| | | | | Spring Issue | | | Summer Issue | | | Fall Issue | | |
|
|
The Official Propaganda Organ of the Cincinnati Writers Project Marcia Eckstein, Editor-at-Home I volunteered to help with Rough Draft so Neube would quit whining. This newsletter is only as good as the information you feed it. If you have publishing news, contest news, or if you’d like to submit a column on the planting and growing of novels, please forward to Ryck. If you have any complaints about Rough Draft, please call Ryck. Delighted to be of service, Marcia Eckstein Mary Fitzpatrick A few holiday thoughts as the gift-giving season creeps up on us. Books make a great gift. Of course, everyone on your gift list needs a copy of the CWP anthology, Not From Around Hear, Are You?, and we are willing and happy to sell you one. I’ll be bringing copies to the Wednesday night critique group meetings all through the month of December. If you can’t make the Wednesday night meetings, or need to get one at some other time, use the link on the CWP website to order one from Lulu. Books really do make great gifts. The hard economic times have hit Publishing hard. This is hurting everyone but it is making it especially difficult for new writers to break into the business. Several blogs report that last month some publishers have withdrawn offers to buy first books, and I’ve seen established writers say they are being urged to write their next book as “flavor of the week” fiction instead of in their usual style. Publishers are not buying quirky, cross-genre, or off the beaten path fiction right now, even from writers with established sales track-records. Check out this website for an article on what went wrong in the publishing industry. Even if you don’t have a novel ready to shop around, this should worry you. If you enjoy reading, if you like to read something other than “brand name” fiction, buy a few books for stocking stuffers this year. They are the gifts that you get to open again and again. by Ryck Neube I've been attending the weekly fiction critique group of the Cincinnati Writers Project since 1993. Over the years I've seen hundreds of wannabes come and go, as well as witnessed several writers go from tyro to published novelist. Along the way, I've developed a few attitudes, most of them bad. Take first drafts, for instance. They suck. Not just beginners' drafts. I've been writing for decades, yet mine suck dead bears. Granted, there are authors whose first drafts are better than my tenth. I recall Harlan Ellison's favorite stunt of sitting in a bookstore window and typing a story that goes into the mail at the end of the day. Don't expect this to happen to you. What makes a genius special is there are so very few of them. Notice my mention of ten drafts. Folks tend to think you can throw some words on paper and voila you have a story or novel. Run it through a critique group before giving your tale a final polish and bang--it is ready for editors to buy. If you believe that, I have a subprime mortgage on the Brooklyn Bridge to sell you. A critique group is a tool, not a shortcut. To use it properly requires hard work. It can improve every story or novel, but it cannot make your work good. That is the author's job alone. As Carl Morris is fond of saying: writing is easy; revisions are the hard part. I understand how beginning writers can tie themselves into knots of insecurity. Some yearn for immediate input in the hope of evolving as authors. Some want their egos stroked. But, dudes and dudettes, do you really need to inflict a first draft on anyone? Will terminal insecurity kill you before you go through your work a second or third or even fourth time? I doubt it. How many times have I heard writers say, "Oh, I must have deleted the other half of that sentence." "How did I miss that?" "When I changed my character's name, I must have missed that one." "I thought that might be wrong." If you knew of it, why didn't you correct it? I've seen a lot of beginners go down in flames during their first critique. Many never return to our group after the experience. Are we cruel? No. Our group takes it job seriously. That means fairness is the rule. The reason is simple--first drafts and thin skin are a fatal combination for beginners who have yet to grow the rhino hide a writer needs to survive. Why should you polish your manuscript as well as you can before submitting it to group? If I am correcting spelling, tense wobble, and punctuation on every line, after a few pages the trees vanish into the forest. There is no willing suspension of disbelief for your plot left in me. I'm now thinking every word you write is probably wrong. Worse, a form of triage occurs. I start ignoring some errors in order to dwell on the most important ones. With luck, another member of the group will catch the rest. Do you feel lucky? Don't get me started on getting the simple facts straight. Facts are not opinions like most critique. A fact can be right or wrong, that's it. If a Roman legionnaire is eating a potato, your detective shoots a Glock nine millimeter revolver, or you tell me Toronto is the capital of Canada what you are actually