Posts tagged ‘fiction’
STRUGGLING TO GET IT PUBLISHED: MARKETS AND AGENTS
This piece is a sample of upcoming posts to this blog.
The following is a list of websites to help writers find markets and agents. In the future I will discuss each site in more detail, but I thought I would offer this piece for writers to explore these sites, if they want, on their own.
First, I am sad to say that one of my favorite sites to explore the validity of markets and agents no longer exists. The site is Preditors & Editors, a site I have looked to over the years for their opinion about markets and agents. They will be sorely missed.
Now let’s deal with markets.
To my mind, Duotrope is the go-to site for seeking markets for fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Once free, it now charges 50$ a year to use it. Although there are some that argue about the fee, I think, for the service they provide, it is well worth the cost. This site is a fantastic search-engine to find markets specific to your work.
Here is the site:
https://duotrope.com/index.aspx?bp=search
Here is a site to find markets for science fiction and more. I have yet to become acquainted with it, but I will before I report on it.
http://www.ralan.com/index.htm
Now for agents.
In my opinion, this is the site to first visit when seeking an agent. The site is for the Association of Writers Representative. You can search the site for your specific genre and be connected to the agent’s site. You should never have to pay an agent to read your work. With the agents associated with this site, you never will. They have taken a pledge of honesty.
Here is the site:
Next is a site devoted to the writer to query other writers about their experience with publishers and
agents. Great place to check on honesty.
Here is the site:
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/activity.php
Finally, here is a site to use to see an agents background. I will discuss this site in greater detail in a later post.
Here is the site:
http://www.agwentquery.com/default.aspx
I hope this helps my fellow writers on their journey to publication. As promised, a more extensive look at each site will follow. I want to help my fellow writers to be where they want to be.
STRUGGLING TO GET WRITING APPRECLIATED
Why do you write?
If you’re young, it’s to begin and establish a career, and along the way, perhaps make a living. If you are young this article may not interest you for it’s coming from a different place in life. The place is old age, but the need, perhaps not the reason remains the same. But then again, you will not be young forever.
My first and only novel published thus far appeared while I entered my sixties. Now, at the ass-end of that decade, when maturity infiltrates my brain, I still have a need to write as demonstrated in these mumblings. Do I enjoy it? Hell no!
I should not be working now. I should be enjoying ‘the golden years’. But my personality has always had a strange quirk, the need to accomplish something meaningful. This disease began while I was a teen and has pursued me ever since. Someday soon I may write of how this change to my personality began.
But for now, to the point of this article.
At the end of last year I receive an email from Books To Go Now, a publisher of e-stories telling me I had made 16 cents for the year. This notification brought me joy in a year of a publishing drought. I don’t know and will never meet the person who put down money to read my work.
In my mind, my friends, that is what it is all about. Not fame or fortune which is rightfully sought by the young, but appreciation of our efforts in writing. The bottom line is that appreciation and recognition, no matter how minimal of your work is important. It means someone finds your work worthy of buying. The buying is not the important part, the desire to read your work is.
That is why I write, and perhaps your reason too.
FROM GOOGLE
I just received this email from Google. I have no idea of it,s importance, or whether I’m being ripped off ( which happens these days, but has always been the practice of a certain element of society, i.e., losers).
https://web.mail.comcast.net/zimbra/mail?app=mail#5
I’m also including the sit they reference.
To be honest, I would prefer you purchase my story from Melange Books. I make money, and more in important, my publisher makes money.
As a side note, I occasionally check my name on Google. It’s not an ego thing, I just want an update on what of my work has been published. Interestingly, I did discover one of my stories publish. That knowledge was new to me. I also found that the first two chapters of Elmo’s Sojourn has been published in China. I waited for the money from millions of sales to roll in. Of course, I knew that China has little use for our copyrights, but the next time I visit the Orient, I expect a huge outflowing of love.
In spite of my age, I still dream.
A SECOND LOOK AT GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
Those of you who follow this blog will remember, in the past, I have expressed negative opinions on George R.R. Martin’s series, The Game of Thrones. I felt, and still do, that the novels were overwritten. If they were shortened, the story would move along at a much interesting pace. In my opinion, the description of the character’s clothes and other details were far beyond necessary. While talking with a friend, I found that he also had a problem reading these novels, and had an interesting observation. He commented that the novels were really screenplays, providing details needed more for a visual representation of the story than what the novel required.
These are opinions of the author’s works of fantasy. Now I would I would like to express my limited exposure to the Martin’s science fiction.
Due to a local library’s overflow of books, I inherited a book of Martin’s science fiction work published by TOR in 1985, with the individual stories first published during the 1970’s. The first and best story, Nightflyers, was a read I highly recommend. All of the stories making up this anthology are worthy of a lover of science fiction’s attention.
From reading this the brief amount of Martin’s science fiction, I think his writing in this genre is superb and definitely plan to read more of his efforts, if I can find them. I found the stories in Nightflyers to progress at a rapid pace and entertaining.
My opinion of this author has suffered a turnaround. This is the fault of forming an opinion until all the facts are known.
THE GIVER BY LOIS LOWRY: AN OPINION FAR FROM THE USUAL
The other day I was getting my seasonal haircut, when I began discussing books with my barber and authors she enjoyed. During our conversation she mentioned The Giver. I have read this book and the books concept remains a sore point for me. I found it lacking in belief, even for fiction.
I know who am I, a totally unknown writer, and who am I to detract from a classic, but here it goes.
