The Write Spot Blog by Marlene Cullen

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  • The Writer Magazine

    In April 1887, two newspaper men designed an 18 page pamphlet they called The Writer. It was designed to be “a monthly magazine to interest and help all literary workers.”

    Today, The Writer magazine “is dedicated to expanding and supporting the work of professional and aspiring writers with a straightforward presentation of industry information, writing instruction and professional and personal motivation.”

    The Writer is looking for your story ideas:

    “Our editors are interested in query letters on concrete topics written by emerging and experienced writers in all genres. We are looking for clear takeaway for our readers: What can they learn to improve their writing or advance their careers? What how-to tips and strategies will accomplish this?

    Queries should briefly describe your background and provide details for your story idea. We are interested in how-to stories, reported pieces, narrative essays and profiles of writers and others in the field. . . . We do accept queries that include finished pieces for consideration. We do not accept material that has been previously published in any form in print or online.”

    Email queries to tweditorial-at-madavor.com. Include your name, phone number and a short bio.

    We receive hundreds of pitches every week and cannot respond to all of them. If you haven’t heard from us in two weeks, please feel free to move your submission to another publication. If you’re unfamiliar with our magazine, we recommend reading a few issues, subscribing, or at least signing up for our newsletter to get a feel for the kind of work we publish.

    Article lengths vary widely from 300 to 3,000 words. On occasion, longer articles and excerpts also appear in the magazine.”

    Read Submission Guidelines before querying and submitting.

  • Let Go And Create

    Guest Blogger Suzanne Murray writes about how surrender can help creativity:

    We can’t force creativity. We know this intuitively. If we told a painter that we wanted a masterpiece by five o’clock tomorrow, he or she would look at us like we were crazy, that we clearly didn’t understand what being creative was all about.

     An important part of being creative is learning to surrender to the flow of the universe, allowing something greater than our everyday self to move through us. It’s not something we can figure out with our linear mind.

    Of course, if we want to paint we need to learn how to work with our chosen medium and studying the work of the masters can help. If we want to write it’s really valuable to read widely and deeply, to show up daily to put pen to paper and perhaps take a workshop on form we want to work with.

    Yet at the heart of being creative is letting go and allowing the ideas, the inspiration to move through us. This is where practice comes in. As Flannery O’Connor said of her writing experience, “I show up at my office everyday between 8 am and noon. I’m not sure that anything is going to happen but I want to be there if it does.” 

    I recently sat next to a young man in Starbucks who had a set of watercolors laid out and quickly produced a couple of small paintings that were quite lovely. We spoke of creativity and how so many people think you either have it or you don’t. “Yeah,” he said, “really it’s a muscle, you’ve got to use.” He went on to say “No matter how lousy I feel, if I do even a couple of little paintings I instantly feel better 

    I feel the same way about writing, even if it’s just a page of free writing where I just let the words flow out of the pen. Being creative feels good and lightens our mood because we become more present to the moment, quiet our chattering minds, and allow for the awareness of our heart and knowing to do the work. In the surrender we find ourselves in an expanded state of consciousness were we can do things we didn’t think we could.

    Originally posted on Suzanne Murray’s Blog,  March 2017

    Suzanne Murray is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives. She works with simple, powerful techniques to help clear whatever gets in the way and creates a safe and sacred space for your creative and soulful life to blossom. She provides an experience of the joy and beauty that comes from embracing your gifts and expressing them in the world. With a lifelong connection to the natural world, she enjoys sharing the grace and wonder that Nature can bring to your life and creativity.

  • What is it you really want? Prompt #312


    What is it that you really want? 

    Write whatever comes up for you.

    Could be serious, playful, wishful, fun.

    Just write!

  • Feeling broken? Trying unplugging.

    Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. —Anne Lamott, Salon, April 10, 2015

     

     

  • Sixteen Rivers call for poems for anthology


    Sixteen Rivers Press is seeking unpublished poems that respond to the cultural, moral, and political rifts that divide our country: poems of resistance and resilience, witness and vision that embody what it means to be a citizen in a time when our democracy is threatened.

