Market and Bloggy Vacation

photo courtesy of 19Melissa68

I'm taking a couple of weeks off to enjoy the holidays. Come back after the first of the year, and I'll get back on my novel, new contests and conferences... And be thinking about your goals. I'll post mine, if you'll tell me yours. Then we can hold each other accountable. Deal?

Oh, here's the market. If you like to write green, here's a link to the writers' guidelines for Plenty magazine.

Have a great holiday season!

Did you go to Woodstock??

photo courtesy of radarxlove


If so, Adams Media is looking for your story for an anthology entitled Woodstock Revisited. The deadline is tight, September 7, 2008, but they are desperatly seeking stories.
This sounds like an exciting anthology. The 60s were such turbulent times--peace, war, free love, riots, the happy face, Vietnam.


Check out Literary Cottage for the call for submissions.



My story is that I wanted to go to Woodstock, but I was 15 and a big chicken. So there. If I had it to do all over again, would I go. Hell, yeah! What's your Woodstock story?

Want to Write Book Reviews or Get Your Book Reviewed

I found this site New Mystery Reader and they're looking for "talented individuals" to write book reviews and summaries for the site. It's not a paying gig, but it looks interesting and they say it offers other benefits. (I bet paid vacation time is not one of them.) Anyway, if you're interested email editor@newmysteryreader.com for additional information.

They are also interested in reviewing new authors and titles, so email the same person editor@newmysteryreader.com

And they are looking for short story submissions--2500 words or less.

If you review a book for them or get review, come back here and let me know. I'm all about basking in someone else's glory. And if I ever get any glory, I'll be glad to let you bask in it. I love to share. My mama taught me that when I was a youngun.

Wanna be a Guest Blogger?

No, not here. Poe War is looking for guest bloggers and they're offering money. Top prize is $250, and the opportunity to blog on a site that gets around 2000 hits a day. This is big.

Waddya got to lose? Hop on over to the submission guidelines and check it out. Then polish up some of your articles. He wants fresh ideas about the craft of writing. And the deadline is May 28th, so get moving.

P.S. If you get selected, come back here and let me know.

Successfully Completing a Novel

The title says it all. I recently finished my first novel and here I will share my attempts at getting said novel published.

I've made several futile attempts at writing a novel, but last year I actually started one and finished it. It's all about passion. I found I had a passion for the subject, so the words just flew out of my head and into the computer. (Not as lovely an image as flowing onto the paper, but you get the drift.)

It's not like I haven't been published. I've had several personal essays and short stories published, but the route to publishing a novel is quite different than publishing something short. With a short work, you still have to get the attention of someone, preferably an editor. But with a novel, not only do you have to get the attention of a publisher, there's usually an agent to deal with.

I know you can publish without an agent, but I've chosen that route. Self-publishing is not for me, so I've not even explored that avenue. I've seen too many horror stories, and I'd prefer not to even go down that road.

So now begins my task of finding an agent.

What's your experience with finding an agent? Good/Bad? (But please if you have a bad experience, don't bash the agent here. There are plenty of forums where you can do that. I'm not into name-calling.)