I am uncomfortable with self-promotion but I've been advised by Davin and Michelle to mention here on the blog that I've signed a contract with Rhemalda Publishing. My novel The Astrologer will be published in March 2013 unless those Mayans turn out to be right about the end of the world. Rhemalda is the publisher of Michelle's novels, and she assures me that I'm in good hands. That is all. Like I say, I'm not comfortable with self-promotion, and you needn't write congratulatory comments or anything of the sort; I just thought I should mention it. We're here to talk about writing craft, not about my books. Have a swell day.
Oh! I almost forgot! The really cool book, Variations on a Theme, an anthology of stories, will be published by us, the Literary Lab, in two weeks, so save your pennies/shekels/drachma/pence/kopecks and buy a couple of copies when it hits the stands.
Showing posts with label Anthologies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthologies. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
You Will Know As Soon As We Do
The title of this post is a lie. Some of you may remember that Ms Davidson-Argyle, Mr Malasarn and I are allegedly conducting a contest (Publication! Cash prizes!). Some of you may even have entered the contest and might be wondering where the results are. Some of you might be getting impatient.
To this latter group, I beg your patience. And I ask if you’ve maybe seen how the three of us acted during the judging phase of our previous contests (hint: slow and steady wins the race!).
All of which is to say, We Are Working On It. I collected all of the story entries into a single Word ™ file so that Davin, Michelle and I could print them out and read them more easily, and as has happened every year I was alarmed and amazed to see that the stories add up in length to a proper novel. So We Three are reading a lot, and having to pay close attention and make critical decisions and decide which 2/3 of this novel-length collection of stories we love best.
I say “love best” because that’s really the way of it. MD-A, DM and I are once again whelmed over by the effort made by those of you who chose to play and I at least like to think that one thing we’re doing by holding these contests is to say “We love you, writers!” and I also like to think that when you choose to send us a story you’re saying “I love you, Literary Lab!” and if you’re not saying that I promise not to tell your mother so mum’s the word, okay?
Anyway. We Are Working On It. The plan is for each of us to have read and decided upon all the entries by the end of this week. We’ll sort out who the Best In Show is this weekend or early next week, hopefully (we reserve the right to miss our deadline!), and have a Grand Announcement toward the end of next week, or possibly we’ll save it for Valentine’s Day because, as I say, we love you, mighty writers.
To this latter group, I beg your patience. And I ask if you’ve maybe seen how the three of us acted during the judging phase of our previous contests (hint: slow and steady wins the race!).
All of which is to say, We Are Working On It. I collected all of the story entries into a single Word ™ file so that Davin, Michelle and I could print them out and read them more easily, and as has happened every year I was alarmed and amazed to see that the stories add up in length to a proper novel. So We Three are reading a lot, and having to pay close attention and make critical decisions and decide which 2/3 of this novel-length collection of stories we love best.
I say “love best” because that’s really the way of it. MD-A, DM and I are once again whelmed over by the effort made by those of you who chose to play and I at least like to think that one thing we’re doing by holding these contests is to say “We love you, writers!” and I also like to think that when you choose to send us a story you’re saying “I love you, Literary Lab!” and if you’re not saying that I promise not to tell your mother so mum’s the word, okay?
Anyway. We Are Working On It. The plan is for each of us to have read and decided upon all the entries by the end of this week. We’ll sort out who the Best In Show is this weekend or early next week, hopefully (we reserve the right to miss our deadline!), and have a Grand Announcement toward the end of next week, or possibly we’ll save it for Valentine’s Day because, as I say, we love you, mighty writers.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Theme and Variations and Themes
So we're all excited about the Third Annual Literary Lab Contest, right? We've all read the two "theme" stories and are now wondering how to create an interesting variation on one or both of these stories, right? Right?
What's that? You're stuck for ideas? You aren't sure how to turn an existing story into something your own without simply paraphrasing it? Well sit yourself down and I'll attempt to give some advice. Actually, "advice" is probably the wrong word. What I'm really going to do is sort of talk about what goes through my mind when I look at these stories and wonder what I'll do with them. It might be messy and pointless, but here goes. Ready?
First, there are some images common to both stories. Each starts with a guy walking through a forest and meeting a woman. One of them is a witch and the other is the man's abandoned wife. Hell, there's plenty of material there. What if both the witch and the abandoned wife showed up at once? or if the man's estranged wife was a witch? What if the witch or the estranged wife was the main character instead of the man? Lots of possibilities.
Next you've got (in the Chekhov) the wife pleased despite herself to see her husband, and she begs him to come home. But what if she wasn't pleased? What if he was trying to weasel his way back into her affections and she didn't want him? What if she'd found someone else? Hmm?
In the Anderson tale, the witch begs the man to do her a favor. She offers riches in payment for his retrieving her magical tinderbox. There must be some ways to turn this around, to spin it sideways, though I can't think of anything this second.
So anyway, in the originals both women want the man to do something for them. You could get all Freudian and examine the idea of the man climbing up a tree to go down its hollow trunk carrying the witch's apron. That's clearly some sort of sexual imagery, isn't it? What on earth is going on with the soldier putting dogs onto the witch's apron and getting money? I have no idea but it's a disturbing image if I dwell on it so I don't. The forest has long been a symbol of feminine sexual presence and power in European fairy tales. So the soldier's already on her turf, in a way, with his rifle or his sword. Lots of freaky area to explore there, unless you want to just say that sometimes a forest is a forest, a hollow tree is a hollow tree, a sword is just a rifle etc and ignore the subliminal sexual images. But note in passing how the witch's request mimics sex while the abandoned wife offers the possibility of actual conjugal sex. Are there kids reading this? Go to bed, kids. Your mother and I are talking.
In the Chekhov story, the man declares that he's happier being single, working on an estate for a lord, and he leaves his wife in the forest, turning back and giving her a ruble out of guilt. This is a story about selfishness and guilt, and because the wife watches her husband as he goes out of sight, still pining for him, it's a story about unfulfilled love and hopeless dreams.
