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Sharing!

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I've been away a bit.  I could say it was a very busy work schedule or the pandemic interfering with daily life, but honestly, I was just finding it hard to motivate myself to write.  I think I've gotten over that hump here now and am starting to ease back into the writing groove.  So I hope to have a little more to post about in the coming days and weeks.

However, in this post, I want to mention that I was recently contacted through the website by an educator in the Salt Lake City area.  She explained that she'd been running a writing workshop for 12-15 year olds and had used my website and some of the resources on it during the course.  I can't tell you how gratifying that is to hear.  I was honored that some of what I put out here is able to help young writers and students.

She went on to say that one of the students, Amelia, had come across an article as part of the course and wondered if I'd include it in my 'Writing Resources' section.  The link has a lot of great resources for young authors; everything from writing basics to careers in writing to publication.  You can find the link below and I'll also include it in my resources section.

https://www.zenbusiness.com/info/writing-careers/

Big thanks to Barbara for reaching out, and an even bigger thanks to Amelia for taking the time to share.  I hope you have the best of luck in your writing efforts and I hope to someday be able to read some of your work!

 

The Wizard of Wellford

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I'm very pleased to announce one of my stories is now live at flashfictionmagazine.com!

In September of last year my sister, Jennifer, passed away.  While this story isn't directly related to that experience, the kindness, compassion, professionalism and dedication of an entire unit of doctors and nurses overwhelmed me at the time.  In part, their commitment did inspire me to continue working on this piece and pushing it through to find a publisher.

I'd like to dedicate this one to my little sister and all the people who took care of her so gently at the end.

The Wizard of Wellford

Merry Christmas World

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Happy Holidays to everyone, everywhere.  I have had a very merry couple of days with friends and family and feel truly lucky by those blessings.  I wish everyone the same.

Some aren't as fortunate.  A friend at FFM, Don Robishaw, has entered a competition at Defenstrationism with his collection of short stories centered around homeless veterans.  Don has committed any winnings he makes to help the homeless and I know this isn't the first time he's committed to such generosity.  Help him out, if you will, by reading his stories HERE and then vote for them later in January.

Remember the less fortunate this holiday season, particularly those who served our country to allow us our safety, security and freedom for ourselves and our families.

Missed it by *that* much…

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NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2019 - Round 3 is over and my story "The Last Harvest" did well.  It garnered an honorable mention, but fell a few spots short of the top 3 that go on to the 4th and final round.  Overall I was very, very happy with my performance in this year's Flash Fiction comp.  I got second and fifth place finishes in rounds 1 and 2 respectively, then an HM in round 3.  Not bad for only my second year of this particular competition.

I read some of the other stories from my group that were published in the forums and I knew I was up against some stiff competition.  Round 3 has over 3000 entrants pared down to something like 600, so you know they've boiled down the pool to some of the best.  For me to get honorable mention (only the top 3 and 5 HMs were listed) out of my heat of 25 makes me very proud.

Then an odd thing happened today.  I received an email from the NYC Midnight competition organizer.  I won't share it here, but there was a link to this page:

http://www.nycmidnight.com/Competitions/FFC/2ndRound2019_Ch3results_amendedgroups.htm

Apparently there was an issue with one of the judges (which is a little more detailed in the email) and they adjusted the scores based on removing that particular judge's ratings.  I moved up to the first HM, just below the cut.  So close.  So, so, so close.

I would have loved to have competed in another round, but I have to say that I'm quite impressed with how NYC Midnight is handling the situation.  They seem to be very public about it, acknowledge that it is an unfortunate situation and are doing what seems right and fair to me.  Allowing a couple of participants to move on as well as allowing the originally announced top 3 to advance to round 4.  Above all, they are owning the issue and personally apologizing for it.  The world needs more of this kind of integrity!

I even took the time to respond to the email they sent, and thank them for how they are handling the situation.  I intimated to them that, while unfortunate, I don't hold any grudge for the fact that it affected my judging.  In fact, given how they are handling it, I am even more compelled to continue to participate.

