The Dish on Dashes

I'm determined to be a diligent dash user, and I'm trying my darnedest to decipher the different dashes—but doggone it, I'm just dumbfounded.

Alliteration aside, is this you? Do you wonder which dash to use when and how to type the stinkin' things in the first place? There's only one dash on your keyboard, and technically that's a hyphen (a mini-dash, so to speak). Do you even know what that one is for?

If you're disoriented over dashes, then you've come to the right place because I have the dish on dashes.

 Hyphens (-)

How to type it: this is the key between the number 0 and your +/= key—across the top of your keyboard. No spaces before or after .

Hyphens are the most-used dash. They are so used that The Chicago Manual of Style (16 ed.) devotes an entire ten-page table (pg. 375-384) to how to use the hyphen. So I can't begin to cover it all, but here are the basic uses:

• Some compound words (merry-go-round, helter-skelter, hell-raiser). Make sure you are using the most current dictionary when looking up compound words. Many evolve into non-hyphenated words over time (back-yard became backyard, leap-frog became leapfrog). In 2007, for example, sixteen thousand hyphenated words were eliminated—some becoming two words and some becoming one.
  
• Spelled out numbers twenty-one through ninety-nine (seventy-eight, nineteen thirty-seven)
• Compound adjectives modifying a noun (middle-class neighborhood, open-ended question). This one can get tricky. These are only hyphenated when they come before the modified noun. If they come after it, no hyphen (The neighborhood was middle class. The student's question was open ended.). This includes color adjectives before modified nouns (ruby-red sunset, blue-green eyes, reddish-brown flagstone) but not after (The sunset was ruby red. His eyes were blue green. The flagstone was reddish brown). Note: color hyphenation rules changed with the most recent edition (2010) of The Chicago Manual of Style.
• Age terms in these examples (a three-year-old, a fifty-five-year-old woman, a group of eight- to ten-year-olds) but not in these examples (seven years old, eighteen years of age) These examples apply equally when using numerals for the age terms.
• E-mail is hyphenated. Though trends are trying to drop the hyphen in e-mail, The Chicago Manual of Style still recommends it.

This list doesn't even begin to exhaust all uses of the hyphen. I just touched on some of the most common. Pick up a reputable style book to get a thorough list.

 Em Dash (—)
How to type it: Hold down "Ctrl" and "Alt," then push the minus sign on your number pad (it will be near the top right corner of a normal keyboard) On laptops without number pads you should be able to hold down "Ctrl" and "Alt" and "Fn" and then push your :/; key.

Or, if you use Microsoft Word, immediately at the end of your word (no space), hit the hyphen key twice then continue typing your sentence. The double hyphen will turn into an em dash as you type. (Note: if you space at the end of your word, the double hyphen will turn into an en dash, so make sure you don't space our you'll end up with the wrong dash.) If you want spacing on either side of your em dash, you will have to use the "Ctrl" option above or go back and manually space it. There is no spacing rule, just be consistent.

 Just trying to remember which is the longer dash, the em or the en, can be confusing. I think of it this way, the letter "m" has two humps, so when written, it is longer (em dash). The letter "n" has one hump, so when written, it is shorter (en dash). Voilà. Now you'll never forget it.

The em dash is the fun one—the life of the dash party. It is the one you see in sentences (see last sentence) and the one you will mostly hear us refer to in LWC critique sessions. When we say "dash," this is usually the one we mean.

You use it when you want a greater emphasis than the modest comma provides. Sure you could divide it into two sentences, but sometimes that doesn't provide the power an em dash can. The em dash is a flashing light catching the reader's attention just when the writer intends. There are three ways I could have written the sentence above:

The em dash is the fun one, the life of the party. (It's monotone, and there's no emphasis on my point—you barely notice it.)

The em dash is the fun one. It is the life of the party. (Ick! The addition of "It is" slows the pace. It's robotic and boring.)

The em dash is the fun one—the life of the party. (There's excitement here. I don't even have to use the overused exclamation point because the tone of the sentence emphasizes.)

See the difference? Good.

One more point with em dashes. They are almost always typed incorrectly as en dashes. So watch your keystrokes—they are very similar.

