agents and agencies and editors, oh my!

Just spent several hours researching agents and agencies and contests listed on Hope Clark's

TOTAL FundsforWriters - May 2, 2010. I think my head is spinning but it was a good opportunity to read about different agencies and their staff. It was also interesting that Hope included a couple contests for flash fiction.

I'd never heard about Flash Fiction before I read Simon Larter's blog this week and, since I wanted to enter his contest, I decided this was an opportunity to learn. Carolina Valdez Miller wrote a blog (carol-in-print.blogspot.com) in which she quoted a couple of Simon's flash fiction stories. I read them and thought, Heck, I can do that. And so I did. Don't know if I could do it again but...I did it once.

Flash fiction, for those of you who, like me, haven't heard of it, is a complete story written in 1,000 words or less. It has to have a beginning, a middle and an end, just like any other piece of fiction. I read one tonight that was complete in three sentences, each two words long. I don't know who wrote it and I'm not certain of the wording but the gist was, "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." What a poignant story!

I'd love to be able to do something like that. My story that I wrote for Simon's contest was under 500 words so it didn't have a lot of extra wordage but I'll bet if I looked at it a month from now I could pare it down much further. I wonder....

a new contest by Simon

Now that Steena and Stina's contest is over, here's a new one for my writer friends. It's a challenge. And it's fun. Try the poetry and by all means get into the flash fiction mode. It's a whole new learning experience. Find Simon Larter's contest at:

http://constantrevisions.blogspot.com/2010/04/most-epic-contest-in-history-of.html

And, Simon, if I knew how to put a button advertising your contest at the side of my blog, I'd do it. But I don't so I'm afraid I'm out two points. Dang! Oh well. I tried. :)

A contest! A contest! My kingdom for a contest!

Here it is, the absolute 11th hour, but I just ran across a contest all my writer friends will want to enter. The prizes are like the bunch of grapes hanging out of reach of Aesop's fox ...Something to salivate over and wish, ardently, to possess.

Contest rules are to be found on: http://steenaholmes.blogspot.com/2010/04/steena-stinas-omg-contest.html

If you love chocolate.... And free edits.... and fun....this is the place for you.

Don't you love the way I post every day? How about every week? Every month? Well, all right, so it's been more like once a year. My bad.

Actually I have an excuse. I've been having issues with Blogger. It has spent many moons trying to convince me I don't have a blog, have never had a blog, and need to set up a new account. Excuse me? I already have two blog accounts and can't even keep up with one. Why would I want to set up another one? Sorry folks, Masochism is not my middle name...or my first one, either.

That said, I want to say how pleased I was at the LDSStorymakers writing conference this past weekend to earn first place in the first chapter/historical novel contest with my biographical I, NEPHI... based on the life of early Jackson Hole homesteader, Nephi Moulton.

Yeah, I know. Y'all saw me running around with a goofy grin on my face, so you probably have an inkling what it meant. I really think, though, that if an old lady like me can learn to write well enough to win first place with a novel written in first person from a young male pov, any one of you can do the same.

It wasn't just that I won...but last year, after I finished the book, I sent a query and five pages to Nathan Bransford, literary agent with Curtis Brown, Ltd. Nathan promptly asked for the first 30. (Hey, when that guy says he tries to keep on top of things, he isn't kidding. He read my five and replied within two hours!) He didn't feel he was a good fit and so, ultimately, turned my book down but I felt it was an honor that he even requested additional pages.

Was I surprised that he turned it down? No. My book is too secular for the LDS market and too LDS-oriented for the national market. Nephi was, after all, the youngest son of a polygamist's first wife. He left Utah and left the LDS church (returning to the religion of his youth only as an old man) but he still carried his polygamous background with him. The book centers on his efforts to resolve the issues that shaped his life. So, while Nathan didn't feel he, personally, was a good fit for my book, I felt that the fact he even wanted to read more than the first five pages was almost as exciting as winning the first chapter contest at Storymakers.

Anyhow, they both show me the efficacy of Winston Churchill's famous words, Never give up. Never, never give up.

Someone commented on my last post but it didn't come through correctly. If the person who posted it wishes, please feel free to try again.

That said, I want to say I'm really stoked about something and want to share with you.

In his "Daily Kick in the Pants" email yesterday, New York Times best selling fantasy author, Dave Farland, included some rules for writers that another gentleman had written. Mr. Farland invited his world-wide audience to add to the list.

I didn't have any rules to add but I did have several with which I disagreed. I chose one, wrote an essay explaining my differences in opinion and sent it off. Today Mr. Farland included my entire essay in his daily email. I cannot begin to express how pleased I am. Knowing that he has, for years, been a judge of writing contests, I feel like I was just awarded the Pulitzer prize.

