Update on The Lockdown & More Harassment & Vandelism

We spent the last 2 days calling everyone under the sun, trying to find out what the hell is going on, but we can’t get through to anyone; they are just giving us the run around again, putting us on hold, directing our calls to someone else who in turn directs them to someone else, who has no idea why we were directed to them and hangs up with a “Sorry”.

Well, since no one well tell us what’s going on, we just went ahead and broke down the barricade. Well wonders never cease? Now that we’ve gotting back in to see the damage, I can honesty say I hope these jackasses die a long slow death. The bastards stole my grandmother’s stamp collection. They tore the pages out of a second stamp book, keeping the pages that had stamps on them. They also stole the comb my dad’s uncle brought back from PNG when he was one of the soliders who was there and discovered that people lived their back in 1937. They also stole the photos of the uncle. They smashed my other grandmother’s gold and glass anniversay clock that she brought to America with her from Germany. To top it all off the bastards took my records and it looks like they used them for frisbies, they are strewn from one end of the house to the other, several of them broken.

We still don’t know who is behind this, but who ever they are I hope they die soon, so that they well have a longer time to burn in hell.

~~EK

Harassment Update: Lockdown?

I’m not sure I understand what it is they are up to this time, but now we are not allowed on our land??? We are being told it is being auctioned off! ?????? WHAT! Aren’t we supposed to at least get a 30 day notice or something? I don’t get it.

~~EK

Need to Kill Writer’s Block? Kill a Character.

Do you find you have a great story going,  than suddenly without warning writer’s block stops you dead in your tracks? I have found that if you want to kill writer’s block, kill a character. The death of a character (one already in use or one you created just to kill) changes everything in the story, and gives you new challanges.

In my books, when in doubt, I create a new character, and than bring back my psycopathic serial killer (The Red Dragon) who is supposed to be in an aysulum but some how escaped, killed the new character and left the body all over The Manor. The result is Roderic gets to go off on one of his crazed “my house kills people” frenzies (I have so much fun writing those!), while everyone else racks their brains trying to figure out how the killer escaped, why did he kill this person, how did he get back in the asylum, and who the hell is the dead person anyways?

As I never know who the “new” character was, and the body is chopped up beyond recognision, and I don’t know why he did it, I therefor get to solve the mystery right along with the characters.

yep, killing a character always works for me, ever when I never “met” the character before.

~~EK

Star Gazing Pie or Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

I think the question that every writer hears the most is: Where do you get your ideas? The answers are as varied as the writers who give the answers. For me the answer is every where in every thing. Case in point:

I like to go to WalMart and read the names of the colors on the paint chip samples… it’s weird, I know, but I get some great story ideas from them.

Another strange place where I get ideas is from cookbooks. in fact one thing that stands out in several of my books is Etiole`s  favorite food: Star Gazing Pie.

Probably the strangest thing to ever occur in my Twighlight Manor books, is The Star Gazing Pie that shows up in every story that used Etiole`.

There is a story behind this. I was in a dentists office in the 80’s and was reading the gourmet cooking magazines that were in his office (why a dentist had gourmet cooking magazines in his waiting room I do not know). One of the magazines was a large almost book-like French magazine (we live in a French community, so books and magazines imported from France are not an unusal thing to see around here— and how I come to collect Picsou Geant comic books). The magazine was filled with these great French dishes that look impossible to make and must be heaven to eat, and than I saw the most bizarre thing I had ever seen in my entire life: a recipe for Star Gazing Pie. It’s enough to make you sick, and not a recipe I would ever have expeced to see, just the perfect thing for a family of vampire-like creatures living in a haunted house.

Star Gazing Pie is sea-food that is literaly see-food. A fish pie that is decorated with nothing less than the eyes of the fish that was baked inside. There they were, staring up at the stars, eyes carefully placed ontop of the freshly baked pie…  REAL EYES all glassy and looking like something straight off Tales From The Crypt.

At first I was horrified, but than I was intreeged and after reading the article about the resturant in France that served this strange dish, I knew right than and there that it was perfect for my French male siren Etiole`. Since that day, never a story can be written about Etiole, that does not at some point feature mention of Star Gazing Pie.

 So you see, ideas came come to you in the strangest of places and when you least expect them, al you have to do is keep your eyes toward the star and have an open mind.

~~EK

My Favorite Books

Here is a list of my favorite books, of books I own. You can create your own list here too. Lists up to 200 books are free.

Update: The Stolen House of Maine

Interesting thing happened today. We got home about 2 hours earlier than usual. We may now have a suspect in for who has been moveing stuff around the yard and opening the hen gate these last couple of weeks.

For those of you who remember the “Stolen House of Maine”  Our house, the one that so long ago was the start of the years of harassment that our family has had to withstand. It all started in 2001 with a house. Our house, the one that made front page news the day we came home to find an empty lot: our house as my long time readers already know, was cut in half and than moved 50 miles away where it was sold to a man who in turn sold it to something else. This resulted in a grueling 3 year court battle between us and the pastor who stole our house: Pastor Bernard Elliot of The Arundel Christian Tabernacle. Since the court battle we had not heard from him, but today, his wife Evelyn, stopped out front of our “still houseless” yard. We do not know why she was here, she drove off when I started down the driveway to see what she wanted. It dose raise the question, of just who exactly it is behind the harassment we have recieved from our very “religious” town manager,  Jim Thomas . (and ours is not the first they have done this to, they have a long history of doing this!)

I just have to wonder why are the Elliot’s back? What do they want with us? Haven’t they done enough damage already? Why won’t they leave us alone? These people are the ones who lefts pictures of guns on our door, way back in the summer of 2002. The Elliot’s are the ones who paint balled our car. They are the ones who took an axe to signs that stood on our land. They are the ones that caused us to need police protection for 3 long and terrifying years. Three years that my family spent in such terror that we dared not go to the store, because these people were stalking us, we meet them everywhere we went. That was yearws ago. We thought they had stopped, but when they did, that’s when the town manager and his crew started harassing us instead. We had thought that the two things, these two very differant episodes of unexplained harassment had been two seperate incedents. Now it seems that they are together, one and the same that the harssment from the town has been nothing more than an extention of the harsement from the Elliot’s.

Why? Whay are they doing this? What reason could they possibly have for this torture?

Spring is here

Today my  little brother found a snake under a board. Cute little thing, not quite out of hibernation, cause I picked him up to move him, and he stayed coiled up. We moved him over to the woodpile where he wouldn’ be in danger of being stepped on. You can tell that spring has arrived when you see a snake, because they won’t surface untiol after the danger of frost is past.

National TV-Turnoff Week, April 23-29

Today is the first day of  National TV-Turn Off Week, April 23-29

I have decided to write a list of 101 things for you to do during this week of no TV, should you decide to take on the challange.

