Everyone needs a little #WriteMotivation

If you follow me on Twitter, you may occasionally see requests for some #writemotivation or me cheering on some other writer who needs a boost. We all have our downs sometimes. We get in a funk. We just don't want to do it anymore. Or we find ourselves second guessing our ability or determination or whatever.

Writing is a very solitary activity. We all know this. Granted, you may have your local critique groups, or write-in sessions at Panera Bread or Starbucks, but you can't call on them 24/7, because we all know we have these negative moments when we are alone, at home, by ourselves, at all hours of the day or night. Our real-life friends, our writing buddies, are not there for our every whim, to respond to our every beck and call, any time we need them.

However, with the dawn of the internet and social media, writers can connect with other writers whenever the need arises. My Twitter feed is always streaming. And, generally, when I call for help, someone will answer it. It may not be right away, but I can always count on a few good Tweeps to come through for me.

With that said, my friend, @KTHanna, decided to put together a blog and Twitter fest for the month of January. This is where we set achievable goals and cheer each other on throughout the month. We are to write a blog post every Monday to update our progress on those goals, and solicit some #writemotivation. Whenever and where ever we some encouragement, our participants will be there to cheer us on. I'm hoping this will continue on throughout the year, but we'll start small at first and see where it goes. If you want to join, please visit KT's site and sign up there. I'm sure you will find it well worth the efforts.

Here's my January goals:

1) By Jan, 20th I need to complete and submit the 713 Challenge entry @ KazkaPress
2) work a bit more on my novel. No particular goal really as I just need to write some more, and work out more of the plot. (How’s that for ambiguous?)
3) By the end of January I’d like to have completed the beta read for a certain someone.
4) complete the blog posts for this challenge. I suck at blogging 

So, how’s that for goals. Realistic? Let’s hope so! 

Skeleton Lake, by Angela Kulig -- Review

Skeleton Lake by Angela Kulig
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

All the reviews I read made me want to read this book. I was so excited when I received my copy and couldn't wait to read it.

From the first chapter, I was completely lost. I had no clue what was being said. Maybe this was deliberate since Marlow was "drowning". So, I kept reading. The story began to work itself out over the next few chapters and I could see it more clearly.

The characters were not very deep. Even though the story was told through the eyes of Marlow, I just couldn't get into her, deep into her, to really feel any emotion towards her. Each character presented only provided more complication to the reader's ability to keep them straight. There was nothing discerning about the characters, nothing that made them want to be loved (or hated) by you. There were hints, don't get me wrong. But there was nothing that went deeper. I felt as I was reading this, it was just being "told" to me.

The story has a great premise, overall. Although the book is an easy read and the chapters are short, I just couldn't finish reading. I wanted to finish. I tried. But with the amount of grammatical errors, typos, cliches, and "telling, not showing", I just couldn't manage to finish. I got to Chapter 42. Maybe I will, one day, plow through the rest just so I know what happens.

Even though it's a self-pubbed book, with a little work and a couple more revisions it could have been a great read! I just feel it wasn't ready.

View all my reviews

My Second Published Story

Source: KazkaPress.Net

KazkaPress.Net selected my story for publication for a second month in a row! KazkaPress does offer some amazing prompts for their speculative flash fiction requests. I've enjoyed it immensely! And, have reveled in the fact I've been published...TWICE!

Drake's Hoard is now live!

Here's what KazkaPress wanted for the November Contest:

The November 2011 issue of National Geographic featured an article on the Staffordshire Gold Hoard. If you don’t know, this hoard of gold is an treasure trove of Anglo-Saxon…well, treasures…from 1,300 years ago. It was discovered in 2009 by a bloke with a metal detector. However, no one knows why it was buried in this ground 1,300 years ago. Here’s a tidbit from the article, which you really want to read all of: 

Much plunder was carried away—possibly down the old Roman road Watling Street, which leads past the site where the Staffordshire Hoard was found. Event and place are commemorated in the Welsh poem “Marwnad Cynddylan—The Death Song of Cynddylan”:

Grandeur in battle! Extensive spoils
Morial bore off from in front of Lichfield.
Fifteen hundred cattle from the front of battle;
four twenties of stallions and equal harness.
The chief bishop wretched in his four-cornered
house, the book-keeping monks did not protect.

