Real Beauty..Real Women

Great feature on a great site!

Grandma Says..

I was delighted when I popped into one of my favorite sites, Totally For Women. They have a new feature that I not only wholeheartedly approve of–I applaud them for their initiative.

Page 50 is the name of their new feature and it’s focus is showcasing the real beauty in real women and they are doing it in a stunning fashion.  There will be no photos of runway models, magazine fashionistas or Playboy bunnies.  This project is not about them…it’s about real women.

Each photo is a monochrome shot of a woman wearing a white top with the focus on the woman’s face, not her body.  For the face is where the real beauty of a woman lives…in the twinkle of her eye, in the smile lines curving around her lips and in an engaging look that speaks volumes.

For fifty working days, t4W (Totally For Women) will feature…

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Paying It Forward – 7/31/13

Before I begin this week’s Pay It Forward tribute, I want to mention that my short story, “The Night We Knew“, is now available on Alphie Dog Fiction.  For sixty cents, you can download this whimsical tale of a night that brings the world together.  Just click on the title above for a peek at the contents!  You can also look up my name on their list of authors and find all three stories of mine they have published to date.  I hope to see you there!

But, this post is not about me.  It’s about a young woman who asked, “Me?  Who Am I” and invited us on her journey of discovery.  Mewhoami is a talented writer whose freshness and honesty is always a pleasure to encounter.  She has been a great fellow blogger and an inspiration to me from the first days on my own journey.

She has always encouraged me and motivated me to be a better blogger and an honest writer.  Her site is very well put together and is a visual delight while her words always strike a chord: funny, thoughtful and informative.

So, please, check out her site with a click here.  You’ll find a warm welcome and a good read as you browse through her posts.  And, in answer to her question “Me? Who Am I?”, I want to answer “A great blogger and a damn fine writer!”

Thanks for being my blogging buddy, Mewhoami, and for the insight you always give me into today’s younger generation.  Keep up the good work!

Yours in Writing,

M E McMahon

7 Reasons Every Writer Needs to Be on Twitter

Excellent article on social networking.

Kristen Lamb's Blog

While I’m taking a much-needed break, our WANA Maven of Twitter is here to help you understand Twitter!

Twitter often gets a bad rap by people who don’t understand it, misunderstand it as full of spam and celebrity stalkers, or don’t know how to use it to its full potential to build an author platform. When used correctly, though, Twitter can be one of the best tools for meeting new readers and increasing traffic to your blog. Not to mention it’s fun!

Don’t believe me? Well, let me prove it to you then. I have seven reasons why I think every writer should be using Twitter.

Reason #1 – Twitter has over 100 million active accounts and growing.

Whether you’re seeking traditional publication or plan to self-publish, whether you’re a non-fiction author, a novelist, a poet, or a short story writer, you need a platform to sell your work. Your…

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Put The Hankie Away

Yesterday, I opened my email and was delighted to find a response from one of the publishers I had submitted a short story to.  I had waited months to hear from them so I eagerly opened the email and read their missive, only to discover I had received my first rejection letter.

Wow, the pain…the dissappointment…the gall of these people to turn me down! My feelings are hurt! I worked so hard on that story…how could they not want it?

Yes, my friends, rejection letters can bring out the worst in us as writers.  Some of us tend to take it personal and we bring out all those insecurities that kept us from writing or submitting our work for so long.  Some get angry and stuff their stories back in the drawer and resolve never to embarrass themselves again.

Others, like myself, will take a few moments to wallow in self-pity, dry our tears and then put the hankie away.  We move on, we continue to write and we continue to submit our stories.  Because, it is a fact of life that all writers will experience the pain of receiving a rejection letter.  And, in the end, some rejection letters can be turned into a learning experience for the new writer.

After wringing out the hankie, I retraced my steps and went back to who, how and when I submitted this story.  It was one of the first submissions I made and after checking out the publisher, they were right.  Their magazine was not the right home for my story.  I hadn’t done my research prior to submitting the story and I was now holding the end result, a rejection letter.

Of course, lack of research is not the only reason I’ll ever get a rejection letter.  There are so many reasons for a publisher to give my stories a thumbs down…such as: they aren’t currently looking for my type of story, they have too many stories that are carrying the same theme or they just didn’t connect with the story itself.  That’s life in the publishing world and as hard as it is for writers to accept it, that’s the way it is.