1. Go for a walk on the beach.
2. Read a book.
3. Write a book in 7 days.
4. Volunteer at the local  animal shelter.
5. Do a crossword puzzle.
6. Dress up like a pirate.
7. Buy a camera and use it.
8. Play an hours-long game of Monopoly.
9. Grow a crystal garden.
10. Catalog your book collection useing the Dewey Decimal System.
11. Plan a family budget.
12. Go on a camping trip.
13. Plant a vegetable garden.
14. Watch the stars.
15. Sew, knit, or crochet a blanket for a cause (Snuggles, Linus Foundation, etc.)
16. Raise a family of sea monkeys.
17. Answer all those unread emails.
18. Pay your bills.
19. Start a petition.
20. Take your family out to a fancy resturant.
21. Look for BigFoot.
22. Take in a foster pet.
23. Spend a few hours browsing in your local library.
24. Donate pet food to a local shelter.
25. Take a walk around the block.
26. Have a chat with your mom or dad.
27. Go fishing.
28. Organize your DVD collection.
29. Build a personal website.
30. Write a short story for a fiction magazine.
31. Volunteer at the local  soup kitchen.
32. Go sight-seeing.
33. Put the pictures into the photo albums.
34. Throw a “Just-As-You-Are” party.
35. Attempt to prove aliens are real.
36. Visit a local museum.
37. Take your family to an all you can eat buffet.
38. Invent something new.
39. Start to tackle the list of projects that has been getting longer.
40. Head to an amusment park.
41. Take a cruise.
42. Sew a new dress.
43. Get a family photo taken.
44. Take a child to the zoo.
45. Write a letter to someone you haven’t seen in a while.
46. Attend an art show.
47. Vacuum the car.
48. Refinish an old piece of furniture.
49. Write an article for a non-fiction magazine.
50. Go boating.
51. Start a blog.
52. Attend a book reading.
53. Solve a mystery: play a game of Clue.
54. Visit with someone in a nursing home.
55. Go to the circus.
56. Head to your local swamp to pick fiddleheads.
57. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.
58. Take a hike in the woods.
59. Visit an art gallery.
60. Open an online store (Zazzle, CafePress, etc.).
61. Take swimming lessons.
62. Quit smoking.
63. Plant a tree.
64. Cook a gourmet dinner.
65. Help your child with his/her homework.
66. Play a game of basketball.
67. Go birdwatching.
68. Wash the windows.
69. Get a makeover.
70. See a play.
71. Repaint your living room.
72. Read a story to a child.
73. Paint a masterpiece.
74. Go on a picnic.
75. Read a comic book.
76. Start a new career.
77. Organize a family reunion.
78. Study up on your family history.
79. Go on a diet.
80. Sing a song.
81. Write a poem.
82. Bake a cake.
83. Go horseback riding.
84. Set up an aquarium.
85. Write a letter to a prisoner.
86. Take up a new hobby, such as stamp collecting.
87. Spend the week looking for UFO’s.
88. Go rock climbing.
89. Dye your hair blue.
90. Wax your car.
91. Redecorate your bedroom.
92. Play video games with your child.
93. Write a business plan for your dream job.
94. Take dance lessons.
95. See a ballet.
96. Buy a box of crayons and draw.
97. Design your dream-house.
98. Make home-made ice-cream.
99. Dress-up and go to the opera.
100. Take you family out to a movie.
101. Visit a haunted house.
102. Write a list of a 101 things you can do.

Quote: “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” —Groucho Marx 

Harassment Continues…

Once again we came home to find that someone had tresspassed onto our land and let the hens lose. You know, I’m really getting sick of this. Whoever is doing this, it is not funny, and the fact that it happens again and again, makes it go beyound annoying. I’d really like to find out who is doing this and why. I don’t take to kindly to people endangering my pets.

~~EK

Twighlight Manor Research: Two Heads

Those who know my Twighlight Manor series,  know that it’s prime villain, The Red Dragon (as he calls himself) is a man with 2 faces and 4 arms; a conjoined twins born during the 1600’s and treated like animals, who as adults became the mass murder (s) behind the bloodbath that took place within the walls of The Manor, forever marking it as a cuesed house. While the series’ most notorious and bloody villain, I do not use him very often in my stories. I am currently working on editing “Love, Lust, Madness” , and (spoiler) The Red Dragon has resurfaced in this story, after not being used in a Twighlight Manor story, since Sir Roderic’s “accident” in 1984.

Well, seeing how I’ll being useing the Red Dragon once again, after so long of not writing about him, I decided to do some research into his “deformity”  in hopes of learning possibly why he was born as he was, and to thus better write about him. Well, in 1984 I had not the internet, so I was very limited in my research about his birth. In the end I was only able to find referances to this type of birth happening twice, both in Russia, and both in the early 1900’s, and this info came to me from Guiness World Records. Now I have the internet and just seconds into my search I cam across info about Abigail and Brittany Hensel. OMG! I have never seen real pictures of anyone like this before! When I created the Red Dragon, I had no idea that it was even possible that anyone could be born like this! I don’t know why, but seeing these girls, just changed my way of thinking about The Red Dragon. I have had a hard time writing him into my stories, becaused his deforminty seemed so unplusible. I think I may start useing him more often

~~EK

pet food recall update: HUMAN FOOD BEING RECALLED!!!!!!!!!

Remember when I wrote this post and questioned what would happen; the effects of farm animals eating tainted food ; being a poultry farmer, my post focused on chicken not pork, but news that corn was now effected, and chickens eat corn one thing lead to another and I started questioning what we feed our chickens…. PORK from pigs that have eaten tainted food, has now been added to the recall!!!
Reading this post lead me to:
Pet Food Contamination Scandal Spreads to Pork, FDA Opens Criminal Investigation.

You know what this is staring to sound like? Biological warfare.

New Book Projects, Job Searches, & Seventh Sanctum

You may have noticed that the past couple of days, I have not been posting as often as I was; from 4 or 5 posts a day to about one every other day. There is a reason, quite simple. I got an idea for a new book, and spent the last few days researching it. As ever, one thing lead to another and now I’ve got ideas for three new books and have been working on them all at once. Of course, me writing longhand means I wasn’t online, meaning I was not here to blog. Sorry.

Other reason, is I’m still out searching for a job type job, but have yet to find one. As usual I am told that businesses just won’t hire someone who had never been to school, or someone my age who has never had a job before. (Apperantly, 7 years as a door to door salesman for Avon, doesn’t count as a job, nor does 27 years of writing… or so I’m told by interviewers.) It is getting quite depressing, as I have been seeking a job since May of 2006 and now May 2007 is just around the corner and still all of my endless applications and interviews have turned up nothing. I’m now having a hard time finding places that I have not yet applied to. I feel like I’ve run up against a brick wall, cause I’m still intent on finding a job, yet I can not find any place that I have not already been turned down.

Well, after a day of searching classified ads and online job searches, I have given it a rest for the night and am back here to say hi to you all and let you know what I’d been doing and thinking. Columbo is on TV right now, so I’m gonna go watch that now, after which I’ll be heading to Seventh Sanctum in search of some ideas for my 3 new book projects. Seventh Sanctum is such a great site, I get loads of ideas from them. If you haven’t checked them out yet, be sure to do so.

~~EK

Choosing a Topic to Write About: Are You Enthusiastic About the Idea?

Writers are sentimental about their writing, but are they enthusiastic about it? You have found a topic to write about, but you don’t know if it’s one you really want to write about. How can you tell if you should use it as your next topic? Just ask yourself this: Am I sentimental or enthusiastic about the idea? Does it matter?

 

Do not mistake sentiment for enthusiasm. They are not the same things. Don’t believe me? Let’s ask the dictionary:

Sentiment: noun

1.) Tender, romantic, or nostalgic feeling or emotion

2.) A personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty

Enthusiasm: noun

1.) A feeling of excitement

2.) Overflowing with enthusiasm

3.) A lively interest

A tender romantic emotion that evokes nostalgia vs. a lively interest filled with excitement. So how does this affect you the writer? Think of it this way: You may have sentiment for an old faded Valentine, but do you have enough enthusiasm about it to write a story about the Valentine and how it came to mean so much to you? It holds a warm place in your heart, and you well never throw it away, but do you burn with the feverish desire to tell the world about it?

 

Now think about your readers. Your reader has no sentimental attachment to your Valentine, if they saw it, they’d probably toss it in the trash, for it means nothing to them at all. Would they read about it? Well that depends on how you write the story, doesn’t it? If you spend you’re times mooning over the Valentine and its sentimentalness, most likely your reader well toss the story aside calling it a load of sentimental tripe.

 

Sentimental tripe. Yep, that’s what kills many a story. People don’t want to read sentimental tripe that moons and simpers over days gone by and the writer’s obsession with their own past. The reader wants to know the hows and whys behind the Valentine. They want the facts, every juicy detail. The Valentine in and of itself is not enough to keep the reader reading, there has to be something more. Think of the Valentine as the skeleton, the bones of the story upon which you must build up the muscle and flesh to give it substance. Write a story about the sentiment of the Valentine and bore your readers to tears. How do you correct that? With enthusiasm. Question is, do you have it?

 

Your reader wants to know how the Valentine became sentimental. They want to know how the Valentine came into the possession of your character. They want to read about the chain of events that caused it to become a sentimental item. Write a story about the Valentine and how it came to be important TO YOUR MAIN CHARACTER. Instead of sentimental mooning you have vibrant enthusiasm. You have a character, not yet turned sentimental. Now the reader has a reason to want to read about the Valentine. They can see a character that has feelings and emotions just like them. They can become the character and feel what the character feels when he feels it.

