Six Sentences is a place to publish just that: six sentence stories.
It has been one of Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Sites For Writers and publishes a new six-sentence story every day. It’s a great (non-paying) market for flash fiction writers.
It offers readers the chance to vote the story “good”, or “spectacular” (a ratings system I love) and provides a link back to the author’s site.
Check out the writer’s guidlines here or read some recent six-sentence stories.
Wondering when you’ll reap the fame and fortune that come with your dream of being a writer? Well, probably never. If you’re making any of these six classic mistakes…
Wondering when you’ll reap the fame and fortune that come with your dream of being a writer? Well, probably never. If:
At least, not the right things. You read all the books on writing and polishing and publishing, and all the books that literary critics are praising, but nothing of any real value. You don’t read books that light a fire under you, you don’t read in your genre, you don’t read non-fiction for fun and inspiration. You don’t have an Audible membership or a library card and you couldn’t name a book that has meant anything to you since you turned 20.
If you were learning to be an accountant you’d study accounting law. If you were studying to be a doctor you would read medical books. Stephen King, in On Writing
“Read, read, read, Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.”
-William Faulkner.
You’re not independently wealthy: you’ve got a job, a family, commitments, a social life, a pressing engagement with the cast of Glee! You can’t possibly squeeze any time out of your day to write.
Jon Scalzi
So: Do you want to write or don’t you? If your answer is “yes, but,” then here’s a small editing tip: what you’re doing is using six letters and two words to say “no.” And that’s fine. Just don’t kid yourself as to what “yes, but” means.
You can make time to write, but something else is probably going to have to give. It might be sleep, it might be ‘watching Ellen in the afternoon’, it might be having lunch with the same people every day in the dreary work cafeteria. It might be ‘feeling bad about yourself because you’re not getting any writing done and eating ice cream instead’.
But, chances are, you can make time to write.
Every time you sit down to write you are paralyzed by the overwhelming feeling that everything has been said before. Well, you know what? You’re right. But it hasn’t been said by you, in this time and place, at your age, and in your circumstances. Agent Donald Maas talks a lot in The Breakout Novelist
I once interviewed Daniel Pinkwater
I love that what my readers need, they can only get from me. It’s riskier, but much more ego-gratifying
-Daniel Pinkwater, 2003 interview
He also said,
Ideas are everywhere. I have 60 ideas a day. So do you. So does everybody.
-Daniel Pinkwater, 2003 interview
The trick is paying attention, taking those ideas and developing them into the story only you can tell.
No writer does. Every artist is engaged in creating something unique and new. Experienced writers say this all the time: I don’t know what I’m doing until I’ve done it. Here’s a little evidence:
The only way to write is to write… Stupid b*****d job.
-Russell T. Davies, Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale
Very few writers know what they are doing until they have done it.
-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
You can’t completely understand what good writers do until you try it yourself…Write from the very beginning, then, and keep on writing…The next story will be better, and the next one after that still better, and eventually—
-Isaac Asimov, Gold
When you do make the time to write, it’s hard. The words do not come dripping off your pen easily; all the elements in your story don’t come out in the right order; your characters are flat and uninteresting and they speak in cliches; you want to give up.
And that is what Anne Lammot calls your ‘shitty first draft’. It has to be got through in order to get to the second draft, the third, and the polished end result. If you are too scared to suck, too scared to fail then you will never be a writer, because all writing involves putting some truly terrible prose on the page — and excising it later or, like William Faulkner, throw it out entirely and start again,
Write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.
-William Faulkner
Sure, it’s scary but even the great and prolific Isaac Asimov says, of the writer’s daily task:
We sit there alone, pounding out words, with out hearts pounding in time. Each sentence brings with it the sickening sensation of not being right.
-Isaac Asimov, Gold
Can you allow your first drafts to be less than perfect?
In real life it’s nice to be nice: people like you, you offend nobody and your mother is proud of you.
In literature, being nice doesn’t pay. It’s boring if nothing happens, if no-one gets upset, if no-one is threatened, insulted, shamed, murdered, even. Your writing can be your playground. Be nice in real life if you must but, in your writing,
Embrace your inner sadist.
-Donald Maass, The Breakout Novelist
I’d love to hear which of these touched a nerve with you. Let me know in the comments which part of your writing life you’re struggling with the most at the moment? Has it changed over time?
If you’re feeling inspired to write now, why not check out some of the StoryADay Writing Prompts? You might want to start with some Flash Fiction, to warm up.
Introducing Write On Wednesdays: a weekly warm-up for all endurance writers. Wednesday is the day we limber up for the challenge of writing a story a month; or keep the muscles warm after the challenge is over. No point getting all those creative muscles in shape only to let them atrophy!
What might you – or a character very like you – have been doing on this afternoon ten years ago? Write a short story that springs from a circumstance or character from your life in February 2001.
OK, so we weren’t traveling to moon bases and stopping off on rotating space stations, but there was a lot of other stuff going on. Remember, this was post-Millennium Bug, pre-9/11 (but only by 7 months), after the first dotcom bubble had burst but before the banking/mortgage collapse. Friends and Seinfeld were still on the air but American Idol was not. “Reality” TV was just about to take over from quiz shows as the new money spinner for networks and no-one was watching video online yet.
What was life like all those years ago? Take us back.
The Rules:
- You should use the prompt in some way in your story (however tenuous the connection)
- You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.
- Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.
- Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!
Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook
Some tweets/updates you might use:
Travel back in time to Feb 2001: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday #wow
What were you doing 10 years ago? Is there a story there? #WriteOnWed http://t.co/OpHsJ04
This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is “2001”: hhttp://t.co/OpHsJ04
Come and write with us: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday #wow
See my story – and write your own: http://t.co/OpHsJ04 #WriteOnWed #storyaday #wow
With thanks to my friends at Creative Copy Challenge for inspiration and support. Go to Creative Copy Challenge every day for a new writing prompt and supportive community of writers.
from Fifty Great Short Stories
I’m working my way through this short story collection which was first published in 1952 and starts with a lot of what would have been quite ‘modern’ writers’ stories: Dorothy Parker, Katherine Mansfield, Ernest Hemingway, V. S. Pritchett.
Only one story so far has featured a moment that seems as if it might change the main character for life. The rest are moments in time, even missed opportunities, made fascinating by the writer’s attention to the tiny details of their worlds. It strikes me that this is something you can do with a short story that you couldn’t do with a novel – at least not without annoying most of your readers. Novel readers expect something transformative to happen. Short story readers? Well, maybe they’re more forgiving because they haven’t invested quite so much time in the thing. But I still get annoyed with a lot of modern ‘literary’ stories where nothing happens and there is no sense of an ending. These stories all seem to pre-date that trend, thank goodness.
I’m not usually a fan of descriptive writing, but in these short stories I’m finding it is making all the difference.
The Standard of Living by Dorothy Parker is a fabulous example of how a writer can flesh out a story whose plot is basically a build up to a simple punchline and turn it into something that stays with the reader. Parker creates two ordinary, shallow young women (girls, really), who are creatures of their time and trends and who think they are oh, so very sophisticated. They walk together on Saturday afternoons and play a sort of ‘imagine if you won the lottery’ game. Close to the end, something happens that reveals how far from sophisticated they are. That is the punchline, but the way they handle it is…well, I’ll leave it to you to discover.
