Ouhh! Snacks! The secret to any successful migration! Who's up for some tasty fried meat products!?

Anya ,'Touched'


The Great Write Way  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


Pix - Dec 16, 2004 10:15:45 am PST #8751 of 10001
We're all getting played with, babe. -Weird Barbie

Oh crap. Sorry. I know more than I did before, now that I got the auto reply.

Send your essay to myturn at newsweek dot com.

Here is the text of the email I received from them:

The guidelines for submitting a My Turn essay are as follows:

Please send your essay as text in the body of an e-mail message. We will not open or consider any submission sent as an attachment. The essay should be A) an original piece, B) about 850-900 words, C) personal in tone, D) about any topic, but not framed as a response to a Newsweek story or another My Turn essay. Submissions must not have been published elsewhere.

Please allow two months for your submission to be considered. Be sure to include your full name, address and phone number with your entry. We will send you a letter to inform you if we are unable to use your essay. We are fully aware of the time and effort that is put into each submission, and we consider every manuscript carefully.


Steph L. - Dec 16, 2004 10:19:09 am PST #8752 of 10001
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe

I've been completely transported by the setting. Wants to go to England now for a spell, Lilty does.

You should read Deb's Eyes in the Fire. I'd say about 2 pages in, and I was ready to move to England.


Connie Neil - Dec 16, 2004 10:19:51 am PST #8753 of 10001
brillig

Bookmarked, Kristin, thanks.


deborah grabien - Dec 16, 2004 10:35:48 am PST #8754 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

Kristin, definitely bookmarked. I can do a piece for them, I think.

Steph, Plainsong is even more, with England and the countryside and the roads and the church spires and the small towns....


Beverly - Dec 16, 2004 10:51:13 am PST #8755 of 10001
Days shrink and grow cold, sunlight through leaves is my song. Winter is long.

Got it. I'll order both, then when Weaver comes in, say I got it for a present so's they put it on the shelf, too.

Ooh, what a fabulous idea. What I've done so far is ask at the info desk at both Borders and B&N in several locations, repeatedly, if they have it in stock. I've also called in to all local stores, asking if they have it in stock, ("No, I don't have time for you to special-order it, it's for a present I need this afternoon!") and my family, friends, and writing group are all doing the same. I figured enough demand for both books would make the stores stock them--or at least the latest one.

But actually getting it onto the shelf is even better.


deborah grabien - Dec 16, 2004 8:51:27 pm PST #8756 of 10001
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.

In Winter Darkness

In these cold corners where I dream
a stench invades the memory well
of bile, cold as spoiled cream
in winter darkness waits this hell.

There's nothing in December's chill,
just weight of passion stripped away
No warming breath, no surge of will
can bring me back this holiday.

If what I cherished, lost as youth
he whom I loved now gone to clay
I'm bound at heart to touch my truth,
pulled clear of memory's overlay

There is no sun, no kiss, no touch, no rhyme
that can return me to that warmer time.


Susan W. - Dec 17, 2004 4:40:06 pm PST #8757 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

AmyLiz, are you around?


Amy - Dec 17, 2004 5:45:32 pm PST #8758 of 10001
Because books.

I am now! Are you, still?


Susan W. - Dec 17, 2004 5:56:08 pm PST #8759 of 10001
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

Yep! I'm working on my writing goals and marketing strategy for 2005 and 2006. Which may be a grandiose form of procrastination, but I am also writing today. I'm going to try to push myself to finish Anna's story, at least the first draft, by 8/31/05, and I also want to enter it in a few contests over the course of the year. (Naturally, once it's done, I'm going to start querying agents.)

So I'm going through my 2004 RWRs and creating a semi-obsessive database of contests I might enter, sorted by entry date and type of submission (standard first chapter, the longer first 2-3 chapter ones, and the quirky ones--all the best scene, last chapter, sex scene, etc. contests). I'm trying to decide, at least on a preliminary level, which ones are best for me, though I'm not making a definite decision about entering anything until I know who's judging the finalists.

Anyway, Anna's story has a somewhat nontraditional first chapter in that her husband is still alive--or, at least, we don't know he's dead until the very last page of the chapter. I think it begins at the right place. It's the place where the changes start for Anna and Jack, and we see them meet each other in a way that, if I'm writing it right, showcases their chemistry and compatibility, shows what kind of people they are, and hints at the conflict. But I'm afraid it might do poorly in first chapter contests by being a bit non-standard. From your judging experience, am I right about that?


Amy - Dec 17, 2004 6:07:40 pm PST #8760 of 10001
Because books.

From your judging experience, am I right about that?

I don't think so, not if the reader gets right away that Jack and Anna are the protagonists -- then that final page where they learn her husband is dead will be a corker. Remember, at least from a published book perspective, readers will have at least glanced at the cover copy and know who the couple will be, but if you make the attraction clear enough, anyone picking up that first chapter blind should be able to get it, too.

Does that help? (And go you!, by the way, on everything you're doing, and with a nasty cold/virus if my lurking in Bitches is anything to go by.)