Posted by Christine on Jul 31, 2008 in General |
Back in May I entered a flash fiction contest and I have been short listed!!!! YIPPEEE – I am waiting to hear the results of the contest. This month I entered another contest this one was a longer piece written specifically for this contest. I should hear about this contest by the end of October. Next month I am entering my third contest of the year – this one has a 5,000 word limit and I have my submission written in rough draft format – currently it is going through critiques. There is one more contest I plan to enter this year – a science fiction contest. This entry does not need to be submitted until November. I have the story idea ready and once my current short story is done I will put this idea down on paper and see how it pans out. All this fulfills one of my new years resolutions. The third – to write and submit at least three short stories this year. In fact if everything continues the way I plan …. well,, when does that ever happen? I should have submitted four short stories by the end of the year. 🙂 It feels good to achieve a goal I have set for myself. Happy Wednesday...
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Posted by Christine on Jul 29, 2008 in General |
So I read on another Authors blog recently that one of the most common questions that authors are asked is where they get their ideas. I have to admit it has never occurred to me to ask this question. The question I would be more likely to ask is how do you decide which idea is worth writing and which ones to pass on. I have hundreds of ideas. I have stories started in notebooks all over the house. When I run out of notebooks to start ideas in I flip the notebook over and start a new idea at the back. If I run out of ideas I have a wonderful idea generation technique. I take a nap. My dreams are highly vivid. In addition I remember my dreams in detail when I wake up and occasionally I even revisit a dream for several nights in a row. I really like dreaming. For a long time I thought everyone dreamt the way I did – in wonderfully detailed stories that they could continue to tell themselves when they woke up. When I was young this was sometimes a problem as I would have recurring and vivid nightmares. However at some point I started to sometimes have Lucid dreams. Occasionally I realize I am in a dream and direct the dream and “tell” the story to myself even as I participated in the dream. I make the dream move forward as a story and change details to suite the way I want the story to go. Many – maybe even most of my story ideas have started as either a very vivid dream or a lucid dream. My subconscious mind never seems to run out of fascinating ideas, at least to me 🙂 . Sometimes these stories draw me in so much that I want to revisit them on paper. The issue I run into is which of these dozens of ideas to turn into full stories, then staying focused on that story to completion and not getting distracted by another idea when I fall asleep....
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Posted by Christine on May 26, 2008 in General |
So I have been taking classes at Gotham Writers Workshop online for the past few months. I am working on my third class now. I took the classes in hopes of learning more about the writing process and becoming a better writer. So what do I think… The Good: I have learned a great deal about the writing process and how different writers approach it. I have gotten several good story ideas from class assignments and turned one of them into a flash fiction piece I entered into a contest. I have gotten to read and enjoy many other aspiring authors and made some great connections through the classes. The Bad: The classes take a lot of time – in fact they take up pretty much all my writing time. Leaving me no free hours to spend writing on the projects I am working on. I took two entry level classes one was Fiction Writing 1 the other was Science Fiction Writing 1. I found that there was some over lap of information in these two classes. Overall evaluation: I am glad I took these classes.  I think that they have helped me think about the process of writing and hone some of my skills. The Lectures have helpful tips I can use as I revise and polish. I will not be sighing up for more classes though, I don’t have the time – or the money at this point to take more and quite honestly I need the time I have to focus on the stories I am developing right now. More on that later. As a P.S. My web guy still owes me some work including making a few much needed changes to this site. There are changes coming including a chance to read more of my writing here online… I...
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Posted by Christine on May 21, 2008 in Randomness |
I entered another writing contest this month. It was a flash fiction contest. I entered a 500 word piece. I am going to work on cleaning up another piece for another contest in August and I plan to enter the SWIC contest again this year. I should know the results of this contest by the end of June so we’ll see what happens. I will keep you updated.
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Posted by Christine on May 8, 2008 in Randomness |
So on the surface this isn’t much of a big deal, I mean, twenty years ago cell phones were rare, and huge. Today though, half the elementary school students I encounter are carrying cell phones in their back packs. They can call their parents to tell them they are sick at school, or forgot their lunch or lost a tooth. Not just that but parents have the security that if their child is off riding their bike they can call and make sure they are safe and sound. It isn’t just parents and children though who depend on them. Almost everyone has a cell these days. So why even consider a world without them. Well because of the bees of course. For any one who doesn’t know honey bees are dying off at an alarming rate due to a disorder known as colony collapse disorder. No one knows why it is happening. Some theories point to illness, but a lack of dead adult bee bodies seems to preclude this. Others think it might be because of cell phones As a science fiction writer, and nature lover this problem intrigued me. Bees are responsible for about 80% of farm pollination and more then that for flowers and other plants. (Although it is important to note that not JUST honey bees are responsible for this pollination.) So, what would our world be like if suddenly we were without cell phones in an attempt to save the bees? Would it work? Would people begin to carry concealed cell phones in an attempt to avoid the law? What if it didn’t work, would it continue to be enforced years later because it had become part of the culture? Would environmental groups accuse people with cells of destroying the world? More so, what would the world look like without Honey Bees? So much to think about – so many wonderful ideas to develop into...
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