Monday, August 31, 2015

#PitMad, an Unbeaten Path

By: Ataska Brothers  

I finished my novel in February, created a Twitter account in March, and signed a contract with Fantasy Works Publishing in April. The publisher I really, really wanted. Two days after I signed the contract, I received an email from an agent. The agent I really, really wanted...

Here’s what transpired during my first month on Twitter and how I scaled the formidable wall of publishing so fast.

With the manuscript completed and the query letter polished, I faced an arduous task: getting noticed among thousands of writers who, just like I, were ready for the next step in their writing career. Researching my options, I read an agent’s bio and was struck by the list of her favorite classic writers. It was surprisingly similar to mine. At that moment I knew I wanted to be her client. There was one problem: the agent didn’t consider “cold queries.” She accepted submissions from the writers she met at conferences and from the participants of #PitMad. That was the first time I had heard of Twitter Pitch Contests.

I put a search engine to work, and minutes later I knew I needed to create a Twitter account and figure out how it worked right away, because, by a lucky coincidence, the next #PitMad was coming up in three days.

What is #PitMad?

Four times a year, participants get a 12-hour window to pitch their manuscript in 140 characters or less. Agents and acquiring editors are monitoring the feed. If they favor your pitch, you follow their submission guidance and send them your query letter and sample pages.

My pitches were noticed, but not by the agent I wanted. I queried her anyway, explaining how her love for certain books inspired me to enter the contest. She requested my pages. While waiting for her decision, I participated in another Twitter contest, #PitSlam. The rules are different: in the course of a few days, you have a chance to submit your 35-word logline and the first 250 words via email, and get critiqued by a team of judges.

Then everything happened at once. A feedback from a small publisher convinced me that Chapter 8, a dialogue between two characters, had to go. A series of blog posts, echoed by the advice from #PitSlam judges and a guest critiquer for PPW’s Open Critique, made me ponder whether I started my novel at the right spot.

Most importantly, while exploring Twitter, I came across Fantasy Works Publishing. I read the words of Jen Leigh, FWB’s acquiring editor: “We are aware that some publishing houses will alter your story by requesting additional plot lines or removing existing subplots. I dislike the practice. Our goal is to publish your story, not our vision of it.” That’s when I knew I wanted to work with the FWB team.

But what could I do to ensure my submission succeeded?

The decision was agonizing. My prologue and the first two chapters made the manuscript a finalist and winner in several writing contests.

I deleted all three.

Surprisingly, only a few paragraphs needed to be saved for clarity. After an hour of revisions, I hit the “send” button. A week later, I received a contract offer.

And the agent whose blog post started my Twitter odyssey? Two days after I signed the contract, she advised that I should revise my second chapter and resubmit. That was one of the deleted scenes — I had made the right decision! When I explained that the manuscript was already under contract, the agent kindly wished me luck. The prologue that was so painful for me to cut? At the Pikes Peak Writers Conference, I attended a workshop which made me certain the prologue was important for the story. I sent it to my editor, and her decision was to keep it.

Finding a home for my manuscript could have become a long, nerve-racking process, but I discovered the right path in the realm of Twitter. Since March, my account has gained over 500 followers. Various pitch contests take place several times a year. The next #PitMad is scheduled for September 10. Would you like to give it a try?


Born in Moscow, Ataska grew up with the romance and magic of Russian fairy tales. She never imagined that one day she’d be swept off her feet by an American Marine. An engineer-physicist-chemist, Ataska realized that the powder metallurgy might not be her true calling when on a moonless summer night she was spooked by cries of a loon in a fog-wrapped meadow. What if, a writer’s unrelenting muse, took hold of her. Two of her passions define her being. Ataska is an orchid expert and she writes dark fantasy.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Ataska joins the Writing from the Peak blog as one of its columnists effective this month.






Sunday, August 30, 2015

This week and the week to come

"You know how writers are. They create themselves as they create their work or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves." ~ Orson Scott Card


Source Bing Images

  
Orson Scott Card is an American novelist, critic, public speaker, essayist and columnist. He writes in several genres but is known best for science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both science fiction's top U.S. prizes in consecutive years. A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in late October 2013 in Europe and on November 1, 2013, in North America.


August 31: Ataska Brothers  Be sure to catch Ataska's article on what she learned about #PitMad, An Unspoken Journey. (Note to all writers seeking publication in this competitive world -- you'll want to check out this article.) 

