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Time For a Do-Over by Kitty Bucholtz

January 10, 2013 by in category Archives tagged as , ,

j0178553One of my favorite things about January is getting a whole new year’s worth of do-overs. I loved do-overs as a kid, and I love them even more now. This past year has easily been my worst – three family members died, and over a dozen of my friends’ family members died. And that was just one part of how my year went badly.
Lena, the heroine of “Rescue at Loon Lake”, my story in the anthology Moonlit Encounters, found it difficult to get past her husband’s death while living in the same city. She decides to move to a new town for her do-over. Sometimes that works, but for most people it doesn’t.
A few years ago, I came up with a method that works for me: hitting the restart button. Any of us can hit the restart button at any time of the day, any day of the year. We just need to remember that the button exists.
Restart Your Attitude
The most important tool in your toolbox is your attitude because your attitude affects everything else. It is also one of your most vulnerable tools. When you catch your attitude taking a dive, stop for a mental moment and hit the restart button.
When you’re careful to keep your attitude positive, the parts of your life that are going well will go even smoother. And when life gets rough, a healthy attitude will keep you from getting totally beat up. It’s not always easy, but you can hit that restart button as many times as you need to. A few weeks after my mom’s death, I was hitting it a couple times an hour. It’s part of what kept me from getting caught in a riptide of grief.
Restart Your Actions
Everything you spend your time doing builds who you are. Your actions build your intellect, your career, your character. What you don’t do also shapes who you become. Getting caught up in the thousands of possibilities of 21st century life can derail even our best intentions. Derailment happens to me regularly – unless I remember to hit the restart button.
Goal!
Goal!
Over time, I’ve accumulated and shared all the time management and goal-setting information I’ve tried. Every January, I teach an online class to help other writers find the methods of “getting things done” that work for them. When you try something new and it doesn’t work, hit restart. When you keep doing what you know doesn’t work, hit restart. The button never wears out, no matter how often you find yourself using it.
Restart Your Commitment
Your attitude and your actions are important, but you also need to keep yourself committed to your goals and plans. It’s fine to change your mind, but if you change it over and over again, you won’t make any real progress in a given direction.
Feel like giving up? Hit the restart button. What is one tiny thing you can do today that keeps you committed to your purpose? What are the top three things? Don’t let yourself be intimidated by your multi-page To Do list (I know I’m not the only one), just take a deep breath and remind yourself why you decided this is the path you want to be on (whatever that path is).
It’s going to be January for three more weeks. Lots of time to work on a few do-overs in your life. But remember this for the rest of the year – every morning is also a new start. It’s never too late to work on becoming the person you were always meant to be.

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, is now available in print and ebook format. Her next novels, Love at the Fluff and Fold and Unexpected Superhero, will be released in 2013. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook format.

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2013 Is Our Year!

January 2, 2013 by in category Archives

by Barb DeLong and Jann Audiss

 
Barb:  Do you believe it’s 2013, Jann? Wow! Another year over and I didn’t get my WIP completed. 2013 will be my year, though. I joined OCC’s BIAY and I have a goal of entering the Orange Rose Contest. What held me back in 2012, besides “not having enough time?”
Sometimes anxiety sets in when I think about writing a whole book. Richard Russo, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Empire Falls, said, “The task is so enormous that if we really thought about what we were letting ourselves in for, we’d never begin. Early on we learn to worry only about what we do today. If I get my two or three pages written on Monday my day’s work is done. It’s useless to worry about Friday or four years from Friday. Pages need our attention; books take care of themselves.”
I’m going to remember that.

But (isn’t there always a big but somewhere?), those three or four pages are like pulling teeth. I can’t turn off my inner editor and just throw words on a page.  Even so, my once grand idea begins to sound like crap. Here’s another quote by another award-winning author Ann Patchett that sums up my feelings exactly. She said, “The way I write, I have a novel in my head for a long time that I think about, and in those months it is so beautiful, so incredibly profound . . . The novel in my imagination travels with me like a small lavender moth making loopy circles around my head.”  She said, “As soon as I start to put it on the page I kill it. It always breaks my heart. For me, the greatest challenge is to stick with the book I’m writing when what I want to do is hit the delete button.”

