Living the Fictional Dream

My writing group mate Virginia has started her first blog — Coaxing the Muse. Check it out when you get a chance. Some of her recent short story/flash/microfiction publications are linked there, as well.

Glad to have you among my fellow bloggers, VA!

Pop on over to Every Day Fiction’s Flash Fiction Blog today to read my post on how writing flash fiction can help aspiring novel writers (or at least, how it helped me). And, while you’re there, check out some of the previous great posts.

The folks over at Every Day Fiction and Every Day Poets have started a writing blog specifically devoted to flash fiction. If the quality of the blog is anything like the quality of fiction and poetry these publications offer us on a daily basis, the blog should be a must read.

Today’s entry was written by my writing group mate Alex, and discusses the effect of exposition and world building on flash fiction stories.

Here’s the link so you can go check it out:

I mentioned previously that my sister got engaged last weekend, and now she and her fiance have their very own wedding blog. I thought I would link it here, especially for any family members or friends who read my blog and hadn’t heard yet.

I’m really thrilled for them, as they make an awesome couple. They compliment each other so well. And I’m also looking forward to helping out (as needed — I don’t want to be pushy) with wedding planning. I’m such a nerd! But, all that stuff I learned when I was the bride can finally go to good use!

I saw the link to this article at Agent Kristen’s blog. Not a good sign if publishing houses are putting a stop on acquisitions. Might not matter if we all finish those NaNo novels, eh?

Here is a link to a PW blog on the subject.

And, while I’m glad that Border’s is not going to be sold (especially that it’s no longer talking about selling itself to B&N), the news that they are pruning their inventory is depressing.

Though, this article reports another publishing company doing so well that it’s giving out bonuses. So, maybe it just depends on who you talk to. Though, I noted the article’s mention of how it’s smarter right now to go with known authors.

And, finally, an article about how publishing companies are doing away with agent lunches.

It kind of makes me wonder… if book publishing (which has been the end-all, be-all for a while, or so it seems) is falling off, will short fiction make a come-back? Especially in online venues that are free to access?

Though, you know, no matter what happens with the recession and the publishing industry, I’ll still be writing stories. Even if the only people I share them with are family and friends, I’ll still be writing, because the characters have stories that need to be told. It gets to be part of your blood, and that’s something that never goes away.

On that note, happy Thanksgiving everyone. My husband and I are heading off to the cabin for the weekend (the land of no Internet), so probably no posting from me until Sunday, at least. Have to devote the rest of this week to the 20K remaining on my NaNo novel.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

I found this blog entry by Enchantment Inc. author Shanna Swendson very interesting. It’s all about how readers have the opportunity to get their favorite mid-list novels noticed — more so than, say, a struggling TV show. I’d never really thought about it this way before, so I thought I’d share it with all of you kind folks.

In other news, I finally broke 30K on my NaNo novel (did I already mention that here? I forget). Anyway, the month is ticking away quickly now, and I have 20K to write in about 5 days, but… you know… it’s vacation. I think I can do it!

We’ll be spending Thanksgiving at my parents’ cabin (a.k.a., the land of no Internet), so my only distractions will actually be seeing the family and going to dinner at my aunt’s house and such. There should be plenty of time for writing.

In case I don’t get a chance to post again before we leave, I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving! (And if you’re not in the U.S., I hope you have a wonderful rest of the week.)

In honor of a lovely Friday where I am home and don’t have to even attempt to work, I thought I would post some links for y’all. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

First of all, Kevin has today’s story of the day at Every Day Fiction. It’s called “Krupper and Jons,” and it’s quite a chuckle. When you get the to end, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon this set of posts on author Shanna Swendon’s blog. They’re all about character archetypes. I find character archetypes a fascinating tool for character building. Of course, you can’t cheat and use the archetypes for character. Then your characters turn out flat and boring, predictable and lame. But I find thinking about the archetypes helps me to write characters that are all wildly different, and not based solely on myself. They are a tool to help me broaden and improve my writing. Shanna’s post talks about the archetype constructs based on the hero’s journey.

Tami Cowden, on the other hand, explores different character types based on personality. Each archetype has a male and female equivalent, as well as heroic and villainous incarnations. I’ve read her book, and it’s really interesting. The thumbnail sketches on her website are a great starting place, but to really get the depth out of this idea, you need to read the book. (I’m fairly sure I’ve linked to this before, but how can I not in a discussion of archetypes?)

Now, I’ve never really talked about politics on this blog. I would share my political views with you, if you asked, but this is a writing blog… posting about politics would be way off topic. However, I want to share this post with you, written by my friend, Ms. Eclectic. It’s a really thoughtful post-election post, and I especially thought that it spoke well to people here in Texas. Though, I think anyone who’s dealing with this post-election world might find it interesting.