September 2:  Deb McLeod Micro Editing Cheat Sheet 

September 4:  Pikes Peak Writers and relevant upcoming September events

Friday, August 28, 2015

Sweet Success! M.J. Brett

By Kathie Scrimgeour

M.J. Brett’s family fiction novel, The Voices Know My Name (ISBN: 978-0-9748869-9-2, softcover, 260 pages, ages 12 and up), was released July 16, 2015 by Blue Harmony Press. This is her tenth novel.

A young soldier with PTSD tries to kill himself, but is stopped by a total stranger, a civilian. After the event, he remembers nothing about it. The rescuer has no intention of getting involved, but she soon learns that he is not the only one who hears voices or can't cope with bad memories. Together, they search through crisis after crisis for a way to find "normal," or at least a "new normal."

After 21 years teaching on military bases in Europe, Margaret Brettschneider (a.k.a. M.J. Brett) has begun writing stories she feels need to be told, stories of ordinary people in extraordinary situations. It's not what happens to you, she feels, it's how you respond to the trauma and challenge of living.

Available soon at: www.mjbrett.com or on Amazon.com

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Amateur Sleuths – A Nod and a Wink from the Garden of Miss Marple





What does a yoga instructor, a witch, a burglar, a birdwatcher, a math teacher, a 12th century friar, a bookseller, a museum curator, and a very clever cat have in common? If your first guess wasn't that they solve murders then I'd like to officially welcome you to the wonderful world of the amateur sleuth. You need to know I could have used wacky, wild, weird, occasionally waggish, and warped (I was in an alliterative mood) and been equally accurate.

Let's begin with the obvious. Amateur Sleuth Mysteries are from the get-go mysteries. They lead off with a crime, present victims, catalogue suspects and clues, have a few twists and red herrings, and eventually arrive at a solution. Bad guys get their comeuppance.
For this article, because of its limited space we're only going to consider a few of the unique aspects of the amateur sleuth mystery.
First, how to get, say, a stamp collector gets involved in a murder investigation.
As a rule, professionals—FBI, cops, private eyes, and medical examiners, just to name a few—frown on amateurs mucking around at homicides.
Quit sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong.
This ain't no game, Missy. This is murder.
If I see you or any of your knitting/mailman/cheesemaking buddies at another crime scene, I'm going to haul the lot of you to the gray bar hotel.
Declarations like these are common in the Amateur Sleuth. After all, your average cheesemaker doesn't ordinarily involve him or herself in a death, stinky cheese maybe but not so much death. So, how do you insinuate a cat fancier or antique dealer into deadly mayhem?
Glad you asked.
As a writer of two separate amateur series, I've employed (or at least considered) the following devises for embroiling Bonnie Pinkwater (my mathematician sleuth) into the thick of things: 
1.      She's a suspect.
2.      She barely escapes being a victim. And now she's pissed.
3.      The victim's death has been ruled a suicide and she doesn't believe it for a minute.
4.      She believes the person apprehended for the crime is innocent but the police do not.
5.      A relative of the victim asks her to poke around.
6.      The crime is personal for her. Actually, the crime should always be personal.
Certainly not an exhaustive list but the excuse to get our frankfurter salesman involved in the mix is important. It will always be necessary to find a plausible one.
Once inclusion—if not an enthusiastic invitation—in the investigation is established the case proceeds according to the amateur sleuth's strengths. After all, these are experts in their particular field, even if that field is dog grooming. And one of the reasons to read an Amateur Sleuth mystery is to immerse oneself in an unfamiliar setting which is also for a segment of the populous familiar.
Unless one's day-to-day career involves police procedure, say that of the private eye or a forensic anthropologist, for the majority of us the world is somewhat mundane. Imagine your career is high-rise construction. Wouldn't a mystery series where an architect is forced to regularly solve murders be cool to read?  
This is where the amateur sleuth sub-genre shines. I call it Value Added. First of all we walk in the shoes of someone who has either a vocation or avocation in some area in which we have an interest.