I went back to the story I submitted and reread it and double checked it…I wanted to make sure I had dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s.  It was in good shape and I still liked the story…so, I jumped on to Duotrope and researched a few more publishers.  I found a few that I felt might be more receptive to my story and before I could lose my nerve, I submitted to them.  And, if they all reject my story, I’ll find a few more publishers and I’ll submit my work to them.

Persistence is so important in the publishing world, much as it is in life.  You can’t give up…if you believe your story is good, get out there and find a publisher who agrees.

What did I do with my first rejection letter?  I printed it out and it is now on my Milestone Page along with the stories that did get published.  Why?  Because, it is a rite of passage in my journey down the road to being a successful writer and it deserves it’s place in my Milestone page.  There will be others in my future, but I’m never going to let that stop me.  I’ll keep on writing and keep on submitting my stories.

For, I am a writer and that’s what writer’s do! So, there! 🙂

Yours In Writing,

M E McMahon

Bastet’s Pixelventures! July 30, 2013

Photography done right by Bastet! Check it out!

27 Tips About Writing From Twitter

Some very funny and wise tips about writing. I especially love the “aspiring writer” advice.

Today's Author

I’m a writing tip junkie. Any tweet or blog post or random comment that begins, “Here’s the best tip I’ve ever gotten about writing…” makes me click. What’s thirty seconds when I could pick up a gold nugget that changes my writerly life?

Mostly, 1) I already know them, 2) they’re pedestrian, or 3) they’re wrong, but occasionally I get one–or twenty-seven in this case–that I think are worth passing on. See if you agree:

1. Unless required for voice-related purposes, avoid using “needless to say” or “utilize” or “awesome tits” in your writing. (Women: Fill in the blank: “Awesome _____.”)
2. Be tech savvy and have a good liberal arts background [to succeed as a writer].
3. The whole process of writing a novel is having this great, beautiful idea and then spoiling it.
4. “The writer is only free when he can tell the reader to go jump in the lake…”
5. Stop…

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Another Story Hits The Press!

I am so proud to announce that my story, “The Man In The Dark” is now available on Alphie Dog Fiction for downloading.  This is the second story that this wonderful publishing site has been kind enough to accept and I hope you will pay their site a visit and take a look around.

The story is under the “Horror” genre, but it was a true event that took place when I was a child and I wrote it to try and purge the memory of the man who scared me so much that I still have nightmares about him.

It costs only Sixty cents (U.S.) and 0.39 (Pound Sterling) for my friends Over The Pond to download the complete story, but a teaser is given to entice you to buy the story.  So if you have some change jingling in your pocket, I hope you’ll spend it downloading my latest story!  Just click here and take a peek!

I have to be honest with my WordPress followers.  This story appeared in rough draft on my blog site months ago (it’s now deleted and inaccessible) but if you haven’t read it or just want to read it again, please visit Alphie Dog Fiction.

Again, thanks to the publishers of Alphie Dog Fiction for the faith they have shown in my work.  And, my thanks to my readers and fellow bloggers who gave me the courage to start sending my work out to be published.  Without you, my stories would never have seen the light of day!

The Publisher’s Yellow Brick Road

I mentioned yesterday that I dedicated last week to submitting a few of my stories to publishers.  One of my goals is to be published in a magazine that people buy and is printed on dead trees.  It’s part of my dream to hand something to my granddaughter that she can keep and say “My Grandma Wrote This…she was a writer.”

During the week, I made a few discoveries that I thought I would share with other new writers who might be on the threshold of submitting their work to a publisher for the first time.  These discoveries showed me that the Yellow Brick Road we follow to a publishers desk is filled with dangers that could wind up with our efforts thrown into the publisher’s waste basket without getting past the first paragraph.

As new writers, we don’t have editors and publishers are not on the phone clamoring for our work.  So, the first step before I submit a story is to be sure that it’s polished until it glows.  I accomplish this by getting a professional editor to look at the story.  I am lucky to be a published author on Alphie Dog Fiction and they offer editorial services for their authors at a very reasonable price.  When I want to submit my work to a magazine, I use them to ensure the work is up to their standards.  But, you can also get some of your followers to critique and proofread your work…I have a few that are helping me on the revisions of my book.

Once my piece is as good as I can get it, I search for the right home for it.   It is so important that you research the publishers and the magazine to make sure you’re sending in a story that fits in with their type of publication.  This prevents wasting your time and sometimes the expense of sending in your manuscript.  I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating, I use Duotrope to locate publishers that are open to new writers and who are accepting submissions.  I also look around WordPress for sites such as Morgen Bailey’s site (here) that lists publishers looking for submissions and what they are looking for.  But, you should also take the time to look through the publication itself to see what the type of stories they have published before and then you can decide if that publication is the right home for your story.