The fairy tale has the typical task-in-three-parts structure, with the stakes and the rewards escalating. It's also clearly (if you ask me) some sort of hybrid, with two stories grafted together: the magic dogs in the magic tree is one story and the forbidden princess in the tower is another story. I might be tempted to only focus on one of these stories. Or I might make the estranged wife the princess in the tower, somehow. Metaphor might be the way to go here.
Setting and tone will determine much of this. I might set it in modern day, and the witch might be a witch or something else. The hunstman/soldier might be a soldier, or he might be an arbitrage trader; I don't know. The whole thing might be told in letters, or via emails or text messages. Hard to say but I don't know how much that matters at this stage. Intriguing, though.
Endings? Well, there are the endings of the "theme" stories, with the huntsman going off without the wife and the soldier getting the girl and the riches. Use them or not as you like. I'll probably look for some other way, and I'm more attracted to the open and indeterminate nature of Chekhov's ending. More things might be to come; we just don't know, do we?
There are multiple characters in these stories, and you could write something from any of their points of view. The huntsman's new employer, maybe. Whoever owns the forest where the action takes place. And maybe the huntsman is The Huntsman, and the abandoned wife is Red Riding Hood and this is years after the Wolf was killed. Who knows? Maybe the soldier is a deserter and he hides in a tree stump and the witch discovers him while looking for her tinderbox, which she needs to light the fire under her oven which contains Hansel and Gretel? The directions you can take these stories are pretty much endless.
Me, I've decided to work forward blindly from this sentence: She was always meeting men in the forest. I have no idea what it means, but that will be a spur to creativity. So good luck, Mighty Writers! Off you go to write!
What's that? You're stuck for ideas? You aren't sure how to turn an existing story into something your own without simply paraphrasing it? Well sit yourself down and I'll attempt to give some advice. Actually, "advice" is probably the wrong word. What I'm really going to do is sort of talk about what goes through my mind when I look at these stories and wonder what I'll do with them. It might be messy and pointless, but here goes. Ready?
First, there are some images common to both stories. Each starts with a guy walking through a forest and meeting a woman. One of them is a witch and the other is the man's abandoned wife. Hell, there's plenty of material there. What if both the witch and the abandoned wife showed up at once? or if the man's estranged wife was a witch? What if the witch or the estranged wife was the main character instead of the man? Lots of possibilities.
Next you've got (in the Chekhov) the wife pleased despite herself to see her husband, and she begs him to come home. But what if she wasn't pleased? What if he was trying to weasel his way back into her affections and she didn't want him? What if she'd found someone else? Hmm?
In the Anderson tale, the witch begs the man to do her a favor. She offers riches in payment for his retrieving her magical tinderbox. There must be some ways to turn this around, to spin it sideways, though I can't think of anything this second.
So anyway, in the originals both women want the man to do something for them. You could get all Freudian and examine the idea of the man climbing up a tree to go down its hollow trunk carrying the witch's apron. That's clearly some sort of sexual imagery, isn't it? What on earth is going on with the soldier putting dogs onto the witch's apron and getting money? I have no idea but it's a disturbing image if I dwell on it so I don't. The forest has long been a symbol of feminine sexual presence and power in European fairy tales. So the soldier's already on her turf, in a way, with his rifle or his sword. Lots of freaky area to explore there, unless you want to just say that sometimes a forest is a forest, a hollow tree is a hollow tree, a sword is just a rifle etc and ignore the subliminal sexual images. But note in passing how the witch's request mimics sex while the abandoned wife offers the possibility of actual conjugal sex. Are there kids reading this? Go to bed, kids. Your mother and I are talking.
In the Chekhov story, the man declares that he's happier being single, working on an estate for a lord, and he leaves his wife in the forest, turning back and giving her a ruble out of guilt. This is a story about selfishness and guilt, and because the wife watches her husband as he goes out of sight, still pining for him, it's a story about unfulfilled love and hopeless dreams.
The fairy tale has the typical task-in-three-parts structure, with the stakes and the rewards escalating. It's also clearly (if you ask me) some sort of hybrid, with two stories grafted together: the magic dogs in the magic tree is one story and the forbidden princess in the tower is another story. I might be tempted to only focus on one of these stories. Or I might make the estranged wife the princess in the tower, somehow. Metaphor might be the way to go here.
Setting and tone will determine much of this. I might set it in modern day, and the witch might be a witch or something else. The hunstman/soldier might be a soldier, or he might be an arbitrage trader; I don't know. The whole thing might be told in letters, or via emails or text messages. Hard to say but I don't know how much that matters at this stage. Intriguing, though.
Endings? Well, there are the endings of the "theme" stories, with the huntsman going off without the wife and the soldier getting the girl and the riches. Use them or not as you like. I'll probably look for some other way, and I'm more attracted to the open and indeterminate nature of Chekhov's ending. More things might be to come; we just don't know, do we?
There are multiple characters in these stories, and you could write something from any of their points of view. The huntsman's new employer, maybe. Whoever owns the forest where the action takes place. And maybe the huntsman is The Huntsman, and the abandoned wife is Red Riding Hood and this is years after the Wolf was killed. Who knows? Maybe the soldier is a deserter and he hides in a tree stump and the witch discovers him while looking for her tinderbox, which she needs to light the fire under her oven which contains Hansel and Gretel? The directions you can take these stories are pretty much endless.
Me, I've decided to work forward blindly from this sentence: She was always meeting men in the forest. I have no idea what it means, but that will be a spur to creativity. So good luck, Mighty Writers! Off you go to write!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Friday Fille...
Phew! I'm too tired to even write the "r" in Friday Filler. It has been an exciting week here, and thank you to everyone who has supported the anthology, either through taking part it the contest, contributing, cheering us on, advertising, buying a copy, helping us run the contest (Becca) or even just saying hi. I think all three of us are really just blown away by how much everyone is willing to let us have so much fun.
We're already talking about what we're going to do for Anthology #3. We're so excited about it, we might just play along this time and include our own stories tucked away in the back somewhere. Is that selfish of us?
We were all pretty exhausted by the time we got the book out. Michelle, who always works especially hard on these things, deserved a round of applesauce.