A Bartender—we learn a bit about mixology. How the heck does one make the perfect chocolate martini, harvey wallbanger, or rude bastard?
A Wrangler at a Dude Ranch—we learn about the shoeing of horses, perhaps the pre-dawn birthing of a foal.
 A Rare Book Dealer—we learn about the ins and outs of the book auction, maybe the history of an actual rare manuscript of Dante or Oscar Wilde.
An Historical Mathematicianwe delve into the eccentric world of medieval or ancient mathematicians, maybe look over their shoulder as they make an important discovery.
A BurglarWhat locks are the hardest to pick? How does one go about fencing precious stones? What equipment is necessary to be a second-story man (or woman)?
But that's just the tantalizing first taste of the Value Added Amateur Sleuth. Now that we've worn their clothes, lived in their world, and experienced their unique anxieties how can we use their talents to solve murders? Here are two examples:
-          Our architect's skills at designing buildings relates to how a serial killer is planning his murders.
-          A game designer realizes the killer is using the rules of a newly designed video game to carry out his nefarious intrigues.
 
 There is so much more to the arena of the Amateur Sleuth (did I hear you say historical or geographical mysteries?) but space demands I rein in my enthusiasm. So, mystery lovers, check out the fastest growing segment of the Suspense world.


About the Author:  Besides being a master of space and time, Robert Spiller is the author of the Bonnie Pinkwater mystery series: The Witch of Agnesi, A Calculated Demise, Irrational Numbers, Radical Equations.  The fifth in the series, Napier's Bones, is due for release late 2015. His math teacher/sleuth uses mathematics and her knowledge of historic mathematicians to solve murders in the small Colorado town of East Plains. For thirty-five years Robert taught Mathematics at every level from Elementary through university, the last ten at Lewis Palmer Middle School. Now retired, Robert lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his wife Barbara.

Monday, August 24, 2015

The Amazing Blessings of Being a Writer


So last month on the ol’ PPW blog, I talked about the occupational hazards of being a writer. You can go check ‘em out with a linky poo. I promised at the end of that post I would talk about the blessings of being a writer. 
Too bad I can’t think of any.

Shortest. Blog post. Ever.

Kidding!

Blessing #1. I can’t talk about fame, or money, or private jets, because so far, that hasn’t been my story. Okay, I’ve had a little fame—I’m a local celebrity in some small circles, and that is nice.
For those of you who have books out, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve heard, “Oh, so you’ve written a book?”

[Insert awkward pause and little smile here] “Yes, yes, I have.”

Now some might follow that up with, “Are you self-published?” Big smirk. But most, 99 percent of the time, will say, “That’s really cool!” or, “That’s sick, man.” Do the kids still think sick is good? What about groovy?

Bam! You get to be famous in the micro sense if not the macro.

Blessing #2. So a little fame here and there, and for a lot of writers, there's also a little dough. Not a lot, but a little extra green coming in. You need me to pick up some Starbucks for you? I got you covered. Got my royalty statements. 

Bam! Coffee money.

Blessing #3 What we practice we improve upon, and being able to communicate through the written word is a precious skill to have. I answered an email and got a marriage proposal because I spelled things correctly, used sentences and paragraphs, and included some clever word play. Now, I’m not saying your writing will get you married, but I’m not saying it won’t either.

Bam! Marriage proposals.

Yes, writing is work, it takes sacrifice, and discipline, and some farfetched optimism, and that, my friends, is a blessing. Queue up the bam machine.

Blessing #4 We get to practice sacrificing our minutes for a higher cause, disciplining ourselves, and building character. I’m reading a book now called The Road to Character by David Brooks, and every time he describes a vocation, it’s like he’s talking about my writing life. I say it all the time—if you have the desire to write a book, you have a sacred duty to write that book because not everyone has the desire, the time, or the resources.

Sacred duties can be a pain in the ass, but overall? They give life meaning. They shape destiny. They improve not only the person on the quest, but the world in general. I’m a big fan of sacred duties as long as they don’t involve genocide.

But you know the real blessing of being a writer? It’s that in the final product, you hold the minutes of your life. I know, that’s a cool line. Let me repeat it so it’s more quotable.


 Bam! That is the biggest blessing of all.

When you hold your book, you’ll remember the crazy things you did to finish it. You’ll remember the songs you listened to, the movies you watched, the books you’ve read, the hundred little conversations you had. In a sense, the time you worked on a book is encapsulated in the pages. Your life gets filtered into the paragraphs. And in the end, you have a legacy to leave behind, and you never know what will happen.