And, now, for something entirely different, here another friend Kevin’s take on the newest restaurant in downtown Fort Worth, Simply Fondue. I’ve been a fan of this restaurant since it was only in Dallas (now you can eat there in Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth), and I’m thrilled that there is a new location close to home. My husband and I ate at the new location once, and it’s top notch. From Kevin’s article, it sounds like they’ve been improving since we ate there. It’s not cheap, but if it’s a special occasion, it is definitely worth the price of admission.

Here’s something that’s a little related to the last link (it’s about food) and also related to this blog (its about books), there is a new site called TasteBook that I’m very intrigued by. On this site, you can make your own cookbooks, either with recipes from their partners or by inputting your own recipes. I haven’t yet ordered a tastebook of my own, but I’m working on compiling the recipes for one. I don’t know that it’s worth the cost unless I can get at least 50 recipes in there! But, so far, it’s been really fun collecting the recipes and choosing my cover images and everything.

And, finally, still on the food theme, I’ll leave you with the link to a new recipe I found during my TasteBook adventures — cheesy tacos. These were a great hit at my last pot luck dinner party. If you’re doing a low carb diet (like my hubby and I are, under advice from our nutritionist), these taco shells made out of cheese are completely awesome! I’m planning to use the same idea to make us some “chips” for dipping. (It wouldn’t be so great, I suppose, if you’re doing a low fat diet, though.)

However, even the guests who weren’t watching their carbs enjoyed the cheesy taco shells — they were that tasty. Once I got the trick down, they worked out really well, but while frying the first few, I dubbed this the most hilarious recipe I’d ever made, because those first taco shells ended up a little malformed. But after I’d done a few, it was easy. (The counter full of a cobbled together drying rack of wooden spoons and cups was hilarious, too.)

And now, I will leave you to enjoy that random collection of links, and I hope that everyone has an awesome weekend. My husband and I are planning to travel to the cabin (the land of no Internet) this weekend, so it may be Sunday or Monday before you hear from me again. Have a great weekend!

I was surfing around the blog-o-sphere on this lazy Saturday, and I found some interesting links about Y/A fiction.

First, here is Y/A author Ally Carter (Gallagher Girls series) talking about the wrong questions aspiring Y/A authors ask. Then here she talks about the questions aspiring Y/A authors don’t think to ask, but should.

Then Agent Kristen talks about best-seller lists, using the Gallagher Girls as an example.

Happy reading, and I hope everyone has a relaxing Saturday.

So, based on my data-gathering software, in the past month, this blog has had visitors from quite a few of these United States and several other countries. The bulk of my traffic is from Texas, which makes sense because I live in Texas, but there have been significant hits from places where I’ve never even been and didn’t know I had any friends, like Spain and Minnesota.

If you read my blog and you’ve never commented, I’d love it if you stopped and said hello! I’d love to meet you, even in a virtual sense. And if you have blogs of your own, definitely link them.

Also, as I brainstorm for content lately, I’ve been wondering what my dear readers enjoy the most. Book reviews? Links posts? Insider comments on my writing? Ruminations on aspects of writing in general? My thoughts on and links to more informed thoughts on the publishing industry? Links to good stories out there? Writing group stuff? Nonwriting stuff? Anything else?

This is your chance to let me know what your favorite topics are, and I’ll definitely keep all comments in mind going forward!

And if anything comes to mind that you’d be interested in seeing as a new feature or topic, let me know. I’ve been toying with the idea of putting some of my fiction up on the blog, but that can be a little dicey. A lot of markets consider stories posted on a personal blog as “published,” and that limits where you can send your stories. However, I’m getting to the point where some of my stories that are already out there are hitting the end of the exclusivity clauses. I might be able to publish some of those here as reprints. Though, since most of those were available online, perhaps that would be a mite silly. You can always get to the ones that are still available out there via the link on my “Erin’s Stories” page.

Have a great day, everyone!

Today is a dreary Monday in Texas — humid and raining. On the up-side, at least the overcast skies mean it isn’t 100+ degrees outside!

Days like this are perfect for sitting at home curled up in one’s jammies, and the best activities for those times are reading a good book or writing a story. Sadly, I haven’t been able to do either today. Too much work to do! My company’s busy season gears up around August and lasts through November or so. If my updates around here are less frequent in the next few months, that’s the reason why. Never fear, though! There will still be updates.

I don’t have any particular writing news to impart at the moment. I have several stories in the revision queue and several stories for others in my crit queue, just waiting for me to find the time to work on them between all this work-work. I was out of town this weekend. Spending time with old friends is relaxing and refreshing.

If you’d like to read an actual blog on a writing-related topic, check out this post on Jen’s blog. It’s my guest blog spot — a column about young adult fiction. Sadly, the HTML tags that I handily put in the file for him so he didn’t have to worry about things like linking and italics, do not appear to have worked like they do on my blog, and have come across as text instead of as links or formatting. So, the column looks a little wonky, but hopefully it will be enjoyable just the same.

Have a great Monday, everyone, and if it’s raining where you are, try not to get too damp!