cj Sez: Here’s a tip for
authors from my fellow Mobile Writers Guild member Joyce Sterling Scarbrough: “Chicken Soup for the Soul has a number of
submission calls out right now, including one for kids and teens dealing with
the challenges of this pandemic.”
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Changing Your World One Story at a Time®
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“If you or a young writer you know has a story or poem you'd
like published, please submit!”
And cj's tip for readers…these are great books for your to-be-read
stack.
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Rooting for you… This is how you do it: you sit down at
the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that
easy, and that hard. — Neil Gaiman
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Nearing the home
stretch and worried you aren’t going to succeed? Here are some words from Kurt
Vonnegut:
“When
I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one
of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of
“getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports?
What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do
theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
And
he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of
them.”
And
he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my
mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think
being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these
wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things
and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”
And
that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who
hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things
because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented
environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only
worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”
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John Floyd is a prolific author (he’s written 32 stories in
2020), and his short mysteries are favorites of mine. In a recent Sleuth Sayers
column, he recounts how he reworks old, unsubmitted stories he’s had stashed
away for years and then submits them…some moved on to become award winners. Maybe
there are points you would find worthwhile…I sure did: https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2020/11/the-same-old-story.html?fbclid=IwAR05pLxJJr9NcZGJ1E4LtmsAc7WUbYRHLjUfSrMxkikY1mBmwGyGoTSFP_0
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HOMETOWN HEROES eBook is on sale now.
This anthology brings you five Christmas romances that celebrate everyday
heroes.
From paranormal to contemporary to historical, there's
something in this anthology to fill everyone with the spirit of the season.
On Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ncvCS5
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99 CENTS !! PREORDER PRICE for
Bienvenue Press’s upcoming charity anthology HOMEROOM HEROES. Look for it on
Amazon Saturday, December 5. The final cover reveal coming soon.
In “The Substitute,” my short story in
the anthology, an FBI agent’s undercover assignment as a substitute teacher
gets complicated when he falls in love with a first-grade grade teacher. Here
are the opening lines:
“Will
Miss Melanie Andrews please report to the office,” the voice blared over the
school’s intercom system.
Mel
stopped setting out the materials she was readying for her first-grade students
and stared at the speaker mounted in the corner of her classroom. She frowned,
hurriedly dropped the last few crayons on the work tables lining the walls, and
sealed the hazmat bag where she’d put the paper towels she used to sanitize the
desks.
“What
now? I haven't had time to do anything wrong yet.”
Being
called to the principal’s office wasn’t how Mel wanted to begin her first day
back in the classroom after summer break.
How embarrassing, she thought. Everyone in the school heard that and will
be wondering what I’ve done this time.
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That’s it for
today’s post. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.
cj
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