Jane Austen never saw success in her lifetime. We’ll never meet her. But we get a sense of her, I think, through her writing. I might be wrong, but I totally want to think she was like Miss Elizabeth Bennett. Probably not, but a boy can dream.

I can’t remember which book it was in, but in a foreword (or afterword) Stephen King wrote that he wanted his readers to get to know him through his books, not stalking him, or getting all creepy. You dirty, dirty birds. And through his books, we get a sense of who he is and what he was interested in during the time he worked on his books.

So as writers  who write and publish books (by any means necessary), we leave behind a legacy, our minutes, our ideas, our stories.

Bam! Now, that my friends, is a blessing worth a little adversity.

Aaron Michael Ritchey is the author of The Never Prayer and Long Live the Suicide King, both finalists in various contests. His latest novel, Elizabeth’s Midnight, was called “a transformative tale for those who believe in magic and in a young girl’s heart” by Kirkus Reviews. In shorter fiction, his G.I. Joe inspired novella was an Amazon bestseller in Kindle Worlds and his steampunk story, “The Dirges of Percival Lewand” was part of The Best of Penny Dread Tales anthology published through Kevin J. Anderson’s WordFire Press. His upcoming young adult sci-fi/western epic series will also be published through WordFire Press. He lives in Colorado with his wife and two ancient goddesses of chaos posing as his daughters.

For more about him, his books, and how to overcome artistic angst, visit www.aaronmritchey.com. He’s on Facebook as Aaron Michael Ritchey and he tweets - @aaronmritchey. 

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Quote of the week and week to come


"One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure." ~ William A. Feather

 
Source: Bing
William A. Feather was an American publisher and author, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Born in Jamestown, New York, Feather relocated with his family to Cleveland in 1903. After earning a degree from Western Reserve University in 1910, he began working as a reporter for the Cleveland Press. In 1916, he established the William Feather Magazine. In addition to writing for and publishing that magazine, and writing for other magazines as H.L. Mencken's The American Mercury, he ran a successful printing business, and wrote several books.

This week on Writing from the Peak: 

August 24:  Aaron Michael Ritchey, The Amazing Blessings of Being a Writer

August 26:  Robert Spiller, Value Added Amateur Sleuths

August 28:  Sweet Success: M.J. Brett

Friday, August 21, 2015

Sweet Success! Anna Blake

By Kathie Scrimgeour

Anna Blake’s memoir, Stable Relation (ISBN 978-0-9964912-0-4, 240 pages), was released July 2, 2015 by Prairie Moon Press in paperback and ebook. It is available at Amazon and everywhere books are sold.

When most women go through a mid-life crisis, they start a diet, get plastic surgery, or have an affair. My life went to the dogs…and horses…and llamas… and did I mention happy hour with the goats?

My urban world came apart, so I took a leap of faith and crash-landed on a dilapidated would-be horse farm on the flat, windy, treeless prairie of Colorado. It’s the story of my bittersweet transition from a mid-life orphan to a modern pioneer woman, building an entirely different kind of family farm--Jeanette Walls meets James Herriot.

Anna Blake was born in Cavalier County, North Dakota, in 1954. She is a writer/blogger, dressage trainer, and horse advocate, residing on Infinity Farm on the flat, windy, treeless prairie of Colorado. The herd also includes horses, llamas, goats, dogs, cats, and Edgar Rice Burro. 

We love to hear of fellow Pikes Peak Writers Sweet Success, including story acceptance,winning contests, getting published and book signings. Please e-mail Kathie Scrimgeour at ppwsweetsuccess@gmail.com if you have a sweet success you'd like to share.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Stereotype, Paranoia, or Fact?

By Karen Albright Lin

Certain age-old assumptions about publishing persist and some are being born as publishing evolves at a breakneck speed. Three come to mind right off.

Agents look for reasons to turn down my book. This isn’t entirely paranoia; time forces them to analyze quickly. The mean, judgmental, nose-in-the-air agent stereotype is unfair, though.  Sure, an agent will set aside anything that doesn’t capture her right off, grunt over a book that starts out with craft issues, or determine within five pages that he’s seen too much of your topic and knows the market doesn’t want anymore. But agents are in the business of finding the cream that rises to the top. They only judge quickly whether to read beyond the first few pages because they have little time and lots of skill in picking up on weaknesses. If your book is what the market wants, an agent will have no reason to turn your sample pages away. 