What make the story, is the luscious, descriptive writing. It starts with a literal feast of words:
They lunched, as was their wont, on sugar, starches, oils, and butter-fats. Usually they ate sandwiches of spongy new white bread greased with butter and mayonnaise; they ate thick wedges of cake lying wet beneath ice cream and whipped cream and melted chocolate, gritty with nuts. As alternates, they ate patties, sweating beats of inferior oil, containing bits of bland meat bogged in pale stiffening sauce…”
And it goes on. Are you starting to get a feel for who ‘they’ are yet, from this description? Who might they be? Parker gives us another big clue.
They ate no other kind of food, nor did they consider it. And their skin was like the petals of wood anemones, and their bellies were as flat and their flanks as lean as those of young Indian braves.
Ah yes, they are those despicable creatures: young women! (Can you guess I’m staring aghast at the rapidly approaching 4-0?)
Only now, half a page in, does Parker give our characters, names, station, a bit of backstory. In one paragraph she tells a lifetime. She says a lot with few words ending with:
Each girl lived at home with her family and paid half her salary to its support.
Aha! These are not high-society misses at all. These are working girls affecting a life of leisure.
(I’ll freely admit I loved that sentence in part because it captures the lives my grandmothers lived before they were married, but how many young women – or men – would do that today?)
Every description of the girls is full and sensual and tactile and fixes them in time and space.
They wore thin, bright dresses, tight over their breasts and high on their legs, and tilted slippers, fancifully strapped.
Even their state of mind is shown viscerally from:
they held their heads higher and set their feet with exquisite precision, as if they stepped over the necks of peasants.
to later, when things are not going so well. Parker never says, “they felt bad”. Instead she writes:
Their shoulders dropped and they dragged their feet; they bumped against each other, without notice of apology, and caromed away again. They were silent and their eyes were cloudy.
It’s not how I write. It’s not my style. But I loved this story and definitely want to try out a story where I try out something more phsyical and real, like this one.
Do you write in a very descriptive way? Is your style similar in most stories? Do you like to read stories in the same style as yours, or do you also enjoy stories in a radically different style? Tell me how you read.
Ploughshares literary magazine was founded in 1971 at Emerson College. This years Emerging Fiction Writers Contest is open for submissions from Jan 16 -Mar 15 2011
Eligibility
We define an “emerging writer” as someone who has no book, has won no major awards, and who has published fiction in less than five national publications. (A national publication is any magazine or journal, online or in print, with an ISSN number.)
Works should be less than 5,000 words. Entry fee:$20
The Author’s Guild last week declared that no contract should offer an author less than 50% royalties on ebooks[2. They seem to have <a href=”http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/the-e-book-royalty-mess-an-interim.html”>modified</a> their stance a little].
15 years ago, it was rare to see a number larger than 12.5% in any publishing contract for primary rights. It was common to see 10% or 7.5%.
Let me tell you a little story about the ancient days of the Internet.
In 1997 John Feldcamp, a digital printing guy and Chris Kelly, a finance guy, decided to set up Xlibris as an ebook and print on demand service (the first time anyone had figured out how to offer true POD services directly to authors) .
In 1998, they hired me to help them change the world. Whatever else Xlibris became or did right or did wrong, it was founded — and operated for a long time — on the burning beliefs that:
50%?!
Most people in the publishing industry, even many established authors, predicted that POD and ebooks would mean the end of civilization, that the world would be filled with dross and that not all writers deserved to share their stories with the world.
Three years later, in 2000, the big kahuna of traditional publishing, Random House, made a substantial investment in Xlibris. I listened with astonishment and pride as their spokesman started saying things like “Yes, we’ll be offering 50% on ebooks. That sounds like a fine deal”. I grinned to myself because behind Erik Engstrom’s words I heard the strong “Feldcampian” influence (John was not only extraordinarily clever, he was incredibly convincing).
Eight years later Engstrom was long gone and Random House was changing the policy to 25%. Lots of other things have changed too: Amazon, Kindle, Nook, Apps…It looks like ebooks will eventually replace print books as a major sales stream. But authors will only get 25% royalties on ebooks, and the big publishers will get moremore of the profit than ever before.
Last week the Author’s Guild finally snapped and issued this outraged math lesson to illustrate the realities of the 25% royalty:
“The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett
Author’s Standard Royalty: $3.75 hardcover; $2.28 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -39%
Publisher’s Margin: $4.75 hardcover; $6.32 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +33%“Hell’s Corner,” by David Baldacci
Author’s Standard Royalty: $4.20 hardcover; $2.63 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -37%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.80 hardcover; $7.37 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +27%“Unbroken,” by Laura Hillenbrand
Author’s Standard Royalty: $4.05 hardcover; $3.38 e-book.
Author’s E-Loss = -17%
Publisher’s Margin: $5.45 hardcover; $9.62 e-book.
Publisher’s E-Gain = +77%
The fact that my bosses convinced Random House, 12 years ago, to use the words ‘fifty percent’ is huge. I believe that Feldcamp and Kelly made 50% a number we writers can ask for today without being laughed out of the room (they endured that several times, on our behalf).
Some of the authors who hailed the ‘publishing services’ companies as Visigoths are now listing their own out-of-print titles with Amazon (at a 70% royalty rate) and keeping them in print independently via POD. They are demanding their due from their publishers, on a scale proposed by the former barbarians at the gate.
I am proud to have been one of those barbarians. And I am proud to have been friends with the men who smiled up at the publishing Caesars and convinced them to agree, for eight shining years, that 50% was, yeah, equitable. The royalty and distribution debates of the future will be shaped by what they did back in the 1990s.
Writers, join me in raising your glasses today in a toast to Mr. John Feldcamp and Mr. Chris Kelly, founders of Xlibris, Kings of the 50% royalty.
Do you want to become an insanely productive writer? Need a big boost? Need a challenge? Sign up for the StoryADay Advance List to be among the first to hear about this year’s StoryADay May Extreme Writing Challenge. Or read more at www.storyaday.org
This one is less a true ‘market’ and more a community writing opportunity.
The excellent folks at Write Anything (a multi-author writing blog) put together a challenge every Friday. You write, you post it at your own blog and you post a link at their site. Simple!
Upcoming themes include: “The Million Dollar Idea”, a Valentine’s theme, and a challenge to write a story in an 1880s, Western town.
From the website:
How To Play:
1. Check this page for the weekly challenge.
2. Write for a minimum of 5 minutes… AND THEN KEEP GOING!
3. NO editing. ( well.. do the obvious spelling and punctuation.. but nothing major)
4. On Friday, post it to your blog.
5. Come back to Write Anything and leave the link to your post using the Link generator.
6. Visit other’s posts and leave constructive comments.
7. Use Twitter (with our hashtag of #fictionfriday) or Facebook etc to tell your network about the stories posted up….
They also encourage you to record your story and submit the link for Spoken Sunday. I’m a real sucker for both reading aloud and listening to other people read aloud, so I’ll definitely be doing this!
Popular writers’ blog Writer Unboxed recently opened a Facebook Group to complement their website, so now their readers can start discussions, not just comment on blog posts.
I have some opinions on whether or not StADa should start a Facebook Group, but I would like to hear yours. Should we have a Facebook Group?
I also wondered if people would be interested in a StoryADay May competition, with judges and prizes and all that. You could opt to submit your best one or two stories at the end of May and we’d have judges and prizes and all that good stuff. Would that seem like fun or would it introduce an element of “Oh crap, this needs to be good’ into what is supposed to be a free-floating writing extravaganza?