And, I wanted to apologize to Yvonne because it did turn out that we spelled her last name wrong in the table of contents. We're really sorry, Yvonne. I'm glad that your name is correct in front of your story though!
So, it's Friday and on Friday anything goes. Someone entertain us!
Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday Filler: Fields of Gold and What's UNDERGROUND
It's Friday Filler, and I have spent much of the week listening to Eva Cassidy's version of "Fields of Gold". Check it out here, if you want. It's beautiful and it makes me want to cry.
In other news, today is February 25th, and tomorrow is February 26th, and very soon after that, it will be March 1st, and on March 1st The Literary Lab's Notes From Underground Anthology will be available!
Here's a sneak peek of the cover:
We're not showing you the whole thing yet--you have to wait for that--but rest assured the entire image is quite aesthetically pleasing.
Much more importantly, I want to say sincerely that I'm honored to be publishing the stories in this collection. When we decided to put together an anthology that gave writers the freedom to do whatever they wanted, there was a lot of potential for disaster. It was incredibly heartwarming for me to see the amount of love and energy that our selected writers put into this. As I read through each piece, I was repeatedly surprised and impressed by how much talent was out there. And, as I had really been hoping for, I think these stories showcase each writer's unique voice and perspective. Thank you so very much to everyone who was willing to participate.
For the 25 writers we selected, you done good, and I am humbled.
For the many others that we weren't able to select, thank you as well for understanding our vision and sharing our excitement.
I hope you'll come back on March 1st to celebrate the release of our second anthology of short stories.
Also, don't forget to put your name on our mailing list! Sign up here at this link or in the sidebar. We might even include amazing articles you won't see here on the Lab, book recommendation, and discount codes for the anthology. Just sayin'...
Also, don't forget to put your name on our mailing list! Sign up here at this link or in the sidebar. We might even include amazing articles you won't see here on the Lab, book recommendation, and discount codes for the anthology. Just sayin'...
Friday, January 28, 2011
Friday Filler - Notes From Underground Update
My apologies to Scott if I beat him to Friday Filler. Scott, you're welcome to do another post or attach your thoughts to this one.
We've received a few emails from people about what's going on with the Notes From Underground anthology. It's taking a little longer than I personally anticipated, but I only have myself to blame for that since I was the one putting the initial book together and took way too long to do it. Life got a bit crazy!
Right now Tara Maya, our cover artist, is putting together something super fantastic for the cover. Davin and Scott are doing final copyedits, adding in italics, etc., and writing the front matter of the book. We'll be getting PDFs to all contributors for a final look-over before the book is sent to print. We'll keep you updated!
Thanks, everyone! I can't wait to see this beautiful book up on Amazon for sale! It will be well the worth wait! In the meantime, you can always satiate your reading hunger with a copy of Genre Wars from last year. You can find more info about it on the Anthology Site.
We've received a few emails from people about what's going on with the Notes From Underground anthology. It's taking a little longer than I personally anticipated, but I only have myself to blame for that since I was the one putting the initial book together and took way too long to do it. Life got a bit crazy!
 | |
| last year's anthology |
Thanks, everyone! I can't wait to see this beautiful book up on Amazon for sale! It will be well the worth wait! In the meantime, you can always satiate your reading hunger with a copy of Genre Wars from last year. You can find more info about it on the Anthology Site.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Deadlines and Other Dates
First off, today's the big due date for our Notes From Underground anthology stories. For any of the selected writers who still haven't turned in your story, you have until midnight PST to get them in to us...and we hope you do! (Or else, Nevets.)
Second off, don't forget that on December 21, we're doing our trivia/giveaway day. All day long, we'll be posting up trivia questions and giving prizes to whoever answers correctly first. I've been spending the last few days collecting some fun and silly prizes, so I hope you'll check in throughout the day!
Third off, check out Michelle's blog now. She's announcing something exciting! Okay, this isn't a deadline or an other sort of date, but check it out anyway.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Notes From Underground Results...Part I
I deeply thank everyone who entered our contest. If you read my final plea a few weeks ago, you'll know how emotionally attached I was (and am) to this experiment. I'm very grateful to everyone for supporting our attempts at nurturing writing in the best way we know how.
Yesterday, Scott, Michelle and I talked about our selection process and how hard it was to choose the 25 writers below. Today, I want to celebrate our selections. In one way or another, everyone here excited us with their writing and ideas.
Hey, you're in! No matter what kind of writing you turn into us on December 15th, we're going to showcase it in our second anthology. You've got ten pages to create whatever text story you want, and if you so desire, you've got the three of us to bounce ideas and drafts off of. Feel free to use us during these next 3 months, but also realize that this is your chance to really find out what you can do for yourself.
Remember that this is only the beginning. The next hurdle is the actual writing of the stories, where your biggest obstacles are your own highest standards. And now, on to our selections...
Congratulations to:
Beth Overmyer
Rachel Becker
Jeannie Miernik
Bridget Chicoine
Nevine Sultan
Judy Croome
Summer Ross
Cee Martinez
R. Mac Wheeler
Simon C. Larter
C. N. Nevets
Anne Allen
Candace Ganger
Anne Gallagher
Erin L. Harty
Matt Zandstra
Lisa Shafer
B.A. McMillan
Taryn Tyler
Aerin Bender-Stone
Susannah Pabot
Brian King
Yvonne Osborne
Lavanya Krishnan
Loren Eaton
Our hearts were definitely broken for some of our friends and writers who we didn't select. We know that this doesn't say anything personal about your own talent. We hope you know that, too.
For our selected writers, please e-mail us at LiteraryLab@gmail.com to confirm that you're up for Part II of the contest. If we don't hear from you over the next few days, Scott will probably cry, Michelle will probably go on an angry rampage, and I'll probably regress to my boyhood days when I did things like hide in the dryer.
Yesterday, Scott, Michelle and I talked about our selection process and how hard it was to choose the 25 writers below. Today, I want to celebrate our selections. In one way or another, everyone here excited us with their writing and ideas.
Hey, you're in! No matter what kind of writing you turn into us on December 15th, we're going to showcase it in our second anthology. You've got ten pages to create whatever text story you want, and if you so desire, you've got the three of us to bounce ideas and drafts off of. Feel free to use us during these next 3 months, but also realize that this is your chance to really find out what you can do for yourself.
