Someone Wicked, one of best anthologies on the market, is now FREE for the weekend. Please visit Amazon and pick up your copy today. And when you’ve finished it, leave some comments sharing your favorite stories.
After a couple of weeks of intensive education, writing, and rewriting, I received great news over the weekend. The Yahoo Contributors Network accepted my article for publication!
Click the link above to read the article. Check out the great events on the horizon my writing guild has lined up. Then, check out a local arts program that fills the creative side in all of us.
And I finally received my business cards.
Now, to network with some freelance writers to grow my business.
Keep writing, my friends.
After waking in the early morning, the dream still fresh on my mind, I slipped downstairs to my computer and beat out the outline to a short story. One that I was sure would only be 500-1,000 words. It would be my first flash fiction story.
3,504 words later, the angry cries from the young woman who had just lost everything still rang through my head. I’m not sure if I had ever written so much, so fast.
It felt great to be in the groove.
Now that I’ve met my writing goal for the first month of the year, can I continue the momentum?
I plan on it.
This morning, I finished the first draft of my first novel. NaNoWriMo helped me complete a good portion of the manuscript. The holidays were only small obstacles to overcome as I crept closer and closer to completion. This past week, I tasted the end, and woke up early this morning determined to push through. At 10:02AM, I added a period to the last sentence.
I already have a list of items to change/update/polish, but for now, I’ll move on to short story.
I have a 17-page list of story ideas that need reviewing. And writing.
I love TED Talks. I’ve recently discovered talks about writing on the TED-ed channel. This is a short one on How to build a fictional world by Kate Messner. She gets into the meat of her talk around the 3rd minute.
Hope you enjoy.
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-build-a-fictional-world-kate-messner
Background noise helps me write. Sometimes it’s the noise from outside. Usually, it’s music. I would listen to my music library via iTunes, or Pandora when I needed a change. Now, its iTunes Radio.
People know I’m a Apple Fanboy. I love Apple products because they just work. When I need them to work. They don’t take long to set up, maintain, or are replaced very often. iTunes Radio has grown on me now that I’ve been working from home. I started sampling their playlists on the iTunes Radio homepage, and got my holiday music fix from two channels.
I usually swap between a couple of channels when writing; The Grey Havens Radio and Chill Out: Ambient. If you like great fantasy soundtrack music, The Grey Havens is a great choice. Just need some ambient sounds to help you find a creative edge to your writing? Then try Chill Out.
But then, The Best of 2013 Singer/Songwriter popped up, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I don’t like every song that has played, and iTunes Radio has a handy feature to skip that song. Just like Pandora. And just like Pandora, iTunes Radio plays ads – but I don’t mind. It’s a free service, so they have to make it free somehow. I usually get up from my desk for a break during the commercials anyway.
So, what helps you write?
Patrick Derrickson 