Writing Round Up, Cool Exercise, and Submission Opportunity
Write Better Now
Every Monday, we’re sending out a quick round-up of what we talked about and some cool links to check out to help all of us become better writers.
As a reminder, on Wednesdays the WRITE BETTER NOW podcast comes out here (and everywhere).
Later in the week there is a bonus post for paid subscribers because, honestly, it’s super kind of you to support me that way, and I want to make sure to make it’s worth your while. Thank you for being here.
Here we go!
On the podcast, we talked about writing exceptional characters and backstory. https://livinghappy.substack.com/p/writing-exceptional-characters-part
And we dug a little deeper about the three uses of backstory and more in the follow-up post.
Writing Exercise of Awesome
This exercise comes from Self Publishing Resources (do not balk traditional writers, it’s a great site). And this one is super simple and just meant to charge up your brain and free you of pressure and blocks.
Ready?
“Write ten six-word stories, each about something different.”
Sounds easy? Not if you have too much internal critic/editor going on. Give it a try!
Cool Links By Other People and a Place to Submit!
The Poetry Foundation has a collection of fall poems. The month. Not the act.
A story from MSN about books targeted for banning and why you should read them.
From NPR: Author Boyah J. Farah reflects on being Black in America.
And a piece from Consider this on NPR about if social media is meant to make us angry.
SUBMISSION OPPORTUNITY
CLUB PLUM is looking for some horror and some non-horror. Check out its submission page for full details.
Submissions open for our well-received Annual Literary Horror Issue, coming out October 2022, of course. This issue will include non-horror lovelies as well, so send your best work, be it horror or non-horror or somewhere between. Send your darkly strange beauties, your unsettling prose poetry and flash fiction, your beautiful and surreal art, your astounding creative nonfiction. Experimentation is always appreciated. All approaches welcome. See guidelines for each genre below. Deadline: October 1st.
Club Plum is a safe place and does not publish the following:
works that demean women, perpetuate the male gaze, portray antiquated relationships/images where women are sexual objects for men, etc.
works that are racist
works that are homophobic
works that proselytize religious beliefs
Happy writing, everyone!