En Dash (–)

How to type it: Hold down "Ctrl" then push the minus sign on your number pad (it will be near the top right corner of a normal keyboard) On laptops without number pads you should be able to hold down "Ctrl" and "Fn" and then push your :/; key. 

 Or, if you use Microsoft Word, at the end of your word or number, SPACE, hit the hyphen key, SPACE again, then continue typing your sentence. The hyphen will turn into an en dash as you type. (Note: if you don't space at the end of your word, the hyphen will turn into an em dash, so make sure you space our you'll end up with the wrong dash.) If you don't want spacing on either side of your en dash, you will have to use the "Ctrl" option above or manually close the space. There is no spacing rule, just be consistent.

It is most often used to indicate a range of numbers. Here are some examples from The Chicago Manual of Style:

The years 1993–2000 were heady ones for the computer literate.
In Genesis 6:13–21 we find God's instructions to Noah.
I have blocked out December 2009–March 2010 to complete my manuscript.

 Dash Spacing

If you were reading carefully, you noticed that Word spaces em dashes and en dashes differently if you use the hyphen key to create them. The Chicago Manual of Style says to be consistent with both. Use them in both cases or don't use them in both cases. The Chicago Manual of Style does not use spacing with em or en dashes within their own text, so I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before they make no spacing the rule. So in anticipation of that, even though I like the look of spacing and have always used it myself up until I researched for this post, I now recommend no spacing.


Note: For the purpose of this post, I used the correct dashes, however in other posts you will not see em dashes used because blogger does not have a way that I know of to create them. I had to copy and paste those in this post from Microsoft Word which is a bit tedious.Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

Short-Fiction Contests For $10 or Less

LWC is nothing if not frugal, so I've tracked down some great short-fiction contests with entry fees of $10 or less. And if a little thrill shoots through you when you see "None" next to a contest entry fee, there are a few of those in here for you as well. Each contest title below links to its entry page.

Many of these offer contests in poetry, and a few in nonfiction. If you don't see what you are looking for here, there are at least a hundred more in the Writers Market which is available at LWC meetings.

Now, sit up straight and strap yourself in - here we go:

AHWA (Australian Horror Writers Association) Flash & Short-Story Competition - $5 flash, $10 short / up to 1,000 flash, up to 8,000 short (deadline: May 31)

Art Affair Short Story Contest - $5 / up to 5,000 words - this site also has a separate Westerns short-story contest (deadline: Oct. 1)

Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest - $10 / 5 pages (July 31 and Dec. 31)

Family Circle Fiction Contest - Free / up to 2,500 words (Sept. 9)

Fanstory.com Flash Fiction Contest - Free / 500 - 1,500 words - this is a writing-prompt contest (deadline: varies, see website)

Iowa Short Fiction Award - Free / 150-page minimum (deadline: Sept. 30)

Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction - $10 / up to 8,000 words (deadline: June 11)

Red Hen Press Short Story Award - $20 for two stories / up to 25 pages (deadline: June 30)

The Rrofihe Trophy - $10 / up to 5,000 words (deadline: Oct. 15)

Silver Quill Short Fiction Contest - $5 / up to 3,000 words (deadline: Sept. 25)

Soul-Making Literary Competition - $5 / short fiction up to 5,000 words and flash fiction under 500 words (deadline: Nov. 30)

Terrain.org Annual Contest - $10 / up to 7,000 words (deadline: Aug. 1)

The Vocabula Well-Written Writing Contest - Free / 200-500 words (deadline: May 31)

The Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest - $10 / up to 500 words (deadline: Oct. 1)

William Richey Short-Story Contest - $10 / up to 10,000 words (deadline: Dec. 15)

Writers' Journal Annual Short Story Contest - $10 / less than 2,000 words (deadline: May 30)

Writers of the Future Contest - free / up to 17,000 words sci-fi or fantasy (deadline: July 1)

Writersweekly.com 24-Hour Short-Story Contest - $5 / word count TBA - this is a writing-prompt contest (deadline: Apr. 30 - but register early as they only accept 500 entries)


*Inconsistencies in hyphenation of contest names is intentional. Some contests use the hyphenation (e.g. Short-Story Contest), while others do not (e.g. Short Story Contest). We could debate which is proper all day, but we'll save it for another post.


Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

So You Think You Can Be a Novelist? - Part Five

So you think you can be a novelist? Really? Hmmm . . . you might want to ask yourself these questions before you commit:

• Are you a frequent reader?
• Have you written anything else?
• Are you an avid and daily learner?
• Do you have a writing support network?
• Have you published anything?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you might want to think again.

Part three addressed "Do you have a writing support network?" Today we'll address:

Have you published anything?

This one is pretty darn simple. Have you taken some of those other pieces you've written - read "Have you written anything else" - and submitted them to appropriate publications?

Take those articles, poems, short stories, or meditations you've written, and get them out there. Submit, submit, submit. How will you ever know if you're good enough to write the big things if you don't get your smaller pieces out there.

If you need to know where to start, read my recent post "How Much Should I Get Paid."

In the beginning of my writing journey - back when I thought I could write that novel brilliantly because my "talent" was raw and unhampered by rules and academics and the rigid structure of proper grammar and style - I just wanted to be a novelist. I figured the best way to learn to write a novel was to just sit down and write the thing - why waste my time with articles or short stories when they weren't my end goal.

But I eventually got tired of the facade of indifference, you know that line most of us beginning novelists use: "Sure, I'm writing a novel, but I'll probably never do anything with it. I'm just enjoying the process of writing." Of course in the back of our minds were thinking I can't wait to step onto the world stage with this mega-best-selling, overnight-success story. I'll show them what raw talent is all about. Move aside J.K. Rowling - there's a new kid on the block. Ch-ching! Cha-ching!

That facade of indifference hit me about the same time I joined this writers' group and realized my novel just wasn't all that great. My facade was a safety net. If I seemed indifferent and I failed, it was no big deal.

But at some point my writing hobby became something much more serious to me, and I wanted to be able to have the confidence to say Yes, I am a writer, and yes I want to be successful because I have a message to share. And in order to do that, I had to learn how to write right. I shared in part two of this series that I had to take a few steps back and start small and build.

That's what submitting and publishing is all about. Build your confidence and experience with the small pieces, and your chance at success with the big stuff is much greater.

All this said, publishing is still difficult to accomplish - even the small pieces. You might submit twenty times and receive nineteen rejections. Especially in the beginning. But the more you submit, the more familiar you will become with your markets. I am at the point now where I am just starting to hit a rhythm. I'm starting to discover where my writing fits, and I'm receiving fewer rejections than I did in the beginning.

I'm still focusing on bigger projects. I've spent the last four months working with a writing partner on a screenplay (link to my personal blog below to read more about this process). We will have the final draft completed by mid May. Freelance has not slowed down my ability to focus on the bigger projects - it has enhanced my chance to be successful at the bigger projects.

And even if we never sell our screenplay, it doesn't really matter, because I enjoyed the process of writing it. Ouch! Okay, that facade of indifference thing really doesn't work for me anymore. Truth: I dream of production companies getting into bidding wars over that screenplay. Reality: I expect rejection (a writer has a difficult time in this business if they don't), though I will persist.

So, persist in your efforts to publish.

I hope you have enjoyed this series. Remember - read, learn, write, seek support, publish; read, learn, write, seek support, publish; read, learn, write, seek support, publish. That's how it works. No short cuts, wise writer friends. No short cuts.


By the way, if you happen to be an exception - a successful author (meaning you've quit your day job) who never published anything prior to your first novel, my readers and I would love to hear from you.

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

So You Think You Can Be a Novelist? - Part Four

So you think you can be a novelist? Really? Hmmm . . . you might want to ask yourself these questions before you commit:

• Are you a frequent reader?
• Have you written anything else?
• Are you an avid and daily learner?
• Do you have a writing support network?
• Have you published anything?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you might want to think again.

Part three addressed "Are you an avid and daily learner?" Today we'll address:

Do you have a writing support network?

"But Blogmaster Karen, I have this one covered. My mom says my stories are brilliant. Grandpa says I'm the next great writer of the twenty first century - and he should know because he went to high school with Joyce Carol Oates. And my daughter says the poems I write for her birthdays are the highlight of her year."

Whoa! Halt, there, writer friend.

I'm sorry to drag a skid mark across your writing dreams, but there are some people who just don't qualify to be inside your writing support network.