 

But are you truly enthusiastic about your idea? Do you burn with the desire to write it? Do you feel that you cannot exist until you have spread the word throughout the entire world? Does a fiery passion to tell everyone everywhere about your story, drive you forward? That is enthusiasm, and that is what you need to tell a great story. Leave the sentiment behind, and let your story burn with passion, let that passion fill your soul; pour your soul into the story.

 

 

Treespassers OR Harassers?

I am getting really sick and tired of this. Once again we came home tonight to find that vandals  have been here. This time they took a wheelbarrle and left it across the path AND once again they have opened the gate and I found myself spending 2 hours looking for missing hens and roosters. I wish I knew who it was that is doing this. One hen got killed by a hawk because of these bastards. They are in a fenced in yard for a reason! To keep them safe from predators! I want my hands around their necks, and I want to know why are they doing this to us. Where is the logic in any of this? What is wrong with these people? Who the hell are they? What do they want? Sick bastards who  ever they are. Sooner or later they’ll slip up and we’ll chatch them in the act.

~EK

Why Do You Blog?

 Why do you blog? That is a very good question. I’m glad you asked, cause it makes me stop and evaluate myself. I like doing that. Now I have to stop and think. Why do I blog? Okay, let’s see.

I think it’s a “multi-task” reason. First off, I started blogging because I just wanted to have a place where I could talk about any subject that popped into my head. At the time I had just started building websites, and I found out than how longwinded I could get. No, that’s not true…. I already knew how longwinded I was. I’ve have pen-pals since the 1980’s, more than 70 of them from all over the world. My average letter to each person was 20 pages long and I wrote on both sides for a total of 40 written pages. I wrote a letter a day, on top of my fiction/book writing. I was a teenager in the 1980’s and I was writing to other teenagers. Sadly, one by one, my pen-pals grew up, got married, had kids, and eventually we all stopped writing to each other. I went from writing to 70 people to writing to 2 people. I started feeling very lonely. I transfred from pen snail mail to email in 1997. By 2004 blogging was becoming the “in thing” so I tried it out as well, and it quickly took the place of my pen-pal writing.

So, I guess you could say, blogging was my way of communicating to people worldwide, when pen-paling went out of fashion. Like when I was pen-palling though, I keep my blogging and my book/fiction writing separate. I do not think of them as the same things. One I do because I’m obsessively compelled to write about the characters that are in my head, I have to get them out on paper, otherwise I’d never be able to do anything else; I have never felt that I had control over my books, but that the characters themselves take over.

The other (blogging) I do, because I am driven by the desire to just talk about whatever topic I may want to talk about. As those who have today, meet me face-to face know, my actual ability to speak is rather limited due to the fact I grew up in a family where speaking was almost forbidden, and topics one could talk about were limited to The Bible or the Book of Mormon and pretty much nothing else. The result was I rebelled against them by writing to people outside the confines of our family: pen-pals and later blogging.

Last year when I got my job at Macy’s I was faced with something I had never anticipated: the telephone. This is not a thing that I had used more than a couple of times in my entire life. The first few times it rang, I did not answer and my boss was quite upset with me. I had not realized that I was supposed to answer, she had not told me that use of a phone was to be part of my job, and when I did answer it, I found it very difficult to use, never having used one before. This causde me to be chided by the other girls who I worked with, girls 10 to 15 years younger than me, girls who asked, how can you have never used a phone before? Girls who found reason to force me to speak as a result. My answer was quite simple, I have never needed to use a phone before, I don’t talk, I write. At work they questioned my working and never taking a break to talk with either costumer or worker. My answer again, was the same. I do not talk, I write, I was there to do my job, not talk, I had no reason to talk and saw it as a waste of time that distracted from my work. My job at Macy’s was my first real face-to-face contact with people outside of family or my family’s church, I had not realized how much people talk. Nor had I realized that getting a job would involve the act of talking or phoning. When I want to talk to some one I write them a letter, that is what I have always done. Now with the online world, people no longer answer my letters, they respond only to tell me their phone number or email adress, neither phone nor email I use, and so instead I write a new post on one of my 12 blogs. For me blogging is a form of communication, that takes the place of talking, talking being a thing which I don’t really like to do, simply because I’m not used to doing it. Blogging is, for me, what I suppose you would call “talking”, which is why I do not consider blogers to be writers..

And there in lay the difference I find between blogging and writing. Writing is something that I do to write books, as I have been doing since 1978. Writing is the creation of stories, while blogging is just me talking to you. That’s why I blog, to “talk“ not to write.

My other reason to blog, is to teach people what I know about writing. Writing takes up 90% of my time. I spend about 8 hours a day asleep, 2 or 3 hours a day taking care of the animals, and the rest of those 13 hours I spend writing, either on paper for my books or online for my blogs. I have been doing this for 27 years now. My life evolves around writing, the result of my writing so much, so often, is that I’m often asked for my advice about writing, thus how my blog turned into a blog devoted to helping other to become writers and why most of the posts on my blog are devoted to teaching others how to write.

That is why I blog.

~~EK

What Is "Non-Genre"?

What Is “Non-Genre”?

Does all fiction have a genre? Nope, it does not have to have a genre to be a fiction story. Here are my views on the matter.

Many publications say they only accept “Non-Genre Fiction”. A common question writers ask is: What is Non-Genre Fiction? Doesn’t all fiction have a genre?

I had just read this post and noticed a debate over what is the meaning of Genre Fiction VS Non-Genre Fiction had begun on its comments.

Being an editor, I think I can be of help here. So, here is my answer to that question. I hope that some of you find it helpful when submitting your future stories to publishers.When a publication says, they’re non-genre focused, they mean that they only want literary fiction and will automatically refuse all stories that a genre driven. A genre driven story is one that falls under the following:
Romance
Fantasy
Sci-fi
Horror
(and the many other such genres out there)

Genre driven stories are focused largely on promotion of their genre and the story focuses totally on that genre. I.e., a romance focuses on a girl’s romantic infatuation; a fantasy will focus on the life of elves wizards and he-men type characters fighting evil in a epic quest; sci-fi focuses on alien life forms traveling from one planet to the next and other such sci-fi type things; horror focuses on scaring the pants off the reader.

When a publisher say they are non-genre focused, they want to see a slice-of-life story about the day (or week or year) in the life of so-and-so. This is what is known as non-genre or literary fiction.

The story focuses on real-life type characters in real life type situations; stories that real like they could be the life of the guy next door or the girl down the road. Non-genre stories tell a story that is not dependent on a fantasy quest or the eloquent narration describing the alien landscape or the steamy sex-scenes. They simply tell a story about life and thus have no genre.

Well, that’s what I see it to mean. Feel free to comment on your own views as to the meaning of non-genre.

~~EK

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

What Is "Non-Genre"?

What Is “Non-Genre”?

Does all fiction have a genre? Nope, it does not have to have a genre to be a fiction story. Here are my views on the matter.

Many publications say they only accept “Non-Genre Fiction”. A common question writers ask is: What is Non-Genre Fiction? Doesn’t all fiction have a genre?

I had just read this post and noticed a debate over what is the meaning of Genre Fiction VS Non-Genre Fiction had begun on its comments.

Being an editor, I think I can be of help here. So, here is my answer to that question. I hope that some of you find it helpful when submitting your future stories to publishers.When a publication says, they’re non-genre focused, they mean that they only want literary fiction and will automatically refuse all stories that a genre driven. A genre driven story is one that falls under the following:
Romance
Fantasy
Sci-fi
Horror
(and the many other such genres out there)

Genre driven stories are focused largely on promotion of their genre and the story focuses totally on that genre. I.e., a romance focuses on a girl’s romantic infatuation; a fantasy will focus on the life of elves wizards and he-men type characters fighting evil in a epic quest; sci-fi focuses on alien life forms traveling from one planet to the next and other such sci-fi type things; horror focuses on scaring the pants off the reader.

When a publisher say they are non-genre focused, they want to see a slice-of-life story about the day (or week or year) in the life of so-and-so. This is what is known as non-genre or literary fiction.

The story focuses on real-life type characters in real life type situations; stories that real like they could be the life of the guy next door or the girl down the road. Non-genre stories tell a story that is not dependent on a fantasy quest or the eloquent narration describing the alien landscape or the steamy sex-scenes. They simply tell a story about life and thus have no genre.

Well, that’s what I see it to mean. Feel free to comment on your own views as to the meaning of non-genre.

