Persist and Publish

"I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer
to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'"

~ Saul Bellow

Here are some favorite links of P&P members.  Some are helpful, some are there for when you're down, others to help you celebrate.

Resource	Link
Great resource for quotes, speeches, famous lines	http://www.apl.org/quick/quotes.html
The Daily Muse	http://www.literatureclassics.com/dailymuse/archives.asp?theme=Poetry
Bookfinder (find cheap books!)	http://www.bookfinder4u.com/
Backspace	http://www.bksp.org/index.shtm
Writer's Toolkit	http://www.writerstoolkit.com/index.htm
Build Your Own Adventure	http://writingfix.com/leftbrain/build_an_adventure.htm
Instant Plot Creator	http://writingfix.com/index.htm#plot
The Critical Recipe	http://writingfix.com/leftbrain/recipe_critical.htm
Oxymoron Maker	http://writingfix.com/rightbrain/serendipitous_oxymorons.htm
Paper Dolls - paperdolls of Jane Austen's characters and the Bronte's.	http://www.paperdolls.com
OurTimeLines.com - helps keep your historical details accurate!	http://www.OurTimeLines.com
Fiction Addiction	http://www.fictionaddiction.com
Caro Clark's Website - Chock full of writing advice	http://www.caroclarke.com
Rejection Collection - a place to commiserate about rejection	http://www.rejectioncollection.com
A series of articles written by Stephanie Bond for her RWA chapter	http://www.stephaniebond.com/writers'_articles.htm
The Creative Cauldron - lots of writing inspiration, articles and advice	http://www.creativecauldron.com/links.shtml
Mystery Fiction Net - a wealth of resources for the mystery writer.  Free newsletter, too.	http://www.mysteryfiction.net/resources.html
Crawford Kilian's Tips on Writing Fiction - a great resource	http://www.steampunk.com/sfch/writing/ckilian/
Study guides provided by Barnes and Noble	http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/
This website describes various medical issues for the benefit of fiction writers, from emergency-room procedure to the effects of various life-threatening injuries.	http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/8097/cascadehospital/index.html
A free download that will read your text to you out loud so you can see and hear how it flows.	http://www.readplease.com
Web del Sol's Michael Neff has conducted interviews with a number of agents.  They're gathered together here.  Neff asks a lot of good questions, including questions about first novelists and literary vs. genre.	http://webdelsol.com/Algonkian/Classes/agent-interviews.htm
Links for research from animals to witches to warlocks	http://www.geocities.com/romgateway/research/index.html
How to Articles for Writers (From Romance Web Gateway)	http://www.geocities.com/romgateway/articles/index.html
Online Publishers (from Romance Web Gateway)	http://www.geocities.com/romgateway/epublisher.html
Finding the Wildlife - informative site for research of animals.	www.worldwildlife.org/wildfinder
Syl's agent Erin recommended this site.  She said there are great discussions and resources in their forum.  You can join for $30 a year.	http://www.bksp.org
Writing grants, contests, articles, links.	http://www.fundsforwriters.com/
Has writers retreats, resources, funding, etc	http://www.artistcommunities.org/index.html
Sites of general interest to Writers (too many to list!!)	Site of general int.htm
This site is filled with writing exercises, prompts and articles based on Emily Hanlon's dual pronged method of teaching: honing fiction writing craft and unleashing creativity.	http://www.thefictionwritersjourney.com/
Looking for information on any town?	http://www.epodunk.com
How to get an agent to return your phone call	http://www.hornfischerliterarymanagement.com/resources/calls.shtml
In search of an agent	http://www.wildogre.com/articles/bt-0003.htm
Writer's Home - a good website w/ resources	http://www.writershome.com/questions/qa-general.htm
Interview with Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza	http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/luiz_alfredo_garciaroza.htm
Surviving Rejection	www.sminkworks.com/article-rejection.htm
Getting Rejected?  Feeling Dejected?	http://www.pwcwriters.org/penpoints15.htm
Interesting Writing Blog - Why do we Write?	http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/tigerprincess/
Quotes about writing, categorized (for instance, there is a "Writing is Hell" category, and the opposite, "Writing is Heaven".	http://koti.mbnet.fi/pasenka/quotes/q-writ.htm
The Next Big Writer:  Our mission is to empower writers and to find, reward, and promote the best undiscovered writing talent.	http://www.thenextbigwriter.com/
The "Evil Editor" blog	http://evileditor.blogspot.com/2006/05/face-lift-xxvi-original-version-dear.html
A Novel in a Year	http://tinyurl.com/lry5a
The Organized Writer Checklist and more	http://www.chicagowrites.org/index.php?n=Index.Php?n=Main.CurrentIssue
Mystery Writers	http://www.redinkworks.com/mystery_writers.htm
Book Selling Website	http://www.bluerectangle.com
Free Blog Hosting Website	http://wordpress.com/
Plot Outlines	http://www.theroseandthornezine.com/Article/33Plot.html
Be Your Own Editor	http://www.beyourowneditor.com/
Word Counter	http://www.wordcounter.com
Name Generator	http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php

Hi everyone,

I had to interview Hallie Ephron, a mystery writer and a member of the
famous Ephron writers family, for the newspaper, and I asked her if she
had trouble getting published ion the beginning. She said her first two
books were never published although becuase of her name, she was able to
get a lot of agents and editors to read the first few pages. She called
them her practice books. She now has five novels published in her Peter
Zak series and she is the author of "Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel:
How to Knock 'em Dead with style," which is a great reference book.