I'm posting my essay below with Mr. Farland's introduction at the beginning.

This next one is from Karen Mittan. It’s long, but it’s worth reading every word, because it’s an excellent analogy. She says,

“I really like Mr. Miller’s analogy in his number eight rule for writing: Don’t be a draught horse. Work with pleasure only. It’s evocative. But I totally disagree with his syllogism.

To begin with, he seems to assume that draught – or draft – horses are all work and no play or pleasure. Having grown up with draft horses, I’d beg to differ. True, their work is generally tedious and repetitious. Our horses pulled farm machinery and sleighs in weather that no animal could enjoy…hot in summer and minus forty-five F. in winter. They did it daily and faithfully. But to assume there was no fun involved indicates, to me, that Mr. Miller maaaybe didn’t know his draft horses very well.

I’ve known horses that were clowns. (We had one who repeatedly performed a routine he discovered we’d laugh at.) I’ve known horses that weren’t above getting their own back at each other or at their owners. (We had one horse who was smart enough to figure out that chewing on my long hair would freak me. If it happened today, I’d have a word with the horse. But I was ten at the time and he got the reaction he was looking for. Knowing animals as I do now, I think that old boy had a lot of fun at my expense that day. He probably chuckled about it for hours.) I’ve also known horses that were the epitome of faithfulness, trustworthiness and loyalty while in the harness but full of play with each other once they were turned out to pasture.

And then, too, if one wants to compare what writers do to what an animal does, isn’t the ‘draught’ horse the perfect comparison? Draft one, draft two—draft twenty? Much of the work of writing is as tedious as the day-to-day work of a draft horse. Constructing scenes can be joyful. I frequently have a lot of fun with them. But ohmygoodness! those sequels are the pits. Making prose flow, bridging the gap between scenes, is very difficult and excessively tiring. At least it is for me.

In my experience, constructing a story that has thought, continuity and flow is not particularly pleasurable. It’s tedium ad nauseum. Like the draft horse’s routine work, in order to finish a story, an author must do the same thing over and over and over: apply the seat to the chair, the fingers to the keyboard and the brain to the project at hand.

It’s repetitious, too. While the draft horse may pull the plow in a new field tomorrow, he’s still pulling the plow in the same general pattern his owner determined for him today. So, too, the writer may be working on a new story but it has to have the same basic elements, the same general plot structure, the same carefully constructed language. And he’s not working for himself, either. His reader is his owner. Like the draft horse, if he doesn’t work hard to please the ‘owner’, he may not have too much food on his table next winter.

I think there’s a reason why draft horses were/are frequently called ‘plugs’. According to Webster’s finest, the word has a double meaning when applied to draft animals: ‘a worn out animal’ and ‘to work hard and steadily’. I think both definitions frequently fit writers just as well. We do become worn out with the seemingly endless drafting and rewriting of our prose/poetry projects. However, we also must work hard and steadily if we're to accomplish the task at hand.

So I identify with the ‘draught’ horses. I think we have a lot in common. Do I work hard and steadily? I try to. Do I always enjoy what I’m doing? Frequently not. It is, after all, work. Do I gain pleasure as I write? Sometimes. When the prose is flowing easily, when the humor bubbles up, when an acute phrase pops into into my head, then my work is a pleasure. Most of the time, however, I just plug away, knowing that, if I’m careful and consistent, the pleasure will come at the end of the day when I’m turned out to grass and I can read what I’ve written and call it good.”

It's been a long, loooong time since I blogged. Last year I was too busy. This past summer I was too busy. This fall I've been too busy. Besides, if you don't have anything to say, why try to say anything?

Well, anyhow....

Steve and Jenn started their own business in January. They're doing pothole repair using infrared technology. It works very well and they've exceeded their projected income by nearly 300% for this year.

Larry was married to Cassie Stone on March 6. They moved to Spokane, Washington, later in the spring. Larry's working for a car rental agency and Cass takes care of Spence and Amanda's little girl. Spence works for AT&T and Amanda teaches message therapy at DeVry University.

Richie graduated magna cum laude in psychology from the University of Utah in May. After a trip to Europe with his wife and six weeks of intensive training in Phoenix, he moved to New Orleans where he is now teaching special ed and Lori is studying art at the university there.

Sue and Kevin moved to an apartment of their own in June. Kevin is our son, Steve's , foreman.

Mike and Tracy moved to New Orleans this fall. Mike is in construction and Tracy is auditor for a parking lot facility.

Chris' wife and daughter were terribly injured by a drunk driver a year ago. Pam is back to work and Keri is in school although she had to undergo corrective surgery this fall. Chris, who quit his job to take care of his wife and daughter, has found work again...a blessing all around.

