The Big “R” Word

 The ugly “R” word—rejection! After slaving over your writing, you will reach, “The End.” It’s difficult to let it go, to put your book out there and face possible rejection. It’s hard to let your baby go forth into the big world, but a manuscript neatly packed in a box under your bed is not going to sell.

Part of every writer’s life is the “R” word. Watching those rejection form letters pile up can be discouraging. Before giving up, consider these points of reference. Did you hop on your two-wheeler bike for the first time and take off on a smooth ride? Did you tie your shoes properly the first time? Did you win your first spelling bee? Probably not.

It’s unrealistic to think your manuscript will be accepted ‘as is’ by the first agent or publisher who reads it. More likely, your final draft will need corrections, editing, rewrites, and multiple submissions.

The reasons for rejection of your manuscript are numerous, but tend to fall into certain patterns.

There may be legitimate literacy concerns. The story may be poorly written, grammatically incorrect, have spelling errors or have point-of-view confusion. The plot may not be fully developed or lack tension. The story may be too short or too long to hold the readers’ attention. The characters may be stereotyped, one dimensional, or without depth of emotion.

These are the easiest variables for you to control. Your willingness to accept feedback, edit, rewrite, correct, and update your manuscript will generally result in tighter and improved writing. The writer can control for literacy problems by improving his or her writing skills. Your writing will improve as you read more, attend writers’ conferences, go to book fairs,join a critic group, participate in a writers’ group, and of course, write, write, write.

The political context of your book can also lead to rejection. There may be a glut of science fiction, horror or love stories on the market at the time of your submission. The publisher may have another similar book about to be published and doesn’t want to create undue competition. A publishing house can change their focus from Westerns to romance. You have no control over these issues; however, diligent research will help you find the right fit for your book. If you believe in your story and feel it is worthy of publication, remember, persistence is the key to success.

Most frustrating for any author is the rejection of a well-written story, with intriguing characters, and an exciting plot. You have no doubt read many books and wondered how they ever found a publisher. Your book is so much better!

Keep in mind famous authors faced rejection many times before they found publication. For example, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck had 12 rejections before it was accepted for publication. James Joyce had over 20 rejections for Dubliners. J.K. Rowling, the wealthiest and most successful author of all time, had the Harry Potter story rejected time after time.

Remember also, even after literary success, six figure retainers, and fame that spread from book to screen, there are people who don’t like to read works by Stephen King, John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemmingway. They have all suffered “reader rejection” at some point in their careers.

When dealing with rejection, believe in yourself, be realistic, and keep things in perspective.

~ Valerie Allen ~

VAllenWriter@cs.com                                          ValerieAllenWriter.com

Facebook.com/Valerie.Allen.520

Amazon.com/Author/ValerieAllen

Member of NLAPW, Cape Canaveral Branch

 Beyond the Inkblots: Confusion to Harmony

Write Publish Sell!

Summer School for Smarties

Bad Hair, Good Hat, New Friends

Sins of the Father

Suffer the Little Children

Excerpted from: Write, Publish, Sell! Quick, Easy, Inexpensive Ideas for the Marketing Challenged by Valerie Allen.

Save the Children

Much is being bandied about nowadays during the run up to the presidential election, along with its accompanying state and local elections, regarding the hotly contested issue of reproductive rights, family values, rights to life, and the right to choose.  The diligent campaign watcher can barely catch a breath between traded political zingers and accusations, and the confessions of outrage and piety regarding this seemingly all consuming issue.  But somewhere in the heat of rhetoric, I feel a very important element is missing - the children themselves who must live the realities of the lifetimes we have brought them to for better or worse.  For many millions of them, it has not been easy. . .for many, even cruel.
     It is in their honor that I have posted the poem Save the Children along with its audio reading and photographs on my web site  www.eonwriter.com
I wish to thank  www.flickr.com    for its inexhaustible cache of wonderful photos from around the world and for making those photos available for all of us to share.  If you enjoy the site, please post it or pass it on to others since there are no ads,links, blogs or comments on the site itself.
Sandy Hartman

                               Save the Children

        Within every child lies the heart of the universe

        And the wish to be so

        Each child filled with bright eyed curiosity

        Each child filled with need

        The need to care and be cared for

        The need to be proud before their kind

        What has happened to us, their protectors

        What has happened to our hearts

       That we have created so many children

       That we cannot care for them

        So many that we must let them grow up hungry

        Hungry in mind, hungry in body

        Hungry in spirit

       By what right do we claim Heaven

       When so many innocent hearts are betrayed

       Lost and left to struggle

       Alone

      

       c 9/08/09

Sandy Hartman
www.Eonwriter.com
Member of NLAPW , Jacksonville branch

                                

                                          

                                            

Artist with Newborn

 

Artist with Newborn

at her breast,  robe slips silk,

her shoulders, left arm cramps above

joint, as she nurses her son, 2 a.m. Floor

lamp  illuminates her,

she perches on a stool.