telling me is that you don’t care enough to check the basics. So tell me, why should I care enough to give you a first class critique? Dr. Neube Continues... I'm not saying it's your duty to make a perfect manuscript for the critique group, but you should submit the best work you can do. Why? Simple. To get the best critique you possibly can. In the space of a year, our group will critique scores of short stories and hundreds of chapters. Our members invest valuable time--sacrificing hours they could be writing--to crit our peers. What do they deserve for their efforts? First and foremost, they deserve Spell Check. I lose patience when I have to correct basic spelling that Check would have caught. If you've misspelled a word so badly that Spell Check shrugs its broad shoulders, don't tell it to ignore the word. Stop. Reach for your dictionary. Use another word you can spell. Or find a synonym and use your Thesaurus to locate the word you want. They deserve good basic grammar. Okay, I've forgotten a lot since school. We all have. Even after ten drafts, most of my stories still have a missing comma here, or a split infinitive there. Writers aren't machines. That's why a critique group is so useful, catching the minor things you miss. But there's a difference between an ephemeral POV wobble on page eight and a wobble that appears three times a page, every page. There are thousands of how-to books out there. Your library keeps a nice selection, so you don't have to spend a penny. If you wonder if you are doing something wrong, spend the time to find out. An oft overlooked gold mine simply requires you to pay attention to what you are reading. (If you aren't reading in your genre, flush that dream of becoming an author. You're not going to make it.) See how your favorite author handles the punctuation in dialogue and other mechanics. One caveat here. This works beautifully on the basics, not with storytelling and style. Just because Stephen King or Larry McMurtry crafts a scene in a nonstandard fashion doesn't mean you should. Once you've sold a few million books, editors will cut you all the slack in the world. Until then, you need to prove to them that you have mastered the basics. A manuscript gets the critique it deserves. Your work, or lack of it, will be reflected in the critique you receive.
If you haven’t already done so, see Jenny Engleka’s Antojitos at CWP_Fiction@yahoogroups.com. Her prose is light, comic, and so vivid she makes me want to visit Mexico despite my aversion to hot weather and hotter spices....EAH Antijitos Dos Many streets in this city have been mexicanized. Ellie goes to school on Juan Christian Anderson. There's a great cafe on Julio Verne or wander over to Enrique Ibsen street on a Saturday and you'll likely see Hasidic Jews, complete with black hats and curls, out with the family. Always makes me crave a good bagel. But perhaps my favorite, especially for this time of year, is Carlos Dickens. Antojitos Tres Here's one for the Spanish books that doesn't have to do with Mexico City per se. I learned that the Spanish word for stupid is "tonto". I immediately thought of Tonto and the Lone Ranger. Who's calling him stupid? Now, as I struggle with learning Spanish, I think Tonto was the smart one here. After all, he spoke two languages. But he did come off dumb next to the mighty Lone Ranger. I checked out Wikipedia and it stated Tonto often referred to the Lone Ranger as "ke-mo sah-bee", a word he said meant "faithful friend" or "trusty scout" in his tribe's language. Oh yeah, really? Perhaps, Tonto was very smart because in Spanish, "Quien no sabe" means he who knows nothing. You tell me - coincidence?
by Jenny Engleka Imagine you haven’t cooked dinner in twenty years. Would you still know how to work the stove? Or you haven’t tucked your kids into bed for two decades. Would you recognize their faces? When you get out of prison after a long sentence, these are some of the small details you encounter. They came from Belinda C’s “Re-entry Chronicles” from the website, RED!Webzine (redwebzine.org). Though it wasn’t mentioned in the Writer’s Digest 100 websites article, RED!Webzine is important for CWP and for Greater Cincinnati. It is the brainchild of Jeffrey Hillard, a CWP founder, and it’s going strong. In brief, RED! chronicles articles and testimony of transformation of prisoners as they re-enter society. But the website goes much deeper, with news of the prison and re-entry community, feature columns, a blog, book reviews and artist contributions. I enjoyed reading Jeffrey’s tribute to another CWP founder, Dallas Wiebe. I came too late to the game to meet the man, or learn from him, so the blog posting felt like essential reading for any CWP member. Much like InkTank is helping the homeless express their voice, RED! is proving to be the go-to site for the prison community. And the website’s influence will only increase. Prisons are a growth market and, according to the Cincinnati Law Library Association, “Ohio had an estimated prison population of 47,519 at the close of 2006; that being projected to 57,223 – a 20% increase – by 2011.” That, of course, means