Family - unless, of course, your dad is Cormac McCarthy or your uncle is Stephen King or your mom is the creative writing department head at the local university. Most of us simply don't have the luxury of having a successful or well-learned writer in our family.

There are a couple of reasons family doesn't count. First, they can be unconditionally supportive making you think you are better than you really are. Second, some family members can be unrealistically harsh or critical causing you to lose inspiration or motivation - making you think you just don't have what it takes.

Friends - for reasons similar to family. If you have writer friends - from a writers' group or from school, for example, and you know they can be objective and honest, count them in. But generally speaking, most friends wouldn't be qualified to give you studied feedback.

Sure, they might be able to tell you the story is great, but they won't be able to address your writing - and there's a huge difference here. No matter how great your story is, if it's poorly written, finding an agent or a publisher is probably not in your future.

Coworkers - Your coworkers are busy people. If they get some extra time to read a book, they aren't going to want to waste it on your unpolished, uncut, five hundred page manuscript. If you ask them to read it, they don't want to be rude. But you'll put them in a position of having to not read it and say they did. They'll scan a few sentences in each chapter - maybe even the entire first and last paragraph. Then they'll tell you what a great writer you are. Why? Because they figure anyone who takes the time to write five-hundred pages must have something amazing to share. What coworker is going to toss the manuscript in your lap and say, "Your book sucked - please don't ask me to read another one."

What does the support network do?

If your book is bad or even if it just needs to be improved (and they all need to be improved no matter who you are), your support network is that group of people you can call on to help you fix it. A serious writer doesn't want to be gloated over - we want to know how can we emphasize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses?

Just give me the dirt so I can make this thing the best it can be and get it out the door. That's the attitude of a serious writer.

Your support network 1) helps you emphasize your writing and storytelling strengths, 2) helps you minimize your writing and storytelling weaknesses, 3) isn't afraid to be honest and direct, and 4)encourages and guides you when you are ready to take the next step on your writing journey.

Who is qualified to be in my support network?

Other writers, of course. Join an active and quality writers' group. If you are in the South Middle Tennessee area, I'm biased toward Living Writers Collective, but shop around and find one that works for you. Make sure they have a strong critique group. Make sure they inspire your imagination through creative writing exercises. Make sure they have a heavy focus in writing education. Make sure they are using current references.

If you cannot find a local group in your area, consider starting one. Network online with members of other writers' groups, and see if they might help get you started by sharing some of their group guidelines. If you are in a rural area where not a lot of writers would be, hook up with an online writing group or join writers' forums. Be careful with online networking - you'll want to research any advice that seems inaccurate.

If you are in college, you have it easy. Writing professors can be great mentors. Fellow writing students can be a tremendous support. There are probably writers' groups within your writing-student pool.

Though mom, dad, and your son's preschool teacher can provide a nice boost to your writing ego, they can't do anything to help you get published. Your support network must consist of fellow writers, mentors, teachers, or other writing professionals. Find these people and hold on tight because they are the on-ramps to your writing autobahn.

What are you waiting for? Your writing destination awaits.


Join me in a couple of days for part five of this five-part series. In part five, I will explore the fifth question on the bullet list above: Have you published anything?

By the way, if you happen to be an exception - a successful author (meaning you've quit your day job) who has never had a network of supportive people, my readers and I would love to hear from you.

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

So You Think You Can Be a Novelist? - Part Three

So you think you can be a novelist? Really? Hmmm . . . you might want to ask yourself these questions before you commit:

• Are you a frequent reader?
• Have you written anything else?
• Are you an avid and daily learner?
• Do you have a writing support network?
• Have you published anything?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you might want to think again.

Part two addressed "Have you written anything else?" Today we'll address:

Are you an avid and daily learner?

A writer should learn something new about writing every day. It could be as simple as picking up a new vocabulary word to something as involved as reading a twenty-page chapter on the period. Yes, writers will read twenty pages on the period because . . . well, we're an odd bunch. And we know, chances are, if we read twenty pages on the period, we're going to discover some things about it we never knew.

Is your mouth watering over this whole twenty-pages-on-the-period thing? Then you are a writer, my friend. And this little treat is for you: A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation by Noah Lukeman. If, on the other hand, the thought of reading a single word about the period makes you want to take a melodramatic dive over Niagara Falls, what the heck are you doing reading this post? This is a writing blog, and writers love periods because they mean completion, finality, the end - even if it is just the end of our very first sentence in a four hundred page novel.