Thanks again for your feedback!
Part of the Time To Write Series. Interested? Subscribe to the blog
When my children were tiny I didn’t do a lot of writing. But there would come a day when I simply HAD to write. With a toddler in two, however, it became almost impossible to get through a full sentence without hearing that darling little voice yap,
“Mama? Mama! MAMA!!!”
I got to the stage where it was quite a relief when my boy unexpectedly ditched “Mum” and started calling me by my given name. At least it took a while for that to start to grate on my nerves!
One fateful afternoon, when my son — previously happily playing with toy cars at my feet — suddenly popped up and asked for a drink. For the third time that hour. I groaned and tore myself away from my half-finished sentence to fetch him a drink.
Then it hit me. My job as a parent was not to raise him to be helpless. My job as a parent was to teach him self-sufficiency. So what if he was only 3?
I started delegating.
That day I moved some plastic tumblers onto a low shelf in an under-the-counter cabinet and made a big deal of at last unlocking the water dispenser on the fridge. Sure, I had to clean up a few spills, but it was a price I was willing to pay to get a few uninterrupted minutes.
We quickly moved on to solo hand-washing, using a stool to get the toothbrush and toothpaste (creating a few precious extra minutes before bedtime). Then I packed away any trousers that didn’t have an elasticated waist and presto! I was freed from having to accompany him to the bathroom!
As the kids have grown, so has my hunger for writing time.
I now delegate all kinds of things.
I could feel guilty about deserting my family when I feel the need to write. Or I can celebrate my awesomeness as a mother who cares enough about them to teach them the life skills they will need when I eventually kick them out of my house. (Ten more years, Eldest. I’m counting.)
It’s not always, easy of course. Things go wrong. There is often a learning curve for the people you’re delegating tasks to. There might be occasional tears.
But stick with it. You CAN find ways to nudge the people around you become more independent, while also clawing back some of your precious writing time.
What about you? What one task will you try to offload this week? What poor helpless soul will you set on the road to independence?
Part of the Time To Write Series. Interested? Subscribe to the blog
EverydayFiction.com sends short fiction to readers via email every day of the year.
I was really excited when I read about this, because what are writers without readers? It’s all very well for someone to slap up a website and hope readers come, but this one has a built-in distribution system and it has over 2000 subscribers.
They pay $3 per story and take First Internet Rights and an option on First Anthology Rights. They have published two print anthologies so far.
They accept stories of up to 1,000 words and use the standards SFWA boilerplate contract (this is a Good Thing).
from EverydayFiction.com’s guidelines:
We believe in the importance of being paid for your writing, even if it’s only a token amount. At this time, we are able to offer three dollars for each published story, to be paid via PayPal, with the option to donate it back to Every Day Fiction if you are so inclined. In addition, if requested we will set up a free Author Forum for you right here at EDF where you will be able promote your own writing.
More importantly, publication also includes an opportunity to promote your writing beyond Every Day Fiction. We will gladly provide a link to your blog or website, and if you have a book on Amazon, we can link to that as well.
Finally, the author whose story is the most read in a given month will be featured in Every Day Fiction’s monthly Author Interview–a chance for our readers to get to know you, and a further opportunity for you to promote your blog or website and any books or other publications you may have out there.
What to do with your stories once you’ve written and polished them?
Submit, of course! Here’s this week’s market:
The Portland Review has been publishing exceptional short prose and poetry since 1956. The most recent issue featured poetry by Ursula LeGuin.
They read submissions from Sept-March update: Reading period has been extended until April 1 2011
Special notes for the online edition:
We’re looking for new or established authors of flash fiction/micro/prose-poetry and poetry for our website. We need your scannable, digitizable art. We need your willingness to interview and to be interviewed. Most of all we need your attention.
Written works should be under 1,000 words. Neat on the outside, hot like a Mexican jumping bean on the inside.
Art (graphic, mixed media, etc.) should be in pdf, jpeg, gif, tif form and reasonable in size. We don’t necessarily need ideal beauty, but evidence of an attempt at mastery or sloppiness in leaving at least your heart or brain in the work you produce.
Both art and written work may be sent to: portlandreviewonline@gmail.com
This tweet and the article it links to got me all riled up on Sunday[1. With all due respect to Colleen Lindsay who is an extremely generous tweeter and knowledgeable publishing person who you should totally be following.And I do sympathise with her points, from her perspective.]
Now the thread goes on to make some valid points, from the point of view of a publishing insider. The article she links to however, gets my hackles right up and I call for a rallying cry of:
“Yah boo sucks to you! I’ll write any damned thing I want”
And so should you!
The publishing machine exists for a reason (to help authors distribute their work to the masses). For some authors that still works just fine.
For the vast majority of writers, however, the publishing machine is broken. They don’t have a big audience, so they don’t fit the economic model.
The problem comes when publishing insiders forget that the limitations of their system are exactly that: economic.
If something is deemed ‘unpublishable’ it does not mean that,
It might mean that,
My problem with “Oo, the peons shouldn’t write their stories” articles [3. Apart from the short-sightedness, a lack of awareness of subaltern studies school of historical research and the insufferably smug arrogance, obviously] is that they are destructive to the very soul of humanity.
I’m not exaggerating here.
We are a story-telling people. It’s how we make sense of our lives and our world. It’s what separates us from the brute beasts. It is an essential part of our nature.
Sometimes we make up stories about our origins and pass them on to our progeny. Sometimes we write beautiful epics that explain the human condition. Sometimes we unwittingly preserve a way of life that is destined to die out and be forgotten, except for our stories about it.
What does it do when some arbitrary gatekeeper says, “No, the story of your life growing up in Hicksville with a quirky family isn’t important enough to be published. Don’t even waste your time writing it down.”?
What arrogance! What utter idiocy!
We’ve been trained by a couple of generations of TV, music labels, and yes, publishers, to believe that we little people aren’t qualified to tell stories, make music or entertain our friends.
What do we do? We watch pre-packaged, fake ‘reality’; we listen only to homogenous music on stations that only play one style of music, and we read only the stories that an intellectual elite has chosen for the universality of their appeal.
There is nothing wrong with best-sellers, nothing at all. I love me some pulpy paperback mystery and sci-fi, and I read the big ‘literary’ hits whenever I can stomach them.
The problem I have with the top-down model of publishing (whether books or music or art) is that it stifles the creative lives of ordinary, gloriously creative people. Because that’s what we are, us humans. Endlessly creative and passionate and social animals.
Luckily, we live in a great age for do-it-yourself distribution of creative products, whether stories, music or video.
No, not everything that people put out into the world is my cup of tea.
Yes, there is a lot more dross to sort through these days.
But it’s also a lot more likely than ever before that I’m going to find something fascinating to read, on a topic of my choosing, by asking around online and getting recommendations from people with similar tastes.
This flowering of creativity and distribution is going to be an absolute gold mine for anthropologists in the future.
As someone with an MA in History, I am incredibly excited about the breadth of primary sources we are leaving to future historians[5. Part of my Masters’ research was on the travel journals of explorers to the New World in the 1500s. Some of my other research invoved the shopping lists of Ventian guilds and what they could tell us about what was going on in the city and the world at the time. I’m betting the people who wrote those documents never imagined they’d be considered important by scholars 400 years into the future] Imagine if everyone in the Bronze Age had had a handy, dry cave wall where they could have documented their daily deeds. How much more would we know about our ancestors than we do now from a few scratchings in Lascaux and the occasional stomach-pumping of a frozen ice-mummy?