A retinue of 80 horses and spoils from a “wretched” bishop (a detail that conjures the gold inscription and crosses): The poem offers a tempting explanation for the hoard, an explanation, alas, built from slender, circumstantial evidence that has happened to survive from an era from which most evidence was lost. We can conjure other teasing theories. Our unknown travelers may have chosen the burial spot because it was obscure—or because it was conspicuous. The burial might have had a marker for rediscovery, or it might have been intended as an offering hidden forever to all but their gods. The hoard may have been ransom, or booty, or a votive thanks. It may have been a collection of Anglo-Saxon heirlooms buried at a later time. [by Caroline Alexander in NatGeo] 

We at Kazka Press want to know: What’s the story of this treasure? Why was it buried? In 713 words exactly, excluding title, write a piece of flash fiction that tells the story of this treasure. And your story must have a speculative fiction backbone to it–fantasy, sci-fi, slipstream, cyberpunk, steampunk, etc. We’ll be especially pleased to see a strong, fantastical historical fiction element to this month’s entries. 

That’s the theme, the whole sum and total of it.

You can read the whole Staffordshire Gold Hoard story if you wish, and then my published speculative fictional piece about it. Let me know what you think. I hope you like it! If you do, please vote for it as well! The ones with the most votes get a chance to be published in their print anthology! Thanks!

October Flash Fiction Contest Winner & Publication with KazkaPress

Source: KazkaPress.Net

As many of you know, I recently signed my first publishing deal. If you didn't know, you may be interested to read about it here.

If you are interested in reading my piece, you can read it off KazkaPress.Net. Please understand, parts of this are real, and parts are not. We were to speculate the purpose of the numbers station, UVB-76. If you like military, spy, spooky, sci-fi, conspiracy theories, all rolled up into one,  I suggest you read this first, then read my story and what I speculated the purpose of UVB-76.

If you like it, I'd be most appreciative if you rated it. The more ratings I get, the more chance I have in this piece being selected into their 713 Anthology. Be sure to read the other stories they chose as well.

Thank you for your support and your votes! I hope you enjoy the short story.

My First Publishing Deal

Source: KazkaPress.Net

Back in September, a fellow writer friend on Twitter (@mohio73) tweeted about a flash fiction contest from @Kazkapress. Since I've been doing several Flash Fiction pieces lately, and have found them incredibly fascinating, I looked forward to the 1st of October when Kazka Press would reveal their prompt and requirements for their Flash Fiction Contest. All I knew was it would be theme based, paid 1 cent a word, and they wanted EXACTLT 713 words. Pretty cool, huh? 

So I waited.

On October 1st, as promised, KazkaPress released their prompt. Total Sci-Fi! I could do this! 713 words, easy peasy. :) 

Their prompt was the following:

The October 2011 issue of Wired magazine featured an article on UVB-76, a (supposed) numbers station located in Russia. The article begins as such (and we encourage you read the entire, sublime article):

From a lonely rusted tower in a forest north of Moscow, a mysterious shortwave radio station transmitted day and night. For at least the decade leading up to 1992, it broadcast almost nothing but beeps; after that, it switched to buzzes, generally between 21 and 34 per minute, each lasting roughly a second—a nasally foghorn blaring through a crackly ether. The signal was said to emanate from the grounds of a voyenni gorodok (mini military city) near the village of Povarovo, and very rarely, perhaps once every few weeks, the monotony was broken by a male voice reciting brief sequences of numbers and words, often strings of Russian names: “Anna, Nikolai, Ivan, Tatyana, Roman.” But the balance of the airtime was filled by a steady, almost maddening, series of inexplicable tones. [Wired.com]

The Wired article was a very interesting read. If you like military, spy, spooky, sci-fi, conspiracy theories, all rolled up into one, I suggest you read this. Once I read the article I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to present it. It is nothing you would think a "short story" would be like. Not at all. It would be military document presenting the "story". I wanted it as authentic as possible, and since I've been a part of the military all my life, living and working with, I have been exposed to the military style of writing for many years.