If I tell someone about my book, someone will steal my idea. In theory your step-by-step plot could be “stolen” and used. But ideas are a dime a dozen. Stories only rehash those told since caveman days. You probably have a new slant (Underworld and West Side Story are Romeo and Juliet), but it is the execution, the fresh angle and, most importantly, your voice that makes it your book. There are very rare cases, mostly in Hollywood, in which wholesale theft has been proven in court. Luckily you can prepare for the longshot possibility by protecting yourself:  copyright your work; WGA register your script. Also, be sure you have a finished product to offer up before you pitch. It’s easier for a producer/director to buy your script and have it rewritten by someone more seasoned than to face a lawsuit later after swiping your plot. If you don’t show someone your work, you can be sure it will not be traditionally bought.

There’s no reason to go with a traditional publisher now that self-publishing is so easy. It’s easier than ever to put your work out there, for sure. You skip the frustrating filter process; you have more control over things like your cover; you get significantly higher percentages of the sale price. But there are benefits, still, of publishing traditionally. First, the difficult-to-entice agents are gatekeepers who let you through the door if there is a likelihood your product will have an eager audience. They often help develop and improve your book before taking it out there. They advocate and negotiate terms favoring you, audit publishing houses to be sure you are getting what you have coming, and act as middle men between you and your editor when there is a disagreement. Your acquiring editor is a champion for your book and another layer of editing, and possibly the one who gets you a decent advance. Publicity finds ways to get your book exposure. Legal is careful about what you might say that could get you in trouble.  Distributors get your book into the brick and mortar bookstores that are still out there. The most prestigious reviewers don’t typically review self-published books. Whether it is fair or not, there is still an assumption that a traditionally published book is less likely to be thrown up there prematurely.  
Now, as always, it’s a good idea to check our expectations, those stubborn self-imposed rulebooks. Trust in our work, trust in ourselves, and trust that the industry isn’t out to get us. Agents really do look for great authors to represent. Rarely does anybody ask about our stories with the intention of running away with our ideas. And great self-published books have gotten picked up by traditional publishers, and traditionally published authors with a fan base have successfully turned to self-publishing or hybrid publishing. In the end, it’s all about the writing. It’s all about the writing.  


About the Writer: Karen is an editor, ghostwriter, pitch coach, speaker and award-winning author of novels, cookbooks, and screenplays. She’s written over a dozen solo and collaborative scripts (with Janet Fogg, Christian Lyons and director Erich Toll); each has garnered international, national and regional recognition: Moondance Film Festival, BlueCat, All She Wrote, Lighthouse Writers, Boulder Asian Film Festival, SouthWest Writers Contest, and PPW Contest. Find out more at www.karenalbrightlin.com




Monday, August 17, 2015

What is a Writer?

By: Ann S. Hill


I’m guessing most of you are like me. You happened upon a particular book that truly spoke to you, and a seed was planted. From there you began to observe the world through the analytical eyes of an author. For me, this happened in fifth grade. The Diary of Anne Frank.

Perhaps you were brave enough to have answered the call to embark on the journey straight away. Or, like me, you leaned toward the practical and chose an alternate career, not because of your passions, but to pay the bills. Years passed. Eventually the germinating seed sprouted into something resembling Jack’s Bean Stalk, no longer to be ignored.

Finally, you make time to answer the call before the stalk tears through your internal organs and shoots out your ears. The frustrated voice erupts into black letters spilled onto virgin white paper. But, something is missing. Your sentences are correctly constructed. What is wrong?

Fortunately, you discover writers’ resources and search them out. Pike’s Peak Writers is one of those. You begin to frequent critique groups, lectures, and workshops. This is helpful, but also excruciating for your sensitive artist’s ego. Is your work so disappointing that, to save you the trouble, the critics intend to put you out of your misery and suffocate your ambitions? It might be better for you in the long run.

Anyone but a writer would throw in the towel, but your voice won’t be stifled. You brood for a day or two, then swallow your pride and push forward determinedly.

So then what is a writer? In my estimation, he or she is someone who must write. As simple as that. The writer learns that the other resources, though helpful, will not be adequate unless one writes and does so copiously. Writing against all odds and despite multiple discouragements turns out to be the final ingredient in the writer’s development.