I will strive to have her determination.

Jann: I totally understand what Ann said. I’ve been killing off story ideas left and right. I’m going with the concept of one hundred words (or more) a day. Author Janie Emaus who writes a weekly column on In the Powder Room ended her recent column saying, “If you’re going to follow something, follow your own heart.” http://www.inthepowderroom.com/read/home-time/2012-12-that-time-of-year-again.html
I’m going to follow my heart by completing my pledge to BIAY and longtime goal of entering the Orange Rose Contest as well.

Here’s to us and fulfilling our dreams for 2013!!
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New Year, New Writing (Calls for Submission)

December 31, 2012 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , ,

Many authors have a goal of writing in 2013. How about taking it one step further and submitting, too? Kick off the new year with some creative inspiration with these calls for submission, and if you need an extra kick in the pants – a watcher, if you dare, then I’m teaching a “Writing the Short Story for Anthology Call-Out” starting mid-January for Savvy Authors. More information below!
Cosmo Red Hot Reads
If you write romance, you had to have heard of this call. I’m already planning a submission. A super-fun short story I wrote (about 5,000 words), and never submitted anywhere. Want to finish it up, expand it, if necessary, and submit!

Cosmo Red Hot Reads from Harlequin feature contemporary, fun, sexy stories for today’s fun fearless females!
The Heroine:
  • She is the Cosmo woman: fun, fearless, female
  • She is independent
  • She does not need a man to make her life complete, but he is the icing on the cake
  • She’s adventurous and daring both in the bedroom and out!
  • She values her female friendships
  • She is focused on her career
  • Our heroine (and hero) grew up with reality TV, texting, online dating
  • She is most likely in her early to mid-twenties
  • The heroine drives the story

Key Elements:
  • Sexy romantic relationship with a satisfying ending
  • Love scenes are frequent, fun, detailed, fantasy-oriented and push the envelope
  • A strong conflict
  • Fast-paced, snappy dialogue, witty repartee
  • Strong female lead
  • A hero that you want to spend the weekend in bed with
  • Fresh, contemporary voice

Stories Can/Will: Include multiple points of view; be told in first person; be contemporary (but not paranormal please!); urban international settings are good; heroes can be bad boys, successful entrepreneurs, geeky scientists—different flavors of men for different fantasies.
Stories are 25,000–30,000 words, 2 titles a month, digital first, launching late spring/early summer 2013. For more information, visit http://www.harlequin.com/articlepage.html?articleId=1784&chapter=0
ROUGH & TUMBLE
Theme: Fight Clubs, Tattooed Warriors, Muscled Bad Boys
From fight clubs to medieval warriors, dueling cowboys to tattooed mercenaries, what happens when the tough fall hard. Silver Publishing is looking for stories involving those hot men we love to read about. What happens when the mighty fall?
Boxers, ninjas, medieval warriors, gladiators, bouncers –the list goes on and on. Submission close: Feb. 1, 2013. Click on the link for word count, character pairing, cover info, release date and more! http://sp-pub.com/fKOWq
YA Suspense and then Some!

Theme:  Goosebumps Galore!
Do you have a story that will have readers looking over their shoulders and double checking their doors? We want your most spine tingling tales… truly suspenseful stories only involving young adults. Everything from edge of your seat to horror is welcome!


• 15k+ words
• Romance and Non-Romance
• All Genres
• No sexually explicit content



Submission Deadline: January 5, 2013

Release Date: May 25, 2013. While this deadline is really soon – more for those almost done, they also have an YA Fantasy & Adventure call due March 23.
Note: at its base, every story within the Young Adult section should involve issues important to young adults—these can be directly related to the storyline or sub-plots that they young adult tackles along the way. No topic is considered taboo as it relates to this age group; however, sensitive topics require sensitive treatment, so please keep that in mind as you craft your stories.