Remember that this is only the beginning. The next hurdle is the actual writing of the stories, where your biggest obstacles are your own highest standards. And now, on to our selections...
Congratulations to:
Beth Overmyer
Rachel Becker
Jeannie Miernik
Bridget Chicoine
Nevine Sultan
Judy Croome
Summer Ross
Cee Martinez
R. Mac Wheeler
Simon C. Larter
C. N. Nevets
Anne Allen
Candace Ganger
Anne Gallagher
Erin L. Harty
Matt Zandstra
Lisa Shafer
B.A. McMillan
Taryn Tyler
Aerin Bender-Stone
Susannah Pabot
Brian King
Yvonne Osborne
Lavanya Krishnan
Loren Eaton
Our hearts were definitely broken for some of our friends and writers who we didn't select. We know that this doesn't say anything personal about your own talent. We hope you know that, too.
For our selected writers, please e-mail us at LiteraryLab@gmail.com to confirm that you're up for Part II of the contest. If we don't hear from you over the next few days, Scott will probably cry, Michelle will probably go on an angry rampage, and I'll probably regress to my boyhood days when I did things like hide in the dryer.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
"Notes From Underground" Pre-Announcement Ramble
Last night, rather too late, I finished reading the last of the entries for our “Notes From Underground” contest. Domey and Michelle finished hours before I did, and cheered me on through the last of the reading. It was like coming in last at a marathon with the runners who came in first waiting at the finish line. Which was nice. My co-hosts are nice. I heart them. And, of course, I digress.
Last night I finished reading the last of the “Notes From Underground” entries. There were 59 of them. The majority of entries were in the form of text, but some of them included image files, music files, movie files and possibly other sorts of files I can’t recall just now. So it was very interesting for me as a reader, and I’m sure Domey and Michelle would agree that this has been a fascinating experiment.
I don’t actually know how all the votes tally just now. Mostly that’s because the hated Microsoft “live” mail program isn’t working and I have no way of communicating with my co-hosts. I’m sure Michelle at least has a good idea of which 25 entrants will be part of the anthology, but I don’t, so I can’t say anything intelligent about that and besides, we will be announcing those results tomorrow, my impatient writer BFFs. But I’ll tell you how we judged this contest.
Last year the three of us discussed the stories, gave detailed comments about each one, weighed the merits and all voted on every story that went into the Genre Wars anthology. That took a lot of time. I will admit that I didn’t want to spend all those hours resolving the results of this contest (especially since a lot of that email discussion would have to take place during work hours when I should be working), and I also realized it wasn’t necessary. Each of us pretty much knew which entries we liked a lot, which ones we didn’t like as much, and which entries we were not decided about. Discussion wasn’t really going to change our minds. So I suggested that we read each entry—multiple times if we had the time—and vote yes/no/maybe on each. Any entry with more than one “yes” vote automatically gets in. If those entries are less than 25 in number, we divide the difference by 3 and each get to pick whichever of our remaining “yes” vote entries we like to make up the difference and get to a total of 25 writers who will bless us with their work in our anthology. Thanks in advance, writers who will bless us! So it’s a simple and quick selection process we used.
The two big questions on the mind of each entrant are, I suppose, Did you select mine? and How did you decide which entries got a “yes” vote?
To the first question I can only say that I don’t know. This contest was anonymous, thanks to the efforts of the tireless Becca. I don’t know who wrote what, and I’m going to try and keep it none of my business. I will say, however, that I know how weird and disorienting the free-form nature of the entry process was for many of you, and I also know that it’s scary to submit your work to anyone, even to a contest run by an obscure website like ours. Everyone who submitted to the contest is very brave—braver than I probably am—and I am impressed by all of you. Thanks so much for participating this year. Seeing what you’re all up to, and getting you to be part of the experiments here, are the best things about this blogging experience for me. So, like I said, thanks to all of you.
To the second question, the answer is going to vary from entry to entry. I can’t really say much about the “no” votes I gave, except that they weren’t things I’d vote “yes” for. That’s very subjective. Domey and Michelle would be able to tell you that I am a very harsh and unforgiving critic. Yes, even a bit of an ass when it comes to writing. But I was looking for things to which I could give a “yes” vote. That’s what my judging philosophy was. “Let me vote for you,” I prayed at the beginning of each entry. I was looking first of all for something that I liked, something that made me want to keep reading. Genre didn’t matter. Stylistic and verbal virtuosity were not my primary concerns. I just wanted something that made me want to read it all the way through. As well as that, I looked for the “wow” factor. I wanted to read something I wish I had been clever enough to write. Sometimes that was no more than a well-turned phrase, a metaphor that surprised me, or really just anything that pleasantly surprised me. After that was something that Domey calls “movement,” which to me (if I interpret his use of the word correctly) means that the writing went somewhere, there was a progression of ideas or events. I will digress a moment and say that I noticed some pieces start with a bang, and go on strongly for a couple hundred or a thousand words, and then sort of fizzle out or don’t go anywhere from the starting point. Some of them circle around, some run in place, some stand still and a lot go to sleep. My advice to you is that if you have a really strong idea and you can’t go someplace from it, you should make that strong idea the endpoint and try working toward it instead. The results, I predict, will surprise and charm you.
Anyway, I was looking for things that kickstarted the right bits of my brain and made me sit up and read. A lot of the entries I did not vote for were well-written and imaginative, but they didn’t have that “wow” factor, which is I realize one of those annoying things that agents and editors say and nobody knows what the hell they’re talking about. But there it is nonetheless. We like what we like and I’m a difficult audience. But one thing I do want to say before I beazle on any longer is this: There were only 25 places available in the anthology (for a variety of reasons I’m not going to defend), and there were 59 entries. So while not everyone could get in, I do not want those of you who didn’t to think that you have, in any way at all, “lost” this contest. Because, dear writer, you have not. I have had my share of rejections from publications for my brilliant stories and each of those rejections wounded me more than is reasonable and I assume the news that your work was not selected will wound you and I regret that deeply. But Domey, Michelle and I invited you and your work into our lives because we value the experience of reading your work, we wanted you to send it to us, and we are grateful that you did. I don’t like the idea of winners and losers, especially in art. I reject that idea outright. You’re all brave, talented and wonderful people, and I am impressed with everyone who entered. You’ve done something difficult, and there is no way that isn’t a victory for you. So congratulations to you, and thanks for playing.