So go. Write your memoirs. Make them as detailed as you like. Make them as vivid as you can. And don’t listen to anyone who tells you it’s all been said before. Because it hasn’t.
Not by you.
And your story deserves to be written.
This post is a house-keeping one for people involved in the StoryADay challenge. I would love to hear comments from past and potential participants as I work to get the site ship-shape for the 2011 Challenge.
Last year each user could sign up for both a member name and a blog at storyaday.org/membername. Some people used them, some people didn’t. Spammers snapped them up like nobody’s business, which put a huge strain on the sites’ resources and my time.
Please do chime in, in the comments, if you have any thoughts one way or another.
I’ll have more questions about the design and functionality of the site in the weeks to come, but lets start with this one:
To blog, or not to blog?
Nobody finds time to write. We make time for everything we have to do. Do You Really Want To Write?
Nobody finds time to write.
Few people have spare hours just lying around in the back of the closet, waiting to be discovered (and if you do, you probably have more trouble with motivation than time-management. That’s a different blog post!)
We make time for everything we have to do.
The crucial lesson, however, is that unless someone else has give us a deadline, we only make time for the things we find important; the things we enjoy.
Ask yourself: of all the things you did today, which of them mattered most to you?
Or would it have been more satisfying
to sit down and write something?
Do you even know where all your time went?
Part of the Time To Write Series. Interested? Subscribe to the blog
What IS the difference between you and a published author?
In one sense, linear time: they were discovered before you were. Bad luck for you, good luck for them.
But in another, more useful sense: they made time to write. Have you?
Well OK, maybe HE can afford a housekeeper. But it’s just as likely that he still has to schlep down to the basement himself with a load of unmentionables whenever he runs short.
And you can bet your boots that your favourite midlist author doesn’t have a housekeeper. Or a nanny. But they still keep churning out the books year after year.
Things only get worse for your favorite author if they happen to be writing Literary Fiction. They are almost guaranteed to be a commercial failure and have to subsidize their income teaching rich kids at private universities to appreciate the rebellious soul of art. If they’re lucky they might negotiate a semester’s sabbatical in which to write their next book, but only if they agree to eat nothing but oatmeal, turn off the heating and bust out the fingerless gloves.
And even if your favorite commercially-successful author can afford an assistant to make sure the cat gets fed, they can’t pay her to write the book, do the revisions, talk to the agents and editors, catch the planes and go on the book tour for them.
Just like us: in the gaps between Real Life’s obligations.
If you’re commercially successful one day (or have no life) you might be able to wedge those gaps open a little wider.
But life is happening to everyone. And somehow, thousands of people finish books every year.
Part of the Time To Write Series.
StoryADay alumnus Mart Pelrine-Bacon shares her submission success story: how she worked on the story, how she found the market and how it feels to be published.
StoryADay May alumnus Marta Pelrine-Bacon shared some fabulous news yesterday: one of her StoryADay stories has been accepted for the May 2011 issue of Cabinet Des Fees, a journal of Fairy Tales (and a paying market, at that).
I got in touch to ask Marta to tell us about how she worked on the story, how she found the market and how it feels to have a submission accepted — hint: there was a lot of ‘all-caps’ on Twitter yesterday 😉
The story is titled The Fear of Apples and I wrote it fairly early during Story-A-Day May.
I thought writing a story a day would be easier if I had a overall idea–in this case, fairy tales. Every story that month was a modern fairy tale.
That particular story I went over about three times–though I did not make any major changes. Most of my edits were attempts to fix an awkward sentence or add (or delete!) a detail for the plot.
I found the market when I friend told me about Duotrope. I’ve always been intimidated by figuring out the marketplace, and duotrope made the process seem manageable.
Shocked–because I’d gotten so many rejections for other stories. And I almost cried I was so happy, and then I danced into work and told everybody. I am not a cool character.
I will be. This has certainly spurred me to realize publication can happen and not to give up.
Thanks for sharing Marta!
Have you had success submitting any stories the past year? Drop me a line: julie at storyaday dot org or leave a link to your ‘bragging page’ in the comments. Everybody loves to hear how other writers ‘just like us’ are making things happen!
If this has inspired you to write more, or maybe sign up for Story A Day May, take a look at my free, downloadable workbook The Creative Writing Challenge Handbook – 31 Days to A Writer’s Life. It’ll help prepare you for this year’s challenge.
Ever have one of those lessons that you know, but you need life to kick you in the face with again and again, because you can’t make yourself learn it otherwise?
I’m currently letting life kick me in the face with this one:
It’s hard to make time for writing. It’s harder when you’re worrying about all the other things you have to do as well.
And do you end up finding it harder and harder to start work on your actual writing?
Join me in my new pledge: Write First.
As much as I possibly can, I pledge to Write First.
The rest of life will catch up with me as soon as it possibly can, whether or not I invite it in. So when I sit down to write, I will write first, email later.
To help me with this pledge, here are some things I’m going to do
How about you? Will you join me? What will your ‘rules’ be?
It’s hard enough to find time to write. Then, when you finally do, you face the paralysis of the blank page/blinking cursor.
The most useful tool I have discovered for getting past that frozen moment of potential is to do some warm-up writing.
I first discovered this technique in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way
Cameron advises you to sit down first thing every morning and write three pages’ worth of nothing in particular, just to see what come out. She lets you get several weeks into the program before asking,
Have you discovered the Truth Point yet?
And I had.
I discovered that somewhere on the second page (if I was writing longhand), my writing went from being awkward to flowing. Try it. After a page or two, you’ll find something to write about or you might just find your descriptions getting more interesting, your turn of phrase more entertaining and natural.
After writing ‘nothing’ for three pages, you’ll be able to plunge into an actual writing project and be at your best on the first line.
Flash forward a decade or two, and the website 750words.com offers an online version of Morning Pages, complete with somewhere to do your writing in case you don’t want to write on your blog or in a notebook that someone might find.
The host of 750words.com credits Cameron with inspiring the site, and says that 750 words is the ‘truth point’ for many people.
I have writing friends who blog first thing in the morning just as a way of warming up. Other people write letters to friends.
The only thing I would add is that, like 750words.com, you should be free to protect your warm-up writing. It’s not meant for display. It’s meant as warm-up. If you’re happy posting your warm-up writing to a blog or posting it off toa friend, great. But protect yourself as much as you need to.
And no sneaking off and reading Twitter or Facebook, or your favourite author, now!
This week I’m bringing you news of a great new short story writing challenge from StoryADay member, Simon Kewin.
Next year Simon and his friends Milo James Fowler and Stephen V. Ramey have pledged to Write1Sub1 – that’s Write One Story and Submit One Story every week of the year (actually, Simon’s taking Christmas off, but still…). You can submit to magazines, websites, or short story contests – anywhere that takes writing seriously.
And they’re not keeping this challenge to themselves: they’re inviting everyone to kick their writing career up a notch by joining in. At the end of this year of intensive writing, you certainly should have figured out how to write a short story, don’t you think?
Here’s an interview with Simon to tell you more. Links to more short story writer’s information are at the end.
Ray Bradbury was our original inspiration. He is supposed to have completed and submitted a short story every week for a year while establishing himself.
