The fun part of resurfacing after a few weeks away from your regular life (although not for vaca!) is that you get to poke around touching base with your writing/reading communities, reach out to your fav writers/poets, get your bearings and then post (i.e. Insta & FB)/submit (using my ever-loving Duotrope List <3). And what do you discover about yourself?

Wow, my short fiction, teen girl story (that was written several winters ago as an experimental exercise tossed out by Canadian author/powerhouse Alissa York) called ENOUGH has taken #1 in short-fiction on Wattpad's Short Fiction ranking. And how'd that happen?

Well, I was confident that the story was too short for trad publishing so I threw it up on my Wattpad account for all to enjoy. FREE. That's right. Sometimes giving your completed work to a reading audience to enjoy is the better thing to do. It isn't always about the $$$$. 

So, what have you got lurking around in your deep drawers? What poems, novellas, essays or complete novels have you got to give away? FYI: you can also serialize your writing dropping a chapter at a time. Although I'd completed my piece, I did release a chapter or 2 or 3 at a time. I also utilized YouTube music to head up each chapter. Gotta love the cross-pollination - especially when you're talking teen fiction!

So, 1, 2, 3...GO! Get your stuff into the hands of readers.
Then write on!

I've been MIA these past few months. It seems as though a bit of time slipped past me...yet if I do the math, it's been 7 weeks (shock & awe!) So, as I surface from family obligations, heat-coma, knitting-fever (for very early Christmas presents, dontcha know?) and pure nonchalance, I think a break from the hamster wheel might be a good thing. 

Oh, I've been tallying the rejection letters; crossing poems off my Jo Bell tracker; dumping submission copies into the virtual wastebasket. All by rote. But 1 beautiful acceptance email this morning, and I'm feeling ready to roll up my sleeves and Duotrope my writing/submitting life back into shape this week. 

The acceptance was the first for a 'climate change' poem (of the group that I spent the winter writing). It will be the first published of what I dreamed might be the backbone of a new manuscript. Hoping so dearly that it could become reality that I (bravely/foolishly?) submitted a 10-poem sample for a (non-existent) manuscript named UNSTOPPABLE that I'm still in the process of creating. Talk about chutzpah!!

Isn't that how we writers often do it? Dream it and they (the words) will come?! Yes, I say. While I'm still waiting reply from the indie publisher I sent the sample to, I'll get back to the writing, won't I? After all, that's how reality/success/the magic happens...

Write On!