I had no problem with most of the story until the fact was revealed in the warped world of The Giver, all you needed to do is cross a bridge over a river and enter the world of normality. Salvation was just on the other side of this bridge, yet no one dared cross it. I find that unexplainable. Perhaps my readers can tell me how my thinking is wrong. My barber said they did not cross the bridge because they had been brainwashed. I feel it should have taken a lobotomy.
I shall now boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone.
I shall suggest an alternate ending to the novel. I would have preferred to see the novel take this turn. On the other side of the bridge there exists a sinister forest constantly cloaked in darkness. In this forest reside malevolent beasts, some part human, who kill and devour all foreign life they find. The journey through this forest would be dangerous beyond belief, but I feel some barrier must exist for the souls inhabiting the land of the Giver, to overcome.
Beyond this forest is another bridge over another river which these monsters of the forest dare not cross. Beyond this bridge lies a normal society. Those who risk the forest will find a fulfilled life.
That’s how I would have ended the story.
Comments?
HARUKI MURAKAMI: HIS EARLY EFFORTS
This Japanese author writes the type of story I love to read. His tales describe a mundane Japanese life, but include an element of fantasy and unreality.
I have read a great deal of his work, beginning with Kafka on the Shore, then journeying into his beyond and past works; a career with efforts I have never found disappointing. Wind/Pinball were his first attempt at writing. If only I could have reached this level in my first attempt, or for that matter my last. I feel there is something that exists in writing which defies explanation. These stories are a prime example.
Please read this work. For if you are a first-time Murakami reader you will become addicted to his style. If you are already an addict to his work, you will see the beginning of a voice destined for greatness.
SCIENCE FICTION AND ROMANCE
WAR OF THE WORLDS
For my blog, I don’t write long pieces. I want to make my point and hold my readers’ attention. (Notice I use the plural, perhaps wishful thinking.) Not boring those reading my words.
This may gain your attention. The entry following this discusses a story of haunting romance, a story captivating me most of my life, along with classic science fiction.
I seldom watch movies more than once, but there are exceptions. Every chance I get I watch War of the Worlds – the original starring Gene Barry. For those who may have missed it, he also appeared for a moment at the end of the remake starring Tom Cruise. In some respects the remake has details reflecting H. G. Wells’ classic novel closer to the original movie. Let me discuss these comments in more detail.
The original, made in the 1950’s, scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. The way the suspense builds is magnificent. Unfortunately, after multiple viewings, I have found some incidents which make little sense. For one, when to original ship lands it is too hot to approach, yet when Gene Barry, and his almost girlfriend use the wooden farm and another ship lands destroying part of the house, the structure does not catch fire. Also, for the act which finally results in the death of the Martians is that they venture into a new world without any protective gear. Would a civilization traveling through space take that chance? Maybe, if you enjoy something, you should not revisit it multiple time, and keeping the love alive.
Now for the remake starring Tom Cruise. The weaknesses are strong, yet also keep true to the book.
If you watch the movie you may remember when Cruise and his daughter are trapped in a cellar with a character played by Tim Robbins. I could wrong about it being Robbins. I’ve been wrong before. I believe the character Robbins represents is a minister who is killed by the protagonist in the book. This act of murder is hinted strongly in the movie. But before this event, Robbins tells Cruise the belief is that the Martian machines were buried on the Earth a million years ago. I should mention that the Martians come to Earth by way of lightning strikes to power up their machines. Here comes the ‘give me a break’. It’s like burying a Model T, and in the meantime, your society develops spacecraft able to travel twice the speed of light. Yet, to save your civilization, you use the Model T. Don’t you think that the Martians would have used technology which currently existed?
To the remakes credit, they do depict the Martian’s machines closer in the book than what the original movie. But overall, I feel the original movie is the best.
Now onto the romance.
STRUGGLING TO GET IT WRITE: WHY WE WRITE
Over the course of our writing careers the answer to this question may, and probably will, change. With age and success, or the lack there of, our mindset will morph until that final realization that we have done all we can do. Let history be the judge of our effort. We cast our lot to time.
I feel there is a spectrum to our need to write, spanning the need to leave our footprints in the sands of time to pursuing the almighty buck. Most of us lie somewhere in-between, with the love of art or existence our goal. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with wanting to exist, and if you have the art and it pays the bills, so be it. Each of us is unique to their purpose. And only at the end of our time can we can we reflect on all we have accomplished. For some of us, success may come after we are gone. We can just do our best and hope for the best. The important thing to consider when the end.
How many of us write, spend countless hours completing a work we feel important and no one responds to our effort. We get no feedback, good or bad, from friends asked to read our work or agents and publishers where our writing has sought a home, just an awesome silence as our writing goes into the world. Now, if your purpose in is to obtain profit, better known as paying the bills this hurts. But your goal is just as noble as those whose sole purpose is the goal of longevity of their existence.
As mentioned above, if your goal in writing is to leave your mark on history, and you lack success, all is not lost. How many of us know the authors of fiction whose work was not appreciated during their lifetime but discovered after they were gone. We all know writers of fiction who fit the mold. Struggling to leave their mark, yet their major work going unrecognized during their life. Think of Herman Melville and his masterpiece, Moby Dick.
So many of us pursue this profession with little reward. Leaving this life never knowing if our voice will be heard. Put down your words. Fate may find you.
To be continued with a look at your life and history.
I am once again going to ‘allow’ you to buy my work.
Here are some links where you may purchase my work.
Melange Books
http://www.melange-books.com/authors/walttrizna/index.html
Barnes & Noble.com
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/walt-trizna?store=book&keyword=walt+trizna
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=walt+trizna
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