Writers' Workshop: Trisha Petty Th.D

LWC Member Trisha Petty Presents

Writing 101: Do I REALLY Have To Do An Outline?!?

Petty is the author of thirteen books and several screenplays and and is a speaker who uses her expertise to share the craft of writing with others.

Thursday, July 14
at 6:30 p.m.

Maury County Library
211 8th St.
Columbia, TN

Workshop attendance is free.

Petty's books and workbook will be available for purchase.

Tune in to WAKM-AM on Monday, July 11, at 8:00 a.m. for an on-air interview with Trisha Petty. Read her story on the front page of this week's The Advertiser News and The Daily Herald. Visit her Web sites at: Cellophane Ministries and Antebellum Productions.

Inspiration By Accident

I posted this in My Writing Loft today and decided it's equally as fitting here, so I'm double dipping. Enjoy -

Inspiration is a tricky thing for a writer, isn't it? You can't really force feed yourself inspiration. You can't hammer through that big knotty hole in your story by simply sliding your chair back, closing your eyes, and declaring, "Okay, bring on the inspiration!" I'm sure there are some freaks of nature out there in writing wonderland who can conjure it on demand. But most of you, no doubt, are just like me - you can't will inspiration into being.

So what do you do? You live life and rely on those glorious accidental moments when inspiration whacks you so hard you think your brain might have twisted in your skull a few degrees.

Because suddenly all you can think about is that sycamore tree down on the river - the one with the open trunk so huge three people can stand inside it. Or how stinkin' high Fall Creek Falls is, and is there any scenario in which a person could survive plummeting over it? Or why you can't get Cece's favorite monster cup, the one she broke at writers' group the other night, out of your head, and discovering the answer when you reach a scene in chapter seven of your current work in progress.

Funny to think that stories live and grow through a series of accidental moments that inspired something magical in the mind of a writer.


Writer friends: What accidental moments have inspired you to create something magical?

Psst - click on "Cece's" above to read her blog - one of my favorites.

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

Workshop A Huge Success

The first major workshop presented by Living Writers Collective was a smashing success. Author Lisa Patton, the featured speaker, drew a crowd. LWC planners were hoping for at least 30 to attend the Saturday morning workshop. The official count was 61.

Lisa Patton, author of best selling Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter, gave hope to all writers encouraging perseverance in writing. She delivered her inspiring message with a sense of humor that captivated her audience.

KUDOS TO ALL THE MEMBERS OF LWC WHO HELPED MAKE THE WORKSHOP A REALITY and A SUCCESS.

Post by: LWC Newsletter Editor and the coordinator of this event, Mary Ann Weakley. Visit her Web site at www.maryannweakley.com.

Writers' Workshop: Lisa Patton

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.

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.