The idea for Write1Sub1 materialised during a comment discussion on Milo’s blog and it took off from there. The point is obviously to help our own writing : to provide a focus and an incentive, a sense of community. We’re all keen short story writers and this seemed like a great way to motivate us to write more.
The idea is to write a story and submit a story every week for 2011. It doesn’t have to be the same story as obviously it can take more than a week to polish a piece! Those taking part can define “story” as they like : it could be as short as a flash or nano piece for example. It could even be a poem. Whatever works for you.
Some people like the idea but have decided to Write1Sub1 on a monthly rather than a weekly basis, which is fine. Hopefully the challenge will still be a help to them.
There’s the Write1Sub1 blog to follow and there’s also a Linky there to “sign up”. We plan to do a weekly check in post on a Sunday for everyone to share their experiences of the week. We’ll do a monthly one too for those doing it that way. There is also a Twitter hashtag people can follow – #Write1Sub1 – and there are banners on the blog folks can download.
Good question! The people who’ve signed up write a wide variety of different things, so I suppose we’ll all have our own target markets. But we’re putting together a page of useful resources on the blog for tracking down markets, and obviously, sharing our experiences on the blog should be a great help.
Hopefully being part of the Write1Sub1 community will be a big help here. It’s definitely a help to know others are going through the same experiences! And of course, the thought of receiving the end-of-year “winner” banner will be a huge incentive!
About the guys behind Write1Sub1
Market Listings from Write1Sub1
2010 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market
Writer’s Market listings from Writer’s Digest (subscription required. Free email newsletter)
Writers Weekly Market Listings (mostly non-fiction, but occasional fiction listings)
StoryADay participant Gabi (and her alter ego Iggi), also known as Gabriela Pereira is a writer/teacher/entrepreneur living in New York City. She has just graduated from an MFA Program in Creative Writing with a special focus on Writing for Children. She writes middle grade and teen fiction, with the occasional short story for grown-ups thrown in for good measure. She has several post-graduation schemes up her sleeve, many of which include a Do-It-Yourself MFA program.
I would say my writing life was pretty busy. I was in a full-time MFA program and my writing life was very school-centric. I was looking for something to break me out of the MFA mindset. Don’t get me wrong, the MFA was a great experience, but I saw graduation looming at the end of May and I knew I needed to shake things up or I was going to have major separation anxiety come summer.
I was in the middle of rewriting my thesis for the third time and I needed a break. I also needed something to propel me into life-post-MFA and StoryADay came at just the right time. I wanted to do a project that was outside of school and outside my thesis, to force me to write for myself and not for school (because that’s what post-MFA writing is all about, right?)
I expected to write a whole story every day. It lasted only a week and then my thesis deadline reared its ugly head and I had to reorganize my priorities. But the great thing I realized in StoryADay is that I didn’t need school deadlines to make me write–I could motivate myself. And that lesson was probably the most valuable thing StoryADay could have taught me. This is why, even though I didn’t come close to winning the challenge, I still see this past May as a success.
How do you make time for writing?
I try not to think about it. If I think too much about writing before I actually start doing it, I tend to psych myself out. Instead I just start writing and before I know it, I’ve got a bunch of words on the page and it’s time to call it a day. Also, I find that writing “out” is much more productive. My little paper notebook doesn’t have all those pesky distractions like email and twitter and blogs. Ooh, and a little trick I’ve learned: I try to end each writing session at a cliff-hanger or in the middle of a sentence so that when I sit down the next time, I can jump right in and keep writing.
I write because if I don’t, I start missing my characters. Also, I write because I want to know what will happen next. I live for those surprise moments when the characters do something I wasn’t expecting, or those a-ha moments when some pieces of the puzzle finally come together. It’s that constant feeling of discovery that keeps me motivated.
The realist in me has dreams of writing and teaching and being able to make a reasonable living.
The dreamer in me hopes that DIY MFA might someday take the writing world by storm.
DIY MFA stands for Do-It-Yourself MFA. The premise is that while MFAs are great for some writers, they aren’t necessarily feasible for many writers out there. Either because of logistics, or finances, or family/work responsibilities, many writers who want to do an MFA end up not doing one. The idea here is that since I did an MFA, I wanted to share what I learned and help interested writers put together their own individual writing plan. The DIY MFA method consists of 4 branches: Reading, Writing, Community and Critique, which I divided into “classes.” I posted weekly articles on my blog through the month of September, each day of the week representing a different DIY MFA class. Now in October, though the September extrabloganza is done, DIY MFA will continue in a more organic fashion. But never fear, all the DIY MFA posts and classes will still be there so writers who missed the September fun can catch up. For more information on DIY MFA, visit iggi U. We also have a DIY MFA twitter hash tag (#diymfa) and an online community: http://diymfa.spruz.com/
For more information about me and my many projects, check out my blog at: iggiandgabi.blogspot.com
You can also follow me on twitter: @iggiandgabi
Thanks, Gabi!
Another inspiring interview, this time with Heather Muir, a StoryADay alumnus who made it to 31 stories and then went off to Writer’s Camp and is working on her YA novel now.
Heather says she used StoryADay to help her “make the transition from student writer to ‘Real’ writer”. Yay!
Before you started StoryADay how would you have described your writing life?
Very sporadic. Just before StoryADay started, I had graduated with a B.A. in English with a creative writing emphasis. I only wrote for deadlines in class and I occasionally wrote something on my pet project, a fantasy novel I started when I was 16 that has been reincarnated so many times I don’t know what it is anymore. I needed a challenge.
What made you decide to do StoryADay?
A few weeks before StoryADay started, I had been accepted into Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp that would start at the end of June. I knew I needed to pump up my writing muscles as much as I could before the camp and StoryADay seemed like the answer.
What did you expect to achieve? What did you actually achieve? What did you learn during the challenge?
By the time I had heard about StoryADay, May was only two days away. My goal was to write a story every day as well as come up with the story idea every day. I wanted to test my ability to come up with stories quickly and from anything and everything.
I did write a story every day. I wrote a total of 10,987 words. On a few days my stories were only a few sentences long. Some I look back on and say “What was I thinking?” Only a handful of the stories are worth keeping and working on. One of them has spawned into an idea for a middlegrade book that I am in love with. Another is going to be incorporated into the motivations of the evil queen in a retelling of a fairy tale I want to work on.
What I learned from the challenge was that I could write everyday. It was hard certainly. But it really helped me make the transition from student writer to “real” writer. I no longer had school to fall back on, giving me deadlines. StoryADay was a great way to get that deadline and prove to myself that I was a serious writer.
How do you make time for writing?
Making time for writing is easy when you don’t have a social life and you are a bit of an insomniac. 🙂 I work at a 24-hour pharmacy so I never have a consistent time to write. Usually I try to write in the time before or after work. It’s never more than an hour or two but it is enough to stay consistent.
Why do you write? What keeps you motivated?
I write because I love stories. I was the kid who loved read-a-thons and going to the library. I write because I have to. I have tried to stop. I tried to start pharmacy school, to upgrade from technician to pharmacist but I could not get the story ideas out of my head. They haunt me until I write them down. And I also learned I could never be a pharmacist because I would hate my job. I don’t even want to hate my job. I want to live the dream and create for a living.
As far as motivation, I keep in contact with other writers. I have a writing group. I attend local conferences. I listen to a great podcast, Writing Excuses. I read a lot of books and remember how much those stories mean to me, how they have changed who I am. Now it’s almost unthinkable to not write.
