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Blurbs, pitches, loglines, and other book marketing necessities I suck at (#IWSG)
For those of you who aren’t masochists don’t write fiction, here’s something about the writing world that you may not know: authors have to be marketers. Yes, even traditionally-published authors, because apparently even the big publishers don’t invest a lot in marketing authors unless they are big names. I’m going to admit 2 things up front that will color the rest of this post: I find this fact frustrating. With a family and a day job, I barely have enough time to write, let alone learn how to market my writing. When I first started writing, I thought that’s what publishers got paid to do, seeing as how they have…
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Gratitude, wins and losses, and weird Bisbee (Weekend Coffee Share #9)
*Yawn* Good morning, and welcome to the weekend coffee share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! It’s Sunday morning, and I’m only half-caffed, so come on in, pull up a seat, and let’s finish caffeinating. I’m still scrambling to finish a Christmas horror story to submit for an anthology, so I’m going to keep things short today. Why losses seem to outweigh wins First, let’s talk about wins and losses–in writing and in life. Jenny Hansen on the wonderful Writers in the Storm blog has a great post called Writing and the Law of Loss Aversion. I’d never heard of the law of loss aversion before, but once she explained it,…
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Where do I draw the line? (#IWSG)
It seems like everyone has an opinion these days about what writers should and shouldn’t do: Show me all the sex! Keep the sex behind closed doors. Write about diverse characters! Don’t write about identities you don’t share. Write honestly about difficult topics. Stop writing about rape. And on and on. Yeah, those are oversimplifications, but sometimes the discourse about what writers should write isn’t very nuanced. So today I’m going to piss off everyone by wading into these controversial waters. I’ve written about this topic before, but I’m going to get into it in a bit more depth in this post. But first: This post is part of the Insecure…
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Snippet from “Open House,” my newly-published short story
Good morning, and welcome to this week’s Weekend Writing Warriors post! Today’s snippet is the first 10 sentences of “Open House,” my 80s haunted house story that JUST GOT PUBLISHED on the Storyteller Series podcast! Why yes, I am just a wee bit excited. Yes, I did squee all over this blog announcing it. Those of you who are veterans may shrug, but this is a big ol’ deal for little ol’ me. OK, on to the snippet: The woman in the Nike jacket was staring at Kim Idlewood’s husband. Oh, she was trying to be discreet about it—they usually tried to be discreet, unless they were young, hot, and…
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Open House is published on the Storyteller Series podcast!
It’s up! It’s up! It’s up! SQUEE!! Ahem. Let’s try that again. I’m delighted to announce that my short story, “Open House,” is published on Night Shift Radio‘s The Storyteller Series podcast. The Storyteller Series presents original short stories (like mine! SQUEE!) as audio dramas with a full cast of voice actors. Check it out on Spotify (use the player above) or your favorite podcast player (and while you’re there, check out the other great stories on the podcast. I especially liked Tom Witkowski‘s, “The Guardian Devil”). So why am I squeeing all over the place? Because I’m a teenager trapped in a 50-something body (Get me out of this…
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Beginning of an as-yet-unnamed Christmas horror story (#WeWriWa #2)
Good morning, and welcome to my second post for the Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop (see all my Weekend Writing Warriors posts here). Right now I’m revising the first draft of a Christmas horror story I hope to submit to the Deathlehem anthology–if I can get it done quickly enough. I’m horribly slow at revising. Here are the first 10 sentences: Lully, lullah, thou little tiny child.Billy Foraker lifted the little boy off his lap, gave him a half-hearted, “Ho, ho, ho,” and rubbed his temples.Bye bye, lully, lullay.Ugh, that song again. He’d heard some version of it at least six times since his shift started at Stockton Galleria Mall.…
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Snippet from “Collateral Damage” (WeWriWa #1)
Welcome to my first post for Weekend Writing Warriors! Yes, I’m joining yet another blog hop. If this keeps up, I’m going to have to find a support group for people addicted to blog hops. Anyhoo, I’m especially excited about WeWriWa, because it involves sharing snippets of writing, published or unpublished, and since my search for an agent is about as successful as New Coke (if you’re under 40, ask your parents), these posts might be the only time anyone outside my critique group gets to read my work. For my first post, here are the first 10 sentences of my postapocalyptic short story, “Collateral Damage.” This story won first…
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Define your own success in 6 easy steps (#IWSG)
Today we’re going to talk about success. I’m not going to define it for you, and I’m not going to tell you how to get it. I suck as a self-help guru. Instead, I’m going to suggest a way of thinking about success that doesn’t get much traction in our rise-and-grind culture. But first: This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group monthly blog hop. On the first Wednesday of each month, I and my fellow insecure writers post something related to writing, and then we visit the blogs of our fellow members and read and comment on their IWSG posts. This month’s optional question is, How do you…
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Read these 6 Books to Improve Your Fiction Writing (With a Sex-Related Bonus)
When I first started writing fiction back in 2014, I devoured books about writing. Nerdy little librarian that I am, I was sure I could learn this writing thing from a book. Or three books. Or maybe twenty. And you know what? I did learn. I read, then I wrote, then I read some more, then I wrote some more, and I got a little better. I still made mistakes, but I made better mistakes. You can’t learn to write from a book–you learn to write by writing–but books (and blog posts and podcasts and YouTube videos and, especially, critique partners) help. So today I’ll share my top 6 writing…
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My Favorite Writing Tools 2: Writing Trackers
If you haven’t figured out by now that I’m a hopeless nerd, this part of the post ought to clarify that point. I *love* trackers. I find them motivating, and I need all the motivation I can get. I own a FitBit and obsess about my standings in the Workweek Hustle Challenge (I was even more ridiculous about it during quarantine). I track my habits (exercise, personal development, and about six others) in Toodledoo. And of course I track my writing. I’ve tried a few writing trackers and settled on two that I like: Online Writing Log (OWL) OWL lets me track word count and time spent by project, set…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