Face -to -faces her easel.

Right arm brushes, strokes, feathers, teases

paint, baby clutches. Nurture flows

through her. Color flows from her. Sleeve slips,

slides up muscled forearm, white wrist where

her watch band blocks sun's rays. Days she pushes

his stroller, he dozes, she dreams

of dancing.

Other breast peeks from robe

matches rhythm,  painting process,

she evokes a face from mystery,

until rainbow eyes gaze into hers.

Baby hiccups, his bare heel spasms,

smears paint, paper. She must relinquish

a brush to wipe his foot, his mark remains

on her painting (her heart) their composition.

She lifts him close with crooked elbow,  kisses

his tufted head.  She rocks  on her stool.

He sleeps against her shoulder. Drools

down her skin. She does not care.

She picks up the brush.

There is so

little

time.

Rachael Ikins

Http://www.rachaelikins.com

Artwork for sale at http://rachaelikins.com/artwork.htm

Publications, books for sale at http://rachaelikins.com/publications.htm

Ask The Girl Arts (@pet services) on FaceBook

Www.rachaelzikins.blogspot.com

Www.writerraebeth.wordpress.com

Twitter: @justaskrache

Http://about.me/Rachaelz

Member of NLAPW 

"Dwell in possibility and you will find magic"

Hidden Heroes of WW II

We’re T. C. Archer, the writing duo of Evan Trevane and Shawn M. Casey. We met at an online advanced writer’s workshop about ten years ago. Our collaboration began on a lark with the post WWII film noir story The Pickle My Little Friend, and has evolved into nearly a dozen works, which include the series we’re going to talk about today The Phenom League, and the Daphne Du Maurier winner and romantic thriller, For His Eyes Only.

Chain Reaction is the first in our Phenom League series and is set during WWII. For this series, we took a cue from the great Connie Willis, who writes science fiction/alternate history that strictly adheres to our world history. So how does a book get classified as alternate history when the history doesn’t diverge from real world history? In our case, we call the alternate history elements What you won’t find in the history books. We portray world events as being credited to someone other than the real heroes behind the scenes, which means these heroes never made it into the history books and were expunged from existence. There’s a good reason for this anonymity…some of these heroes weren’t quite human.

We were kicking around the idea of some sort of superhero story, which led us to the mid-twentieth century where heroes represented justice, truth, freedom and, of course, the American way. This piqued our interest in WWII, an era rich with intrigue, love, science, drama and, yes, love. During the war, questions were raised on everything from Hitler’s obsession with the occult to the Ghost Army that created tactical deceptions to fool the Germans.  

Many things that helped win the war are so fantastical that they border on fiction. Consider an average man who decides to help the war effort and starts to spy for Great Britain—without actually joining British Intelligence! This man not only became one of the greatest spies of all times, but was single-handedly responsible for the ruse that fooled the Germans and allowed the Allies to land in Normandy. In Chain Reaction you’ll find some of these fantastical elements sprinkled throughout the book, some in the history books…some not.

Currently, we’re working on the next two books in the series. The first is entitled Desert Fox and takes place in El Alamein when Rommel marched across Egypt. Our hero is a five thousand year old mummy who has been guarding his pharaoh. The second novel takes place in Chauny, France, with the underground Chauny Line where Allied soldiers were hidden from the Germans. Our hero is a WWI pilot who was shot down and killed, but he never passed over.  He must discover the secret weapon that the Germans are reported as having. You might even see a space ship in this book—after all, the Germans were experimenting with anti-gravitational flying machines. You just can’t make this stuff up!

Chain Reaction

For love of county and a woman, Jordan Pierce must sacrifice his humanity.

Former Chicago Detective Jordan Pierce put his life on hold in order to protect America's secret weapon against the Nazis; The Manhattan Project. But he can't protect himself against the disease eating away at his humanity. Jordan discovers how much of his soul this infection has devoured when he falls in love with the woman who could destroy America. Choosing her, means choosing the monster he's becoming, making him the most powerful man he's ever known.