The desire to create is too strong to ignore.
What’s Next?
As I said, I attended OSC’s Literary Bootcamp and returned triumphant. I’m now working on a YA novel about ghosts that I started at the camp. I hope to have a full draft finished in the next 6-8 months (judging by my pace so far). I have two other novel ideas on the back burner (one of them that came from story a day) as my next projects when the current novel is being submitted.
I hope StoryADay continues to be a success. It was very helpful to me though I don’t think I’ll participate again, now that I’m working on larger projects. It is perfect for the writer who lacks the courage to write and needs that support. StoryADay helped me. I hope it helps others.
Thanks Heather!
[And one more thing: I’d love to interview you about your writing, no matter what stage you’re at or whether or not you’ve done one of these creative challenges, so leave me a comment below if you’d be willing to chat.]
Acres of Internet space have already been devoted to this topic, because it’s a tough one. There are as many solutions as there are people who want to write, so there is always room for one more blog post on the topic.
In this 3-post series, I’m going to give you some thoughts, some links and some tools, to help inspire you to find time for your writing.
There is a reason you never see that headline. Time is never found. Time is made, cadged, scrimped, stolen, begged, borrowed, spent.
There is always something else you could be doing. Always. The trick is, finding ways to make time for the things that really matter to you.
I’m saying this first, to get it over with because it sounds awful, but you will have to make sacrifices if you want to make writing a priority. Some of these sacrifices will be hard.
Today I turned down a walk with a friend, which I know would have been lovely. Sometimes a walk with a friend is the perfect thing to boost your creativity. But for me, this week, it would eat into the only clear time I have to Get Stuff Done. Some of that stuff is mundane, household stuff, but part of that Stuff is Writing & Writing Prep.
No matter how nice that walk would have been, I had to say ‘no’. Next week, I’ll budget my time differently to make sure I can say ‘yes’.
Some things will be easy to give up, or at least good for you.
Me? I overeat. When I’m stressed or bored I head for the pantry and strap on the nosebag. It uses up time and leaves me comfortably numb. But if I’m serious about my writing, I resist the nosebag, make light, healthy meals and get back to my notebook. Good for productivity and good for my heart.
An ‘hour long’ TV show is actually 42 minutes of content. The rest is commercials. Why not record your favourite shows or download them from iTunes? Even if you still watch two shows in an evening, you could carve out 36 minutes for writing just by watching it commercial-free and still get to bed at the same time.
What changes could you make, even if occasionally, to create more time for the thing you really love to do?
You don’t need long swathes of time in which to write. In fact, that can be bad for productivity. As someone who has suffered prolonged bouts of enforced inactivity (lack of a work visa, looking after small children) I can tell you that more free time does not make writing easier. You just get more creative with your excuses.
Jamming in 250 words here and there on your commute — a 1000 if you’re lucky on a lunch break — keeps your writing feeling like a treat, not a chore.
Plus, it’s how most full-time writers started. Stephen King wrote after shifts at the laundromat. Scott Turow wrote bits and pieces while working as for the US Attorney’s office. Most ‘literary fiction’ writers have quite demanding schedules teaching at colleges and conferences. Even if they do get to take a semester off to finish a novel, they can hardly wait for inspiration to strike during that one precious semester.
If you do get the chance to write in a big binge on the weekends, go for it. Don’t feel guilty. Some people spend hours watching sports every Sunday. Do what you enjoy; what makes you a better person. Negotiate with family/friends for writing time if you have to, and write as fast as you can for as long as you can, whenever you get the chance.
On that note, don’t put off thinking about your story even if you don’t have time to sit down and write. When do get some writing time, you want the ideas to be flowing. You can think about the next plot development while you are doing any menial task (of which we all have plenty).
But do try to focus. It’s hard to stop your mind wandering off to the sequel or what you’ll do with your wealth when people are using your name where they used to use Stephen King’s. Rein it in. Focus on the next scene, the next bit of dialogue, the next plot twist. Make notes if you have to. Better yet, commit the ideas to memory, then you’ll be turning them over and over until it’s time to write.
Then, when you do carve your 36 minutes out of the evening’s schedule, your fingers will be twitching. You’ll be ready to jump right in.
If you find yourself frittering your time away on Facebook or Twitter or in front of the TV when you know you could be writing, take an excellent piece of advice from Jon Scalzi:
“Think of yourself on your deathbed saying, “well, at least I watched a lot of TV.”
Take a moment now. Picture it. Use that fertile imagination of yours.
If you aren’t already sweating, then maybe there is a whole other reason why you can’t and won’t find time to write.
And that’s OK, too. Maybe you’re really a reader, a critic, an enthusiastic conneseur of the narrative form. Join a book group or a film society and have fun with your life. Just stop beating yourself up about not finding time to write.
But if you’re a writer, make time. You’ll never “Find” It.
Am I being glib? Smug? Wrong? Have you found things that work for you? Tell me in the comments.
As writers we’re curious. About everything. About people, technology, history, our neighbours, everything.
I’m particularly curious about other writers and how they work, what keeps them going, why they do it.
So here’s the first in a series of interviews with writers, starting with writers who took part in the StoryADay challenge last May.
AdorablyAlice was one of our most active writers during the first challenge. In this interview she gives a lot of credit for her writing success to her secret weapon: her friend and mentor: Cid (also a StoryADay veteran). I’d love it if you’d leave a comment below, picking out one thing from this interview that stood out for you: something that sounded sooooo familiar it made you smile, or something you’d like to try in your own writing life.
Before you started StoryADay how would you have described your writing life?
I used to write a lot when I was younger. Sometime after high school, I stopped. It wasn’t until NaNoWriMo 2009 that I began writing again. So between NaNo and StADa, I was still trying to find a balance between work, school, life and writing.
What made you decide to do StoryADay?
Cid. I found out about StADa through her, and because short story is my weakest point, I thought it would be a good challenge. Plus, I thought it would help me get into the habit of writing daily.
What did you expect to achieve? What did you actually achieve? What did you learn during the challenge?
I wanted to write something every day, and I wanted to get stronger at writing short stories. I did write everyday, but I think I’m still weak in writing short stories. I learned about Twitter fiction, which intrigued me, and I actually wrote a few TwitFic pieces.
How do you make time for writing?
This is a good question. And when I have an answer that doesn’t involve neglecting chores/cooking, I’ll let you know.
Why do you write? What keeps you motivated?
I am most productive on #writersdatenight (yes, I have to include the Twitter hashtag). Once a week a group of five writers (including myself) meet at McAllister’s to eat, socialize a little and write. Because the other four ladies have been writing longer than I have, I feel motivated to write a lot when I’m around them. The sound every one typing is motivating. I’ve tried other writing groups, but they’ve been more socializing than writing, so I don’t enjoy them as much. Lately, Cid has been setting goals for me. Write 5K and get a book. Write 5K and have a Glee marathon. It works. She’s awesome.
What are your aspirations?
Well, I’d love to be published and that’ s definitely a long term goal, but more short term…I’d like to finish a story. Well, I’ve finished a few, but I don’t revise. So a good aspiration would be to go back and revise…lol
Do you have a project or website you’d like to tell people about?
Well, there’s Book-Addicts. There are four of us (Cid’s one of them) and we basically review books across all genres, interview authors, have guest blog spots and book giveaways. It’s a pretty awesome place for people who are as addicted to reading as we are. www.book-addicts.com – get your fix!