more inmates released each year, so it is vital for them, their families, and the community, that they are prepared to take their next step. In the current issue, you can find a report on the Urban Appalachian Council of Greater Cincinnati, discover the history of one of prison’s most successful ministers, and check in with the Case Manager at Cincinnati’s River City Correctional Center, to name a few. Now I hear you saying (except Ryck) I’m never going to prison. I don’t know anyone in jail. Why should I care? That may be true, but you never know when this resource site will come in handy. I’m a firm believer in second chances. I don’t think any released inmates are heading to Zihuatanejo, as in the Shawshank Redemption, with perhaps the exception of Senator Ted Stevens, some years from now. For those who will settle back into the ‘Nati, it’s in everyone’s best interest to help. As Belinda C. said herself, “… true freedom has nothing to do with being released from prison. There are things to go on in my life that make me realize that doing for the state was easier than dealing with the outside pressures of the world. Easier doesn’t mean better though.” My hat is off to Jeff for providing this vital service and remarkable website. From Saad Ghosn via Jeff Hillard For the 2009 annual Book of Poems and Drawings on Peace and Justice 1) Call for poems from any poet from or connected to the Greater Cincinnati area 2) Poems must relate to themes of peace and justice 3) Poet may submit up to 3 poems 4) All submissions will be considered. The editors will be looking for quality, inclusiveness, and appropriateness to the themes of peace and justice. 5) If space becomes limited, priority will be given to poets not published in previous books. (this is the 6th annual book). 6) Poems selected will be illustrated in B&W by Greater Cincinnati artists (one drawing per poet) 7) Poems and illustrations will be printed in “For a Better World 2009” to come out May, 2009 8) Book will be launched and available for sale at SOS ART 2009. 9) Poets included in book will be invited to read their poems at SOS ART 2009. 10) Submission deadline: February 25, 2009 11) Please send submissions as Word attachments (or in full text) by email or by US mail (on a CD) to: saad.ghosn@uc.edu or Saad Ghosn, 216 Erkenbrecher Ave, Cincinnati, OH 45229. Thank You! Please help forward this call to other Greater Cincinnati Poets.
by Jenny Engleka The June 2008 issue of Writer’s Digest contained the article the “101 Best Websites for Writers”. Who has time to go through that many websites? I guess I did, because I wanted to give you a smaller, more manageable list of sites for CWP’s writing needs. I left off the self-explanatory sites, so you still may want to go to the original article for a complete list if you don’t find what you need. You can find the entire list at WD 101 Best Sites. Here’s my list: General Resources Brainyquote.com – This one is fun. For those who like to start their chapters with quotes, this site is worth browsing. You can search by topic, author, type, words of wisdom or humor. ssa.gov/OACT/babynames – A good place to name your character (in the US) going back to 1879. If you have foreign characters, there are any number of sites that give you popular male and female names from any country. (Do not browse “girls names”. I found out the hard way that this brings up all sorts of porn – anything beginning with the word “Girls”. Took me two years to get rid of the icky junk mail. Ed.) ***urbandictionary.com – This wasn’t mentioned in the WD article, but it’s one I like. If you’re writing is present day slang, you may want to check it out. And it’s good for a laugh in picking out your favorite from the “Word of the Day” selection. Multi-slacking, Grade Digger, Electile-dysfunction – you could find the title of your next novel here. Creativity Nanowrimo.org – I’m hearing a lot of nanowrimo.org – because it’s November now. Why didn’t they start promoting in September? National Novel Writing Month (November) which forces you to crank out 50,000 words in thirty days. At the time of this writing, they have 6 days, 12 hours, and 28 minutes left with a total of 1,103,482,184 word count. Maybe next year. Book-in-a-week.com – Even more insane. Their motto: BIC HOK TAM. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard, typing away madly. If anyone succeeds at either of these two sites, I don’t want to know how incredibly thrilling and liberating it is to having written so much. thestorystarter.com – If you’re like me, you don’t need help with “story starter”, you need instead “story keep going, stop surfing the net.” But this site would be great for the non-crit weeks for a writing exercise. Like great athletes that need stretching, strength training, etc, etc, this website feels like “writing” stretching to me. Writing Groups and Communities Not that you need to look elsewhere, but in case you do. There are a lot mentioned in the overall 101 sites, so if you really are looking for writing groups on-line, you should check back to the original list. I confess, even though I looked through all the