~~EK

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:

Publishing Your Novel? Find out more about Publishing Methods and did you ever wonder How to Start a Publishing Company?

Want to join Squidoo? Than you need to read EelKat’s Secrets To Squidoo Success and What Can You Do With Squidoo?

Are you seeking an online debate to join and tell the world what you think about it? Than you need to check out this List of Active Debates that are waiting for you to speak out on them!

Here is where you can find out How To Start Your Own POD Business to sell your art online and How I Became An Artist and What Art Equipment I Use and where
My Art is For Sale Online.

Pet Food Recall Update: Are Our Pet Birds Safe? Are Humans Who Eat Chicken Next?

first the wheat

now the rice and corn! is nothing safe?

scary thing is, corn is used as the base for most pelleted bird foods… I’ve already lost 5 cats to this contamination, I have over 200 pet birds, well they be in danger now too?

My family has been raising farm birds for over 300 years. The base product for Poultry Layer Pellets is CORN GLUTEN used to raise the protine levels. This brings to question:

Are our birds safe?

What about our eggs? The quality of eggs is based on what the bird eats. A hen eats fish, you get fish flavored eggs. A hen eats onions you get onion flavored eggs. On our farm we get unique chive flavored eggs after the hens have been out eating in the chive patch.  We free range, we get strange eggs as a result.

Now I’m a vegan, my hens are pets, but what about the rest of you who eat chicken?  When it comes to chicken, you really are what you eat.

In PNG there are wild hens that eat poison berries, the poison does not effect the hen, but is deadly to anyone that eats the hen. You see the poison gets into the hen’s blodstream, soaks into the flesh, and when a human comes along and kills it and cooks it, that poison is saterated into the flesh. It doesn’t take much poisoned chicken flesh to kill a grown man.

Skip ahead to today. The main ingrediant that is feed to the hens that are killed and sold to super markets and fast food resturant, is now on the list of the lastest pet food recall: Corn Gluten.

Has the contaminated corn gluten found it’s way into the Layer Pellets or Grower Pellets? If so, will super markets be selling eggs and roast chicken ala rat poison? We don’t eat cats and dogs, so humans have not been made sick by the recall, but how many of you eat chicken? How long will it be before the first human death comes?

Maybe they haven’t contaminated the bird food,  but what if they have? We know now that the dog and cat food isn’t safe.  Where well it all end?

~~EK

Read more about it here:

Insider Tip Says Corn Gluten and Rice Gluten May Also Contain Melamine

April 18th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Breaking, breaking news… A top holistic brand, Natural Balance, just voluntarily recalled four products and confirmed that they found melamine in a US-supplied rice gluten. I’m guessing corn, wheat, and rice gluten providers have long known a “dirty industry secret” of making protein content appear higher and just finally got caught.

read more | digg story

Brought to you by The Safe Pet Food Blog, http://IsYourPetFoodSafe.com
Comparison of ingredients and pricing of 11 brands:
http://teresaholladay.com/recommends/compare

EK’s Greatest Fiction Books of all Time:

I figured since everyone else on the blogosphere is makeing memes about what-have-you, and seeing how I like making lists, I might as well make a meme list of  my own. Actualy I’m going to make several of them, just cause I felt like it.

I have chosen to make this an alphabetical rather than “top 10″ list, because each of these books is equaly great and merits the #1 spot. I know I have forgotten to include some great books, so I plan to come back and add more to this list once I remember which books it is that I forgot to add.

So, now you are wondering, how is this a meme list, well, I’m getting to that part right now.

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The Greatest Books of All Times Blog Meme:

Here’s how it works:

Just copy this post to your blog, keeping these instructions intact, and making changes as follows:

1) remove my name from the title and add your name or the name of your blog instead.
_____’s Greatest Books of All Time:

2.) remove my books from the list and add your book choices instead. How many books you list is not important, it could be as few as 3 or as many as 100 or any amount in between.

3.) add the URL of your blog to the list of blogs that are displaying this meme.

EK’s Greatest Books of all Time:

Today’s meme list is what I feel are the greatest works of fiction ever created. I chose these books based on how much I enjoyed reading them, how well I was able to itentify with the characters, and how good I felt the author’s writing style was. You may choose to agree or disagree with my choices. If you like or dislike any books on my list, I’d love to hear why you liked it or not.  Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of my choices. If you like this Meme why not add it to your blog so people will link back to you as well?

• A Christmas Carol
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The Three Investigators (series)
• Alice Trough the Looking Glass
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Attaaack!
• Dracula
• Harry Potter (series)
• His Majesty McDuck
• Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy (all 5)
• Nancy Drew (series)
• Phantom of the Opera
• Retief (series)
• Return to Plain Awful
• Scrooge McDuck His Life and Times
• The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
• The Three Muskateers
• Treasure Island

Add the link to your blog here:
1.) http://blogmemes.wordpress.com
2.) http://eelkat.wordpress.com
3.) …add your URL here…

You may choose to display one of the following buttons in your sidebar or on your links page, but that is not required.

Copyright 2007 Wendy C. Allen a.k.a. EelKat

This meme may be copied and reposted on any blog or website as long as the above copyrighlight line and the two button banners remain intact with the rest of the post.

Bloggers are not writers

Writers ask me this: “Why was my work rejected, all my blog buddies loved it!”. So, what? Just because you blog doesn’t mean you can write. Being a blogger does not make you a writer. Being a blogger make you a blogger. Same with RPG. RPGers hack out a few phrases of fan-fiction dialouge for a single character and it goes to their head and they go off telling every one they are a writer. Like hell they are. Bloggers and RPGers fan themselves with vain praises than bitch and moan when editor after editor throws the work back in their face and tells them it’s no good. They can’t understand why. Why? I’ll tell you why. The differance between a writer and a blogger/RPGer is the same as the differance between a tiny stream and the Grand Caynon.

This guy sums it up nicely. According to Zoltan, the writing squirrel:

The Rules- If you write, they must be followed.

Here are the rules I believe in, and that I use when I write and critique:

 

1- Please use proper grammar. If you dont care enough about your work to take the time to polish it and make it right, then I dont care enough to read it.

2- Please use proper punctuation. Same as above.

3- Please dont tell me its my fault that I “Didn’t get it.” Its the writers responsibility to make me understand, and to make me feel pleased as a reader. Period.

4- Please know how to write. You must understand exposition, good dialogue, pacing, plot and all of the other elements that are mandatory for a good story.

5- Edit before you post.

6- Show me, dont tell me.

7- Please avoid first person, at all costs, unless your writing skills are excellent. “I said…” “I feel that…” “I walked along…” When done poorly, first person seems like a list of actions, or at best, a live journal entry. Use third person, please

 

Once the above rules have been met, the more serious and constructive criticism comes into play:

8- Take your time. Make each sentence say something, and further more, mean something to the next sentence, to the paragraph, to the next paragraph, to the page, to the chapter, and to the whole story.

9- You must edit your work. Read it aloud to yourself. Surprisingly, that points out a lot of mistakes that only reading it wont do. Go paragraph by paragraph. Does it make sense? Did you contradict something you said or established earlier? Is it necessary?

10- Dont drag something out. Describe a setting, give us a mental picture, and move on. Find a happy medium between over-description and over-simplification, and stay there.

11- Write honest dialogue. You should never write something that you cant picture saying. I dont mean content wise, im talking about form:

-”Would thee accompany me to thine own home?” That makes me cringe.

-”Can I walk you home?” “Would you care for an escort home?” those are much better.

Also, dont write in slang. Its sloppy, and no one wants to read it.

12- Write good characters. Who am I investing my emotions in? Why should I do so? Who can I identify with? One sided, stereotypical cardboard characters are far too common. Give people personality; humanize them; and above all, make them evoke some sort of emotional response from me, the reader. Action and words should tell us all we need to know about them, not by the writer describing the words or actions.

Show different sides of your characters. Good guys do bad things, and bad guys usually have one or two decent qualities. Show us exactly that, and make it seem more real to us. We need to identify with everyone you write, even if its in some small way.

13- Avoid clichÃ?. Tempting bar wench’s; Silent, brooding men at arms; Young farm boys that hold the key to everything; The wise old wizard who helps a clueless groups of would be hero’s along; The evil tyrant, who lives only to do evil deeds…Sure, you have to tread on familiar ground sometimes, but be original. Write it in your own way.