I also have my personal website, www.adorablyalice.com, I keep up with how I’m doing as a writer, offering the lessons I learn as I delve into the mysterious ways of The Writer.
Thanks, Alice! (And you can read more about Alice’s experiences with her writers’ groups and productivity in this blog post – which features a fun cartoon from my own writing friend and secret mentor, Debbie Ohi.)
[And one more thing: I’d love to interview you about your writing, no matter what stage you’re at or whether or not you’ve done one of these creative challenges, so leave me a comment below if you’d be willing to chat.]
What are your best tips for approaching NaNoWriMo?
I love short stories
I love writing them, reading them, dissecting them.
…but for the past 10 years or so I’ve been tempted by National Novel Writers’ Month: Write a novel in a month.
I’m put off by the time commitment – with two small, demanding kids, a part-time job and a husband i actually like to spend time with – I can’t imagine making time.
But now I have writing friends from Story A Day who are urging me to try it for reals this year. And, for the first time, I don’t have a baby, visitors or crisis hanging over me.
So what are your best strategies for approaching NaNo, all you veterans and pushers?
What do you do before November, during November, when things are going well, when things are going badly? How do you pace your novel? What are the absolute must-do tactics for you? What are the traps and time-sinks?
Please comment below, or write your answer on your own blog and leave a link here. Remember: complete newbie here. Tell me anything, even things you’d forgotten you once didn’t know
I’ve been reading Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook, which is a rollocking, inspiring come-along-with-me look over the shoulder of one of the busiest writers in British TV…Here are some excellent insights for less-experienced writers, pulled from the book:
I’ve been reading Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale, , which is a rollocking, inspiring come-along-with-me look over the shoulder of the busiest writer in British TV. The book contains correspondence (mostly email) between Davies, the show-runner of the modern Doctor Who series and Cook, a journalist. The emails are written while Davies is in the midst of dreaming up, writing and producing not just one but three concurrent TV shows. It has a breathlessness and reality that you wouldn’t get if you just sat a writer down and said,
“So, how do you write?”
I came away from the book with a sense that successful, highly-paid writers have it no easier than the rest of us, even though we daydream that they do. They still get blocked, they still have to sit down and do the work, and in fact, it might be harder for them because the stakes are higher.
Here are some of my favorite excerpts about writing so far.
I spent all day stuck, not writing, because I couldn’t work out a way for the Doctor to meet Miss Hartigan… I couldn’t work out how to do it, where to do it, when. All day, gone. Pissed off. Then I sat down to write, with no solution and… thought of it! Immediately. Obvious. Simple. If I’d started sooner…Ah, the only way to write is to write. For all my banging on about what to do if you’re really stuck on something, there’s nothing dumber than sitting there writing nothing at all. Stupid bastard job.
(My emphasis.)
Doesn’t it make you feel better to know that someone as apparently prolific and actually successful as Davies still forgets this? I know I do.
I was astounded to run across the following line from this seemingly-somewhat-arrogant writer, written the night before a meeting to lay out a new series’ story ideas with other writers and production staff.
Oh god. I am dreading it. I feel out of my depth.
(Now bear in mind that Davies has been working in TV, very successfully, since the 1980s. He has created and written around 10 original TV productions,before he even got to the mammoth 5-series of Doctor Who and its two spin-offs. )
Most of the correspondence in this book is florid, energetic, conversational. This staccato yelp really leapt out at me. It seemed both true and familiar. Only Davies has a contract and a budget and a huge staff of people relying on him for their employment so he can’t scurry away from his fears and just stop writing.
…truth, in writing, is the only important thing. That’s what it’s for. The whole time, every day, all these pages, all my life, means sitting here looking for something – some line, some insight, some microsecond – that makes me think: yes. Yes, that’s true. That’s real. I recognize that. I know it. That’s all I’m after! It might be a truth discovered ten million times before by other people, but that doesn’t matter. If you discover it for yourself, then that makes everything worthwhile. No wonder writing is such hard work! You’re strip mining your own head, every day, searching for this stuff – and then those moments of revelation are like a godsend.
The discovery of a truth like that doesn’t come along often, though every other moment is spent working towards it.
It’s so worth it, when it happens. Oh my word. Gold dust. It feels like vindication.
I think I’m going to tape this one up above my desk.
You want to write, and yet you find yourself reading other people’s writing, putting off writing, talking about writing, reading about writing… even writing about writing, but not actually writing.
Writers have vivid imaginations, but we’re not always good at pointing them in the right direction. Instead of imagining what our characters eat for breakfast (or who they eat it with), we fritter away our creative energy on ourselves, our imaginary future careers and our disproportionate fears:
Daydreaming is what we do, though (Einstein called it ‘thought experiements’. Doesn’t that sound nice?)
So let’s take that skill and use it to propel you into a state where you can’t wait to do some actual, honest-to-goodness writing!
Think about your current project. The one that gives you butterflies in your stomach when you think about it. The ambitious one you really want to start but are stalling over.
(Hint the latter one is an outcome, not a goal. Shelve it and focus on finding what you love).
What will happen? How will you feel? Will you be more or less confident? What will you be able to do next?
Take a moment and be honest with yourself. Grab a pen and write down the answer to those questions. Now look at what you wrote and think about what you didn’t dare write.
For those results, isn’t it worth taking the risk?
Now go! Get writing!
If you’d like some free tools to help you explore these ideas more fully, sign up for the Story A Day Creativity Lab: a low-frequency mailing list containing workbooks and practical exercises to get you closer to your writing goals.
Writing and taking care of small children are two not-entirely-compatible aims in my life, how about you?
Take today: I got up early, started to write… The kids started to ask me for things and I started saying, ‘In a minute,” and “hold on” and “Just ‘shhhhh’ a minute, would you?”
I was getting frustrated with them, they were getting frustrated with me, and no-one was getting what they needed.
Something had to give. So I came up with a technique that has been working out really well…
So it’s the summer holidays here in the US and that means fun with the kiddies for we stay-at-home parents.
Which is all great, of course, but sometimes you still want (NEED!) to get some writing done. It can be incredibly frustrating to try to write and take care of a family, especially if you have small children at home with you all day. But it can be done.
I know some people can get up early or stay up extra late, or write while their spouse watches sports. That’s not me. Or if it is, everyone else wakes up early too!
Take today: I got up early, started to write, got all inspired and came up with tons of great ideas. The kids got up and started to ask me for things and I started saying, ‘In a minute,” and “hold on” and worst of all “Just ‘shhhhh’ a minute, would you?”
Oh, the guilt. I was getting frustrated with them, they were getting frustrated with me, and no-one was happy.
Something had to give. So I came up with a method, that has been working out well.
Getting Stuff Done With Little Kids In The House
My sons are 5 and 7 so they can’t be left alone (or together) for too long. They can, however, be set up on different floors of the house (or different rooms if you don’t have floors) with whatever toy/activity has captured their attention recently.
Today, for us, that means the eldest has a project making his own versions of Pokemon cards, while the 5 year-old makes a massive messHot Wheels track in the basement.
They both inevitably needed help, sometimes at the same time, (leading to more ‘just a minute’s and frustration). Finally I struck a deal with them.
I took the time-out clock (a kitchen timer) and set it for 10 minutes. They agreed to leave me alone until the timer rang so that I could get some writing done. When the timer rings, I go and check on each of them and ask if I can help or see what they have been doing.