Learning something new in something as basic as punctuation usually excites a writer because a new technique in punctuation means yet another way we can express ourselves in our writing.

The next logical step following punctuation would be grammar and style - all of those things that would be considered the mechanics of writing. What do you know about:

• changing passive voice to active
• minimizing verbosity
• avoiding clichés
• subject-verb agreements
• syntax
• point of view
• smoothing transitions

And what about the comprehensive writing stuff like:

• showing versus telling
• writing great dialogue
• hooking and holding readers
• creating tension and conflict
• pacing
• plotting
• characterization
  

. . . and has it changed since you learned it the last time? If your last English or writing class was in 1982, and you haven't picked up a grammar and style book or a writing book since, I guarantee you a lot has changed.

If you aren't addicted to learning the craft of writing, I doubt you will find success as a novelist. The writing world, even things that seem as basic as grammar, is constantly changing. You have to change with it.

But let's dig a little deeper.

Learning to be a great writer is about more than just cracking the grammar and style books. You also have to have a curiosity about the human condition. So much so that you spend great deals of time observing people, psychoanalyzing them in secret and from a distance.

In secret is the key term.

People already think you're weird. Sorry, but they do - the moment you announced that you are a writer, you were branded "weird" by that banal non-writer bunch. If they catch you psychoanalyzing them, their perceptions of your mental status will be bumped to psychotic, and it's best to stay in the "weird" zone so they'll continue to invite you to their gatherings where you can psychoanalyze more of their type. After all, it's those people that inspire us weird writers to create vibrant characters.

And lastly, don't forget to feed your imagination. Part one dealt with reading. Read great works that take you to amazing places and introduce you to fantastic people. Watch imaginative movies with thought-provoking story lines. Listen to music - I've written entire stories around a single line or even a single word I heard in a song. Viewing artwork can be extremely powerful and can encourage the writer to disappear into another world.

Come to LWC creative writing sessions and do writing prompts that are outside of your normal writing style - writing outside of your normal style can spark your imagination, and help pull you out of a rut in your routine or a block in your story. Enhancing your imagination is a valuable learning gem.

What's the most important writing concept to learn? Now that I've decided to become an avid and daily learner, where should I start?

It's all important, and you start with it all. A scoop of grammar here, a pinch of punctuation there. Pepper it with some style, and the thread that runs through it all: observations of the human condition. Finally, bring it all to life with an imagination that makes it all soar.

This is how you make writing magic happen, but you can't succeed at what you don't know. So get busy learning - there's a beautifully written novel patiently waiting to burst through you.


Join me in a couple of days for part four of this five-part series. In part four, I will explore the fourth question on the bullet list above: Do you have a writing support network?

By the way, if you happen to be an exception - a successful author (meaning you've quit your day job) who never learns anything new, my readers and I would love to hear from you.

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

So You Think You Can Be a Novelist? - Part Two

So you think you can be a novelist? Really? Hmmm . . . you might want to ask yourself these questions before you commit:

• Are you a frequent reader?
• Have you written anything else?
• Are you an avid and daily learner?
• Do you have a writing support network?
• Have you published anything?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you might want to think again.

Part one addressed "Are you a frequent reader?" Today we'll address:

Have you written anything else?

Sorry, but letters to Grandma, e-mails, texts, and Facebook posts don't count. Have you written essays, articles, short stories - fiction or nonfiction, poems, or meditations. Even journal writing or letters to newspaper editors count as little jump starts into the writing world.

Many of these writing forms are high-attaining art forms all on their own. Poetry, short stories, and article writing can become lucrative in the gifted or well-learned writer's hands. So I don't mean to minimize them by suggesting an aspiring novelist start here, but if you've never written before, learning with a shorter form of writing is manageable. Start small and build.

When I first decided to enter the writing world seriously, it was because I wanted to write a novel. In fact, I already had thirty thousand words written on my first novel when I took my first step - joining this writers' group, Living Writers Collective. I wanted to get my story out there. I wanted people to tell me how brilliant it was, how elegantly written.