    Sixteen Rivers editors welcome voices raised in passion and in praise, whether lyrical, philosophical, visionary, or personal.

    Submit 1 to 3 unpublished poems, totaling no more than 3 pages.

    Deadline:  May 15, 2017

     

  • House Image…  Prompt #311

     

    Think of a house or an apartment you lived in – either where you grew up or one that comes to you most strongly: a place that seems most pertinent or the place you want to discover more about.

    Use a pen or pencil and draw a blueprint of the house or apartment.

    Sketch the floor plan, include doors (front, back, side), stairs, and each room within the house.  Let your hand and mind be the guides. Don’t worry about getting it exactly correct.

    Use color to explore

    When you feel done with the blueprint, use color to explore the house/apartment and your feelings.

    Color the rooms, or outline the rooms, using the actual or basic color of the walls, the rugs and furniture.

    When you feel done with coloring, write whatever comes up.

    Examples

    The house was yellow I hated that color. It made me think of . . .

    The red front door stood out like . . .

    My pink/blue room was a sanctuary. I could . . .

    I liked the green kitchen best. This is where I . . .

    You can also write opposites:

    The house was yellow. I loved that color. I never realized until now . . .

    The red front door blended in. I never thought . . .

    My pink/blue room was hellish. I could never . . .

    I disliked the green kitchen the most. This is where I didn’t . . .

    Go where your mind wants to go.  Just write.

  • Story is our most effective teaching tool.

    “All humans understand and use story on an intuitive level. It’s our most effective teaching tool.” — Deb Norton, “Story Structure, Simplified,” WritersDigest, February 2017

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • What makes a happy reader?

    What makes a happy reader?

    Robert Keiner answers, “It’s all about being invited in by the writer. If a writer begins showing off with obscure or precious writing, that gets in the readers’ way. . . The job of the writer is to ignite a fictional daydream in the brain of the reader and then step away and become invisible so the story becomes the readers’ own.” — WritersDigest, February 2017

  • Pulp Fiction

     

    Pulp Fiction, a Canadian magazine, features a variety of genres:  science fiction, mystery, fantasy, history, suspense, and thriller.

    “We realized we knew a lot of writers who had pieces sitting in shoe boxes under their bed[s] . . .  We also knew writers looking to break out.” — The Writer magazine, October 2016

    The “pulp” in the title refers to “cheap pulp paper used in the dime-novels of last century.

    “We love literary fiction. Beautiful prose, soul-searching themes, and powerful and complex character development are all part of the stories we like.”

    From their website:

    Format

    In these days of massive hardcover tomes and heavyweight trade paperbacks, do you miss the small, inexpensive paperbacks you could stuff in your purse or coat pocket?  We do, which is why our print format is a digest-sized magazine, lovingly modeled after fabulous magazines which have stood the test of time.

     Pulp Fiction is looking for:

    Any genre or between-genre work of literature, or visual art (black and white) up to 75 pages in length.  Short stories, novellas, poetry, comics, illustrations — bring it on.  We do not publish non-fiction, memoir, or children’s stories.  Aside from that we want anything entertaining and well written.

    Contests

    Pulp Literature has four annual contests for writers, and new this year, a cover painting contest for artists.  To hear about contests in advance, subscribe to their free monthly newsletter.

    “We receive fewer entries in a contest than in general submissions, so you’re more likely to get noticed.”

    The Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest      Deadline:  February 15, 2017

    The Magpie Award for Poetry

    At Pulp Literature, we have an affinity for poetry, the hard liquor of literature. We like it strong, neat, and we don’t mind if it makes our eyes water.  Our judges, will be looking for a fusion of musicality, imagery, feeling, and thought.  May the best poem win!

    Contest opens: 1 March 2017
    Deadline:  15 April 2017
    Entry fee: $25 1st poem, $10 each subsequent poem
    Earlybird fee (before 15 March): $20 1st poem, $10 each subsequent poem
    Entry fees include a 1-year digital subscription to Pulp Literature.

