Guest Bloggers

Why Follow Submission Guidelines?

Guest Blogger Tish Davidson writes: Don’t Sabotage Your Submissions What is the first thing you do when you cook a new recipe? Read the directions to determine if you have the necessary ingredients. What is the first thing you do when you assemble a piece of Ikea furniture? Read the directions. So why do so many writers seem unable to read and follow the directions when submitting to a journal or contest? I’ve judged a lot of writing from independently published books to high school writing contests. I was an editor of the 2019 CWC Literary Review with responsibility submission intake as well as judging. What I’ve learned is how few supposedly literate people read and follow the submission directions. Maybe because they are called “guidelines” people consider them optional. Or perhaps the requirements seem overly picky or silly. Take fonts. Why use Courier as requested when your work will…

Prompts

Something happened, and you weren’t the same . . . Prompt #780

Use a pivotal event as a way into writing a personal essay, or a slice of your life . . .  a memoir, or creative non-fiction. A pivotal event is something happened and you weren’t the same after. Obvious pivotal events are graduating from school, first job, getting married, having a baby, retiring. There are more subtle events that, at the time, you didn’t know would be a pivotal event. Those are the events that could result in a riveting essay, or give you closure. Prompt 1 Make a list of things, events, people that you carry in your mind. These are events that you can’t forget. People who haunt you. Memories that you can’t seem to let go. These are things you think about over and over, events that are on repeat in your brain. Things that happened that you can’t stop thinking about, maybe things you lose sleep…

Sparks

My Pen Tonight

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. My Pen Tonight By Cheryl Moore My pen seems to have run out of words. Minutes tick by—tick, tick, tick But no matter how hard I try All starts dry up and say good-bye. When Cheryl Moore came to California in the early 1960’s, she realized she’d found her home. Moving to Petaluma in the 70’s, she was as close to paradise as she’d ever get. Travel has taken her to Europe and the Middle East. She has written on these memories as well as on the flora and fauna of the local river and her own garden. Chery’s writing has been published in “The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries,” available from your local bookseller. Print and ebook available through Amazon. Also available through the Sonoma County Library system.

Sparks

Jumpstart in Meter

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Jumpstart in Meter By Ken Delpit I wonder if it makes good sense, to do Jumpstart in meter.I mean, what’s the point, masking oneself, like a blindfolded trick-or-treater?It all depends, I suppose, on the prompts that we are given.It could turn out to be mere folly, or crazier still, madness-driven. Marlene always says, “Just write,” so just write is what we will do.We will contemplate the prompts, one at a time, and stir them into our stew.Time will tell us, as our words spill out, no need to pre-distress.We’ll know soon enough if we’ve got a yummy meal, or just some metered mess. Prompt one says: What bothers me…, I don’t care…, I’m tired of dot-dot-dot.So, right away, we must gaze inward, and put ourselves on the spot-spot-spot.One thing that can be tiresome is overuse of…

Guest Bloggers

It’s All Grist for the Mill: Weathering the Ups and Downs of the Creative Life

Photo Credit: Erin VonRuden Guest Blogger Mary Kole writes about the creative journey: As much as I wish this wasn’t the case, the creative life is full of ebbs and flows, highs and lows, and any other image you want to ascribe to the push and pull of the artistic temperament. Whether you admit or not, you are a writer, a creative, and an artist, whatever that means to you. If you find yourself grappling with writer’s block or struggling to reignite your passion for writing, fear not. This is perfectly normal, and every writer faces these challenges at some point in their creative journey. And it is a journey. Some writers are only interested in publication, and I can absolutely see where they’re coming from. But they will be in for a long and disappointing ride if they can’t derive pleasure, satisfaction, and fulfillment from the act of writing…

Sparks

Identify with Trees

Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Identify with Trees By Cheryl Moore Looking at the Chinese Zodiac, I don’t find an animal I can identify with. Why are there only animals? Why not plants? If there is a living thing I mostly identify with, it is a deciduous tree. Trees are tall, stand upright.  They reach up to the heavens; I am tall, upright (at least most of the time). I reach up to the sky doing my morning exercises. Trees are more silent than most animals—no barking dogs or yowling cats, trees only whisper when they sway in the wind. Their annual cycle ranges from quickly budding in spring, like childhood, then full glory in summer like the energy of early adulthood, until their final flash of color, ageing until their bare branches in winter resemble skeletal bones. A bit rough…