For more information, visit https://silverstreampress.com/pages-title-page-42/?zenid=0cdaab6ef5d4e450a949f705b702636c
BDSM Anthology(ies) 
Secret Cravings Publishing is putting together a BDSM Anthology. Depending on how many stories accepted, this anthology may come out in volumes, as many as needed to get the smutty, romantic goodness to the masses. Here’s what I want: BDSM stories of any flavor from uber-kink (keeping the rules of publisher in mind regarding scat, rape, etc) to light vanilla, first-time play. Anywhere from your most Dom males to femdom to menage to an orgy, if you can pull it off and are so inclined. Even bondage out of this world on some foreign planet. Or a world of your own creation where BDSM rules the land ala The Sleeping Beauty series. Any sub-genre, mystery, paranormal, contemp, etc. I want intelligent, hot, tension filled erotic romance or erotica with a HFN or HEA ending. So long as you keep me reading every word from the first page, whether it hurts so good or tickles like a feather is all up to you. Due March 1.

Caveats:
No M/M pairings
Submissions must be 15-20k in length
Steamy to burning the page stories wanted, nothing behind closed doors here
Submissions must be formatted in SCP House Style upon submission
Usual no-no’s apply regarding rape, bestiality, scat, necrophilia, etc. Send all submissions to faithsommerseditor@gmail.com
For more information on submission guidelines, visit http://store.secretcravingspublishing.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=6&zenid=5f20023ff157c552b1e3d26413896c3e
Riverdale Avenue Books (RAB) – New Publisher
Riverdale Pop is our pop culture line. We are actively looking for both authorized and unauthorized biographies of celebrities who have captured the cultural spotlight, mostly current, but a blast from the past might be occasionally appropriate. We will also be publishing books about favorite TV shows, movies, and pop cultural phenomenon.

Riverdale/Magnus is our LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) imprint. We are looking for titles, both fiction and nonfiction, in a wide variety of areas, including popular culture, entertainment, biography/memoir, self-help, spirituality, and current affairs, among others.

Riverdale Desire is our erotica and erotic romance imprint. We are looking for works of fiction from 50,00 to 65,000 words that explore either the erotic journey (erotica) or the quest for satisfaction with a happy ending or at least a happy–for-now ending. We will consider anthologies as well as novellas of between 20,000 and 40,000 words.
We are looking for erotica and erotic romance in the following subgenres: contemporary, historical, male/male (m/m,) female/female (f/f), ménage, paranormal (especially vampires, weres and zombies) and BDSM (especially novels featuring dominant women).

Riverdale Truth is our erotic memoir imprint. We are looking for true stories of erotic exploration and adventures from midlife dating to the life of a swinger. This is nonfiction, but we will consider anonymous memoir. We will consider anthologies as well.

Riverdale HSF is our horror, science fiction and fantasy line. We are looking for game- changing fiction in these categories. If anyone has ever read anything like your book before, we don’t want it; we want you to blow us away.
For submission guidelines, and more information, visit http://www.riverdaleavebooks.com
~*~*~*
The first time I taught Writing the Short Story for Savvy Authors last January, a handful of students went on to have their stories final in contests or get published. A half-dozen “repeat offenders” have already told me they’re signed up. I look forward to keeping that track record going!
Writing the Short Story for Anthology Call-out
http://www.savvyauthors.com/vb/showevent.php?eventid=1713
Jan. 14-Feb. 10, 2013
Beginning writers are often told to: “Write the story you want to read, not what someone else might want to see.” This class, instead, deals with catering a short story specifically to a publisher’s request for submissions. Regularly, editors and publishers list upcoming anthologies and the types of stories they’re looking to include. 
The course will explore current call-outs, and students will be encouraged to write specifically for one anthology and to submit the work at the end of the course. Basic crafting of a short story, such as development, characterization, plot structure & dialogue also will be covered. Since most short stories fall within 2,500 to 5,000 words, we’ll also look at ways to making word choice count and the editing process.
— Louisa Bacio
http://louisabacio.blogspot.com

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New Year, New You

December 26, 2012 by in category Archives tagged as , ,

An OCCRWA Online Class with Laurie Schnebly Campbell

January 2 – January 29, 2013

Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassJan13.html

COST: $20 for OCCRWA members, $30 for non-members
If you have specific questions, email occrwaonlineclass@yahoo.com

ABOUT THE CLASS:

Whether it’s the first rejection, the 50th-book slump, or just not getting the story you want, frustration is part of every writer’s life. For some, it’s a nuisance; for others, it’s the end of a career.

