14 Days ‘Til Go Time: Pains of Algorithms & the Struggles to Climb

Hello my lovelies.. Go check him out. We need more voices out there….

The Gift of the Editor

I am not good at editing my own work. I’m ok at first pass, and a second. But… well. I have at least 2 Beta’s who read my work, and their comments on my grammar are awesome. Then there’s RIe, who does not only call me on my grammar but also my content / style.

I can do content editing, but not the rest. And there was one story that I wanted so badly to come out, and I just couldn’t get it there. Rie was my editor through MMP (Thank you, Nicole!), and she figured it out. Once I told her what was going on in the story (flash) piece, she knew exactly what needed to be done.

Whew!

Garden is one of my favorite stories that I’ve written. I’ve also gotten the best compliment on The Golden Apple and Other Stories because of it. My neice bought and read the book. She liked Cinder’s Ella the most, but she remembered The Golden Apple. But she told me that she thought the story Garden might help one of her friends who had lost a child…. and that hit me in my heart. At it’s heart, Garden is a story about motherhood, and grief… and love.

I don’t know if she’s shown it to her friend. Or if she did and it helped or not… But I do know that my writing touched something deep inside a reader…. and a reader that I know and love, that I spent my childhood with.

That my friends….

That’s a great editor.

(as a side note: as I’ve been writing this, my son and I have been playing Uno…. I just won my first hand. I think the booger is cheating, but I can’t prove it…. OMG, I love him!)

More soon, my lovelies.

Get your pens ready: Submission call

I promised to get this to you this weekend and am scraping in by the skin of my teeth! I love Mocha Memoirs Press, and they currently have a Steampunk Anthology call out. Go check it out here   You’ll notice that they are also looking for a couple of types of romances… I don’t write those, so all I can tell you is this: I love my publisher and they are great to work with!

I actually finally got a beginning that I like for my story for the anthology. Sweet! The Golden Apple‘s book birthday on Friday was wonderful. Thank you all! The best compliment I’ve gotten on it has to do with one of the interludes, and I think I’ll discuss that in it’s own post. The subject matter kind of dictates that. So. I have one just published. One in with the publisher. One being written, and then next perking around on a back burner.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

I love my life!

Seriously, if you write romance or Steampunk, go check out the guidelines. That is what they are currently looking for, but check back lots. We also do Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy… Lots of stuff!

Love you all!

Release Day and Beginning Writers

Hello my lovelies!

I’m in a good mood right now. It suddenly dawned on me…. I just looked my name up on Amazon and it came up not once… but twice. Yup. Two. Titles. With. My. Name.  The Golden Apple and Other Stories   and of course Dragon’s Champion

Now I need to try really hard not to degenerate myself. Because of course the first thing I want to tell you is that I write short stories right now. Dragon’s Champion is a stand alone short story, while the Golden Apple and Other Stories is a triad of retellings of fairy tales. And that’s fine! I rock at this format.

But what I want to talk about right now is  how I felt three years ago. Or two and a half. I started writing Dragon’s Champion, and I only kept writing it to see what would happen next. My heroine was a smart ass who just kept getting herself in trouble. I hand wrote the whole story. And while I was busy scribbling, something broke loose within me. Something I had stuffed way down deep for too long.

I was a writer. I write because it centers me, because I enjoy my stories and sometimes even work things out in them. I keep flinging the words out, even if no one ever reads them. I write.

And if you want to be a writer, you need to do that too. Fling your words out, polish them up, and then start working on the next. That finished story? Save it, send it out, do what ever you need to do to it. But go onto the next one, too. I’m working on my next (for an anthology call that I’ll share over the weekend), and have started plotting even another one. I have one in with my publisher as well.

Don’t stop writing. Edit when you must, but still keep your creative juices flowing. Scribble notes for your next work. Just, keep moving forward. It’s too easy to loose the habit of writing. Too easy to loose your writing period. It’s a muscle, and we have to exercise it. Use the experience of writing one to write the next, and on that next one STRETCH those muscles! You can do it!

I was so naive at 18, I actually thought I could just say I was a writer and start writing and ove into my fabulous house in the mountains. Now I know it’s not the recognition, it’s not the money (although I like both, don’t get me wrong)… It’s the story telling. It’s the words.

They matter.

Whether or not you can find them on Amazon, they matter.

So if you’re writing, just remember that. They matter.

Your voice matters.

Release Date

So I’ve been a little absent lately. First, I was writing madly…. then in edits (which turn me into mean mommy apparently LOL).

But it’s done! I have a release date of 12/5/14 and I absolutely love the cover. Isn’t it great? And Mocha Memoirs Press gave me the absolute bestest editor ever. I can say that with authority, because she has read just about everything I write. Rie makes me such a better writer, and hung in there, believing in me, when I didn’t even believe in myself.

And now I have my second title coming out.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

This started out as one short story. Cinder’s Ella, a funky little fairy tale. It was a wee bit short tho…. And no matter how, I just couldn’t make it heftier by much. I kept running round and round on a collection of very personal fairy tales. They mean something to me, each of the three. And the two interludes. So I broached the subject with my publisher (the wonderful MMP!) and she loved the idea.

And now it comes out on the 5th! That’s Friday!

Yay!

I’ll write more tomorrow. But tonight, I just had to share…..

Jumping up and down, squealing with delight…….