls. Like a seething bacterial infection struck down by the miracle of penicillin. Despondency reigns, emotions ripped apart, like a torn curtain. That damnable magazine and its editor. They aren’t giving us the love and attention we want and expect. Barbarians all, those who inflict rejection on us!   

I confess. I don’t understand why the editor of this esteemed periodical insists on being such a psycho, a saboteur of young and innocent writers who put their faith and trust in this publishing powerhouse that their hard work will be recognized and rewarded.

But the solution is simple, elegant perhaps. Were I a secret agent, able to enter quietly through a rear window into the periodical’s inner sanctum, I’d scurry about in a surreptitious frenzy and plant this idea:

Replace the word rejected with the word DECLINED. 

What a pleasant way to be told ‘No.’ “We received your submission, reviewed it with glee, and decline to publish it at this time. Warmest regards and best wishes for a successful writing career.” Certainly, it’s kinder and gentler that the current “Eff Off, you unworthy, spineless mendicant. Your story stinks and we REJECTED it, just as we reject YOU.” 

So please, kind editor, switch to using Declined. Where you lead, other editors (and agents) will follow! After all, wouldn’t you agree that Rejected is for the birds?

THE SURPRISING POWER OF GRATITUDE by Penny Hutson

It’s November, and on the East Coast that means two things. The weather cools and the leaves turn to a beautiful red, gold, and orange. Acro...