14- Establish a setting. Can we feel the world youre creating? Are we drawn in by it, or are you simply telling us about it?

15- What is the point of the story? You dont have to say that right away, but foreshadowing is good. A hint of what is to come. Does everything you have written, serve the story as a whole? You can always go back and add some foreshadowing that will serve a purpose later.

16- Dont lose focus. Know what youre writing, where youre heading, and have a reasonable idea about where you will end up. Then, spend the length of your story taking us there. Not too fast as to miss things, or make them seem trivial, but not too slow as to bet anxious or bored.

17- Please be subtle. Dont tell us everything straight out. Dont be blatant about things. Let us discover things on our own, even if we draw the wrong conclusion. Dont make things over obvious if youre waiting to give them away or explain them down the road. Write it, then let it breathe.

18-Know your story. Why is Tom angry? Where did Alanna get her name? “Where did Krieger get his sword? Nothing just happens. You dont have to tell us everything, and in some cases you flat out shouldnt, but you should always know and from that knowledge, you will write a better story. Keep us guessing and wondering at the little things. Dont spoon feed us everything. Its like a musician explaining his song; In the same way that what he knows about its origin made it what it is, while the way I interpreted it made it my own.

19-Make sure you are consistent throughout your work. Dont jump back and forth between tenses; dont insert plot devices simply to give the characters something to do;

20- Be mindful of the POV (Point of view) in which youre writing. When writing from different characters POV’s, make sure that what they are thinking is true to them. Make them have their own personalities. Each person should have their own views, rationale, and way of thinking. Your main character should be the POV you use the most, although switching to others is good from time to time. It keeps things fresh, and can add mystery, especially if you show a POV from a less than favorable character or a villain.

21- Stay true to the genre youre writing in. Dont be clichÃ? and unoriginal, just be reasonable and give the reader something in the ballpark of what they expect. Dont add a robot into a fantasy story. For the most part, stick with convention.

22- Themes. All good stories will represent how you view things, and how you feel about the world around you. What is the theme of your story? Does the tone lend itself to the theme? As a reader, if I identify with the theme or message, I will surely want to read on, and will most likely enjoy doing so.

23- Plot. Is there conflict? Is there tension? Do the characters actually serve a purpose? the structure should look like this: A conflict arises, things go right, things go wrong, the characters react, things conclude, then you wrap it all up. That is obviously a loose structure, but basically it holds true. The fun part is fleshing those parts out, and adding your personal touches in between them.

24- End your chapters in a dynamic way. Whether with an event, a revelation, or a dramatic sentence or two, make me say “Ok, ill read just one more chapter.” Thatâs just a thing I like to do, and further more, that I like to read.

 

A strong theme, an engrossing plot, proper structure and form, identifiable and human characters, a familiar setting, and an attractive style; these are all needed with no exception.

 

While most of these are concrete rules of writing, some of them arenât, and all of them are my opinions. My opinions may not be shared by all. Then again, if someone doesnât think that the above needs to be followed, they most likely should be writing in the first place.

12:37 PM – 4 Comments – 4 Kudos – Add Comment

He doesn’t say if he was the creator of this list or not, but I’m assuming that he is. I’ve been telling writers this same thing for years. Glad to see others have a head on their shoulders.

Are bloggers writers? Yes writers can be bloggers, but think of it this way:

How many blogs did  you take home from the library last week?

~~EK

Star Log’s Blog Carnival for Writers

I have spent the last couple of hours browsing through Blog Carnivals. I love them.  They are such a great way to find new blogs to read. Well, I submitted several posts from Star Log to some of the carnivals. When browseing the carnival index though, I was disapointed to find that more than half of those aimed at writers have been shut down and are no longer taking new submissions.

In light of that info, I am now starting a new one, to be posted on an ongoing basis here at Star Log. I have decided to hold 12 carnivals a year, one each month. Submissions are open and accepted year ’round.

The overall theme is blog posts of interest to writers. What I am looking for are posts (written by you and posted on your blog), that offer advice to writers of all levels. The prime focus being on fiction stories, though all advice for writers is accepted. Posts on “general” writing topics accepted each month. Additionaly, I’d like to have a sub-theme each month as follows:

January: Writing Mysteries

February: Writing Romance

March: Writing Children’s Fiction

April: Writing Fantasy

May: Writing Science Fiction

June: Writing Pirate Fiction

July: Writing Action/Adventure

August: Writing Gothic

September: Writing High Fantasy

October: Writing Horror

November: Writing Family Memoires

December: Writing Holiday Fiction

Submissions are due by the last day of the previous month. Blog listings will be posted the first week the month. Send your submissions here.

You can copy the following tag to add to your blog so people will have a link back to find your listing with Star Log’s Blog Carnival For Writers:

Top 100 Books? Really? Never heard of them!

Top 100 books of the past 25 years:

wow! I just took a look at the list and found it interesting to note that not only had I never read any of the books on the list, but of the 100 books listed I had only ever heard of one of them (The Da Vici Code)

I almost thought I’d read one of them, but than I realized that the one I read was “The Labyrinth” by A.G.H.Smith, not “Labyrinth” by Kate Mosse.

Man! the way I read books, I’m amazed that I hadn’t read any of the ones on the list! I must have differant tastes. oh well.

~~EK

Spam

Akismet has caught 1,500 spam for you since you first installed it.

I suppose this is some sort of milestone for Star Log?

Conventional Advice that Didn’t Work for Her (or Me Either!)…

Patricia A. Duffy says that when it comes to writing,  “Conventional Advice Wouldn’t Work for Me”.  After reading her article, I have to say that basicly, she has said pretty much what I would have said, and what I do say, whenever someone asks me.

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

1) Write every day.

This piece of advice is repeated in almost every book on “how to write.” Maybe some people need this sort of discipline, but I would find it counterproductive. Sometimes I write feverishly every day. Sometimes real life intervenes. I have a demanding job and a family. If I believed I had to write every day, even when I absolutely had no time, I’d quickly grow to hate writing and I’d stop doing it. Mostly, I have more ideas than I have time to process, so “forcing myself to write” is not a problem. And during those periods when “real life” heats up and I can’t write, I don’t feel any guilt. Why should I? Writing isn’t a religious penance or a health routine. It’s something I enjoy.

My responce to what she says:

You’ve heard it preached from the pulpit of every sacred book on writing: WRITE EVERY DAY!!!

Now ask yourself this: What does writing mean to you? Is writing a hobby or a career? How did you answer?

A hobby?

If you think of writing as a hobby, than who cares when you write? No one. If you write as a hobby, than who cares if your writing gets sloppy? No one. If you write as a hobby, than who cares if you ever get published? No one. If you write as a hobby, than by all means writer seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, because you know what? If you are writing because writing is a hobby, no one cares. Why? Because hobby writers write for their own pleasure. If they get published, it’s a great big WOO-HOO! for themselves and their family. But very few hobby writers ever get published. Why? Because they are content to post their stories on message boards and web-sites and blogs. They are happy to see their work on the internet. Writing after all is just a hobby to them. They are content with what they do.  So, for writers who write as a hobby, it is not important when they write, because their family is not dependant on the writing. Just search on Google for Fan-Fiction. Millions of stories are posted all over the internet, but because they are written by hobby writers, tthose stories well never be printed in books. They well never be published, but no one cares, not even the writer. So why than does it matter if the hobby writer writes every day?

Let’s look at the other side of this story.

Now ask yourself this once again: What does writing mean to you? Is writing a hobby or a career? How did you answer?

A career?

I ask you: What is your day job? Do you  wait tables? Drive a school  bus? Are you a cashier at the local super market? Maybe you teach high-school geography? Whatever it is that you do for your day job, ask yourself this: How many days do you work each week? A few well say three, some well say four, almost all of you well say five. By law your employer is required to give you at least two days off each week. That’s a law. That law is enforced. If an employer asks you to work more than five days a week, they are required to pay you time and a half. That too is a law. Why? Because even the government knows that you can’t get the job done if you are not given a day or two of rest. If you work seven days a week, you well run down, wear out and get sloppy. Your work well suffer, because you didn’t get a day off.