Through my interactions with my writers' group (we'll explore more on this in part four), I quickly realized how poorly written my novel was - there were some great writers here, and I was just a writer wanna be - not so brilliant after all. I had some serious work to do. I put that novel aside, and I started writing short stories. Lots and lots of short stories because I became addicted to them and because I was just so determined to get it right.

Some of the best stories I've read have been short stories. Great short stories often jab a good gut punch, are vivid and emotional, have active plot lines, and throw in some fun twists. They have to be powerful. Short stories have to accomplish in a tenth or less of space what an entire novel takes around four hundred pages to do.

Short stories are challenging, but the prep work is less demanding and you can usually knock out an entire short-story rough draft in a day or two or a week at the most. So they're a great place to start. Meet the challenge by mastering the short story techniques. And best of all, short stories aren't wasted - you can submit them to short story markets or contests and make a few bucks. Or save them all and try to get them published as a collection.

Practice poetry writing to build your vocabulary and enhance your ability to make words flow. Novel writing is more than just putting a story on paper - the words have to flow.

Writing articles builds your writing form and structure and is a great way to start writing if you have special skills that you feel others can learn from - gardening, parenting, mechanics, true motivational stories, crafts. And freelance article writing, which we will explore more in part five, is a great way to earn some cash on the side while you work on that novel. Many freelancers actually make enough money to quit their day job.

And once you've started writing, find avenues for critique. You need this on a local level and on a professional level to truly learn great writing. Living Writers Collective has an open critique session once each month. Within our writers' group we have a critique buddy service where we buddy up with other writers outside of that one monthly meeting and utilize each other for a more thorough editing process. I also host professional critique webinars outside of LWC so LWC writers who wish to dig deeper can see how professional writers and editors provide critiques. Make sure your critique group or partner isn't afraid to be honest. We like to hear the good stuff, but you want the focus to be on areas you need to improve.

Are you still not convinced you can't just start writing a novel with no prior experience? Have you ever gone snow skiing? If the answer is yes, pretend for a moment that it's no. Would you pop on the rental skis, buy a lift ticket, ride to the top of the mountain, and ski down the double black diamond slope (this is the serious, real friggin' scary, big-daddy slope) on your first ever attempt at skiing? Of course you wouldn't, unless death was your intention.

Starting with a novel when you've never written anything else is where potentially great writers' dreams go to die. And it's a sad day when that happens, so start small and build, and make your fellow writers proud, 'kay?

So, have you written anything else? If not, get busy - you have a lot of writing to do to prepare for that next great novel.


Join me in a couple of days for part three of this five-part series. In part three, I will explore the third question on the bullet list above: Are you an avid and daily learner?

By the way, if you happen to be an exception - a successful author (meaning you've quit your day job) who never wrote anything before your first novel, my readers and I would love to hear from you.

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

So You Think You Can Be a Novelist? - Part One

So you think you can be a novelist? Really? Hmmm . . . you might want to ask yourself these questions before you commit:

• Are you a frequent reader?
• Have you written anything else?
• Are you an avid and daily learner?
• Do you have a writing support network?
• Have you published anything?

If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you might want to think again.

Are you a frequent reader?

Find me a successful novelist (by successful, I mean one who actually quit his day job) who wasn't first a reader and I'll kiss your feet. How could you possibly know anything about writing if you don't read? And if you don't read books because you think it might detract from your own writing style (I've actually heard this one before), I just have to ask: Seriously?

Just like a child's behavior is heavily formed through a plethora of observations of life, a writer's style is heavily formed through a plethora of observations of other storytellers' work. And reading both the good and the bad sets in your own writing mind what to and not to do.

Don't read, that's fine. Sure, your style might be raw and original, but your grammar, punctuation, and technique sucks. Oh, and your story's likely already been told . . . and told . . . and retold (which you would have known had you been reading the kind of stuff you like to write). Then there's your writing theory, flow, format, characterization, redundancy, verbosity - do you even know what these are? If you've been reading, you have a pretty good idea. If not, well . . . at least you have that raw, original style.

I'm not trying to be insulting. My goal is to help you be successful in your writing endeavors. Take a hard look at your writing skill level. You just can't wake up one day and say "I think I'm going to start a novel today" when the only books you've ever read are the CliffsNotes for assigned high school reading.