Last night I finished reading the last of the “Notes From Underground” entries. There were 59 of them. The majority of entries were in the form of text, but some of them included image files, music files, movie files and possibly other sorts of files I can’t recall just now. So it was very interesting for me as a reader, and I’m sure Domey and Michelle would agree that this has been a fascinating experiment.
I don’t actually know how all the votes tally just now. Mostly that’s because the hated Microsoft “live” mail program isn’t working and I have no way of communicating with my co-hosts. I’m sure Michelle at least has a good idea of which 25 entrants will be part of the anthology, but I don’t, so I can’t say anything intelligent about that and besides, we will be announcing those results tomorrow, my impatient writer BFFs. But I’ll tell you how we judged this contest.
Last year the three of us discussed the stories, gave detailed comments about each one, weighed the merits and all voted on every story that went into the Genre Wars anthology. That took a lot of time. I will admit that I didn’t want to spend all those hours resolving the results of this contest (especially since a lot of that email discussion would have to take place during work hours when I should be working), and I also realized it wasn’t necessary. Each of us pretty much knew which entries we liked a lot, which ones we didn’t like as much, and which entries we were not decided about. Discussion wasn’t really going to change our minds. So I suggested that we read each entry—multiple times if we had the time—and vote yes/no/maybe on each. Any entry with more than one “yes” vote automatically gets in. If those entries are less than 25 in number, we divide the difference by 3 and each get to pick whichever of our remaining “yes” vote entries we like to make up the difference and get to a total of 25 writers who will bless us with their work in our anthology. Thanks in advance, writers who will bless us! So it’s a simple and quick selection process we used.
The two big questions on the mind of each entrant are, I suppose, Did you select mine? and How did you decide which entries got a “yes” vote?
To the first question I can only say that I don’t know. This contest was anonymous, thanks to the efforts of the tireless Becca. I don’t know who wrote what, and I’m going to try and keep it none of my business. I will say, however, that I know how weird and disorienting the free-form nature of the entry process was for many of you, and I also know that it’s scary to submit your work to anyone, even to a contest run by an obscure website like ours. Everyone who submitted to the contest is very brave—braver than I probably am—and I am impressed by all of you. Thanks so much for participating this year. Seeing what you’re all up to, and getting you to be part of the experiments here, are the best things about this blogging experience for me. So, like I said, thanks to all of you.
To the second question, the answer is going to vary from entry to entry. I can’t really say much about the “no” votes I gave, except that they weren’t things I’d vote “yes” for. That’s very subjective. Domey and Michelle would be able to tell you that I am a very harsh and unforgiving critic. Yes, even a bit of an ass when it comes to writing. But I was looking for things to which I could give a “yes” vote. That’s what my judging philosophy was. “Let me vote for you,” I prayed at the beginning of each entry. I was looking first of all for something that I liked, something that made me want to keep reading. Genre didn’t matter. Stylistic and verbal virtuosity were not my primary concerns. I just wanted something that made me want to read it all the way through. As well as that, I looked for the “wow” factor. I wanted to read something I wish I had been clever enough to write. Sometimes that was no more than a well-turned phrase, a metaphor that surprised me, or really just anything that pleasantly surprised me. After that was something that Domey calls “movement,” which to me (if I interpret his use of the word correctly) means that the writing went somewhere, there was a progression of ideas or events. I will digress a moment and say that I noticed some pieces start with a bang, and go on strongly for a couple hundred or a thousand words, and then sort of fizzle out or don’t go anywhere from the starting point. Some of them circle around, some run in place, some stand still and a lot go to sleep. My advice to you is that if you have a really strong idea and you can’t go someplace from it, you should make that strong idea the endpoint and try working toward it instead. The results, I predict, will surprise and charm you.
Anyway, I was looking for things that kickstarted the right bits of my brain and made me sit up and read. A lot of the entries I did not vote for were well-written and imaginative, but they didn’t have that “wow” factor, which is I realize one of those annoying things that agents and editors say and nobody knows what the hell they’re talking about. But there it is nonetheless. We like what we like and I’m a difficult audience. But one thing I do want to say before I beazle on any longer is this: There were only 25 places available in the anthology (for a variety of reasons I’m not going to defend), and there were 59 entries. So while not everyone could get in, I do not want those of you who didn’t to think that you have, in any way at all, “lost” this contest. Because, dear writer, you have not. I have had my share of rejections from publications for my brilliant stories and each of those rejections wounded me more than is reasonable and I assume the news that your work was not selected will wound you and I regret that deeply. But Domey, Michelle and I invited you and your work into our lives because we value the experience of reading your work, we wanted you to send it to us, and we are grateful that you did. I don’t like the idea of winners and losers, especially in art. I reject that idea outright. You’re all brave, talented and wonderful people, and I am impressed with everyone who entered. You’ve done something difficult, and there is no way that isn’t a victory for you. So congratulations to you, and thanks for playing.
Monday, August 16, 2010
A big thank you and a nod to simplicity
I want to first say that I was extremely touched by everybody's show of support to my Notes From Underground post last week. Our lovely-hearted assistant Becca has informed us that we got about forty entries since that post. That, along with the earlier entries we got, will make for some great competition and some exciting results. It means so much to me that people would jump in and show how much you care upon seeing me distressed. The idea that such a thing could happen on the internet still boggles my mind. I sincerely thank you!
Today, I just wanted to give a shout out to simplicity. For those of you who have been following the progression of my cannibal story, I finished it last Friday. (I believe Scott's words were, "It's about damn time.") It's a novella, weighing in at about 21,000 words, and I've been working on it for about three years. I read through it all yesterday morning, and to my surprise the parts that had me most engaged were also the parts with the simplest POV, the simplest time line, and the simplest prose style.
