Creative writing II, a summary

This class has been a great experience as a writer and a reader. I got to read a variety of stories from a huge range of genres and actually got a chance to have my opinions make an impact. Which to me is a huge deal.

Having people read my stories is kind of a new experience for me as I don't generally put my writing out there. So it was a big boost to hear people liked it at all. Did my stories have problems? Yes, and I was glad to get the criticism so I can improve. I now know I need to work on shorting my run-on sentences and  let the reader infer rather than described everything to death.

I do plan on writing more , as it's something I've always done. Its something I enjoy so even without being published, I'm happy if I can get anyone to read my writing. I will send out a query letter but not quite yet. I don't feel like I have enough written to justify sending anything out. However I feel like e-publishing  is the way I want to go, I don't care too much about making money off writing I just like doing it and if people want to read it that's fine with me.


I hope to post more stories soon. Maybe on here maybe somewhere else. I'll post it here when I know where.


It's been a fun ride.

Agents:

Kristin Nelson ; Nelson Literary agency

Kriston Nelson represents the Nelson Literary agency. Query letters are accepted via e-mail only and attachments will result in your query not being read. The want a one page query letter about the project, if they are interested they will reply asking for more. She is currently looking for fantasy and science fiction books, young adult novels, and romance.

Ethan Ellenberg :

Ethan represents the Ethan Ellenberg Literary agency. He is currently accepting query letters via e-mail and regular mail. He accepts Literary Fiction , Science Fiction, Crime , Mystery , Commercial Fiction , Fantasy , Women's Fiction , Romance , Family Saga , Historical Fiction , Young Adult , Thrillers/Suspense , Children's , Multi-Cultural , Adventure. If e-mailed you must only send the first sample chapter and a synopsis. If you send through regular mail you will need 50 pages, the query letter, an author bio and several other things listed on his site.

Matthew Bialer :

Matthew Bialer represents Sanford. J. Greenburger Associates .he specifically looks for thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, and mysteries. E-mailed and snail mailed queries are being accepted at this time. The first three chapters must be submitted with any query.

Sword and Laser Anthology

 Sword and laser is an online book club and they are putting together an anthology, science fiction and fantasy only. They have a semi-large following and its a good place to get noticed, plus they will pay for the story. I've posted some quick details below as well as a link to the main page which has more information. submitting is free. (they give some suggestions for what kind of stories they want at the bottom.)







http://swordandlaser.com/anthology/

SUBMISSION PERIOD
Submissions will be accepted from March 1 – May 15, 2013. We expect to make our final selections by August 15, 2013.
PAYMENT
We pay $200 (US) upon acceptance.
LENGTH
We recommend a length of 1,500 – 7,500 words. We may choose to print shorter or longer stories in some cases, but this should be your target word count.

Book tubers

Book tubing, the practice of making videos about books you have read or are reading. I'm going to be honest in saying that Im not a fan of the videos I viewed. The book haul videos were a mix of random books that people would go over very quickly, the problem is there was no rhythm or reason to these. There may have been some good recommendations down the line but that doesn't matter if I have already closed the video after the video because of your review of a kids book and "the shining".
If each video was on a specific genre ,or writer, or organized in some way I would be much more interested.

I also think that a lot of these could have been improved with the addition of more people. Just one person talking to a camera feels a bit awkward and with more people the videos would feel more like a discussion than an awkward diary.

As far as the technical aspects go I don't think you need to be a master film maker to be a book tuber. An average webcam is perfect for the style of video they are making. The books in the background are nice but not strictly necessary.

Of the book tubes I watched AmirasBookReviews was my favorite. It was what I was looking for in a book video, a video about one book, discussing it and telling me if I should check it out or not.
I won't say book tubing isn't for me, just that I haven't found one I want to watch. If i were going to do this it would have to have multiple people talking about the books, as i said earlier, and I would want to focus on one book or at least one genre at a time.

This is review of the site "Goodreads" a cross between a social networks and book review site. The first thing that caught my attention is how easy they have made reviewing books. The large thumbnails of titles makes it easy to recognize books you've read, then its just a matter of picking the number of stars you would give it. This makes it really addictive to move through dozens of books , reviewing and selecting what you want to read. I had a library of books built in no time and it didn't feel like a chore. They also made adding friends fairly simple, it can pull their accounts out of your contacts in facebook or from your e-mail. I haven't been able to find a book group yet but this is due to not having time to look through them all , not lack of variety. I would definitely recommend goodreads, its a very simple to use site that's really fun to get into. I look forward to using it more.

Notice

Small and light, so small that you barely pay it attention, yet you have dozens of them laying around. They are shiny, metallic, eye catching when they are new. Some have lost there sheen , green and brown covering the former beauty. Both sides are emblazoned with words and pictures, symbolizing unity and history. Raised slightly they are smooth to the touch, no edges, but the edge around is rough. On one side is the face of a man, older, refined. His hair is receding and combed carefully. He looks off, facing liberty, looking forward. On the reverse three symbols are displayed, the oak branch, the torch, and the olive. Sat between them is the motto they say we live by "E Pluribus unum". Our Name is raised above all three,united as one and all, and below sits the worth. One tenth of something more, yet to some worth more.

The first workshop

Our first writing workshop was on Tuesday and I believe it went very well. We we're able to get through everyone's thoughts on the story, " Harper's night out", with plenty of time left over and no issues.
 In the end we had enough time left over that I would have liked to have the story's writer ask some questions to us as readers, things they felt were unanswered or anything could have elaborated more on. I think I could have improved my verbal critique a bit by slowing down, I rushed through my critique and felt liked i might have missed something . Remembering to bring the story also would have helped me out, to search for examples and actually reference the text.
 Other than those small  issues I think the first workshop went very smoothly and I look forward to more.

Thoughts on "Emergency" by Denis Johnson

The narrator of the story Emergency is very unreliable , he can't remember how things take place, puts his own spin on things, and hates himself. For a large section of the story he forgets where he is in the story, jumping to a tale about angels and drive in movies from the story he was telling us about rabbits and then back again. He , at least I think, hates himself. When Georgie brings up the fact that he killed the rabbits, the narrator agrees with everything Georgie says before he says it. The last part of the story brings this into clear view , when he says that Georgie says that shows the difference between them. Georgie says that he saves lives, this is how he views himself, wherein the narrator clearly thinks he himself is worthless and that he helps no one.
Personally I enjoyed the story. The dialogue was quick and and punchy, often not leading where you expect. The bizarre way the narrator tells the tale keeps you on you toes. I'm not sure if it was the writer's intention for the story to have as many comedic moments as I thought it did but i certainly enjoyed them, from the removal of the knife from the man's eye, to the family seeing Georgie killing the rabbit, it kept me guessing and chuckling.