If you would like to get to know us and our books a little better stop by and friend us on Facebook or swing by our blog. We love hearing from readers. 

Evan and Shawn

T. C. Archer

https://www.facebook.com/TCArcherRomanceAuthors

http://wefollow.com/TCArcher

Blog:

www.tcarcher.tcarcher.com

Let It Go

I have a bumper sticker on my car that says “Let it Go.”
It’s a good thought…even better advice…just let it go. I have the bumper sticker to remind me to do it.
I’m not good at it. It’s hard for me to let it go. More often than not, I’m disinclined to just let it go. I’ve always got something to say about, well, everything.
Got a problem? Tell me about it. I’ve got some advice for you.
Need some help? I’ll help you. But I’m going to tell you what I think about it. And yeah, I’ll tell you what I think about it before I’ve fully considered all of it.
Have a cause? I’ll support it. I’ll send e-mails and post on Facebook.
Want a little sympathy? I can start a prayer chain. God bless you…I’m praying for you right now.
Know someone who needs a little tough love? Then talk to me. I’ll tell you what to do.
I’m good at all that. I’m good at talking the talk.
I just have problems walking the walk. I’d rather skip down the path of self-righteousness, scattering little blurbs of wisdom like rose petals on my way.
Can’t quite get it all together? Well, why not? I told you what to do.
I’ve got all the answers. Just ask me.
It’s easy for me to get behind a cause and spew sympathetic blather for all who are suffering, all the down-trodden, all the needy, all the misunderstood people in the world.
It’s easy…unless those misunderstood and suffering people are actually close to me.
Then it’s really hard for me to just let it go. When I see the people I love making mistakes or hurting, I’ll listen to them for a while. Then I proffer some unwanted, unneeded advice and try to go on my merry way.
That really doesn’t work. Not for the people who are hurting. It’s actually no help at all.
I’ve been practicing tough love lately and it’s making the people I truly love and care about even sadder and angrier than they were already.
What should I do? I want to help, I honestly do.
But I’m thinking that instead of talking so much…maybe I should just listen, offer my sympathy, and then let it go. No one needs my advice or my self-righteous words.
They just need me to listen. To love them. To let it go. They’ll figure it out.
So, here’s some advice for myself. I would be wise to follow it.

Breathe deep.

Love much.

Shut your damn mouth.

And Let It Go!

 

Peggy Browning
FBhttps://www.facebook.com/peggy.browning?ref=ts&fref=ts

Christians, Politicians and Rape: The Holy Trinity

 

I never thought so much about rape as I have in the past month.  I had always perceived it as an aggression perpetrated by men who would dominate, demean and dehumanize their victims with sexual violence. 

But now I realize that rape is more than that.  Rape, or at least proffering one’s perspective on rape, is now of political importance.  Invoking it is almost a prerequisite to establish a politician’s credentials as an under-educated  God fearing Christian fanatic misogynist expert of misinformation, and cheerleader for bad science and insensitivity.

Rape has evolved beyond a heinous crime and mutated into a political sport. Rape now has its self appointed referees, expert analysts, apologists, technical directors, color commentators, and quacks. 

I've  learned a lot about rape from these amateur religious rape enthusiasts.  I've learned that there is “legitimate rape”, thus presumably illegitimate rape.  I've discovered that men who would control a woman’s right to reproductive self determination have no problem espousing the fable of long discredited non-science that rape itself is a veritable contraceptive, thus rape victims rarely become pregnant. 

I've discovered that a rape is “God’s will,” or if it’s not then certainly the pregnancy of that attack is God’s blessing to that woman. I've learned that when a sperm enters an egg it is a human being and that doing anything to prevent the full term development of that two celled, four celled, eight celled, etc., product of rape is tantamount to “contract murder.”

I've come to appreciate the magnanimity of the enlightened self appointed male keepers of the uterus who
declare that they have taken the maverick stance and parted ways with the party platform - condescending not to seek to make abortion for rape victims illegal.  

Yes, I've been schooled about rape. More accurately, I've been enlightened as to the shallowness and grotesqueness of the minds of the Republican Party in general and the Religious Right Tea Baggers in particular. How it perceives women.  How it demeans women. How it seeks to control them. How it diminishes their very humanness by espousing false science and holier-than-thou-male dominated-penis waving-sperm worshiping- God invoking ignorance.  