I take that back. Anyone can write a novel, but if you're not first a reader, don't sit around wondering why in the world the darn thing isn't getting published.


Join me in a couple of days for part two of this five-part series. In part two, I will explore the second question on the bullet list above: Have you written anything else?

By the way, if you happen to be an exception - a successful author (meaning you've quit your day job) who doesn't read, my readers and I would love to hear from you.

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

Education Coordinator Named

In order to expand our opportunities in education, the LWC Advisory Committee has created the role of education coordinator, and we are excited to announce that Cece Dockins has accepted this role.

Cece graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in writing in August 2010. She is currently applying to MFA programs, and plans to write full time and teach. Learn more about Cece and her writing by visiting her blog (The Black Ichor Blog) and Web site.

Cece's primary role will be to plan and coordinate our 5th Thursday sessions and to be your point of contact for education-related ideas and needs. She will also be a new addition to our advisory committee.

Mary Ann Weakley will continue to share educational opportunities through our monthly newsletter and other information, and Karen Aldridge will still manage educational opportunities through creative writing and critique.

Education has become a key area for our group. LWC members have always learned retrospectively through critiques. But over the past couple of years, education has evolved into a more proactive and direct approach through creative writing lessons and prompts and now into entire education-focused meetings with our 5th Thursday sessions. Our attendance at our last 5th Thursday session hit an all-time high at twenty-two present. So I know you all are hungry to continuously absorb all there is to know about writing.

Please welcome Cece into her new role the next time you see her.

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

Rome Wasn't Built in A . . . Well, You Know

I don't know who you are, but I can tell you something about yourself. If you cringed when you read that title - you're probably a writer. If you thought Well, isn't that the most clever title ever?, then thanks for the compliment, but you, ma'am or sir, are NO writer.

I can take it a step further. If you cringed, you're probably a member of Living Writers Collective because if I've taught you people nothing over the past couple of years, I've at least taught you to take a big, old, jagged knife and gut those clichés, then toss their horrid, kicking, and screaming forms into a raging fire pit.

Whew! That feels better. There's nothing quite like taking out a little aggression on the cliché.

So, please, for the sake of my writing sanity, no clichés please.

Unless, of course, you're Stephen King or Cormac McCarthy or Joyce Carol Oates or J. K. Rowling or Anne Rice or one of the many other uber successful authors who can get away with such things.

Clichés are also okay if it's a character trait. For example, if you have a character that just likes to speak in clichés. In this case, use it in that character's dialogue, and make sure it's the character's speaking style and not forced in. And whatever you do, don't overdo it.

There are exceptions, but make sure your exception is successful, otherwise your writing will appear unprofessional.

Can you think of other times when a cliché might be okay?

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.

How Much Should I Get Paid?

All writers who aspire to be professional writers want to know, "How much should I get paid?" Of course, that answer depends on your experience level. I sill consider myself a beginner, but I can say at the beginning of my beginnerness (yes, I know that isn't a word), I submitted to nonpaying publications so I could build my clips. Clips are published writing samples you can use to build your writing portfolio and use as leverage to get you noticed by the paying publications. So if you are at the beginning, consider finding some quality nonpaying publications to get you started.

Once you've had two or three freebies published, then start knocking on the doors of some paying publications. At this point, you're going to get paid a predetermined amount - find that publication listing in the Writers Market, and most will list their pay rate.

Once you've mastered the process of submitting and selling, consider seeking out some freelance opportunities - publications or companies that want to publish your writing or utilize your writing skills regularly. These could be magazines (nonfiction or fiction), newspapers (community, city, regional, national), company newsletters, or even books that publish meditations (Chicken Soup for the Soul). At this point, some will still have their own pay rates (Chicken Soup for the Soul for example pays $200 + 10 books), but the more experience you have the greater the chance you will be able to negotiate rates.

To determine fair pay, read the "How Much Should I Charge?" section of the *Writers Market. In the 2011 printing, the article starts on page 67 and includes a pay table on pages 67-77. It lists the low, average, and high pay rates writers can expect in everything from copyediting to novel writing, from business writing to screenplay writing, from grant writing to ghost writing...

So get busy - you have a lot of writing to do if you want to get paid.


*If you do not have a Writers Market, you NEED one, but until then, feel free to browse our LWC copy at any of our meetings.

Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.