So, we come back to your answer: Why do you write? Hobby or career? If you said career, than you know that being a writer is just like every other 9 to 5 job. Nine o clock you sit down at your desk and you start writing. Around noon you take an hour break for lunch. After lunch it’s back to your desk to write until five. Five o clock comes around and no matter how compelled you are to keep writing, you put down your pen, turn off the light and don’t go back to your desk again until tomorrow morning when nine o clock rolls around again. Like any other job, you take the weekend off. Why? Because for you writing is more than a hobby. For you writing is what puts food on the table. For you writing is what puts clothes on your children. Writing just paid for your teenager’s PS3. Writing pays the mortage. Writing pays the vet bills caused by the recent pet-food recall. You write because writing is your career, your job, your livelyhood. For you writing is not a hobby. You can’t afford to let you writing get sloppy and you know that, which is why you also know that it is foolish for you or any other writer to think that it is in your best interest to write every day.

And that is  why I do not write every day.

Moving on to myth #2…

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

2. Don’t Edit Until the First Draft is Done.

I edit obsessively as I go along. I like rewriting things. I can’t imagine another way to write and would be utterly incapable of completing that first draft if I didn’t do it this way.

My responce to what she says:

This, I think, depends on the writer and what they are writing about at the time. Personaly I do not believe in editing as you write, as a general rule. Why? I find that when I am writing, I  write better if I don’t stop. I have learned to ignore typos and spelling mistakes, to turn a blind eye to bad grammar, and to not listen when my mind says I should go back and re-write what I just wrote. Why? Because if I stop, it creates a speed bump. That speed bump slows me down and causes me to go lose track of what it was I was writing. So I find myself going back to where I had stopped, because I have to re-read what I wrote several times before I can remember where it was I was going with that train of thought. In a sence by stopping to edit while I was writing, I have now derailed my writing train, and put it back on a new track, and it just can’t get back onto that old track, because the old track for some odd reason is no longer there. On a road, a speed bump just jostles your car a bit and make you slow down, but on a train track, that same little speed bump not only jostles the train, but knocks it off track and sends it flying into the oncoming train on the other track. That speed bump is now a mangled mess of crumpled train cars, which ow must be towed away and tossed into  a junk heap. A huge rusted junk heap towering high above your head. The next thing you know you can’t write anything at all because all there is is a pile of mangled wreckage. You have hot a writer’s block.

So, where are we now? Well, for me, stopping to edit while I’m still writing is the deadliest thing that can happen while I’m writing. Usually, but not always. This is just me though, and as I said, all writers are differant.

Moving on…

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

3. Use Note cards or Notebooks to Organize Ideas

Even the thought of using index cards to organize fiction ideas is almost enough to make me run screaming into traffic. In my mind, these little cards will forever be associated with undergraduate term papers. I don’t use notebooks because I hate to write longhand. I do all my writing on the word processor — even background notes for novels. Actually, I prefer to do background for novels as short stories, even lame short stories with no chance of selling. I see things better that way.

My responce to what she says:

As most of you know, I never went to school. I can’t identify with term papers because I’ve never had one, let alone seen one, and I’m not realy sure what they are, except that everyone who talks about school talks about term papers too. I’m not sure what an undergraduate is, I’ll look it up next time I’ve got my dictionary at hand. For those who have followed my posts on the net since 1997, you already know that when I joined the internet world, it was my first time typing. I had never used a keyboard before in my life. Likewise, I had also never learned how to spell. I wrote at that time in what I have since been told is a form of a “native lingo of my own invention, cause by lack of previous contact with humans”. In 1997, I first I joined the internet, and became an over night celebrity, not because I posted on every forum and chat room I could find, but because people were fascinated by my complete and total lack of any ability to spell. In the years since that time, my fan following grew to a cult status as people set out to teach me how to spell via online forums.

Than came a revilation to the world, that no one had befor known: My books, the Twighlight Manor seires, several thousand pages, and countless drafts of each, had never seen typewritter, I had written all of them in longhand. The manuscipts where totally written in bright colored notebooks with Lisa Frank art on the covers: thousands of them. Some 40 boxs worth of notebooks, stacked floor to ceiling. Noetbooks that I have been writing in since 1978. Thirty years worth of notebooks.

Today, I still write my books in longhand. I still hand write all of my manuscripts in bright colored children’s note books. To date, I have only ever written one outline. I have never used index cards. I do not type my manuscripts until after haveing hand written several drafts. I do not organize my ideas, my ideas flow from my mind at a rapid rate, and I write them as they come. No notes. No note taking. They are not my style.  They do not work for me.

And finally we come to:

According to Patricia A. Duffy:

4. Keep a Story Circulating until it Sells.

This is another piece of almost universal advice that I don’t follow. I tend to select my markets rather carefully. If something is rejected at the market I’ve thought most probable for it, I will normally only try it on one or two other markets before giving up (or in some cases no other markets). Although there are a lot of magazine markets for speculative short fiction, there are actually relatively few professional markets for speculative short fiction of any given type. I guess my economics training makes me weight the possible benefit (payment for a story) by my subjective evaluation of the “odds” of being published in that magazine. If the weighted payoff is less than the postage, I put the story in a drawer and work on another one.

My responce to what she says:

In some cases, this is true, in others it is not.

Some times I write for copyrighted characters not of my own making. For these stories there is only one publisher that I can legally send the stories to. If they reject the story, than that’s it. It can’t be sent to anyone else.

More often I write stories of characters of my own invention, and for these, I can choose any publisher I damn well please. I can also choose who I DO NOT want to publish it. Than again I can also choose to do what I usually do, and that is to self publish my stories. That is how I came to own my own publishing house. It is through owning my publishing house that I came to become an editor. Today I am a writer, a publisher, and an editor, because I reserved the right to choose when, where, and to whom I sent my manuscripts too: no one!

Well, that is my take on what Patricia A. Duffy says that when it comes to writing,  “Conventional Advice Wouldn’t Work for Me”. 

~~EK

The Three Great Myths of Writing

Everyone knows that the great writers follow hard and fast rules for writing. The great writers are thought to have some secret code, some vast conspiracy that only they know about and are withholding from all the unpublished writers of the world. Everyone knows this. Everyone. Don’t they? This must be true, otherwise why would every would be writer seek out to approach the great published writers for some insight into knowing “the secret to being published”?

Uhmmm? Do these people REALLY believe that writers are holding back some great secret? That’s just… well… weird.

I often wonder why it is that would be writers spend so much time seeking out the secrets of great writing instead of doing what the great writers they are seeking do, which is to sit down at a desk and writer. Successful writers are to busy writing to head out seeking the secrets of writing and there in lays their success.

Today I found this article. Great stuff. If you are one of those who seeks out the secrets of writing success, you might want to read this before seeking any farther:

by Joan Marie Verba

For a long time, many people thought that they could get warts from handling frogs. Now we know that this was a myth–something “everyone” thought was true, but which had no basis in fact.

Writing, too, has its own mythology. In writing, as in everything else, mythology is perpetuated for a reason. People use myths to explain phenomena they do not understand, or to deal with realities they do not wish to face, or to avoid confronting the fact that events are often random and unfair. Because myths have such powerful uses, myths are seldom questioned, and people become very upset when their cherished myths are challenged. But myths, because they are untrue, can cause people who believe in them to feel hurt or lost or confused when they rely on these myths to guide their actions.

That is why I believe that writers should become aware of the myths that exist in our profession. In my experience, I have discovered three myths which I believe are particularly misleading, and are worth further discussion.

Myth #1: If your writing is good, you will have no trouble selling your stories; if you are not selling your writing, it means your stories are no good.

This myth has a factual basis. A lot of writing does get rejected because it is poor. But the myth, as repeated by many experienced writers, is that good writing guarantees acceptance and, conversely, non-acceptance surely means that the writing is poor. To debunk this myth, researchers have recently taken classic novels–The Yearling comes to mind as an example–and submitted them as manuscripts to publishers. These were seldom recognized by the publishers, and almost universally rejected. The reason is that publishers nowadays are less interested in the quality of writing than they are in the commercial potential of the writing. If the publisher thinks the writing will sell, even if the manuscript is flawed, the publisher may be inclined to buy it. If the publisher thinks the manuscript will not sell, the publisher may not take it no matter how well it is written. This, for instance, explains rejection slips which say, “good writing, we just don’t want to publish it.”

Myth #2: Once you sell a book, or several short stories, you will not have any trouble getting an agent, and you will not have any trouble selling any more of your own writing.