Gradually one discovers that a sentence he or she once thought perfect can accomplish more written another way. Each time that sentence is revised, the meaning becomes more precise, better sounding, less wordy. Why hadn’t you stated it that way from the start? Because you are developing your art in the same way that a painter develops his. Like any significant endeavor, repeated efforts prove to be your friend. Your attempts to appease that petulant inner voice ultimately drags you kicking and screaming to your final goal. Or close. In my opinion, we never reach the goal.

The better our writing becomes, the more we notice ways in which it might be improved. In fact, the problem becomes: When does one call a project finished? My friends continually ask me whether my novel is done. Good question. Each time I read the manuscript through, I find ways to improve it.

If you have this desire to carry on, you are becoming an authentic writer. Published or not. You are content doing what you have been called to do. You happily type away several hours a day and continue to present yourself for the painful critiquing process. Occasionally, you receive a merciful word of praise.

Hats off to my fellow writers. I commiserate with your striving and I share your hours of misery and your precious moments of elation.


About the writer:  After hearing the call to write in her thirties, Ann set the ambition aside while life happened. Now that she has retired from her career as a dentist and her children are adults, she is seriously attacking that parked ambition. She spends significant time on her true passion and has recently completed her first novel, Wait for Me. She has written several short stories and is currently working on a concept for her second novel. In the meantime, she remains a voracious reader and film aficionado.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Quote of the Week and Week to Come

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them."


bing.com images

James Baldwin
Aug. 2, 1924 - Dec. 1, 1987

Author of The Fire Next Time and Another Country
American novelist, essayist, playwrite, poet and social critic


This week on Writing from the Peak:

August 17: Ann S. Hill: What is a writer?
 
August 19: Karen Albright Lin: About publishing: Stereotype, paranoia or fact
 
August 21: Sweet Success! Anna Blake

Friday, August 14, 2015

Sweet Success! Pam McCutcheon

By Kathie Scrimgeour

Pam McCutcheon’s futuristic romance novel, Golden Prophecies (ISBN: 978-1941528273, e-book reissue, 392 pages, adult), was released July 15, 2015 by Parker Hayden Media. Golden Prophecies is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010OSJJDG and iBooks: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/golden-prophecies/id1014707688?mt=11

Thena is the leading prophetess on Delphi, who must find the key to controlling her gift before it drives her mad. Lancer Morgan is a man from decadent Earth who’s come to her backward colony world in hopes of using her unique prophetic abilities to avert interstellar war.

From the moment they meet, Thena knows Lancer is the only one who can help her obtain the knowledge she desperately needs to save her sanity, the man destined to become her life-mate. With the aid of Thena’s prophecies and her mischievous moncat, they undertake a journey to find their hearts’ desire.

Pam McCutcheon is the award-winning author of romance novels ranging from fantasy, futuristic, paranormal and time travel to contemporary romantic comedy. She also has two nonfiction how-to books for writers in print, has published fantasy short stories as Pamela Luzier in various anthologies, and writes the Demon Underground Young Adult urban fantasy series under the name Parker Blue. After many years of working for the military as enlisted, officer and civil service successively, she left her industrial engineering position to pursue her first love—a career in publishing.


We love to hear of fellow Pikes Peak Writers Sweet Success, including story acceptance,winning contests, getting published and book signings. Please e-mail Kathie Scrimgeour at ppwsweetsuccess@gmail.com if you have a sweet success you'd like to share.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Ask the Prez


Hi there!

J.T. Evans sitting here at the keyboard, typing in your direction.

Just in case you don't know the name or person here in front of the laptop, I'll do an intro of myself. Then I'll let you know why I'm typing these words. My history with Pikes Peak Writers goes like this:

In August of 2008, I attended my first Write Brain. The wonderful Linda Rohrbough taught it, and I can't think of a better first-time experience with PPW than her "Tools in the Toolbox" presentation. Chris Mandeville (the president of PPW at the time) picked me out of the crowd at the end of the Write Brain and awarded me a coveted "Writer's Clock" from Linda. The clock still hangs (and loudly tick-tocks away) on my office wall.

After that evening, I attended every PPW event I could.

