June 28, 2011

This week we discussed the potential of going to a conference in Colorado next spring. We need to do further research to determine which conference drew us to that area.

Everyone brought material this week. Go ladies! Marsha’s character  is about to kick butt in Syria on a quest to find his lost love. Leatrice’s fast paced, action packed story revealed secrets as it hurdles toward the denouement. In Dawn’s story, her main character outsmart her wicked captors and was reunited with her hot hacker friend. We also celebrated her finding the sequel to this story. Natasha’s paranormal romance left everyone with the right amount of tension.

____________________________________________________________________________

Market Updates
Open to submissions: Wicked East Press is looking for Halloween short stories for their three-volume Halloween Frights project. Click here for details.

Open to submissions: May December Publication is looking for submissions for their new e-Lit line of ebooks.  We are paying 25.00 for accepted horror novelettes of 9000-14,999 words and 50.00 for novellas of 15,000 – 40,000 words.  Send your stories to submissions@maydecemberpublications.com or contact Denise we questions at dlbrown@maydecemberpublications.com

http://maydecemberpublications.com/

June 21, 2011

This week we discussed the benefits of becoming an affiliate member of the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation, Inc (OWFI) and are considering taking the next steps. Master storyteller, Steven James, is slated for the keynote speaker at the 2012 conference.

We also worked on synopsis revisions and manuscript critiques in preparation for submission to the agents who’ve requested material.

We Did It!

[Editor's note: This post is from February 2011)

I’m totally going to age myself here but The Raspberries had a song by this name which is just so appropriate for our second presentation as a writer’s group. We presented to the Kansas City Young Adult Librarian (KCYAL) on Monday night and we think it went well. Everyone had kind things to say about what we shared and how we shared it. We’re getting this presenting thing down enough that at group we brainstormed things that we can present on. Our first was on writer’s groups called Writer’s Groups: Safe House or Slaughter House. This last one was Inside the Writer’s Mind. It’s a wonder the title didn’t scare them off. Given what goes on in most writer’s minds…well, it’s terrifying for those who don’t understand writers.

We also critiqued from Marsha’s ongoing novel on Dev, a character Dawn and Tasha love. We spent time with Tasha’s latest WIP, adapted from a short story, Blink, and we continued our latest pass of On the Run for Dawn.

Focus wasn’t good for Dawn given her last ten days, this was understandable. It’s the reason this blog is just now being updated. Hopefully, the drama in her life is over for a while. She informed her son he is to stay away from armed assassins for a while.

Next week is First Tuesdays. We love this night each month because new writers bring a new level of energy to the group. It’s helped all of us during this year which has had its challenges for all of us in some way. Life’s challenges always manage to make it into our fiction. It’s realistic and as a writer you have life experience to bring to it. What about you? Have you ever taken a real life event or crisis and written it into your fiction?

Frostbitten, Snowbound, and Over My Head

The first meeting of every month is First Tuesdays, and we meet with new writers “paying it forward” in the craft. Mother Nature had other plans for the first Tuesday this month and unleashed a winter storm of historic proportions. With the best interests of everyone in mind, we postponed First Tuesdays to next week. This meant our regular meeting being lost but being the hardy lot we are, we decided to meet on Thursday in spite of the single digit temperatures and illness in two of us. Never say writers are stubborn sob’s.

Tonight we worked on Marsha’s novel Dev and on Dawn’s YA novel On the run. Once we finished, Marsha headed home to rest, and Tasha took on Dawn’s new Mac which has more glitches than a PC ever thought about. So much for the Mac superiority. Even she couldn’t figure out why it won’t work. So, it’s going back for them to figure out why this expensive piece of technology has a lot of bells and whistles that just don’t work.

Next week, First Tuesdays, we’re hoping for no weather issues and smoother computer seas.

Editing frenzy

Tonight it was really hard to go out into the cold even though it was group night. The damp cold from the impending snow storm has even seeped into Borders by our window seat. Hot drinks barely make a dent on my freezing hands. The only upside that it might mean another snow day and I have so much writing to do before the OWFI conference    we’re all participating in.

We are busy polishing our work for our various entries before turning to the most exciting news of the night, writers have started entering our first page contest with a chance for the winner to win copies of Les Edgerton’s two writing books.

Collaboration

This week, we started group by reviewing our bodies of work to decide which pieces we plan to enter into the OWFI contest. We also set up a meeting to review entries prior to mailing them off cause that’s how we roll.

We discussed our upcoming presentation at the Kansas City Young Adult Librarians event in February. Our tentative topic is “Inside The Writer’s Mind.”

Everyone brought material for review this week. Dawn brought the next installment of On The Run. Marsha brought Passion For Glory. Natasha brought Blink. Congrats to everyone for writing this week!

We closed the meeting discussing Dawn’s upcoming interview with Les Edgerton and FREE First Page contest, judged by Novel Clique (see Coming Soon!).

Teamwork

Marsha brought a new historical piece to group, and we continued to hone On the Run. We also discussed what we’ll present at the Kansas City Young Adult Librarians meeting in February. Natasha typed the notes up, and we’re ready to go. We also discussed the launching of a new young adult authors group, Twisted Truths.

During our Social Media Time tonight, we’re working on my blog. It sounds selfish I know to have the whole group working on my blog but this is the way we roll. We do nearly everything as a team. I decided after reading Hooked to interview Les Edgerton for my blog. It was at group that we came up with the idea of a contest associated with the interview. So tonight we worked on a blurb for the site. I wanted to make sure I crossed all my T’s and dotted all my I’s and no one is better at that than administrative Natasha.

Novel Clique

We opened with group therapy which ran from tears to laughter to anger to hysterics. The people around us kept moving. Not sure what that was about. However, after a stressful fall and a Thanksgiving break looming large we were thankful for other writers to learn from, each other to gain support from, and bookstores with cafes with lots of caffeine. Forget the parallel structure – I’ve had too much caffeine.

Today at group we signed up as members to OWFI which is Oklahoma Writer’s Federation whose conference we attended last spring. We had such a good experience that we decided to make it a group goal to join this year as well as attend their conference again. So, we filled out the forms together, slipped them in the envelope with the fees, and sealed them up to be mailed on the way on home. This is what truly holding each other accountable is all about. Hah! Why attend the conference? Good reasons include: pitching your novel to agents, editors, or other professionals, networking with other writers and industry professionals, and entering their contests. Last year Marsha entered and placed in two out of five that she entered. Tasha and I both successfully pitched our novels to an agent and an editor, respectively.

If you’re looking for a writer’s conference, join us in Oklahoma City in the spring.

BLOG CHAIN — Write Space

Where do you write? Is it quiet? Do you like to listen to music? Do you write at home or away? What gets you in the mood?

Every writer has a space unique to them that speaks to their inner writer’s needs. Visit Dawn, Marsha and Natasha’s blogs to see how they answered these questions.

And we invite you to add your answers below.

Spring Hill Fall Festival – September 18, 2010

This was my first time promoting our new anthology of scary stories. My students were really excited about the book when I showed it to them before the festival. It was a bright sunny day and I’d shopped for a witch hat and Halloween decorations to decorate my booth. I signed kids up for a free copy which generated excitement. This was the first of many opportunities to come over the next six weeks until Halloween.

Marsha