I recently read an interview with an award-winning author who said that she was not able to get an agent until after she sold her fourth novel. Another author, a friend of mine, also worked out her fourth book contract without an agent, though she was able to get an agent for her fifth. I know a third author who has had five novels published, but for the past three years has not been able to find anyone interested in the two novels she has written since then. And I recently read an account from a writer whose first book sold tens of thousands of copies who reported that she did not have an agent for her first book, and has had trouble finding an agent for her second.

With so many counter-examples cropping up, this myth is beginning to lose its hold, though it still persists. My guess is that those who perpetuate this myth are the lucky authors who were able to find an agent after (or even before) their first book came out, and had no trouble finding a publisher for any novel they wrote thereafter. Such authors do exist, but I suspect they are not as numerous as mythology would have it.

Myth #3: If you follow the advice of experienced authors, you are certain to get published.

I recall the advice that the late science fiction author Robert Heinlein had for writers: write, finish what you write, and keep sending the manuscript to publishers until it sells. Experienced authors tend to add other advice: study the markets, improve your skills, and so forth. This third myth is very seductive because the advice is sound. But the fact is that novices can read and follow every word of advice that experienced writers print and still not get published. The problem is not simply that no method works for everyone, and to say that writers must find a method that works for their particular situation is too superficial. The problem is that many writers who give advice imply–if they do not say it outright–that any writer who follows their advice will absolutely, positively, get published….now, if not sooner.

This leaves novices who follow such advice beating their heads against the wall in frustration. (“But I did everything J. Doe said in the article ‘How to Get Your Story Published’ and I still have not placed my story.”) Novices will be helped, instead, if they are told that writing is a complex task involving a lot of intangibles and random variables (or, in other words, luck). Authors need to be told that no one piece of advice will guarantee acceptance; at best, following good advice merely increases the probability of publication.

Writing, as a profession, is tough enough without well-intentioned authors passing along useless myths. A writer who has a stack of unpaid bills on one hand and a stack of rejection slips on the other is not helped by being told that if the writing is good, it will sell; or that once the first story is sold, there will be no problem selling the next one; or that if the writer just follows J. Doe’s advice, the acceptances will start rolling in. Encouragement and reassurance need to be based on a realistic appraisal of the obstacles writers inevitably face. Writers can and do sell stories. Good writers can and do get rejected. Writers with track records can and do have problems placing succeeding stories. Advisors can and do fail to give suggestions that work.

I suspect there are other myths making the rounds, but either I have not yet come across them, or I have not yet found out that certain statements I have heard are myths. I am interested in hearing from anyone who has other myths to report (that is, myths that writers tell other writers, as opposed to myths that the public has about writers). Myths about writing may never disappear, even if exposed as falsehoods, but at least those of us who love frogs should be able to handle them without fearing that we will get warts.

© 1994 by Joan Marie Verba.

Permission to copy this essay is granted provided the copyright notice (previous line) is included.
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Info for Romance

As you know I am always seeking out blogs and posts that are useful for writers. Today I found this one which I liked, and had to help promote. I hope you find it helpful:

Rules

April 11th, 2007

There are a couple of different places in blog land talking about rules.  Over at Dear Author, Jane raises some valid opinions about things like rape in romances, abuse, and infidelity.

PBW has another John and Marcia post up…  ;o) if you read PBW’s blog much, you’ll get an idea of what she thinks about rules.

Several authors and readers have apparently done some blogging about the rules of romanceland.  This is always an interesting topic to me…for several reasons.  It can be (usually at the same time) eye opening and entertaining to read the various viewpoints.  I think that I could have somebody summarize some of the blogs and I could tell you whether it was an author that wrote it, or a reader, just by the tone.

Authors don’t want to be told what to write.  (Nope, can’t say I blame them)

Readers don’t want to have surprises in their romances.  By surprises, I mean things like the hero sleeping around, the heroine sleeping around, the heroine getting raped, some sort of infidelity taking place.  (Can’t blame them either…there are certain things that I absolutely hate to read)…

Bear Attacks in Old Orchard Beach, Maine

You know, it was about 5 years ago when I first told Old Orchard Beach police that there was a bear in our yard, but because I didn’t have pictures, they just laughed and said there was no bear in Old Orchard Beach. Yes, tell that to the bear that routinely makes her weekly visits to our brook for a drink. Or tell that to the “bear tree” that marks her territory some 100 feet behind The GoldenEagle. Tell that to my terrified hen, who refuse to lay eggs after the bear has been by. But, who am I too know a bear, I only grew up in the forest making friends with every wild animal out there: from the bobcats to the coyotes, both of which btw the way the police also told me did not live in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Uhm-huh. I believe you, I’ll just go on seeing these animals in my yard and keeping my pets under lock and key, and I’m NOT cutting a hole in my wall to allow the cats to roam free in bear, coyote, and bobcat country no matter how bitchy they get.

But why am I telling you this. Well, for those of you in Maine, you already know, but for those of you not in Maine, well us Maine folks awoke this morning to the news announcing: BEAR ATTACKS IN OLD ORCHARD BEACH! My question is what’s with all the exclamation points. So those bear that no one believes visit my back yard every week are now attacking the neighbors? So what. Took five years and an attack on humans before the police would believe me? Oh yeah, they believe me now…. they’re out there hauling around big bear traps behind the police van. My question: why didn’t you do that five years ago, before you got yourself a whole herd of bears. Five years ago, you only had a pair of bears out there, now; there have been about 2 cubs each year since. There isn’t just one bear in Old Orchard Beach anymore, there’s about 10 bear, at least there are about 10 bear that I know of, who knows how many I haven’t seen yet.

Why are the bear attacking? Why now? Do you really have to ask? King Realty just cut down some 50 acres of forest on the Ross Rd. Not one, but three new sub-divisions just started up on Portland Ave. We’re talking close to 200 acres of Ross Forest that no longer exists. What would you do if a bunch of big yellow rigs came in and decimated your home? Wouldn’t you attack the people who did it? I know I would. Why did those idiots think it’s unusual that the bear are “out to get them”? They cut down the forest, they build a house on the bear’s home, and than they wonder why a bear is sitting on their front porch? How stupid can you get?

I saw, take down the bear traps, and let the bear stay. To the people moving in: You’ve seen Maine, leave us in peace and go home. Keep Maine green: shoot a developer.

Lots of love to the bears, and lots of hate to the Town officials of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, from Wendy C. Allen; here’s to hoping the next attack the bears make is on the town hall.

Info for Romance Writers…

As you know I am always seeking out blogs and posts that are useful for writers. Today I found this one which I liked, and had to help promote. I hope you find it helpful:

Rules

April 11th, 2007

There are a couple of different places in blog land talking about rules.  Over at Dear Author, Jane raises some valid opinions about things like rape in romances, abuse, and infidelity.

PBW has another John and Marcia post up…  ;o) if you read PBW’s blog much, you’ll get an idea of what she thinks about rules.

Several authors and readers have apparently done some blogging about the rules of romanceland.  This is always an interesting topic to me…for several reasons.  It can be (usually at the same time) eye opening and entertaining to read the various viewpoints.  I think that I could have somebody summarize some of the blogs and I could tell you whether it was an author that wrote it, or a reader, just by the tone.

Authors don’t want to be told what to write.  (Nope, can’t say I blame them)

Readers don’t want to have surprises in their romances.  By surprises, I mean things like the hero sleeping around, the heroine sleeping around, the heroine getting raped, some sort of infidelity taking place.  (Can’t blame them either…there are certain things that I absolutely hate to read)…

“Where do you come from?”

When people ask me that question I never know how to answer and usually I say something like this:

I was born in Maine, USA;

my dad’s grandfather was Cherokee; his other grandfather was the serveral greats grand son of Thomas Rodger, friend of Capt John Smith and founder of our town, settler of the land on which we still live)

my mom’s mother was Kickapoo;

my mom’s dad was Canadian; his mom was British (and her dad was Capt John Drake… several greats grandson of Sir Francis Drake the Dragon) and his dad was Scottish

I can go on like this tracing my ancestors all the way back to the 1300’s… several inter racial marriages one after the other for a period of 700 years… so what am I? A hell of a mixed up mess  born and raised in the mixed up state of Maine, living on land that has been in our family for more than 300 years… I just tell people I’m a Maine-iac and leave it at that.

