No one reads anymore. Kids are the worst offenders. Right? But why? I mean, I liked to read when I was a kid…so, what happened? For six years, I was fortunate enough to work for a non-profit scholarship program in San Francisco. My teaching background was in reading remediation. I had grown accustomed to working with kids who were dealing with severe learning issues. Autistic kids. Kids with Central Auditory Processing Disorder. Kids with deep comprehension issues. I loved the challenge. It was a big change to work with kids who did not suffer from any diagnosable condition. These kids shared one common trait…they came from the poorest parts of San Francisco, the deepest recesses of the ghetto, and most of them read at about a second grade level. This is a problem if you are attending an exclusive Catholic High School.
Characters Are The Lifeblood of a Story by David A. Cleinman
A character is more important than plot, locale, conflict, or any other part of a story. This is because a character is the only thing that a reader can truly relate to in a strong and meaningful way. We may have visited a location where a story takes place and even love the region. If a character visiting that area is not strong and real to us, however, the location will have less meaning. The deeds of a character might be amazing. But if the character is not well rounded and strong, their deeds are fairly insignificant. The best way to describe that is to say this: Characters need to be individuals we can relate to, or individuals that we recognize. The strength of a character is in their consistency. Their words match their actions and their actions match their personal traits. Emotionally connecting with a character requires that a character possess consistency of presence. Continue reading “Characters Are The Lifeblood of a Story by David A. Cleinman”
Open Submissions: Sawmill Magazine
Typecast’s free online magazine, Sawmill, is produced six times a year. Each issue focuses on one branch of the literary tree: fiction, graphic stories, and poetry. Sawmill has open submissions at this time in fiction and graphic stories. Per their website, Sawmill does not discriminate against any genre or brand of fiction writing. Please send your fiction submission to [email protected] as a .pdf, .doc, or Pages attachment. Submissions should be 6,500 words or less.
Deadlines are:
For Summer 2012: Open submissions begin on December 1, 2011 and close on March 1, 2012.
For Winter 2013: Open submissions begin on June 1, 2012 and close on September 1, 2012.
For more information, visit their site.
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Indies Unlimited is pleased to provide this submission information for the convenience of our readers. We do not, however, endorse this or any magazine. Authors should always research a magazine prior to submission.[subscribe2]
Words, and how to love them…
If any topic was foreordained to write, it was this one. (No, I didn’t mean preordained, although I could have used that as well. *grins*)
First I saw this quote from Roy Blount, Jr. – “The last time somebody said, ‘I find I can write much better with a word processor.’, I replied, ‘They used to say the same thing about drugs.’ ”
Then I opened a lovely e-mail from a fan, the last line of which said, “Your book was fun and refreshingly intelligent in the genre (erotica), and therefore it not only made me happy to read it, but kind of renewed my faith that you can still write romance novels using wonderful words like ‘sere’.'” Wasn’t that wonderful? I wonder what she’ll do when she finds out that in the sequel the heroine is a physics professor who quotes string theory to explain magic? (And sere is a wonderful word, isn’t it?) Continue reading “Words, and how to love them…”