sites, if I didn’t have a good gut instinct about the site, I moved on quickly. absolutewrite.com – There’s a lot here to nibble on. Classes, market listings, editorial services, and countless, countless threads. In checking out the site, I kept getting directed to the threads and that’s where I lost track of time, location, hunger or thirst. It reminds me of when I had to do research for my thesis in the massive UC Berkeley campus library, so far down in the stacks I wouldn’t have known if a bomb went off. There are a lot of markets listed (mostly non-paying) looking for content. I think this site has more and better content than the next two mentioned in the original article: critiquegroups.com and easywaytowrite.com. The latter smacks of trying to get your money. To me, writing is only easy if you love endless revisions and lots of criticism. ed2010.com - “Next Stop: Your Magazine Dream Job” The site seems focused on college students and free-lancers, but there is a City Chapter in Cincinnati. This website’s not for novels, but a good one for learning more about the magazine side of publishing. thwritingbridge.com – Not sure what to make of this. It has a strict application process and guidelines, and if you’re approved you’re on probation and must keep up with the required critiques and submissions. Sounds harsh and unwelcoming, but it may be the right place for serious attention to your work. Publishing Resources When the manuscript is done, polished, scrapped, left to rot, reworked, edited again and finally ready to go, here’s the sites for publishing. agentquery.com – For me, this site is indispensible. If you’re at the query stage or looking to get there, this has a very easy search for agents. It also has posts on writing queries, agents, conferences and publishing. I don’t have the hefty Publisher’s Marketplace and no nearby library, so I use this website. duotrope.com – This could be a handy site for finding markets for short stories. Similar to agentquery.com – it has a searchable database, so you can streamline your story to see what markets fit. I found the database clunky and I wish it had a better way to search the themes of the publications, since I don’t recognize any of them, except for Glimmer Train. I went through some of the publications individually from a long list (sorted by chance of publication – high to low) and found if I had an article on some specific disease or St. Louis, I’d be set. Of course, Writer’s Digest lists all of their sites in a sidebar. I think writersdigest.com, the magazine on-line, and writersmarket.com have enough to get you on your way. But you have to pay for a subscription to writersmarket.com, along with publishersmarketplace.com, another biggie in publishing, so if you’re just looking for agents, agentquery.com is free and has all you need. Genres/Niches I’m passing over most of these, because they are obvious (muslimwriters.blogspot.com, jewishwriting.com, horror.org, etc – imagine if they had all held a Christmas party together) with the exception of the fiction category. jakonrath.blogspot.com – When the latest post on his blog is “Top Ten Reasons Books Are Better Than Sex”, what’s not to like? The title of the blog is actually the Newbie’s Guide To Publishing, with more than 8000 hits, that’s not bad. I’m biased to blogs rather than commercial sites on publishing because they tend to me more frank. There’s more about fiction writing within websites like absolutewrite.com or writersdigest.com. Agent Blogs Here’s where I spend a lot of my time. Again, from my bias stated above, I think agents give a lot of advice on publishing, querying, contracts, what’s selling, what’s not, and especially what drives them crazy, because it’s in their best interest to educate the querying public. If any agent you are targeting have their own blog, it makes sense to read it. A lot of it. Then you can start your query with a direct response to something they’ve posted and BOOM – instant personal connection. You’ve saved yourself, a flight to a conference, hotel bill and waiting in a long line missing the buffet, to ask the agent to look over your first three chapters. cbaybooks.blogspot.com – “Buried in the Slush Pile” covers juvenile writing, but there is a good glossary on the right side of the screen to get any newbie up to speed. jetreidliterary.blogspot.com – She’s witty, likes crime novels, and sounds a bit like Miss Snark. (Miss Snark was my favorite agent website by far. At over 2.5 million hits, I wasn’t the only writer who thought so. She stopped blogging, but you can still peruse her posts for great advice on querying, writing hooks, etc. If you do decide to weed through her golden oldies, send me an email, and I’ll get you up to speed on her terminology and turn you into a “snarkling” in no time.) Back to Ms. Reid, she runs another website on the right side of the blog, keep scrolling down a bit, Query Shark, that’s worth a look if you’re in the middle of creating yours. Or even at the beginning of writing the damn thing. nathanbransford.blogspot.com – My new favorite agent site. He’s insightful, witty, has over 29,000 profile views, so