I keep waiting for a Democratic candidate, or an Independent, or one of their supporters; or an atheist, or an agnostic to stumble blindly into this morass of rape rating declaration and Fallopian introspection. But I won’t hold my breath.  Fortunately it seems the obsessive verbal diarrhea over rape is uniquely the purview of the GOP politicians and their supporters. 

What else would we expect from Americans who get their talking points from a god, and their ability to reason from their anus?

Bart Centre

http://atheistcamel.blogspot.com/

 

Wood-chip Slurry

Several years ago I found myself working a sound gig in a small town in eastern Mississippi. Like many rural towns in America, the city came into existence mainly to support a large factory. Started I’m guessing maybe in the late fifties or early sixties, the company was built to produce a fairly new technology and product. In the more rural areas of the country, especially in the years following World War II good jobs where few and far between so I’m sure the building of the plant was a pretty big deal when it happened.

Jobs at the plant are some of the best paying in the whole area so I wasn’t surprised to learn that it was not unusual to find two and sometimes three generations of a family working here. Maybe mom is in payroll, dad in one of the work shops, grandpa is a mechanic and dad Jr. just got hired!

The gig me and my fellow AV commandos were hired to do was a yearly company meeting for management and all employees.

Once a year, the owners and management throw out all the stops and bring in entertainment, give out rewards for things like “employee of the year” and put on a huge picnic dinner for the employees and their families.

Of course there’s always lots of backslapping, handshaking and general “wow we’re great” kinda speeches interlaced with the requisite “we couldn’t have done it without you guys” comments for the employees benefit. All in all, its a good time.

The company makes something called pressed-wood products.

So whats a pressed-wood product?

Think Ikea or less expensive Walmart furniture that have labels like ”some assembly required”.

My crew and I were there to set up and operate the big sound system, stage lighting, video and other technical requirements for both the entertainment and all the fore-mentioned ata-boy speeches to keep the troops happy and in to work on time.

Now, I’ll admit I have done sound and other production work in some very unique places over my career. For instance the top of Stone Mountain in Ga. for the release of a Peregrine falcon. A gig inside an Amtrak rail car and during an election year I even did a political gig in a candy cane factory in south Georgia! Walking into the place was like walking into a giant Vicks inhaler! Someone new to the place actually had to let themselves acclimate to the smell for a minute or two the first few times you were in the building!

So setting up a sound system in a big factory wasn’t all that new except for one little detail… having to wear a hardhat, safety glasses and ear protection at all times while in the building!

Imagine trying to equalize a sound system while wearing ear plugs… When you see that stage tech standing at a stage microphone saying “check, check, one two”, that’s what they’re doing.

Our employer for this job generously supplied the crew with a liaison person who more or less kept us out of trouble and injuries while working around equipment and machines that were often the size of a  house or small building!

Perky… very perky, thats our liaison. For her, this was I guess a time to shine and show the bosses what she could do and she WAS really great, just perky… VERY perky.

One afternoon after most of our work was done, this nice young lady took me and a couple of the other guys on a guided tour of the factory areas we hadn’t seen as yet. It was fun walking down the huge rows of massive equipment, with her yelling, but still managing to stay perky, over the roar of all these machines explaining what each one did. It was obvious she was proud of her job and the company she worked for.

As we got to the end of one of the machine lines, we were confronted with a huge open top tank. It looked a lot like one of those above-ground swimming pools you see in peoples backyards. Only this was 4 or 5 times bigger and filled nearly to the top with a thick, slimy, grayish-brown liquid, with chunks… So of course I ask what the heck is THAT !?

Oh! We call it “Wood-chip Slurry”.

By the sound of her answer enhanced by even MORE perky-ness I guessed I had unknowingly stumbled upon another subject of company pride. She went on to explain that the “Wood-chip Slurry” was a by-product of the plants process to make wood-chip products and that until just a few years ago they were required to dispose of it at a cost to the company.

With a huge beaming smile she said all that changed and now they had found a way to not only dispose of the slurry but to actually make a profit from it!  They pumped it into railroad tank cars and sold it to companies all across the country.

I bet you’re thinking what I was,  “Who would buy that and WHY”?

So of course I asked. I almost wish I hadn’t…

I was told that their largest buyers were food companies who bought it to use as a ”filler” for things like weight loss product “milkshakes”

I read a lot more food labels these days.

Michael Cody
Michael is doing 3 free days for my book Nov. 7-9 

 

www.dwedop.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Michael-Cody/486420518049232

Twitter is @Mikecodyauthor