In a way, this is a relief. Over the last year I've been working to make my prose style more complex because I thought the richness would be more interesting to readers. And, as a reader, I still do very much admire complex prose. But, in this case, in this story, simple was definitely better.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
You Can Still Submit!
Looks like some of you aren't sure if you can still submit your entries for Notes from Underground today. Please do! We're relaxed around here. You're welcome to send your entries in all day today until midnight your time.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
My final plea
I'm going to try and be as sincere as I can today. With less than a week left to enter our Notes From Underground contest, there are far less writers interested than I would have imagined. So, I wanted to take one more opportunity to try and convey my excitement for this project.
When I first proposed the idea of giving writers pages in an anthology to write whatever they wanted, I think all three of us--Scott, Michelle, and I--were very hopeful. We saw this as an opportunity for writers to feel secure in knowing that they could say anything, an opportunity for writers to free themselves from the "rules" and attempts to please others that may have been holding them back. I figured this would intimidate some writers, and probably bore others, but I really thought a significant portion of people would find this to be a unique and fun opportunity to try something new.
With the writers who aren't interested, there's not much I can say to that. But, with the writers who may be too scared, I hope you'll take that leap and answer the ever-important question: What would I come up with if I could write anything at all?
Maybe the contest seems too complicated. After all, there are two steps. Well, with the low number of entries we've gotten so far, the nice thing is that the first step may be completely irrelevant. If you want the pages, chances are you're going to get those pages. Just let us know you want them! After that, all you have to do is let yourself go. And, if you want our help with the final stories, we'll be here as your personal 3-in-1 advisory board.
Because we don't have winners for the contest beyond the 25 writers who will be selected, we didn't offer prizes like we did last year. But, what we are offering is a publishing opportunity in an anthology that we put a lot of work into producing. This year, I plan to spend more energy promoting the book. After publishing Cinders, Michelle is now an expert at formatting and publication. This book will be special, and I want readers to see how special it is.
interjection by Michelle: This new anthology will also be available on Amazon.com. That means your work will be for sale and distributed on Amazon.com in the US and the UK (the Kindle version). It will also be for sale on Smashwords as an ebook, and also as a beautiful paperback. The price will possibly be lower than last year, but that will depend on the page count. How can you pass that up!? Really published, and not just on an online journal, but in print. :)
interjection by Michelle: This new anthology will also be available on Amazon.com. That means your work will be for sale and distributed on Amazon.com in the US and the UK (the Kindle version). It will also be for sale on Smashwords as an ebook, and also as a beautiful paperback. The price will possibly be lower than last year, but that will depend on the page count. How can you pass that up!? Really published, and not just on an online journal, but in print. :)
You'll also be doing something charitable. Like last year, we're going to be donating the proceeds of the anthology to a writer's non-profit organization. From our first anthology, we were able to donate hundreds of dollars to WriteGirl, and this year we're planning to give to the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund, a group that got a lot of support in our earlier poll.
So, I hope you will all give the contest one more consideration. There is still plenty of time to enter, though there's not a lot of time to waste. I also hope you see this as the unique opportunity that it was intended to be! Have fun, and be brave!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Two More Weeks To Enter
Hi Everyone,
Here's a reminder that there are about two weeks left to enter our Notes From Underground contest. It looks like we're going to be donating the proceeds from this anthology (our second!) to charity based on our poll, and we'll probably pick the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund, who was our second place charity last year.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Mowing Grass and Other Random Things
I've been reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and before I started I finished a Young Adult book. Talk about a difference in writing styles! If anyone ever asks me what "literary" means I tell them I have no idea. I've been in the debate one too many times to even care any more. McCarthy is spoken of everywhere as a literary genius. Maybe he is. I've enjoyed his book on so many different (not better, just different) levels than I enjoyed the Young Adult book. The Young Adult book I couldn't put down. I read it in a day. It was fun and fast and had depth, but The Road...it's like a rich dessert and it's getting hard to swallow at some points. That's not a bad thing. It just means I have to read it slowly.
For me, any writing that makes me feel this way is great (not better than other writing, just greater for me) writing. I don't run across it too often, but when I do it's a treat. If I feel like I want to read the book again to catch more of that dessert I missed the first time around, that's great writing. If it makes me jealous, that's great writing. If it makes me want to stop reading and go write something, that's great writing.
That's all for me, though. You may be different. So there's a thought for Friday. And now for some random.
Don't miss the writing contest going on over at The Clarity of Night!
Don't forget to vote about where the proceeds for our Notes from Underground anthology should go. It's down below on Thursday's post.
Don't forget to check out the fun giveaway on my author site for the release of my novella, Cinders. (Yes, that's a shameless plug)
I'm house/dog sitting for my parents while they're gone for two weeks, and I just mowed the lawn. I haven't mowed grass for years. Oh, the smell. It's the essence of summer. That, and some watermelon. I'm savoring it before the months of snow return. What's your favorite summer thing?
For me, any writing that makes me feel this way is great (not better than other writing, just greater for me) writing. I don't run across it too often, but when I do it's a treat. If I feel like I want to read the book again to catch more of that dessert I missed the first time around, that's great writing. If it makes me jealous, that's great writing. If it makes me want to stop reading and go write something, that's great writing.
That's all for me, though. You may be different. So there's a thought for Friday. And now for some random.
Don't miss the writing contest going on over at The Clarity of Night!
Don't forget to vote about where the proceeds for our Notes from Underground anthology should go. It's down below on Thursday's post.
Don't forget to check out the fun giveaway on my author site for the release of my novella, Cinders. (Yes, that's a shameless plug)
I'm house/dog sitting for my parents while they're gone for two weeks, and I just mowed the lawn. I haven't mowed grass for years. Oh, the smell. It's the essence of summer. That, and some watermelon. I'm savoring it before the months of snow return. What's your favorite summer thing?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
So You Think You're Talented
It's that small seed that drives me. I'll bet you've got it, too.
That seed drives me to share my work. Here's a commonly asked question that I'd like to address:
Do you write to sell or do you write only for yourself?