We found a doctor who would remove Lili's tonsils this fall and she's healthier, now, than she's been in years. She will be going into Job Corps in January where she plans to get duo certifications in welding and as a CNA.

We took in a foster daughter this past October - Genie - a girl who has been Lili's best friend for years. She, also, is going to Job Corps - which is why she came to us. Her family had moved to Arizona but she wanted to go to Job Corps with Lili and needed a Utah residence. We've enjoyed having her here and Lili's ecstatic to have a 'little sister' finally.

Jenn, Amanda and Sue are all expecting babies in the spring. Our quiver is being filled with arrows.

Rick is still employed at a printing facility and I finished the book I was writing about the homesteading of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Don't plan to market it at this time. I'm hard at work on another book which I will market once I'm finished.

I think non-writers often have a naive view of what it takes to be a good writer. Telling a cohesive story is only a small part of the writing process. Steve made the comment to me that I just needed to relax and let myself go because my writing flowed so beautifully. Yeah, right. He hasn't a clue how difficult it is to make it flow. It's definitely not something that just happens.

For a writer, there is so much more than syntax and spelling to writing a cohesive story. There's extensive research that goes into the current Work In Progress. Even if it's sci-fi or fantasy, it still must be believable and believability takes meticulous research.

One must also be able to determine what will enhance the story and what needs to be trimmed like fat off a pork roast. Leave a lot of sludge on and you have a story that clogs the brain just as pork fat clogs the arteries. Sooner or later the reader becomes so overloaded with superfluous stuff he/she gives up in despair. That's as bad for a writer's future income as pork fat is to his health.

Knowing what and how much to trim is an art that must be developed, however. And rigorously applied. I'm afraid, after the holidays, I'll need to trim about 20,000 words off my current WIP. I think I'd rather be hung, drawn and quartered but it must be done. This book is too vacuous in its present form.

Then, too, there's always that horrendous bane of writers, called writer's block, which must be dealt with on a regular basis. One can see ones story unfold in ones mind but putting it down on paper is a whole 'nother ball game. I find the transitions to be incredibly difficult. Creating the scenes is easy. It's travelling smoothly from one scene to the next that taxes my mental processes to the hilt.

So when writer's block hits, I pace the floor, wearing my carpet to the threadbare stage. Upon occasion I even give about ten minutes of serious thought to finding a job in an office somewhere. But, since Corporate America and I aren't a very compatible duo, it isn't long before I'm forced to take a sanity pill (chocolate covered, of course) and get back to work.

Writing, regardless of the struggle entailed, is definitely the better choice for me.

normal fall at the mittan house

What is it they say about ‘famous last words’?
And in my last blog I said something about it being quiet around my house, didn't I?
I wish!
Oh well.
I wouldn't change what's been happening but it sure ain’t quiet in our neighborhood anymore! And I’m not working for corporate America anymore. And our house isn’t kid-less anymore.

I think we’ve done an about face.

I quit my job the day Susie and Kevin asked if they might live in our basement for a few weeks until they got back on their feet. Kevin’s job was ending but the winter job he’s done previously was to plow snow for the state of Idaho. And who knows when Idaho is going to need him?

Sue was sick again – bronchitis, this time – so Lili and I went up and had her all packed and ready to be loaded by the time Kevin brought his camper home from the job site in Wyoming. We put in storage what was staying there, loaded Kevin’s truck, my truck and Sue’s car...and hit the road.

Now they and their three kids, ages 9, 5 and 3, are living in my unfinished basement. We threw up a quick wall at the bottom of the stairs and are busy getting ready to insulate and sheetrock the resulting room. If they stay long enough I just might get my basement totally finished some day. Wouldn't that be a switch?

Meanwhile, the two older kids are in school and I’m doing the ‘grandma-is-my-babysitter’ thing. Sue is working as a photographer for Sears, and Direct TV wants Kevin so I’ll be in charge of kids this winter.

Oh well. I’m grateful for the money I earned in the six weeks I worked but there are other things that are more important in life than money. I can always go back to work later on.

As for other news, tonight is the night for hauntings and witches and ghouls. You know the drill. Oooooooooo and all that.

There have been a few interestingly-dressed little creatures show up at my house but other than that, it’s pretty quiet around here. Larry and his younger cousin, Michael, are playing video games in Larry’s room but Lili is at a party and Sue and Kevin and kids are up in the Avenues trick-or-treating with Richie and his wife. Then the kids get to have a sleepover with their uncle and aunt while Sue and Kev get a night to themselves. It’ll be good for everyone concerned.

And Rick, being at work, gets to miss it all.
Poor Grandpa.

So here I am in a very quiet house. Hmmm.
I think I’ll go find a good book.

Happy Halloween y'all.