Bouncing to 2010 finds me at my first Pikes Peak Writers Conference. At a moment of downtime between the last session of the day and the evening meal, Chris Mandeville found me standing around not doing much of anything. After a full day of hectic learning, receiving invaluable feedback on my work in progress, and getting lost in the Marriott (why is Aspen Leaf way over there?), I enjoyed the few moments of respite. Chris approached me and asked if I would be a silent auction guard for a few tables since there were some members of the public wandering about, and she didn't want a small auction item to wander away. I gladly jumped at the opportunity to help out.

PPWC 2011 found me in the moderator chair under the guidance of MB Partlow, and I've continued to moderate sessions since that day. Later that year, MB recruited me to help judge the Paul Gillette Memorial Writing Contest (now known as The Zebulon in a reincarnated form). June of 2012 found me presenting a Write Brain, and later that year, I leveraged my professional skills and volunteered to take over the PPW web site.

I was then asked to join the board of directors of PPW as vice president. In January of 2013, I made that move to the board. In September of the same year, Laura Hayden stepped down as president in a planned transition, and I shifted into the role of president of Pikes Peak Writers. Lots has gone on in the past couple of years for me, and I'm a better person for it.

Now that you know where I've come from to get where I'm at within PPW, I have a favor to ask of you.

Ask me questions!

That's the point of this column. I want to learn more about what's on your mind in the PPW universe. Quite a bit goes into what we do to keep the ship running smoothly, and I'm sure many of you out there want to know some things. How do we do what we do? How can I help you keep PPW a great organization? What's the history of PPW? Who does what within the organization?

These are just some sampler questions. I'm certain your immensely creative minds can come up with more (and probably better) questions.

If you have questions for me, please email me at president@pikespeakwriters.com with the subject line of: Ask The Prez

Within the email, let me know your question(s), and if it's okay if I use your first name in the blog post. Also let me know if you want an urgent answer in private email, or if you can wait for me to queue up the question and get it out here on the blog. I expect to answer 1-2 questions a month here in this column.

Please do me a favor, and restrict your questions to the email address given above. I'll lose track of them if you send them via Facebook, Twitter, text message, or some other media.
 
Now open up your inbox and hit me with some questions!

 

Monday, August 10, 2015

Craft: Not the Writing Kind

By Stacy S. Jensen

We talk about the writing craft here. That's what we do, except for this post where I don't.

A couple years ago, several of my neighbors and I talked about creating a craft club. We decided Pinterest would be a good source of inspiration.

Have you ever lost yourself down the Pinterest Rabbit Hole? The marketing experts can tell you how to use it to promote your book. I use it more for finding crafts, ideas, and distractions.

You may be surprised at what you find. There are hundreds and thousands of posts on any topic you can imagine.When we replaced an upright freezer with a chest freezer, I visited Pinterest and found a dozen different options on how to make better use of the space.

Thanks to Pinterest I also discovered a portable craft for the club — quilling, or as many say, "Oh, I did that in middle school." Pinterest was my introduction to this technique of curling and shaping paper strips.

Since we founded the club, I've had almost perfect monthly attendance at the group with my bag of paper strips and glue in hand. Sure, I could use the time to polish a manuscript, but I find the time with others and working with my hands rejuvenating.

Of course, this activity feeds into my writing. I rarely have a quilling session where I don't pause to make a note for a story that's troubling me or jot down a new story idea.

This post — Getting Unstuck: pure craft by Jane Lebak on QueryTracker made me think about my quilling time.

I have used quilling to push me in three different writing community projects. When Susanna Leonard Hill asked fellow bloggers to participate in a contest to promote her book Punxsutawney Phyllis (a must read for Ground Hog's Day), I made a #teamSPRING and #teamWINTER quilled scene. Then, I wrapped that all together in a video.

When another friend asked me to participate in a #SpreadPoetryonFacebook challenge, I again picked up my paper strips and glue. I created four projects for Emily Dickinson poems (which I believe are perfect for today's social media market).



And, when Susanna Leonard Hill offered an illustrator contest, I quilled a scene for the contest. After spending many hours on the scene and dropping paper strips here and there, I decided to actually post my work in the contest. The experience is very similar to putting your new manuscript "out there."


I'm very much a beginner, but I enjoy this creative process like building a story.
Do you work on a "craft" in addition to your writing craft?


About the Author: Stacy S. Jensen worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for two decades. Today, she writes picture books and revises a memoir manuscript. She lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and son.