I truly do enjoy this competition - both as a writer and as a competitive person - so I'm glad that they have carried themselves with grace in admitting their fault.

 

Being Human by Edward G Kratz

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Edward is another member of the FFM writing group.  He's managed to crack the code at Daily Science Fiction a few times and have his works featured there.  It's a publication at the top of my list, but I haven't seemed to be able to write a piece that tickles their fancy just yet.  I'll get there, just takes time.

But I digress - Ed's piece is a little dark, yet very compelling.  There's a bit of a warning for the graphic nature of the imagery, but ultimately I didn't find it that distressing (maybe that says something about me more than anything).

Check out Being Human.

Greatfather Oak

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Greatfather Oak is live at a nature-themed site call Words for the Wild.

The story was partially inspired by this huge oak tree I have in my field.  It must be a couple of hundred years old and is far larger than anything close by.  I'll try to find a picture of it to update this post with later.

Much like the oak in the story, I believe when this part of my property was farmed years ago, the tree was probably just to big to bother cutting down, so it was left and farmed around.  When we purchased the property, I started to clear space around it, but have left the smaller offspring to surround this majestic tree and create a small grove.

When I look up as this force of nature that has lived many generations in human context, I think about all the things trees like this would have 'seen' over their own lifetimes.  It made for great foundation for the piece.

Enjoy!

On to Challenge 3! (NYC Midnight Results)

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So, uh, this happened earlier in the week...

Rounds 1 and 2 combined score got me the win in my group and onto challenge 3.  I've very excited, but now I'm in the midst of writing for this round and knowing that everyone I'm currently grouped with was in the top 5 from their previous groups.

Time to separate the wheat from the chaff I guess.

My prompts for the 3rd challenge are Drama/A Strawberry Field/A Tote Bag.  Not too bad.  I already have a draft out to the FFM group for some feedback.  We'll see how it goes.  It probably goes without saying that I want to move on to the finals, but I have to admit, I was very happy to make it this far.  Last year, I missed this same cut by just one point (coming in 6th place for challenge 1 & 2).  So to have a year pass and see my work improve to the point where I took the top spot is very gratifying.

Ok, now back to editing and revising...

 

The Lull

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So, I've been a bit lax with both the site and my writing lately.  I could give you the usual excuses - job, family, life-in-general - and they are all valid (to varying degrees) but honestly, I've just been a bit lazy.

In mid-September and early October, I did two NYC midnight submissions for the second Flash Fiction challenge and the first Microfiction (<250 words) competition.  Those are always a great time, but a bit draining.  I think after going through that, I kind of hit a lull in motivation.  I need to correct that course and get myself into the routine of writing again.  This probably happens to a lot of us from time to time, but I just need to get back on the horse!

In spite of the dip in writing activity, I've still been reading a lot.  I finished Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy.  It was a 1200+ page trek.  I enjoyed the journey, but have to admit I was a little disappointed by the ending.  I wouldn't dare to spoil it for anyone hoping to read it, but after a trilogy that long, and the build up to the ending, I expected a bit more.  Once nice thing was that most of the loose ends were tied up.  It felt like a complete ending, which is a very satisfying element in any series.

I'm also nearly finished with book 5 of the Wheel of Time series that I'm listening to in Audible.  As I've posted before, I just never immersed myself in these when they were 'new' and it's a series I've always felt like I needed to be familiar with if I was going to consider myself a tried and true epic fantasy reader.

In the midst of it all, I was reading some of Brandon Sanderson's advice on writing magic systems which he has dubbed his First, Second and Third laws.  There's some good tips in there and they don't just apply to high fantasy and architecture for magic, but provide some insights to story telling and writing fiction in general.  This kind of inspired me to re-read Patrick Rothfuss' novels again (The Name of the Wind is still one of my favorite fantasy novels), considering them with Sanderson's laws in mind.  I just kicked this one off, so it will lull me to sleep at night for more than a few nights I'm sure.