he’s built up quite a following. As stated in the original article, his essentials on queries is “essential” and I agree. These blogs may also be valuable: ***bookendsliteraryagency.blogspot.com – This site is mainly from Jessica Faust of Bookends Literary Agency and she posts every day. The posts are always insightful. ***pubrants.blogspot.com – This is the blog of agent Kristen Nelson and is a lot like bookends. Very chatty with useful labels on the right side, so you can go straight to the subject you want. Both of these sites are women agents interested in women’s’ fiction (and beyond) but I think they are also useful for mainstream publishing. ***rejectionqueen.blogspot.com – “Tales From A Rejection Queen” – this site is limited in scope, but I go there from time to time when I want to feel better about my own rejections. She’s up to #43 and she posts every one of them. She also has great writing quotes that I’d like to steal. If you recently got a rejection, spend a couple minutes with Jenny Edwards and it won’t sting so much. Protecting Yourself anotherrealm.com/prededitors - From the folks at Preditors & Editors, they can tell you what’s a scam and who’s legit. literarylawguide.com/resources.htm – the go-to source for copyrights. QueryTracker.net – If you plan to send out lots of queries, or have more than one project, this site might be useful. I don’t have a problem of keeping track of the “no”s that trickle my way, but this site allows you to see trends of individual agents, who tell you “no”. But the “trends” won’t be reflective of the agent’s overall stats, just the ones funneled through this website. You have to join to see the reports, but it’s free. They also have a large database of famous authors and their agents. sfwa.org/beware – Originating from the sci-fi crowd, this watchdog site is for all writers. Author Interviews The original article didn’t have this category, but this is what the following three sites offer. If you have an author you want to read up on, they might be on one of these three. armchairinterviews.com eighteenquestions.com noveljourneys.blogspot.com Just for Fun coolstuff4writers.com – Self-explanatory. writesideout.com – This website allows custom book covers, t-shirts and other gear. We salute the Few, the Proud Authors whose works are represented in our latest anthology, Not From Around Here, Are You? in the order they appear in the anthology (with special thanks to tireless editor Woody Carsky-Wilson and his gang of hard-working editors): Jeffrey Hillard, Ryck Neube, Thomas Groh, Madeline Crouse, Woody Carsky-Wilson, Linda Arnest, Carol Feiser Laque, Darlene Blasing, Robert Schofield, Jerry Judge, Joseph Terbeck, Dori Can Luit, Jim Jackson, Mary Fitzpatrick, Marcia Eckstein, Kim Brown, Ann Mazzaro, Donnie McGovern, Jean Syed, Angelina Caliguri, Jonathan Burns, Evan Holbrook, Abby Kirk, Doug Clifton, Jean Biddinger, P. Andrew Miller, Scott Heile, Jenny Engleka, Carl Morris, Charles Stroufe, Karen George, Katey Brichto, Jim St. Clair, Sujata Naik. Jerry Judge has a new chapbook out. Luna Moth is available from www.finishinglinepress.com. Michele Wyan’s short story “The Fire Scryer” appears online at http://www.waxingwaning.com. In no particular order... Support Local Authors shop at the BOOKBANK, Cincinnati’s only local author’s bookstore, located at InkTank. Books, CD’s, zines by roughly 100 local authors. Local history, novels, spiritualism, humor, true crime Ed.), essays, childrens, and more. Contact ann@inktank.org if you are a published local author. AWP (The Association of Writers and Writing Program) Annual Conference & Bookfair, Chicago Hilton, Feb. 11th – 14th, 2009. www.awpwriter.org/conference for details. Writer’s Conference at Penn, Oct. 2009 and the U. of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Jun 20 – 27, 2009, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH. www.kenyonreview.org Links, Blogs, Websites and other good stuff. Website for CWP http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CWP_Fiction/ Mary Fitzpatrick, President CWP http://maryfitz.typepad.com/my_weblog Bob Lewis, fiction writer http://iaintsorry.blogspot.com Amy Purcell, fiction, www.amypurcell.com/blog Kaza Kingsley, young adult, http://memorymogul.blogspot.com Chris Specht www.cspecht.com Madeline Izzo writers group website (group is in Pittsburgh) www.pittsburghwritersproject.org Murmurs and asides overheard at Wednesday night fiction writers’ critique group • Your character with the four elbows? I’d love to see him throw a knuckle ball and, if he’s a mechanic, he’d never need a Jacobs wrench. • The term “fire” is directly related to guns, hence, it would not have been used in ancient Egypt. Then what term is used for bows and arrows? Twang? |
[Site Map] [Latest News] [History of CWP] [Writing Group Protocol] [Rough Draft] [Our Mission]
[Officers] [Who's Published] [Join CWP] [Critique Groups] [Opportunities] [Writing Tips] [Links]
Yep, we're under construction. But give us a break. We're writers not web monkeys.
Stop back, or shoot us an email if you're interested in learning more.
Last updated by Tgroh, February 22, 2009