Wordless Wednesday and Insecure Writer

This is a dual post. 1st my wordless Wednesday, followed by this month's Insecure Writers post.

 The view of the sunset from the Michigan side of Lake Superior.

Sure months ago a dear friend tells me about Wordless Wednesday, knowing I love to take pictures, but failed to mention anything about a linky list. Grrr. That list can be found here.

 Insecure Writers Support Group

I've heard about this but it was only recently that I decided the time had come to really check it out. Since it only posts once a month, I decided to give it a try.

I started a new project last weekend, and for the first time ever, I’m actually excited. Normally I can’t stop thinking about all the things I should be doing. But not this time. For some reason I’m relaxed about this project, and don’t mind taking time from other projects and working on it.

I’d like to believe my new attitude means I’m becoming a stronger writer and that fiction is getting easier, but I doubt it. I suspect the reason for the change is finally realizing the value of different types of writing projects. I think it’s finally sank in that taking a break from writing endless pages of web content and editing DWARFED, and working on a completely different project is good for my mental state, hopefully it will prevent me from the severe burnout I developed during the tail end of 2012. 

I do wish my writing is stronger, or that I’m the kind of person who could ignore the flaws until the first draft is completed. I’m bugged by my tendency to use characters over and over again.  In a single paragraph I mentioned the same character’s name five times, in a single paragraph. Ugh.

When it comes to DWARFED, I’m dealing with a lot of anxiety. More anxiety than I care to think about. I know I have a good concept, interesting characters, and the quality of writing keeps improving. When it comes to plot, I’m not so sure. I’m taking a month away from it, letting it age a little bit, and at the beginning of March I  read through it again and start yet another round of edits.                                                                                                                                                                             

 

Six Sentence Sunday 1/6/13

Yikes, problems with Blogger has me running way late with this weeks Six Sentence Sunday. After a two week holiday hiatus which I spent with family I'm back with another snippet from my YA manuscript DWARFED. Thanks for taking the time to read it!  

            “Grace.”

Startled, I spin in a ninety degree turn, and find myself staring at a small rip in Luke’s t-shirt that provides tantalizing glimpses of his navel. Swallowing, I tip my chin up and look into his eyes.

     “I'll show you where the milk replacer and all the stuff you're going to need is. We’re also going to have to come up with some place to put your pig.” He glances over his shoulder at the nursery crate where the sow grunts softly as her piglets swarm around her belly,  knocking the littlest baby aside as they fought for a teat.

Get Your Pitch On! Important Information

Anyone who has a completely finished, completely polished Young Adult manuscript that's read to start making the submission rounds will want to join in on the fun of Get Your Pitch On (#PitchOn is the Twitter hashtag). You won't regret it.

Workshops for Get Your Pitch On will start on October 1, but you can send your pitches through now to secure your spot with a host blog.

There is no date deadline for the workshops. Each blog has allocated a set number of pitches that they can host and once those spots are full then no more submissions will be taken.

Important Rule: If you want to participate in a workshop, you must be prepared to comment on at least one other pitch.

How to submit: Email your draft pitch to pitchonws@gmail.com and include PitchOnWS and the title of the manuscript in the subject line. Pitches must follow the formatting as specified for the Get Your Pitch On contest. If you missed if before check out this post here and you can see the list of blogs participating here.

Draft pitches will be evenly distributed between host blogs.

And interview with Commissioning and Managing Editor of Hardie Grant Egmont, Marisa Pintado, will be coming up soon on my blog so that you have an idea what she's looking for before she takes your pitches both here on Down Under Wonderings and on my group blog YAtopia on October 15th. The exact contest opening times will be included in that post.

An Opportunity to get Critiqued 

Head on over to the other host blogs to critique more pitches. For each critique you leave in the comments, you get an entry into the drawing to win one of eight 10-page critiques from one of the following hosts: Sharon Johnston, Larissa Hardesty, Stephanie Diaz, Catherine Scully, Jodie Andrefski, Paula Sangare, Talynn and Kaitlin Adams. Please use the exact same name for all of your critiques. The opportunity ends 10/14/2012.

Have fun honing your pitches!

Good Luck!

GET YOUR PITCH ON!!!

 

YAtopia and Down Under Wonderings blogs have gotten together and arranged the fantastic GET YOUR PITCH ON. which provides the writers of YA fictions with an opportunity to avoid the slush pile. The only thing you need to do is put together a compelling 50-70 words pitch of your polished manuscript and sign up to participate.

Here's the rules:

• Your manuscript must be complete, polished and ready to query - this means no first drafts or almost finished manuscripts.
• It must be YA.
• When the contest goes live on October 15th, post your entry details in the comments section of either YAtopia or Down Under Wonderings - each blog is accepting 100 entries only.
• Your entry detail needs to include a 50 - 70 word pitch.
• You can enter more than once if you have more than one complete, polished, ready to query manuscript.

Just as it's important to get someone else to look over your manuscript before you query, it's a good idea to get feedback on your pitch before you post. We have about twenty blogs who are ready to help you hone your pitch. These workshops start on October 1.

I'm one of the several blogs who will be helping host this fantastic opportunity.

If you need more information, you can find it here!

Do you want to help host? You can sign up here!

LOTS OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WILL BE COMING AT YOU ON 9/24 so you want to take a minute and bookmark both Down Under Wonderings and YAtopia and make sure you don't get left out of the loop. You'll be glad you did!

SIGN-UP INFORMATION COMING 9/24! :-)

Six Sentence Sunday Fools and Runts

I hope everybody had a great first week of September. Mine consisted of waging war on the stable spiders. The spiders are winning. We're trying to get the barn cleaned up for the therapeutic riding program we host each fall. Luckily I haven't seen many spiders (they give me the heebie jeebies) but they keep rebuilding their webs at an alarming rate.

I also joined the Gearing up to Get an Agent Blog hop. This seems like a great event and writers can either take part in the whole thing, or they can pick and choose the steps the wish to participate in.

This week's Six Sentence Sunday snippet picks up where last week's ended. To read the work of some truly phenomenal writers, you should check out the official list.

           

“A little help would be appreciated.”

            Still doubled over with laughter, Luke reaches under the sow and scratches her belly. The sow heaves a huge sigh, grins, and falls to the ground with a thud that causes the entire nursery crate to shimmy and shake. The babies drop my skirt and charge her, their little tails wag as each one grabs a teat. I watch the feeding frenzy while covering my bowed legs with the battered remains of my skirt. Each time the littlest one gets close to hullabaloo, one of its siblings knocks it away.