~~EK

Attack of the POD People! They are not evil.

Are you a self publisher? Maybe you have a manuscript you want published, but you are not sure if self-publishing is right for you? I’m a self publisher myself and I’m always looking for ways to improve, so as you can expect I spend a lot of my “blog reading time” looking for blogs that help writers in general and self-publishers esp. Well, today I came across a new blog I hadn’t found before. My search lead me to this post:

POD is not Vanity is not Self Publish

April 1st, 2007 · No Comments

POD is a technology. It’s a way to print books. It’s quite useful for printing small quantities, particularly if there is intermittent demand. LOTS of publishers who are not vanity houses or scam mills use POD technology. University presses spring to mind, as do very small limited runs of very tightly focused books. POD is not evil.

Vanity presses can use POD technology OR they can use webfeed technology. Vanity presses are essentially printers with some support staff. They’ll help you print up nice editions of whatever you want. You pay for this. It’s called vanity because they don’t acquire the book. Acquire means there is an editorial staff choosing particular books to publish. Vanity houses do not maintain lists, issue catalogs or sell books in bookstores. Vanity presses are not evil

Self publishers can use POD technology or webfeed technology. Self publishers are not vanity presses in the everyday sense of the word. They are “vanity” in the sense that there isn’t an acquisition but the two phrases are used to mean different things in publishing. Lots of people self publish for a lot of reasons. Self publishing is not evil.

POD/scam mills are companies set up to persuade you, the author, that printing your book with their company is the equivalent to having it acquired by a publisher. They charge you money. Unlike a respectable vanity press, they don’t copy edit or produce high quality products. They are out to make money on volume. They prey on author’s insecurities and lack of knowledge. POD/scam mills are the scum of the earth.

Whether a company is the scum of the earth depends on how they run their business, not how they print their books.

There are several POD companies that do not try to persuade you that you have but to print up books with them to be on your way to fame and glory. Lulu and CafePress come to mind. There are others I’m sure.

– Miss Snark, the literary agent

[via To Publish a Book]

→ No CommentsTags: Self-Publishing · Articles · Books

to the authour of this post, I say:

bravo!

*insert clapping smilie here*

every one with a manuscript should read this post, if you know someone with a manuscript pass this on to them.

~~EK

Business Plans: Moonsnails Magazine: We’re Back!

In fall of 2005 Twighlight Manor Press announced that it was planning the release of a new magazine, which at that point was untitled and it‘s genre unknown. Our original idea was to keep it local; local writers, local sales, local flavor to the stories. Market research, however showed us that that would be a very unprofitable venture that would doom our magazine to failure before it’s fifth issue. We had to rethink out plan.

Over the next several weeks we threw around ideas and finally decided that the magazine would be a fiction “literary journal”. At first we planned on “all good fiction”, but than after studying the market, realized that this was virtually a bottomless pit, that would result in more manuscript submissions than our tiny staff of four would be able to handle.

Another thing we decided early on, was that, we wanted to stand out on bookstore shelves. Looking at other magazines sold at a local bookstore, Nonesuch Books in Saco, I discovered something. Rack upon rack of magazines, where all the same: 8×11” glossy and flimsy issues, that would not stand the test of time on a bookshelf, given them a shelf life of just 3 weeks. (This short shelf life was according to a study I found online.) According to that study, only a few magazines would be shelved and saved to be read again and again for several years. These magazines had good content and a sturdy binding. I went to Nonesuch Books looking for magazines with good content and study bindings, and was amazed at how few there actually were. In the end I found only three, out of the hundreds of magazines the shop had on the racks. By the end of this stage in our study we came to one conclusion: this magazine, was NOT going to be a 8×11” glossy; instead it would read like a book, with crisp white paper and a square bound “paperback” cover.

After some more market studies, we came to the conclusion that rather than focusing on fiction in general, we would instead use the same rule we use for writing: Write what you know. In our case it would translate into: Publish what you read. All four of us are sci-fi buffs. Sci-fi movies, sci-fi TV, sci-fi comics, sci-fi books… well it seemed only natural that we would thus choose sci-fi as the genre for the new magazine.

By January of 2006 we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do with the magazine. On Space Dock 13 (the website) we announced that the magazine was a defiant go, and we were planning it’s release later that year.

With our genre in mind, we set out the name our new magazine. After several weeks of debate, only one thing was agreed upon: that the magazine must have a sci-fi sounding name and that it should reflect our local home base, namely that we are on the world’s most beautiful beach: Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

In April 2006 we introduced the world to two new websites. The first was the message board for writers: A Writer’s Desk. It was our hope that through here we would find new talent seeking to be published in our magazine. A message board built entirely to promote the magazine, today it stands on it’s own and has no connection to the magazine at all.

Our second Website was of course the homepage for our magazine. We had finally decided on a name, and that name was: Moonsnails. After a walk to the beach that cold April, me and my three brothers returned home with tote bags filled with Old Orchard’s most beloved seashell: the Atlantic Moonsnail. Later that day, while sorting the shells on the lawn, it hit me: Moonsnails was the perfect name for our magazine, it kept the local flavor and it sounded sci-fi. Later that week Moonsnails homepage went online.

By the end of April 2006 we were getting quotes from various printers, both local and online. Announcement went out with the news that Moonsnails would see its public release in September of 2006. We were off and running, and than came May 9, 2006 and the flood that washed away all of our plans, destroying everything we owned and bringing Twighlight Manor Press to an instant standstill. We lost everything, the building was condemned, and nothing survived. As far as the business was concerned, we were back at ground zero.

That same day, as a result of the flood, my dad went into a coma. In July of 2006, my dad awoke from the coma and returned home disabled and in my care. In September of 2006, instead of releasing Moonsnails, we found ourselves in the midst of fight to save our land from a local land shark. The result was my dad’s return to the hospital. In October of 2006, a fire swept through. What little we had that survived the flood, was destroyed in the fire and we were faced with fighting out Maine’s frigid winter in a tent, a fate that did not sick well with my disabled dad’s rapidly failing health.

In January of 2007, things took a turn once again, this time in our favor, and we found our selves with electricity, heat, and a roof over our heads, for the first time since May 9, 2006.

Reunited with my computer, I was amazed to find, that in spite of the flood, in spite of the fire, the hard drive remained intact, and with a few minor repairs, it runs as good as new. It looks like hell, a bent mangled mess, but who cares, all my files are still here! All my plans and templates, all those months of research and market studies: they had survived! With that knowledge in hand I set out to pick up the pieces, and once again, plans are underway, full speed ahead, to bring Moonsnails into production.

And that brings us to today. Nether flood, nor fire, nor cold of winter, could stop Moonsnails. Moonsnails rises once again.

~EK

What Does “Non-Genre” Mean?

Many publications say they only accept “Non-Genre Fiction”. A common question writers ask is: “What is Non-Genre Fiction? Doesn’t all fiction have a genre?” I had just read this post and noticed a debate over what is the meaning of Genre Fiction VS Non-Genre Fiction had begun on it’s comments.  Being an editor, I think I can be of help here. So, here is my answer to that question. I hope that some of you find it helpful when submitting your future stories to publishers.When a publication says, “they’re non-genre focused”, they mean that they only want literary fiction and will automatically refuse all stories that a genre driven. A genre driven story is one that falls under the following:

Romance

Fantasy

Sci-fi

Horror

(and the many other such genres out there)

Genre driven stories are focused largely on promotion of their genre and the story focuses totally on that genre. I.e., a romance focuses on a girl’s romantic infatuation; a fantasy will focus on the life of elves wizards and he-men type characters fighting evil in a epic quest; sci-fi focuses on alien life forms traveling from one planet to the next and other such sci-fi type things; horror focuses on scaring the pants off the reader

When a publisher say “they’re non-genre focused” they want to see a slice-of-life story about the day (or week or year) in the life of so-and-so… this is what is known as non-genre or literary fiction. The story focuses on real-life type characters in real life type situations; stories that real like they could be the life of the guy next door or the girl down the road. Non-genre stories tell a story that is not dependant on a fantasy quest or the eloquent narration describing the alien landscape or the steamy sex-scenes. They simply tell a story about life and thus have no genre.

Well, that’s what I see it to mean. Feel free to comment on your own veiws as to the meaning of “non-genre”.

~~EK