For anyone determined to make 2013 a Better Writing Year, this class offers both practical and psychological techniques for dealing with rejection, writer’s block, frustration, motivation, and other issues that keep writers from loving their craft.

Writers finish with new awareness of what WORKS for them, and with renewed inspiration for returning to the craft they love.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

Back when Laurie Schnebly Campbell was getting her master’s in counseling, she’d never heard of writer’s block or bad reviews. A few years later when she began writing novels — including one that beat out Nora Roberts for “Best Special Edition of the Year” — she realized that all those lessons came in handy for everyday life. Now she’s been writing and teaching for 15 years, and still loves every minute of it.

Enrollment Information

Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassJan13.html
COST: $20 for OCCRWA members, $30 for non-members

Coming in February 2013
Plot Doctor: Fixing Your Story Problems
with Kara Lennox

Do you create wonderful, three-dimensional characters who then stumble around blindly in your book, trying to find a story?  In this workshop, Kara Lennox will cover the fifteen most common plot problems, both how to spot them and how to fix them.

Want to be notified personally two weeks before each class? Be sure you’re signed up for our Online Class Notices Yahoo Group! Sign up at the bottom of http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclasses.htmlor send a blank email to OCCRWAOnlineClassNotices-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Does Anybody Really Care

December 19, 2012 by in category Archives tagged as , , ,

Mona Karel

In the iconic cartoon strip ‘Peanuts,’ Lucy van Pelt explains how one needs to be careful to hold the bat with the trademark in a certain position so it’s not damaged by the ball.  She maintains that hold on the bat while the pitcher sends one…two…three balls right past her and she’s struck out.  As she leaves the plate, she brags to Charlie Brown “See, I held the bat the right way and it’s fine!”  Poor Charlie Brown.
How often do we feel like Lucy, being so careful to follow every rule of writing.  To Show Not Tell; NEVER Head Hop; ALWAYS identify our speaker. And so on.  Only to find a head hopping sloppily written book is burning up the Amazon sales.
Why?
And why isn’t your perfectly written book selling well?
If I knew the answer I’d be busting all those Amazon sales figures myself.  We could blame luck.  We could blame the fickleness of the reading public.  Or we could take a step back and analyze what people read for.  Except for writers, how many people actually read to critique the written word?  Sure they’ll comment on an author changing their character’s name (or sex!) halfway through the book. But as long as a reader can believe in the requisite HEA the rest is all window dressing.
I’m not suggesting we abandon the rules of grammar. Nor should we blow Point of View out of the water (darnit).  But maybe we who worry about every misplaced participle and perfect use of punctuation need to worry first about the worlds we build, and the people who live in them.  Then we can paint the fences awesome colors and polish the sidewalks until they gleam.
Maybe we need to swing for a bases loaded home run, and risk cracking the bat.

Mona Karel writes books for Monica Stoner and when no one is looking she roll your eyes back in your head from trying to follow the head hopping.

Secret Santa Blog Hop Day TwoBTW, there’s still time to participate in the Secret Santa Blog Hop, and who wouldn’t like to find this guy coming down their chimney? Grand Prize is a Kindle Fire, next is an Amazon gift card, plus a lot of other goodies.  Many of the participants offer individual prizes on their blog.  I’m sharing the secret to home made vanilla extract, complete with pictures, plus other prizes.  That’s at Mona’s Final Secret Santa Blog

You need to head to Tabitha Blake’s to gather up lots of chances for those prizes, and that’s here: Blog Hop Central From Tabitha’s blog you can hop out to the other participants, some of whom are OCC members.

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