Have you ever blown up a water balloon? You know, you fill the balloon up with water and it slowly fills, stretching the balloon and then, there’s only two ways to get the water out of it: pour it out the balloon’s mouth or pop the balloon. Either way, once the water is removed, the skin of the balloon is never quite the same again, is it? The skin of the balloon went from thick, strong, smooth… to stretched out, thin and all mushy.

I know, you’re wondering why I’m talking about water balloons aren’t you?

Let me explain, but before I do, let me talk about the word ‘flare’ as it pertains to my health. The other day, I mentioned in FB and Twitter that I was having a flare. Some of the folks, particularly on FB, were super kind and I really wanted to thank everyone for the well wishes, energy, good thoughts and prayers. Read the rest of this entry »

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CLOSED

The Accentuate Writers Short Story Contests have been amazing… some months I get a lot of submissions and some months only about 15 or so. It’s been interesting to me to see which themes get the most response. For example, the DEATH theme got a ton of responses while the Science Fiction theme, though I thought it might be popular, didn’t get all that many.

The themes that surprised me though were The Engagement and The Wedding. Neither of these themes received enough submissions to host a contest with any real competition. I considered just letting the people who had submitted win, but that’s not the real spirit of competition, neither is it what the AWF contests are about.

So instead, I’ve decided to open up both of these contests and accept additional submissions. IF you have a short story that you would like to write and submit to the themes: The Engagement or The Wedding–now’s the time! Read the rest of this entry »

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I run a mostly paperless office, which has been really nice for me over the years. I keep very good records, folders with things saved in them, emails with their own categorized folders, etc, and I have disc backups and saved disc copies of everything in case a computer goes bad, etc. My online store that I just started back in December, has excellent reporting features, and PayPal simply rocks in the way it keeps up as my Merchant account. I don’t think casual PayPal users are aware of just what all PayPal offers to us business users — it’s amazing the services they provide, the reports, the ease of use for tax purposes, etc. Fortunately for me, I do almost all of my work/income/sales through PayPal, which is kinda cool for me when it comes time to do taxes too.

I even scan in receipts, contracts and other things I get in paper form and save them to the appropriate folders too, so that even the few things I get papered still, I convert to paperless. Read the rest of this entry »

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Working on both sides of the submission desk, as an editor and an author, I am in a unique position to see how both sides feel–the author who is eagerly and as patiently as possible waiting to see if they are accepted or rejected, and the editor who has to deal with the insane authors when they are not so patient.

In the process of experiencing these two sides, I’ve learned a lot about how I should, as an author, treat, respond to, interact with the agents and editors I am submitting to based on how I feel as an editor receiving submissions from authors.

So what I have for you today are real issues I’ve had to deal with in acquisitions, and they are things that, as an author, I would never do! You shouldn’t do them either, unless your goal is to NOT get published.

#10 – Don’t send edited versions of the same submission. Read the rest of this entry »

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I started thinking about this last night. It’s been bugging ever since. First, let me say, it’s official. I’m depressed. I hate when this happens. There is absolutely zero reason for me to feel this way, and I really don’t need anything, I’m just stating it to put it out there, yep, it’s official, and so now maybe I can do something about it. I really do hate this. The one thing I’ve noticed about myself when I’m depressed is that I tend to go numb emotionally – that might not always be a bad thing sometimes – but I have also noticed that my brain goes into ‘think’ mode – and sometimes ‘create’ mode, but either way, it gets me writing, pondering, etc. So I can’t promise this will be as interesting as a discussion for you as it probably is to my brain this morning.

But here it is anyway….

Does a story that a writer writes have to have meaning? Does it have to have a ‘purpose’? If so, is it okay for the purpose to just be to tell a story? Read the rest of this entry »

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Okay, time for another editing hints and tips blog. One of the common errors I see when reading things around the internet and sometimes when I’m editing fiction pieces for clients/authors, I find the improper use of ‘further’ and ‘farther’.

This one, unlike some confusing words, is a really easy ‘fix’ to remember. While some editors will tell you these words are interchangeable, and they kind of are, there is a way to differentiate them.