What a stupid question, huh? Yeah, of course you're writing to sell, or at least to share. Unless you're locking up all your manuscripts in a drawer with no intent of showing them to anyone, ever, you're writing to sell and share. And since you're writing to sell or share, you're considering an audience. And if you're considering an audience, you're shaping stories that you believe that audience might like. No? You're writing exactly what you want and how you want it and you don't care what anybody else thinks? Good for you! Write what you want and an audience will follow. You talented writer, you. Either way, you've got drive!
You know what got me to really let go and just write what I wanted to write? I made a secret blog with a separate gmail account and fake name and started posting my work just to get it out there. I thought, heck, I’m going to write what I want to write, even if it is clichéd or boring or overdone. I don’t care! So I wrote. And I wrote one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve created so far. It taught me how to let go.
True creativity comes only when you forget the world you’re living in exists. It is only you and the art. At least that’s how it is for me.
Get to that place.
And then enter our contest! Show us your talent! We want more entries! If I was going to enter a contest like this, my mind might explode with the possibilities of what I could do.
Maybe there’s
P
An
Da
S
Up on my roof and there’s
Bamb
Oo
Growing to
The
Sun.
Oh, and guess what? You can get 15% off the first Genre Wars Anthology over on Lulu. If you haven’t purchased your copy yet, now is the time to do it! Click here and enter code: BEACHREAD305
The code is good until August 15th.
Oh, AND, speaking of anthologies, we have a POLL! Please vote! We want to know where you think the money should go for our new anthology this year, Notes from Underground. If you haven't heard of this anthology, go check out the contest and rules here.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Less Than One Month Left
Happy Monday everyone!
Just a reminder that there is less than a month left before our Notes From Underground contest closes. The deadline is August 15th. I really think this project is a great opportunity for writers to challenge themselves and see what they write when they are allowed to write anything. It's probably a daunting task, but I've always liked a little bit of pain in my life, so that's another reason to give it a shot!
I also wanted to remind you that our first Genre Wars Anthology is still up for sale. We've already been able to donate $200 to WriteGirl after the first quarter of the year. You can buy the hard copy or the pdf, and all the proceeds will continue to be donated to charity.
Friday, June 18, 2010
A Very Busy Week at the Lab
Your hosts here at the Literary Lab have all had busy weeks: Michelle is laboring furiously on a cool writing project (and wrestling furiously with a small child as well), Davin is away at a conference in his role as mad scientist (did he mention that he has a Ph.D.?) and I have been buried at work (end of fiscal and academic years bring many reports and a whole lot of last-minute spending). I have also been writing in a blaze of imagination, sallying forth into the middle of my current WIP. I had planned to actually show you the whole of Chapter Ten, which starts the midsection of my book, and discuss the things I'm attempting to do with the narrative as the story switches from the outer conflict to the inner conflict, blah blah blah, but I write longhand and I've not actually typed up the chapter and I've not even finished the chapter (I've got about 2500 words down, and I think I'll need another 1000 or so before I get to the end of it). That will be my post on Tuesday, so come back for that. Today, though? I got nothing today.
But!
I want to remind you all about our fabulous Notes From Underground Contest, Stage One of which is going on right now, and not many of you have so far chosen to participate. Why is that? Are the parameters too weird? Does it sound too hard? Does it sound like no fun? Because we want it to be fun, and not just for the three of us. Honest.
Also, tomorrow is Salman Rushdie's birthday. Send him a card, or friend him on Facebook (I did)!
Also, this is cool.
But!
I want to remind you all about our fabulous Notes From Underground Contest, Stage One of which is going on right now, and not many of you have so far chosen to participate. Why is that? Are the parameters too weird? Does it sound too hard? Does it sound like no fun? Because we want it to be fun, and not just for the three of us. Honest.
Also, tomorrow is Salman Rushdie's birthday. Send him a card, or friend him on Facebook (I did)!
Also, this is cool.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
if i was going to enter...
I'll admit that we were worried about the reception we'd get for our new contest, Notes from Underground. I think overall it was great! Except that many of you expressed hesitation at the overwhelming nature of a free-form application. What do you do with a free-form application? What are we looking for? Ack!
Scott said in the comments:
This might make it seem even more overwhelming because I know that I freeze up when I'm faced with something so absolutely non-restrictive. Where do I even begin?
I was talking to Simon yesterday and he put it well:
Pretty simple, eh?
Okay, okay, it's still daunting. To try and ease some of your fears, I'm going to give you an example. Examples help, right? Keep in mind, this is only to give you an idea of what you could do. Your entry can be completely different.
Let's play.
Michelle's Entry for Notes from Underground
Dear Literary Lab,
Please accept the enclosed entry pages for your contest, Notes from Underground. I'm so excited to enter into such an amazing, fantastic contest. All three of you are absolutely brilliant. Brilliant, I say. I faithfully read your blog every day, and I'm always blown away by your brilliance. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. If I was an agent I'd publish you all right away. Yes, yes, I would.
(really, don't say things you don't mean...we do like honesty...)
Since I know you guys aren't super-picky, I've estimated the five-page entry to the best of my ability. I've used 12-point Times New Roman font for the prose, 1" margins, and I've attached the VIRUS-free pages to this email. I will now wow you with my creativity.
(you don't have to include a cover letter, but you can...cover letters can be used to explain stuff we might not immediately get with our brilliance...anything goes, remember)
1st part - a flash fiction piece:
2nd part - a poem:
Okay, that poem really needs work, but you get the idea.
3rd part - my short research paper about one of Flannery O'Conner's stories because she's amazing and I think I sound smart when I talk about her.
(paper continues...and seriously, you do NOT have to turn in anything academic. This is just me. I was an English major and like stuff like this. See, this free-form thing is all about me the writer. It can be all about you, the writer. Turn in weird stuff - we don't mind.)
4th part - a photo I took just to say oh, look, a pretty picture! (yes, your photos should be a .jpg please)
5th part - a paragraph explaining my goals as a writer and a little bit more about me:
You know, if I was actually doing this for reals and not slapping it together in an hour, I'd probably write that above thing in some sort of poem or something creative like that. Prose is just fine, too.
You could:
Anything, you guys, anything!