I get what I want (writing time) and they get what they want (an attentive, engaged parent).
Then, depending on how things are going, I negotiate another 10 minutes.
-Pick a time of day when the kids’ energy levels are right (that might be ‘high’ or ‘low’ depending on their personalities. When you know they can concentrate on their favorite activity for a while, pounce!
-Work to an outline. I’m not sure that trying to do any brainstorming or really creative work could happen in 10 minute bursts, but writing a paragraph or two of a piece that I had already outlined worked brilliantly.
-Stretch the sessions to more than 10 minutes if it is safe or makes sense or if you find the kids can handle it.
-Sit where you can hear them (I’m in the dining room, and they are in rooms with doors open, where I can hear frustrated whining winding up or, worse, suspicious silences)
-Be willing to stop after two or three sessions. You can’t push this too far. Try to remember that they’ll be out of your hair entirely one day (if you do your job right) and that even these long summer days will be over sooner than you expect. Take some time to enjoy the kids — secure in the knowledge that at least you got a few things accomplished today.
If you’d like to promote StoryFest with graphics, help yourself to some of these:
500 x 230 pixels
300 x 138 pixels
250 x 115 pixels
200 x 92 pixels
150 x 69 pixels
Sick of starting and never finishing writing projects, in April 2010 I announced that I was challenging myself to write a story a day in May.
“Write a story a day. Finish them.” Those were the only rules.
Word spread around the writing blogs and the Twitter hash tag #storyaday was born. Within 3 days about 80 people had signed up to join in, and many more joined throughout the month. At last count (not counting spam bots) the active membership was in the hundreds.
Some people decided to write on weekdays only, some declared they would sketch a story idea every day, some weren’t sure what they could manage anything, but just the idea of committing to this hare-brained scheme with a bunch of other writers had got them so excited they couldn’t resist.
The enthusiasm for the project amazed me. It spoke of a hunger to write, no, a hunger for permission to write that I never dreamed was so widespread.
We gathered our story ideas and fragments and waited for the “off”.
The writers came from all walks of life and all over the world:
While several of the writers did write 31 stories in as many days, many others declared victory on their own terms.
Some were simply thrilled to be writing actual stories again after years of putting it off.
Some were active novelists who found that writing stories every day jumpstarted their creativity and allowed them to try new voices and approaches, freshening up their prose.
Some have already had external success with their Story A Day stories: Matt Zandstra’s Story A Day idea turned into a radio play that was chosen as a runner-up in a contest at the BBC’s Writer’s Room — judged by a working BBC drama writer.
Me? I got to write (almost) every day, finish most of the stories and, in the process remember how to make a short story hang together.
But most of all, I got a huge creative boost from writing, reading and sharing stories with a bunch of other writers who understand the urge to write in a way that ‘normals’ in our lives, no matter how loving, really can. I found friends. I found my tribe.
Please come back to the site between June 11-14, when we’ll be highlighting some of the best stories to come out of this, the first StoryFest.
Then, sign up for the mailing list, so we can send you details about next year’s challenge.
Whether as a writer or a reader, we’d love to have you as part of the family.
When I said I was going to write a Story A Day in May, plenty of people looked at me with *that look* in their eyes, or said thinks like,
‘Well, good luck…”.[1. I expect if you’ve ever taken on any kind of creative assignment (not directly related to a paycheck) you know what I mean by *that look*.]
“Why?” was the most common question. Good question. If we’re not writing for money, then why do we write?
“How ?” was the second most common question.
I wasn’t 100% sure about the answer to either. After a month of attempting to write a story a day I do have some answers.
I’m not going to lie and say it was easy to find time for writing this month. In fact, I almost never ‘found’ time. I ‘made’ time.
Making time means something else had to give. Sometimes it was housework, but more often it was the relatively random consuming of information that I do. The BBC news website might have been minus a few thousand hits this month, my personal blog was updated less. The grocery shopping got more, er, targeted.
But the biggest lesson I learned about the “How” was this:
It is one of those annoying pieces of advice that mean almost nothing until you try it.
Sitting down to write can be paralyzing. It is so much easier to get up and walk away — tell yourself you don’t have time — than it is to start writing.
I had to, so I used story prompts, memories, jokes, other people’s stories, to get me started. I put my pen on the page (quite literally) and told myself to write a sentence. Anything. One day I started by simply describing where I was sitting. It turned into a story about a homicide detective!
So, the answer to ‘how to write’ becomes quite simply:
Commit to doing it. Make time. Start writing.
(I did learn a bunch of other trick for helping with that, which I’ll be writing about soon.)
Once I had started figuring out the ‘how’ I was amazed to discover a n amazing set of benefits in the ‘why’ column – some that I had not expected.
I found that, if I sat down and got a story started in the morning,
So the sort answer to ‘why do you write?’ is just this:
It makes me a better, happier person.
As an added bonus, posting some of my stories, made some readers happy. Granted,a lot oft hem were related to me, but some were complete strangers.
If you have ever thought about doing one of those creative challenges like NaNoWriMo, or The Artist’s Way or any other challenge, I highly encourage you to commit to doing it. What you gain will be so much more than you sacrifice. What you learn will be so much different from what you expect.
Meanwhile, why not subscribe to the StoryADay.org mailing list, so that you’ll be among the first to know when we’re gearing up to do this all again next May?
We have all worked so hard, don’t you think it’s fair that we get to show off a little; celebrate?
Announcing:
From June 11-13 the front page of this site will change to the StoryFest Page.
The StoryFest page will contain blurbs about and links to each author’s favorite story (or collection of stories if you’re writing super-short stories)
Readers can come by on their coffee breaks, browse the best of our work, leave comments, tell their friends.
I’m planning on creating a StoryADay StoryFest graphic that you can hang on your StoryFest stories, no matter where you posted them (here or your personal blog)
Readers can stop by any time between June 11 and June 14.
They will find the front page all decked out for StoryFest and featuring links to your favorite stories.
They can read, comment and, I hope, recommend stories to their reading friends.
It’s a celebration! Writing a story a day was hard, wasn’t it?
This is our chance to show off. This is our recital. (Tutus strictly optional).
It’s also a chance for readers and writers to connect. Readers are always looking to find great new writers and interesting stories. Writers want to be found.
I’ve been thrilled by the quality and diversity of the stories I’ve read here, and I want to share that with other readers.
Making the StoryFest an event with a limited timeline gives readers a good reason to come NOW, not just think ‘that’s cool, I’ll stop by later maybe’ and then forget about us. Instead, we’re creating scarcity and a deadline. It’s basic sales psychology, and it works!
None of the Story A Day blogs will disappear (unless you delete them), so readers can still find your stuff for as long as you want them to.
The StoryFest is just a big promotional/celebratory party, and we all know that at some point, every party has to wrap up and someone has to turn out the lights.
Luckily there won’t be any dishes to wash after this one.
So remember, please SIGN UP FOR THE MAILING LIST so that I can contact you with more details about StoryFest and, after that, the plans for the Second Annual Story A Day May!
The only qualification to be a ‘Superstar” is a desire to write and support your fellow writers.
A supportive group of committed writers, who meet virtually, support each other’s efforts, and inspire each other.
Registration for 2024 open now-June 8, 2024
A 6-part journey through the short story.
Starts Jan 3, 2025
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