    The Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize

    Got something short, sharp and snappy to tell?  Wow us with your most economical and brilliant storytelling.  This contest is for short fiction under 1000 words.  Want feedback on your story?  Get a professional critique from one of the Pulp Literature editors for only $15 more.

    Deadline:  15 June 2017
    Entry fee: $15
    Earlybird fee (before 15 May): $10
    Entry fees include a 1-year digital subscription to Pulp Literature.

    The Raven Short Story Contest

    We Pulp Literature editors collect stories like ravens in the woods, swooping down on what catches our eye and bringing the treasures — sometimes sparkling, sometimes grisly, but always fascinating — home to our nests.  Want feedback on your story?  Get a professional critique from one of the Pulp Literature editors for only $25 more.  Show us your most scintillating treasures in the form of short fiction up to 2500 words in length and you could be the one bringing home $300 to line your nest!

    Contest opens: 1 September 2017
    Deadline: 15 October 2017
    Entry fee: $20
    Editorial critique: $25
    Earlybird fee (before 15 September): $15
    Entry fees include a 1-year digital subscription to Pulp Literature

    This contest is for previously unpublished short fiction between 500 and 2500 words in length.  Multiple entries welcome.

    Submission Guidelines

    Short Fiction Guidelines

    We are looking for entertaining, accessible stories:  A story readers can sink into late at night before they go to bed.  We want to stretch people’s minds, but not give them a headache.

    We want a balance of serious and lighthearted stories.  We strive for emotional balance in each of our issues, and want our readers to leave feeling challenged yet refreshed.

    We aren’t satisfied with a joke.  Some writers send shaggy dog stories that end with a twist or revelation that is funny, but not a story.  A story is about a person, not a plot twist.

    We take more short fiction than novellas.   Stories under 5000 words have the best chance of publication.

    We want both plot and character.   We like some action along with those intriguing personalities, and we want to see characters that grow and change throughout the story arc.

    Reading fees

    Because of the large volume of short fiction we receive we charge a reading fee of $10 CAD (roughly $7 US) for short stories and novellas.  If this fee is a hardship please contact us.  Finances should never prevent your words from being seen!  There are no fees for poetry, novel,  or artwork submissions.

  • What, why, how . . . freewrites

    What is a freewrite?  Why should you do it? How is it done?

    A “freewrite” is “free association” for a quick style of writing. It’s a way of writing freely with no worries about the end product.

    It’s meant to be spontaneous, with no “real” thinking involved. Just write thoughts as quickly as they  form.

    No editing is involved while writing because editing means “thinking” and thinking means censoring.

    Censoring and editing while writing can inhibit the freedom experienced while writing without worries about the outcome.

    A freewrite is getting your thoughts written, accept whatever they are, and however they manifest.

    This writing can be a catalyst for further writing and can later be revised, edited, and polished.

    Choose an idea, set a timer, write for that amount of time. Topics can be whatever is on your mind or select a writing prompt on The Write Spot Blog.

    How to improve your writing

    Keep writing, using prompts as inspiration. Think of this as “practice” writing. Just like a baseball player didn’t walk up to home plate one day and hit a homerun . . . it took lots of practice. It can take a lot of practice to get to a deep level of writing.

    Once you get into the rhythm of this type of free writing, you will be able to access that part of you that wants to express your deep, inner thoughts. It comes with time, practice, and patience.

    There are over 300 writing prompts on The Write Spot Blog. Choose one and Just Write.

    What participants say about The Write Spot Blog:

    “I’ve been going way back through your blog. I encourage anyone interested in writing to revisit so many posts that offer help and encouragement. I cannot thank you enough for all the links, advice, and beautiful writings. The Write Spot Blog is a writing gold mine of information, help and encouragement.” —Kelly

    “It means so much to me that there is a place called The Write Spot. Marlene, your level of integrity and thoroughness that is involved in this website is amazing. Your unique sense of heart and level of professionalism is really quite something.  All I can say is big Thank YOU!”  —Christina