So does this help? I'm around all day, so please leave questions in the comments if you have them. I'll try to answer to the best of my ability, as will Davin and Scott (I think...if they are around today).
Scott said in the comments:
1. You don't have to fill five pages if you don't want/need to.
2. It doesn't have to be experimental; it could be a short story or other example of your writing. But it could be experimental.
3. We aren't looking for anything in particular, so don't think we are. We don't know what we're looking for. We're just looking. That's what we mean by "free-form." You don't have to break down the barriers of form and structure, but you can if you want. Hell, we don't even know what "break down the barriers of form and structure" really means.
This might make it seem even more overwhelming because I know that I freeze up when I'm faced with something so absolutely non-restrictive. Where do I even begin?
I was talking to Simon yesterday and he put it well:
What's hard about it? We woo you with our creativity, you give us 10 pages in an anthology.
Pretty simple, eh?
Okay, okay, it's still daunting. To try and ease some of your fears, I'm going to give you an example. Examples help, right? Keep in mind, this is only to give you an idea of what you could do. Your entry can be completely different.
Let's play.
Michelle's Entry for Notes from Underground
Dear Literary Lab,
Please accept the enclosed entry pages for your contest, Notes from Underground. I'm so excited to enter into such an amazing, fantastic contest. All three of you are absolutely brilliant. Brilliant, I say. I faithfully read your blog every day, and I'm always blown away by your brilliance. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. If I was an agent I'd publish you all right away. Yes, yes, I would.
(really, don't say things you don't mean...we do like honesty...)
Since I know you guys aren't super-picky, I've estimated the five-page entry to the best of my ability. I've used 12-point Times New Roman font for the prose, 1" margins, and I've attached the VIRUS-free pages to this email. I will now wow you with my creativity.
(you don't have to include a cover letter, but you can...cover letters can be used to explain stuff we might not immediately get with our brilliance...anything goes, remember)
1st part - a flash fiction piece:
2nd part - a poem:
Okay, that poem really needs work, but you get the idea.
3rd part - my short research paper about one of Flannery O'Conner's stories because she's amazing and I think I sound smart when I talk about her.
(paper continues...and seriously, you do NOT have to turn in anything academic. This is just me. I was an English major and like stuff like this. See, this free-form thing is all about me the writer. It can be all about you, the writer. Turn in weird stuff - we don't mind.)
4th part - a photo I took just to say oh, look, a pretty picture! (yes, your photos should be a .jpg please)
5th part - a paragraph explaining my goals as a writer and a little bit more about me:
You know, if I was actually doing this for reals and not slapping it together in an hour, I'd probably write that above thing in some sort of poem or something creative like that. Prose is just fine, too.
You could:
- turn in a query for your novel
- give us your publishing credentials
- attach pictures of your really cool apartment or writing workspace
- tell us about your favorite class in college and why
- introduce us to your pet dog or goldfish, etc.
Anything, you guys, anything!
So does this help? I'm around all day, so please leave questions in the comments if you have them. I'll try to answer to the best of my ability, as will Davin and Scott (I think...if they are around today).
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Our Second Annual Contest: Notes From Underground
For The Literary Lab's second annual Genre Wars Anthology, we present our "Notes From Underground" contest!
What is "Notes From Underground"?
The title comes from a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky that is part rambling narrative and part story. It's a piece of writing that is both highly experimental and deeply personal. For the contest, we want you writers to feel that same freedom of expression, taking out the judging process to the best of our ability.
To do that, we have two steps to the selection process. The second step will be completely non-competitive.
Step 1:
By August 15, we want to see a 5-page free-form application that convinces us that your writing should be included in the anthology. This will be the "contest" part of the contest. You can use words, images...whatever you want (that can be e-mailed). It doesn't have to be the story that you want to publish, even though that would be all right. It doesn't have to be a story at all. It could be a proposal, a resume, a story idea, poetry, flattery...anything. Got it? Anything.
From this first pool of applications, we'll pick 25 winners that we are excited about showcasing. These writers will be announced on September 15 and they will be guaranteed 10 pages in our anthology. Then, for them, it's on to the next step.
Step 2:
The actual writing! The 25 writers selected in Step 1 will now have 3 months to finish the story that they would like us to publish. Here, aside from the 10-page space limitation, you are the boss. We will do no judging, no critiquing, nothing unless you ask it of us. Whatever you turn in on December 15 will be exactly what we publish to the best of our ability. This writing will be an expression of you, you, and only you.
So, there you go! We hope you are excited about the contest, because we are. We feel like this is one of the few chances a writer has to really see what they would write when no one else is dictating rules to them. We're accepting applications now. Paste your 5 pages into the body of your e-mail and send them to LiteraryLab@gmail.com. All applications will be anonymous to the judges.
Grab our button and help us promote!
To put our button on your blog, follow these instructions:
If you'd like to see an example of an entry, click here.
Grab our button and help us promote!
To put our button on your blog, follow these instructions:
- Create a text/html gadget or widget in your sidebar or footer.
- Copy and paste the code above into your html view.
- Adjust any row or column numbers in the html code, if you want. (For instance the button is 190 x 190 pixels right now, and you can change those numbers to smaller dimensions in the html code if you'd like the button smaller or larger.)
- Preview/save the widget. If you have problems or questions with the button, let us know.
If you'd like to see an example of an entry, click here.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Our First WriteGirl Donation
Happy Friday, everyone! Just wanted to let you know that we got the first check from Lulu publishing with the profits from our first quarter Genre Wars sales. Thanks to all of you writers and readers, the Literary Lab will be donating $200 to WriteGirl, and already we've had more sales in the following quarter!
Scott, Michelle, and I are discussing our next Genre Wars contest and (at least in my opinion) we've got some great ideas that will encourage confidence and freedom of expression in this next batch of stories. We're going to have a preview announcement around June 1st to give everyone plenty of prep time. Together with this, we may also make the first Genre Wars anthology available as a pdf to try and raise a little bit more money for WriteGirl.
Thanks so very, very much to everyone who participated in Genre Wars Volume 1: all the contest entrants, all the people who submitted cover ideas, Becca for making sure all entries were anonymous, and all the readers!
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