Grumps and Groans, It’s contest Time! By Linda S. Glaz

We always hear grumps and groans around contest time. And there are some valid reasons.

Contests often have to rely on fairly new authors to judge because…well…a lot of folks simply don’t volunteer. Life gets in the way. And when that happens, the new judges can have difficult times learning the ropes.

It’s rather like the want ads:

Help Wanted/Hair stylist. Must be able to do all styles for men, women, and children. High end saloon. Five years experience needed.

Huh? What about all the newbies who just graduated from the school of Clip ‘em and Run? Someone has to give the new grad the opportunity.

The point is, we all need the chance to break into a new gig. Particularly when it’s so hard to find folks to volunteer and judge all of the entries.

Do we all want perfection? Yes. Are we always going to get it? Absolutely not.

So what’s a person to do? I have found that if you toss out the highest and lowest scores in a contest, you will generally come up with a fair idea where you would fall in the ranking. This doesn’t always work, but for the most part, it comes pretty close.

And one other thought? If you know you are not qualified to judge a contest, no matter how much your ego is stroked when someone asks you, don’t do it. Talk with others who have judged, try to work as a critique partner first, and then wade into the deep. But be sure you have the basics down fairly well before you decide it’s for you. Not everyone is ready.

Here’s your chance. Have you entered a contest? How did you like the experience?

On the Road by Terry Burns

Saundra and I just returned from the conference in Orange County California. It was a great conference and I enjoyed it very much. Heard some good pitches. We took the RV and made the trip out and back something of a vacation. We saw some really beautiful country in New Mexico and Arizona on the way out and in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico on the way back. If you’ve ever seen the majesty of places like Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park or Monument Valley you have to be awed by the hand of our mighty Lord.

Now we turn around this coming week to go to the Colorado Christian Writers Conference in Estes Park Colorado. It is one of our favorites and we have gone for many years.  It is very beautiful up there too and I hope to see some of you there. It is not only a time for working on your writing craft but a time to work on your faith through program, content and introspection.

The CCWC conference has always meant I couldn’t go to the Blue Ridge Mountains Conference but my clients that have attended tell me it’s a great conference too. I wish I could go this year for sure because I have five clients who are finalists in various categories of the Selah awards which will be given at the conference. I am confident in them winning of course and wish I could be there to support them. Other agents here at Hartline have clients that are finalists as well for a total of ten finalists, so we will be well represented.

We will be in the RV again on the way to Colorado as we love the pace of the trip and seeing the countryside. That and it keeps me out of airports which I genuinely hate. We’re lucky to have someone who will sit with the house and dogs and water the garden and greenhouse as well as clients who are understanding on the time requirement which gives us the time to do it.

I have attended several conferences a year starting long before I became an agent. They played a major role in my learning the craft of writing. They gave me the contacts that led to my getting published and later led me to be able to function as an agent.  They gave me the chance to spend time with others who understood the passion for writing that people in our lives do not always get. I’ve cut back on the number I go to but for years I was going to a couple of them a month.

If you aren’t making a conference or two a part of your growth as a writer you are omitting a major part of the development of your career. I hope to see you at one soon.

Grammar Rules in Daily Life and Writing by Diana L. Flegal

Today I wanted to let a friend know that I could see and feel the effectiveness of her and many others prayers, in my life and my son's. That made me question whether I meant affect or effect. Since they are homonyms, I often get the word wrong. And I felt it was important I use the right one.


So I googled it.


Which led me to this page: Affect vs. Effect Grammar Rules


Know what I found? The cool thing about prayer is it does both.

• Affect is a verb. It means to produce a change in or influence something.

• Effect is a noun that can also be used as a verb. It means a change that occurred. When an "s" is added, "effects" means personal belongings.

It affects the circumstances, because we bring a heavenly perspective to it, and it effects those involved in the particular situation.


How cool is that?
We have been told since middle school- every action produces a reaction. Prayer does some pretty awesome things.


In writing, each character affects the plot. :-)


How has your writing been effective in getting across your mission?


And who do you desire your writing to affect?

Do You Want to Hear the Truth? by Andy Scheer

Specifically, the truth about your latest project? Some writers refuse to hear it.

Like the author of the general market novel I abandoned last evening.

I'd been primed to enjoy it, since I had read his first eight. But this was a prequel. The author had jumped back six years, before the wartime events that made his character unique.

Now the character was bland. And without much to do. Throughout the first two chapters I encountered only setup—no engaging story.

Maybe the author thought the story worked.

But I can't imagine how no one among the critique groups and beta readers, then his literary agent, acquisitions editor, and copy editor, could have failed to speak up. Could all these people have missed the initial lack of anything to engage readers?

Or did the author, enjoying a wave of success, choose not to listen?

No one succeeds every time. Sometimes the idea isn't great, sometimes the execution falls short.

Yesterday the Rockies' pitcher didn't have his best stuff. In the bottom of the fifth he walked three batters and gave up five runs. He hadn't done well, and he knew it.

Literary failings aren't like that. We can convince ourselves it works. Or that it doesn't matter, since we've built a following.

But how long can you count on fan loyalty—if you don't strive to deliver your best? That includes being willing to swallow your pride and make changes when trusted advisers dare to tell you something really doesn't work.

