Posts Tagged‘Fiction’

Home » Fiction » Page 195

Thursday’s Post-Publication Post: One Writer’s Summer To-Do List

by Erika Dreifus on
10

North of the equator, we’ve just begun summer. Although I’m still going to be working 40 hours a week in my day job, still running the usual errands, still partaking in the same family responsibilities (and joys), I’m also hoping to accomplish certain writing-related goals before we merge into fall.

After all, for six weeks this summer, my 40 hours at the office will be recalibrated: heavier on Mondays-Thursdays with “summer Fridays” off. I hope to use those Fridays wisely. And I hope that I can use the general light and energy of the summer to help infuse some projects under way and others that I hope to start.

Herewith, items on my list of writerly hopes, plans, ambitions, and commitments for the season.

“MY” WRITING

  • Continue promotion for Quiet Americans; track progress of new (non-Kindle) versions; calculate and send Q2 contribution to The Blue Card.
  • Complete work on new short story and figure out if it may be a novel chapter; begin new story/novel chapter.
  • Write at least one new poem; revise existing poem drafts.
  • Draft Israel-related essay.
  • Check where submissions are outstanding; follow up if appropriate; send out new submissions.
  • Research/apply for short-term residencies for winter-spring 2012.

ASSIGNMENTS (SELF-IMPOSED/SOLICITED AND OTHER)

  • Practice and deliver presentation for Manhattanville Writers Week session on “Social Media Strategies for Writers”.
  • Research and write article due to The Writer on August 1.
  • Prepare Q&A re: The Borrower, by Rebecca Makkai.
  • Prepare Q&A re: Rethinking Creative Writing, by Stephanie Vanderslice.
  • Prepare Q&A re: The Little Bride, by Anna Solomon.
  • Peruse fall/winter catalogs for possible titles to review and monitor reviews-in-progress (track ARCs, read, write, etc.).
  • Prepare and distribute July/August/September issues of The Practicing Writer.
  • Consider if I want/need to seek additional fall/winter assignments.

QUALITY OF WRITING LIFE

  • Research and purchase new computer.
  • Have “writing dates” with friends.
  • Make (and keep) annual appointments with ophthalmologist and optometrist. (Considering how much time I spend squinting into screens, taking care of my eyes seems more and more important.)
  • Get apartment windows washed (and other household tasks). (It’s nice to have a clear view once those eyes are checked.)
  • Read, read, read.
  • Catch up on movies/go to museums/attend concerts & readings. Art feeds off other art! (And I live in New York City, for crying out loud! I’m practically tripping over all of these opportunities!)
  • Get to the gym or go for a jog 2-3 times a week. (Sure, more would be nice, but let’s be realistic here, given my schedule and my usual response to heat and humidity.)  Exercise energizes the body and helps clear and focus the mind.

And what about you? Have any of you made summer writing to-do lists? Care to share what’s on them?

The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Author Ellen Meeropol asks: “How is a blog like a Tupperware party?”
  • Fab post on book promotion from Randy Susan Meyers for Beyond the Margins.
  • Ever wondered how much an editor should charge?
  • Attention, freelancers (especially newbies)! Carol Tice shows you how to “Avoid Hassles with a Writer’s Basic Assignment Checklist.
  • Joe Ponepinto suggests that when we need writing prompts, we should head to Home Depot.
  • Natalie Wexler considers “how much freedom should a writer exercise in playing around with historical fact.”
  • Poet Kelli Russell Agodon explains why she has a Facebook page (and why other authors, poets, and writers should have them, too. (Have you seen mine?)

    • Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • Reminder via Twitter from @Missouri_Review: “We are open for submissions of poetry, fiction and nonfiction all summer long, all year long. Guidelines: bit.ly/hgzpfo. (NB: No charge for submissions made via postal mail; fee for electronic submissions.)
  • Received via newsletter from Ploughshares: “A Note on Nonfiction: we are looking for contributions to Patricia Hampl’s all nonfiction issue for Fall 2012. Send us your essays! Or change the names back in your clearly autobiographical stories and send us those. Of course, we are still reading fiction (plus poetry) so feel free to continue to fabulate and versify.” (Same NB note from above applies here.)
  • “Uncle John’s Flush Fiction wants your short story! We’re looking for entertaining short fiction, suitable for bathroom (or anyroom) reading, maximum 1,000 words. Send us your best Western, mystery, horror, sci-fi, literary story, parody–all we ask if that it’s entertaining.” This print anthology will consider previously-published submissions (so long as the author retains copyright). Pays: $50, plus two copies. Deadline: August 31, 2011.
  • Another anthology opportunity: Trust & Treachery: Tales of Power, Intrigue, and Violence seeks ” stories that are 1000-5000 words in length. We will pay $20 per story, to be paid on January 1, 2012 or on acceptance, whichever comes later.  Although the emphasis is on short stories, we will also accept select pieces of poetry for this anthology with payment at $5 per poem.” Deadline: December 15, 2011. NB: “We are very open as to genre: Mystery, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, etc. Please no romance, YA or erotica.” (via CRWROPPS-B)
  • From Columbia University (NYC): “The Writing Program seeks to appoint a new faculty member in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, beginning Fall 2012. The position may be filled at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor (tenure-track research faculty) or Assistant or Associate Professor of Professional Practice (practice faculty). The teaching includes primarily undergraduate and occasional graduate writing workshops and seminars.” (If the link doesn’t take you directly to the position, look for Requisition #0002175.)
  • Teachers & Writers Collaborative (NYC) is looking for an Education Director, Facing History & Ourselves (Mass.) seeks a Writer & Editor for Online Content, and the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival has announced two available positions (Associate Director & Marketing Director).

    • Thursday’s Post-Publication Post: New Project, Old Questions

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    Last week, by sheer force of discipline, I managed to start my day earlier and NOT fritter away the extra time working on this blog, catching up on Facebook or Twitter, or indulging in any one of a number of other distractions. What did I do with this “extra” time?

    Reader, I wrote. Even more wonderful, I wrote fiction.

    Over the course of a few days, I wrote what could be a short story. Or it could be an opening chapter in a novel. Or perhaps it will end up as one of several “linked” stories in another collection (the characters and their histories are very closely related, if not identical to a few characters in some published stories that I did not include in my first collection, Quiet Americans).

    These uncertainties–Am I beginning a novel? Am I writing a discrete story?–are familiar. At least, they’re familiar to me.

    True, sometimes the work’s form seems utterly clear right from the start. The day in July 1996 when I discovered the archival documents that inspired my (agented-though-unpublished) novel, The Haguenauer Line, I recognized at once that I’d found the seeds of a novel. Several of the stories in Quiet Americans–“Floating” and “The Quiet American, Or How to Be a Good Guest,” for example–always seemed destined to grow into and be published in story form.

    But for a long time, I thought–yes, I hoped–that the book’s closing story, “Mishpocha,” would turn into a novel. And given that a few of the other stories feature some of the same characters, I’ve been asked if I considered novelizing their storylines and/or writing a full-fledged book of linked stories in which those characters would provide the connective tissue.

    For me, finding the “right” fictional form sometimes presents real challenges and can take a long time. I’ve long wondered how other writers make these decisions (or if they find there are even decisions to be made).  I’m still wondering, and I’d love to hear what other practicing fictionists have to say.

    The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2
  • “Poet Mom” January O’Neil just returned from a weekend writing retreat. Here are her 10 tips for making such a retreat successful.
  • I like these “emergency writing motivation techniques” quite a lot! (Hat tip to Fiction Writers Review)
  • If you read yesterday’s “Quotation of the Week,” you already know that I’ve had Eudora Welty on my mind lately. So the time was right for me to discover Peter Orner’s Rumpus.net appreciation for “Eudora Welty, Total Bad Ass.”
  • As always, Midge Raymond has come up with an alluring writing prompt.
  • A few days ago I received the debut issue of Adanna, a new literary journal “for women, about women,” edited by Christine Redman-Waldeyer. Diane Lockward guest-edited this issue, and I’m delighted that she chose my poem, “Umbilicus,” to appear alongside the work of so many talented writers (I’m also grateful for Diane’s wise and gentle editorial suggestions.) The issue’s contents aren’t available online, but you can learn more about the journal here.
  • “None”: singular or plural?
  • If all goes well, I’ll have a sandwich at my desk today at work so I can chime in when the Jewish Book Council’s Twitter Book Club meets over my lunch hour. Today’s book: The Free World, by David Bezmozgis. Why don’t you join us?