Anyway, I guess there is hope for someone like me who has two completed
unpublished novels and is working on a third.

Carol

For more than twenty-five years Rosemary Daniell has led Zona Rosa®, a creative writing workshop for women (and now men), ranging in age from 16 to 90 and from all walks of life, in Savannah, Georgia.

Rosemary Daniell is known as one of the best writing coaches in the country.  The author of SECRETS OF THE ZONA ROSA:  HOW WRITING (AND SISTERHOOD) CHANGE WOMEN’S LIVES, its prequel, THE WOMAN WHO SPILLED WORDS ALL OVER HERSELF:  WRITING AND LIVING THE ZONA ROSA WAY, she is the founder and leader of Zona Rosa®, a series of writing and living workshops in Savannah, Atlanta, and cities throughout the country, as well as in Europe, as profiled in People and Southern Living magazines.

More information available at:

http://www.myzonarosa.com/

Hi all you groupies,

I know that some of us have been feeling a little off balance with writing issues lately. Some have been querying and facing rejection. Some have just had bad writing days that stretched out into too many of them. And the saddest of situation? Because of work requirements, some of us have not been able to write at all.

Kathy gave a brilliant prompt for tomorrow. This weekend I will be traveling to Missoula, Montana. The great poet Richard Hugo is buried in Missoula – this is what is written on his tombstone:

Believe the couple who have finished their picnic
and make wet love in the grass, the wise tiny creatures
cheering them on. Believe in milestones, the day
you left home forever and the cold open way
a world wouldn't let you come in. Believe you
and I are that couple. Believe you and I sing tiny
and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on.

It is from his poem Glen Uig.

What I want all of us to do is believe that we all are writers. Believe we could eat stone and go on. Believe that we “sing” tiny and wise.

It goes without saying this poem is the inspiration for my prompt.

Hang in there my friends. We can do this.

Rebecca


Posted by Rebecca on Wednesday, 16 March 2005, at 1:55 p.m.

"Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write."
                  ~ Sir Phillip Sidney

1. Fiction writing takes place in your head, not on the paper.
2. Craft is the art of putting the story in your head into words. This craft can be learned and must be constantly practiced and improved upon.
3. You are in charge! Not the characters, not the plot, not the Muse. You.
4. You’re only human. Take your time. Don’t be in such a hurry. Write it all down. Let it flow. Relax. Don’t work so hard. Have some fun with it.
5. As a novelist you will be writing about conflict and pain. Many times the pain will mirror some pain you’ve experienced in your own life. This is where a writer must be brave and courageous. You have to step into that pain and reduce it to scenes on paper. These scenes will end up being some of your worst writing and some of your best writing. Best advice - keep a box of tissues handy.
6. It’s amazing how much we are influenced by our life experience. I noticed today that I wrote a paragraph where a woman admits to having an affair with a married man in the exact way a friend once talked to me about her affair with a married man. She got divorced for him, but he didn’t get divorced for her. She was pretty bitter. I used her tone. Fortunately for her, her husband really hadn’t wanted the divorce in the first place and they ultimately got back together.
   But she was the only person I’d ever actually talked to who had had an affair with a married man. So I assumed her attitude. And wrote it the way I had heard her say it.
   
7. You hear that writing fiction is a solitary profession. That is simply
   not true. Writers get their ideas from family, friends, the community at
   large... In short, from other people. We borrow (sometimes we outright
   steal) turns of phrases and interesting word usage. We create characters
   based on people we know, people we see, their relationships, their attitudes
   and belief systems. We get story ideas from the newspaper. And we write
   for the reader.

Here's my epiphany (I've been exchanging words counts and writing thoughts
with Bev, so I was bound to have an epiphany of my own sooner or later):
When I feel lost or stuck in what I'm writing, the only way to find my
way back is to keep writing. In the past, I've tended to stop and think
things through, but that doesn't move me forward. If I have a thought,
I've got to try it out on the page. That's where the world-building happens.
Using the stop-and-think approach, it took me two and a half years to write
the first draft of my mystery. Using the charge-ahead approach, I'll have
finished the first draft of this novel in two and a half months. 'Nuff
said.

--Nancy