Farther is a word that has the small word ‘far’ in it. Thus, ‘farther’ tells you how ‘far’ something is, in actual distance that is or could be measurable. You can replace ‘farther’ with the following phrases: ‘many more mile’ ‘many more feet’ ‘many more inches’ or some other measurable phrase. Read the rest of this entry »

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Some of you might remember when I wrote about getting the DITI scan, which is the Digital Infrared Thermographic Imaging. It was quite the experience, to be sure. It was embarrassing, and it was expensive, but at least it was noninvasive (something my poor needle poked arms were thankful for).

Well, the results of my scan came back. I wanted to share the results with you guys, and I’m going to, but first… when I received the results, I was alone. I read through them quickly, and then re-read them slowly, and I promptly began crying.

It wasn’t because there was any significant bad news here. There wasn’t. In fact, the DITI really didn’t tell me anything I didn’t really already know. But that was the point, I think, that made me cry. For the last few years, struggling to be ‘normal’ and be my ‘old self’ again, I’ve been telling the doctors what hurt, where it hurt, how it hurt, the only thing I couldn’t tell them was why it hurt. I sort of figured that’s what the doctors were for, you know, I pay them to tell me why I hurt. Not one of them ever could. Some doctors dismissed me, saying I needed to lose some weight, eat better, exercise more, and take an antidepressant. Others tried things valiantly, but when all the tests came back negative, they too suggested an antidepressant. Read the rest of this entry »

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We’re having a discussion on the writing forum about where creativity comes from, what the sources of each person’s creativity are. For me, it’s mostly dreams… well, maybe not. Sometimes, I’ll get a flash of something in my head, something really innocuous, and it will plant itself in my brain, dig in and really just tear things up until I pay attention to it. Once it’s germinated in my brain for awhile, it usually will find its way back out somehow and into a story or article. Everything, and I do mean everything, inspires me.

But not everything motivates me to actually sit down and write.

For example, the swimming pool right now is looking a little green. A strong gust of wind came through a month or so ago and took every single leaf off the pear tree and deposited it in the pool. We have gone and scooped leaves out of the pool a little bit every day, but it still looks like an entire tree full of leaves exists at the bottom of the pool. Read the rest of this entry »

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My son came into the kitchen today, and I’m currently working with my laptop at the dining table which is sort of part of the kitchen, so I get to kick back and watch what is going on. He decided to cook himself some dinner, because he didn’t like the spinach and goat’s cheese pizza I had made. Go figure. A 15-year-old boy won’t eat spinach and goat cheese. Who woulda thunk it?

So he decides to grab some bagged french fries from the freezer and a couple of corn dogs. This is, with a squirt of mustard (he loves mustard) one of his favorite meals.

Now, to give him credit, he read the instructions and turned the oven on and checked the time to see how long before he had to come back downstairs to check on the food. This is a good thing. Often, he will forget he has food in the oven and walk away until it burns or I pull it out and rescue it, then he’ll come back downstairs later. “Sorry, mom,” he always says.

Yeah, right. Read the rest of this entry »

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I can find metaphor in anything, and it’s both a blessing and a curse that this is so. There is, however, one thing that’s been tickling at the back of my brain for months now, and I finally had to write about it.

There is a bag hanging on a hook on the door of the closet that is in the bathroom. The location where it is hanging is beside a little alcove type toilet area. The bag is bursting with my personal things, like perfume, hair clips, my favorite brush, lotions and other things I use regularly for my mornings or nighttime beauty routine. I have put them all in this bag so I can grab the bag and carry it to other locations in the house, sit with it, do what I need to do, toss everything back into the bag, and hang it back on the hook. It’s neat, clean, easy, convenient. Hey, I’m all about convenience here.

When I was so sick last year and the year before, doing things like this made a world of difference for me and for my family, because, when I was unable to get up and get things for myself, they could bring me the bag, and it had everything I needed in it, so they weren’t constantly being called to bring me one little item, then another, then another. Read the rest of this entry »

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