Writing for the Love

For a long, long, long time, I've been working on an an epic fantasy novel called Livinity . There are older posts on this blog about my past progress. The unpublished manuscript even won an award in 2011. And yet, it still needed work. The latest round of edits involved splitting my 142K word novel into two books. One of the main reasons for that was the fact that I struggled to draw attention from agents/publishers with that huge word count, especially for a first book. With great, often eye-opening, feedback from my critique group, I worked on deepening characterization, adding tension, and enriching the other world setting--just a few of the things that needed work. I spent a lot of time editing, adding content, editing, adding content all while trying to anticipate where to split the novel in half. Something happened in the midst of all that writing and editing. My word count was climbing faster than I expected. I quickly realized that I might end up with a trilogy. Ye...

At the moment, life, in a word, is insanity. Yet I'm determined to talk about the FWA Conference, however briefly. It was over a month ago now, and I'll probably start to forget some of the great details if I wait much longer. This was my fourth time attending, first time staying at the hotel. I was so happy to be sharing a room with my dear friend and fellow critique group member, Rachel. No driving back and forth. The sessions were awesome. The ones that stood out: Backstory led by Julie Compton and Jamie Morris. Julie was a keynote speaker for the conference. POV Part II led by Rebecca Melvin. I had done Part I two years ago when I first met Rebecca. Side note: she's a publisher with Double Edge Press who is currently reviewing Sprinter ! Agents/Publishers Panel facilitated by Vic DiGenti. This open mic Q & A is excellent every year. They revealed many current trends of publishing and what agents/publishers look for. The highlight was Benjami...

As this is a review about a running book, I thought it fitting to include on both my writing blog and my running blog . I’m actively submitting my novel, Sprinter , to agents and publishers. In the meantime, besides working on other writing, I’m searching for books similar to mine because that is a question often asked in the submission guidelines: which books are similar to yours? When I found The Lola Papers , I thought it might be somewhat similar to my book. In some ways it is, as both main characters are female, runners, and pursuing running goals while taking note of how much running parallels life. In other ways, not so much. My book is fiction, Lola is non-fiction. But I enjoyed every minute I spent reading it. Lola is a runner’s journey from sporadic and half-hearted running to serious racing. Her coach, Mr. Speedy Pants, provides the wisdom and insight of a seasoned and studly runner who isn’t ashamed of his own awesomeness. Following our main character throu...

I'm happy to announce that my short story, "The Wheels Must Turn," made it into this year's FWA Collection #4- My Wheels . Praise the Lord! This is the third year in a row that I've gotten a story into the colletion and I'm still excited about it. Publication doesn't really get old. The sci-fi story is about a young narrator coming to grips with the death of her father. On to other topics that have been on my mind. For some reason, I can't seem to write about my writing more than once a month. I'm not sure if it matters or not. I write on my running blog, The Anti-Running Runner , more. I write on my fiction novels and short stories WAY more. Which is probably the reason why. I listen to podcasts a lot (another reason why?), and I was introduced to The Roundtable Podcast from the guys over at The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine . If you are a writer, published or not, I highly recommend adding Roundtable to your iTunes subscriptions (it...

"Above all, my beloved, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any oath, but let your "Yes” be yes and your “No” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation." James 5:12 NRSV In the submitting process, I think of yes as acceptance and no as rejection. Perhaps this verse doesn't exactly apply to that. I was thinking about the idea that each time I submit a piece, all I need is a yes. Yet that's not true. I need rejections as much as I need my one fabulous acceptance. The yes I received is the perfect example. In the last post, I detailed how the initial rejection turned into the acceptance. If the editor had said "Yes" the first time around, the piece would not have been as tight and strong as it became after I made edits from his suggestions. His "No" not only gave me incentive to try again, but it made me realize that the story needed more editing. I find it a blessing that he told me specifics, because he was right. ...

October 21-23, Orlando Marriott I’ve decided to talk about the Florida Writers Association Conference in a series of blogs rather than overload a single post with 2,000 words, or whatever it will end up being. As a writer who wants to be a published novelist someday, I’ve learned so much from the conference, and I would recommend it to anyone who is serious about their writing. This is my fourth year in a row attending, and the quality continues to impress me, along with the variety of session topics and “wow!” value of speakers, such as NY Times Bestselling author Shelley Shepard Gray . In a joint session with her agent, Mary Sue Seymour , Shelley talked about her writing journey and how the hard work never ends for authors. Even an author with several published books still faces rejection. There was a period for Shelley where three years passed while her agent attempted to place a Christian historical romance novel, and Shelley began doubting herself, even struggl...