Now, that I have a list of potential publishers, it’s time to check their submission guidelines.  I was amazed to find out how diverse these guidelines can be.  Electronic submission guidelines sometimes require the document be in a specific format (.doc) or they want you to copy your story into an e-mail.  Some require that you send a cover letter and/or a short bio with the story.

And then there are the publishers who will only accept submissions by snail mail (postal).  You should be sure to follow their guidelines specifically regarding spacing, font and format they want the submissions to have.  I include a cover letter with these submissions and I make sure to include a Self-addressed Stamped envelope for their reply!

I am stressing the importance of following the guidelines for a very important reason.  Publishers want your material…but they want it presented in a professional and neat package.  One publisher I have submitted to stated quite honestly in the guidelines that the majority of rejections they made were based on the writer’s failure to follow their guidelines.  So, check and double check before you send out that story to the publisher.

Which brings me to the cover letter for submitting my work.  I searched the Internet and found a great piece by Freelance Writing (here) that shows you how to write a good cover letter.  I especially like the fact that they recommend you keep it short and simple.

Before I finish, I do want to share some advice that a writer friend gave me when I first started to consider publishing my work.  They recommended that I submit to publishers whether they pay for your work or not…the key is to get published.  When I wrote my first cover letter, I had no credentials; now I have two publications that have accepted my stories and one pays a pittance and the other not at all.  But, it feels wonderful to be able to include that sentence:  “My work has been previously published in Alphie Dog Fiction and Totally for Women.”

And, I hope by all the research and the sharp attention I’ve paid to the submission process, that I will add to those credentials soon.

So, I hope my experiences this past week will help some of those new writers who are just getting ready to walk down the Publisher’s Yellow Brick Road.  I’ll keep you updated on the results of my efforts.  Good luck to all of us and keep writing!

Yours in Writing,

M E McMahon

Post or Publish?

Before you hit that Publish button on your blog site, you might want to stop and think hard about whether you plan to send that piece to a publisher.

I’ve spent the last week working with Duotrope and learned some hard lessons.  Some publishers will not accept your work if you have posted it on your blog site or anyone else’s. They consider posting the same as publishing that piece and there is no way to get around their guidelines.  I’ve scoured the Internet looking for loopholes but they just aren’t there.

Duotrope does have a nifty feature that tells you which publishers accept what they call “reprints,” which are any works that have appeared on blog sites, social networks or even previously published in a magazine or E-Zines.  But, it is very disheartening when you learn that the perfect home for your piece is sitting out there, but you can’t go in because you have already posted that work somewhere else.

When I first started blogging on my sister site, “Grandma Says,” I gave no thought to hitting that “Publish” button.  Now, I have to sit back and think before I throw that piece out there for my blogging buddies. Some of the works were produced by prompts and some were just my efforts to stretch my writing muscles.  When I reviewed them, I found a few that I thought were worthy of sending out for publishing.  That’s when I discovered some publishers frown on previously posted works.

This past month, I’ve had to set aside some really good pieces because I posted them on my blog site.  I have written new stories, which unfortunately, I am prevented from posting here or on my sister site and, sometimes, that frustrates me.  I like to give my followers the “first read” on my work and always find that their comments and suggestions make the final result shine.  Wordpress does have a great feature in their “Feedback” capabilities, which allows you to send the piece to specific bloggers and publishers consider that okay as it hasn’t been published.

Now, some publishers DO accept reprints and that’s a wonderful thing.  However, they are not the majority and when you post your work you are risking narrowing the field of possibilities for publishing your piece.

So, before you hit that “Publish” button, make sure that you realize that you have now excluded that work from being submitted to a large field of publishers.

Again, Duotrope has saved me time and embarrassment by pointing out the publishers that accept reprints.  If you are looking for a wonderful tool to seek a home for your work, I highly recommend this site.  Its five dollars a month well spent for me as it gives me a wealth of information about each publisher.  Check it out here.

So, my friends, after finishing that post, take a good hard look at it and make sure that you want to hit that “Publish” button. Once it’s out in Cyberspace…you can’t take it back. Now, back to my writing!

Yours in Writing,

M E McMahon

The 30-Day Creative Writing Challenge – Day 1

I did this same prompt for a writing class and had a blast writing it! Give it a try…lots of fun fairy tales out there (dark ones too!)