Showing posts with label links. Show all posts
Showing posts with label links. Show all posts

Monday, November 16, 2009

Random November Info

So, hopeful all of us are surviving our Novembers, and occasionally finding some time to sit down and write a bit (or more than a bit in some cases). I just wanted to do a quick post with the website that Varley O’Connor suggested for finding venues for writing:

www.newpages.com

I would also suggest checking out various genre organizations. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have information about legitimate venues for their genres at:

http://www.sfwa.org/

That’s it for now. I still have Marybeth’s list of places for Creative Non-Fiction venues and I will try to post some of those tonight or tomorrow.

Write!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Really Short Fiction Links

Okay, I hope everyone is excited for our first ever Writing Workshop (10:00 am on the 4th floor of the Library (the Writing Commons) on Saturday, September 19th). Bring food if you can. Bring writing (a short story, a chapter, 5-6 poems), and try to bring copies (around 10 should work). I’ll work on doing this through the department in the future. If you need me to print them send them to me by no later than Friday night; everyone should have my email.


Here are the links that I said I would put up:


Weird Tales – a magazine, which is sponsoring a very specific kind of short story: One minute Weird Tales. Look under latest videos on their home page.

http://www.weirdtales.net


Nanoed – A Twitter-zine (fiction up to 140 characters)

http://twitter.com/nanoed

This one is their submissions page:

http://nanoism.net/


Thaumatrope – Another Twitter-zine (see above)

http://twitter.com/thaumatrope


Flash Fiction Online – Short stories of any genre in under 1,000 words

http://www.flashfictiononline.com


Brain Harvest – Weird Science Fiction and Fantasy in under 750 words.

http://www.brainharvestmag.com


For the next meeting, Tuesday September 22nd at 6:00 in Satterfield 204, bring a Twitter fiction (a short story in under 140 characters). Examples can be found at two of the links above. Takes some time to look around these sites. All except Weird Tales are fairly new venues, they all have their submission guidelines and all of them have very short fiction, so it won’t take too much time.


I am also going to include a link to the writing podcast I listen to. It’s done by three successful authors and while they write genre fiction, I think it could be very useful to everyone. Here is Writing Excuses:

http://www.writingexcuses.com


Let me know if I have forgotten anything. Hope to see all of you Saturday!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Some online resources.

I'm sure everyone is getting busier as classes start to pick up, but one of the goals of the Writer's Bloc is to get you to turn out some new writing even though things may be busy.

The thing is that oftentimes it's not just writing that's difficult--it's getting an idea in the first place. Even with a prompt, an idea may not immediately present itself to you. One of the solutions the Internet has given us is: the generator.

There are lots of generators to be found out there, and some are better than others. You can have plot, character, name, and setting generators, as well as those that serve even more specialized needs. Seventh Sanctum is an extensive collection of generators focusing on a number of different genres and media. Their writing generators are probably where you'll want to start if you're looking for inspiration, but the entire site is fun to play around with. Don't forget to check out the list of "other generators" on the right hand side, since they are links to other useful generators that are listed off-site.

Another generator I'm fond of is the Random Name Generator, which is a handy tool for when you need a name for a character.

A bit of a different resource you might want to peruse is the list of Common Errors in English. Even English majors who think they know it all will find something they do on this list, and it's alphabetized for easy searching.

Finally, for people who like to write about crime, there's The Writer's Medical and Forensic Lab. I have yet to actually give this site more than a cursory browse, so I'd be interested to see what other people thought of it. It certainly looks helpful, at least.

So as always, happy writing and hope to see you at the meeting tomorrow!