Depressing or Eye-Opening? By Linda S. Glaz

I recently spent time in a hospital with a family member undergoing bypass surgery. A young—family member who did very well by the way. While waiting in the surgical lounge, another family came in. Young man in his early twenties had fallen. It went from a fall to a ventilator in a matter of minutes. A parent and young wife left with the decision whether or not to continue the vent.

Life happens!

No matter how we try to hang onto our mortality, life happens. And we are the only ones who can decide what we want to have occur between point A and point B.

Are we gatherers or hunters? Do we punch a clock from 9-5, or do we want risky or artsy type careers?

While I found the young man’s story in the hospital to be very depressing, it was a reminder to me that I am doing what I love with my life. The first two-thirds were spent raising my family, what I had always wanted to do. Oh, yes, there were moments outside of the box for me, soccer for 25 years, karate for 30, and occasional women’s self-defense classes. I served in the Air Force when it wasn’t all that popular for a female, and I blazed a few ‘new for women’ moments while serving. But for the most part, I’d have called myself a pretty typical mom.

Enter stage right…the moment when I realized I just had to write to be fulfilled. When I knew I had to write as surely as I had to breathe. I might have stuffed those feelings down and prepared another supper. I could have laughed at it and done another load of wash, but instead, I ordered out and let the laundry pile grow. I KNEW that I knew at that moment that I had to write. It wasn’t always easy. There were still soccer games, still kids to raise, and still loads of wash that had to get done at some point, but it was the stolen moments, first with my note pad, then with my word processor, and finally with my computer, that helped me realize my dream.

Twenty…yes…twenty years later, the first novella was published.

Twenty years???

Yes, twenty. Another five, twenty-five total, before I saw the family of the young man who might not live to see his twenty-fifth year.

Eye-opening for me. I had decided that, yes, I would try to make my dreams come true. I used every spare few minutes to become a storyteller. Instead of boating, taking art classes, or finding the new me at forty, I wrote. I wrote while waiting at the doctor’s office. I wrote while traveling in a car. I wrote while waiting for the teacher to call my name at parent/teacher conferences. I didn’t allow doubts and depressing thoughts to keep me from my appointed task. I knew I was going to move from writer to author.

Have you had an eye-opening moment that led you to your love of writing? Will it keep you there, or will you allow depression to creep in when you aren’t an overnight success?

If you have to write as surely as you have to breathe, you are already an author. One just waiting to be discovered.

The Hunger Games and Stratocasters by Jim Hart

A worship blog announced this week that the electric guitar is no longer fashionable. It seems that electronic dance music – EDM – is now all the rage. So for us electric guitarists, that could be discouraging news. Except then we realize that it won’t be long and tastes will again shift to something different. Or swing back to an older style. 

I had a proposal rejected from a publisher last week because they thought the particular genre – dystopian - has been overdone.  It was not the first time I had heard that this genre may be declining. A few years ago some were saying that sales of dystopian novels had peaked.

But yet in the face of that, books like The Hunger Games and Divergent continue to be huge sellers. 

A blogger in January 2013 declared dystopian novels were exclusively a product of white male authors. It’s interesting that both of the above mentioned books were written by females.  That blogger also held that the stars of dystopian stories are generally a white male. Hmmmm. Then I found an article written just six months later, in June 2013, that heralded  The Hunger Games and Divergent as leading the “new wave of strong female-led sci-fi.” Guess the guy six months earlier didn’t see that one coming.

We never know what event, just around the corner, will influence book sales.  George Orwell’s 1984, one of the most influential dystopian novels of our time, enjoyed a sharp spike in sales during the NSA spying scandal a couple of years ago. The only ones that probably saw that coming were The Lone Gunmen from the X-Files.

 

I think the quick rise in sales of a decade old book shows that some genres, or sub-genres, will remain timeless. (Note to self: re-read this blog in two years to see if I was accurate) Orwell’s 1984, first published in 1949, has never really lost its significance in the literary landscape. This is the book that introduced the term ‘big brother’ into our modern lexicon.  

So this is the question: how much do you let current trends guide your writing? If you write based on trends, then will you ever be current? Because, if you’re an unpublished author, it could be years before your first novel is published. 

Maybe what’s considered to be the hot trend right now has captured you, and to write in that specific genre is important to you. In regards to cranking out a novel for a genre that may not be in vogue - I want to say “go for it.” And what are the consequences? It may be more difficult to find a publisher. Maybe.  Unless an editor finds your writing fresh and your voice original and engaging.

I personally think it’s great that scores of writers share the goal of writing the next Hunger Games or Divergent. Competition can be a good thing.  And while it’s natural to slide towards familiar themes, find ways to make the familiar seem fresh. Keep your chosen genre alive with originality and a new vision. Maybe the move over the past years towards female protagonists in dystopian novels have broadened its readership and allowed it to remain so popular.

In my own efforts to remain musically current, I’ve learned to adapt my playing over the years, and even to lay aside the old tools that created a dated sound. This means I have to constantly pay attention to current pop music in order to keep learning a new musical vocabulary. All while trying to maintain a sense of my own style.  

As a writer, you can do the same thing. Yes, of course pay attention to what’s popular.  But write what you write – regardless of trends. And, if your genre allows, write like it’s 2015! 

Maybe it’s time to finish up that Amish Dystopian Heavy Metal novel.