The problem came up with researching a specific document for this purpose. Google is an awesome tool, as are my contacts within the military. :) Researching the precise format for a military document was the easy part. Coming up with documents to back my theories was another matter altogether. Research, research, research and more research ensued over the first week or so after the prompt came out. I was beginning to think I wouldn't make it. But I kept at it. And managed most of my words over those days. And finally, it all fell into place--including my word count.

So, off it went to a few "readers" who helped me pick out the grammar errors, the military-ese errors, and the congruence issues (hey, I found an extra person in there that didn't belong! LOL) Edits, revisions, more edits and the whole while trying to keep to that 713 word requirement. It was fun and tedious all at the same time.

When it was finally done, I sent it off to KazkaPress. But that's when the doubt set in. Was my story REALLY a story? I mean it was a fictional Military document and I was beginning to wonder if it would even fit in to the "story" category. After reading some other pieces from others I've known to be submitting, self doubt and "I'm not good enough" set in. And when @kazkapress tweeted this tweet:

I was in total agony. I just KNEW I was going to get rejected, yet again! It wasn't a true story. It wasn't good enough. There are so many other people who are more talented than I was. And all the while these thoughts haunted me, my friend @KTHanna was telling me I was being silly, I was good enough, and it was a really good story, unique in its presentation as well. She had the confidence in me that I needed. She was my motivation, my support and my sanity!

Last night, I received an email from KazkaPress. My heart lept into my throat. The bile came with it. My stomach flipped and flopped and I really didn't want to read it. I was standing in Walmart after grocery shopping, waiting for my husband and son to come back with that last item we forgot.

I read it.

"Jamie Dement, Thank you for submitting to our October Flash Fiction contest."

Here it comes....

"We're delighted to inform you that your submission grabbed us by the throats and took us for a ride. A very entertaining ride. We'd be fools not to purchase and publish the work you submitted."

WHAT?!! Seriously?!! OMGOMGOMG!

 And I sat and waited for 10 minutes. 10 long. agonizing. minutes. for my husband and son to return so I could give them the news! It was all we talked about the whole way home. My son was so excited he was trying to figure out what book was going to be published. He really wants my Walter Bear published (a Picture Book I would love to publish one day). But that's going to take a bit of work. When I told him it was a short story, he then I he asked about Soul Stone. Another story that's not quite ready. Yes,  he is an alpha reader of mine. :) He's just about 9, so he's only allowed to read certain stories. And he didn't get a chance to read this one, yet. Not real sure if he would be able to comprehend this one at his age though, so we will leave that at that. (He did come home two days ago and told me that my desire is rubbing off on him and he is now writing stories and wants to be published! YAY!!!)

So, now we wait until the 1st of November. Please come back here or check out KazkaPress.Net on November 1st to read my story! Thank you all for you wonderful support!

Critique Group rejection -- Just as bad as an MS rejection?

Currently, I am a part of an online critique group that I love. I love the interactions, support, and guidance that we all share with each other. I love the convenience of it. But you know what I don't like about it? We can never meet face to face and have the personal time that comes with a local critique group.

I thought joining a local critique group would be a wonderful addition to the online critique group. It would have added another point of view. And to have someone already published be a part of that critique group may have been a bonus as well.

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to join a local Picture Book Critique group hosted by Children's Author--Jennifer Swanson. I received their prospective member questionnaire and began filling it out. Everything seemed to be going ok, until I saw one of the last questions:

"Can you commit to 2 Thursdays per month from 10am- 12pm attending the meetings at the Southeast Library while critiquing the submissions in advance? Can you have something ready to submit at least once a month?"

I work full time and this was definitely not a good fit, time wise. I was hoping everything else would work out and filled it out anyway, along with a note: "

"Unfortunately, the times you list for meeting are not a good fit for me. But I hope that there is a possibility for an alternative time frame. Thank you for your time and consideration."

The response I got was that the times were "firm" and "Best of luck with your writing". Those words struck home. They felt like I had just received another rejection for one of my manuscripts. They felt just like any other rejection I've ever felt. But, rejection is a part of an author's life, right? And you have to be a good fit for the critique group just as they have to be a good fit for you.

I will always be a part of my online critique group...which I LOVE! They are a good fit for me! :D