Twelve Days of Writing

Day Ten:  Inspiration

First, please let me apologize for getting this post up so late–it was one one crazy, but good day.

In this blog entry, I wanna talk about inspiration. Ah, inspiration.

One of the most common questions that I get asked by folks is…”Where do you get your ideas?”

My answer? “Everywhere.”

Half-remembered dreams inspire me. Billboards inspire me. Movies that I don’t like–b/c I wanna rewrite them–inspire me. I don’t need a Muse–I just need life.

Life is so wild and random.   Life is filled with so many great moments–and so many dark ones. I read somewhere (no, I have no idea where!) that writers see stories in everything–and that is certainly true for me.

When I was younger, I used to play I game when I was bored, waiting some place. I would watch other people. Watch their faces, their expressions, their body language. Then, I would create lives for the people that I watched. Sometimes, I’d try to match the stories to what I thought was reality for my poor, observed souls. And, sometimes, I would try to create an existence that was far from ordinary.

If you are a writer reading this post, tell me…what inspires you?

“The Wolf’s Mate” (from SECRETS, VOLUME 18: DARK PASSIONS) placed third (novella category) in the Barclay Gold Contest for published writers. Yay! I’m thrilled!   Wonderful Christmas news. (Hmmm…this may count as my first gift of the season.)

Okay, in the interest of complete honesty, I shall admit that I stole this idea from my good friend Alice–she always finds the fun stuff before me.

But, happy holidays, anyway!

Click below to discover a holiday, well, not a wonder, but something…else:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1271768606

Yep, that’s the family.   🙂

Twelve Days of Writing

Day Nine:  Writing Conferences

I love attending writers’ conferences. Love networking. Love attending workshops and learning more about the craft–oh, and don’t even get me started on the research sessions (weapons, death, forensics–ah, so interesting to me).

There are big conferences that writers can attend (for romance writers, the two biggest events are probably the annual Romance Writers of American National Conference and the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention). But, if you don’t want to attend one of the “big” events, there are always plenty of smaller conferences held all around the U.S. (and world, for that matter).

Writers go to these conferences for many different reasons. Some go to have the opportunity to pitch directly to an editor or agent. Some go to pump up their promo skills.   Some go simply to be around other writers (Trust me, this is important! It’s nice to be around other folks who understand the wild writing ride.)

In 2008, I’ll try to attend one big event…and several smaller conferences, too.   For example, I’ll definitely be at the Silken Sands Conference in Pensacola, Florida, and I’d love to attend the Moonlight and Magnolias Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. Ah, the thrill of the conference!

Twelve Days of Writing

Day Eight:  Track those submissions, baby!

So, yesterday, I listed twelve romance publishers, now, well, I want to talk about the extreme importance of tracking submissions. As soon as you submit a story to someone–a magazine editor, a book editor, an agent–you need to immediately write down that submission. I created a very simple Excel file for my submissions. I just created a couple of columns and listed:  Title of The Work, Person/Publishing House Submitted To (include address here),  Date of Submission, Type of Material Sent (i.e., query letter, partial, full), and Response (yeah, this one will be left blank for a while).

This is the main reason why I like to have a submission file:  So I can know when to follow up on my submissions! If you check out a publisher’s submission guidelines, usually there will be some sort of time-line offered for responses (say, 4 to 6 months). I never wanted to be a pest and hound publishing houses too early, so I waited until my time-line was exhausted, then, I would send a follow-up note or email.

Of course, I also like my submission tracker because it always me to look back over the year and see just what I’ve done. In addition to agents and publishing houses, I also include any contests that I’ve entered in my tracker.

So…do you have a tracker? If not, are you gonna make one?