Guest Blogger Arlene Mandell writes: “Found tiny brown frog in bathroom sink.” Both the frog and the notation in my journal made me smile. This reminded me that not all entries must be “worthwhile” in the service of self-analysis or material for lofty literary purposes. I’m seventy-three, have been writing for most of my life, and have cabinets, folders and computer files filled with work. Quite a bit has been published. And there’s plenty that hasn’t been. Recently I’ve been giving myself permission to snip, toss and DELETE anything that hasn’t worked thus far and may not be worth expending any more energy on. For example, there was the stack of dusty manuscript copies of Slow Kissing, my first novel which I shipped from Closter, New Jersey, to Santa Rosa, California, fourteen years ago. No matter how many times I revised it, it just wasn’t very good. One rainy morning…
Tag: Arlene Mandell
Wordrunner eChapbooks now accepting submissions.
Wordrunner eChapbooks: Small Fiction Collection Submissions for this fiction collection, to be published online in June 2014, will be accepted until May 31, 2014. Stories may be flash or longer, from 750 up to 4,000 words each, totaling a minimum of approximately 8,000 and a maximum of 18,000 words for the collection. We would like at least five stories, but no more than 20 (if flash fiction). They need not be linked, but it would be a plus if they belong together for some reason, be it theme, location or character/s. We will also consider novel excerpts for this echapbook. There is no fee to submit and authors receive token payment. Submit your best work only. Each story should be original and compelling. No genre fiction, please, unless a story is good enough to transcend genre. Click here for additional guidelines and submission link. Arlene Mandell‘s memoir Scenes From My…
Amy Zhang and your scraps of writing
My dear friend, Arlene Mandell, asked a question the other day that I’ve been pondering. What happens to our scraps of writing? What can we do with our journal writing and our freewrites? I just read “The Secret Life of a Teenage Author” by Amy Zhang in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers. Zhang’s honesty and confession led me to want to learn more about her. Her blog, “A Story of a Dreamer,” is inspiring and delightful. The October 10 post begins, “If You Give an Author Some Chocolate …to encourage her to revise, she’ll eat it. She’ll eat it slowly because there is an art to eating chocolate bars. She’ll try to revise while holding the chocolate bar in one hand, but realize that she can’t revise without proper music. If you let an author look for proper music, she’ll decide that her normal revising playlist simply…
Interview character – Prompt #6
Inspired from “Character Profile” by Patrick Scalisi in the November issue of The Writer magazine. Interview your main character or supporting characters. If you have a fictional character, you can work with that. If you are writing about something that really happened, you can use those people as your characters. If neither of those work, use a photo . . . develop a picture into flesh and blood characters. For your fictional character: Interview him or her as a journalist would. . . but not at the age they are in your story. If they are older . . . interview the younger version of your character. If they are young. . . imagine what they might be like as an older person. For your real-life person: Same thing. . . have an imaginary interview of him or her. . . you can pick the age. . . younger if…