From the Inkwell, From the Vein.....

FenCon Day 2: By the second day, I mustered enough courage? stamina? to attend some actual panels. They were entertaining, instructional and enlightening. After dinner, I began to wish I could have a do-over as I suddenly realized how much I was missing by allowing myself to be overwhelmed the day before... *sigh* The first panel I attended, impressed upon me the importance of word choice--- specifically in the realm of context. One of the panelists used as an example, a mistake she herself had made. The lines of discussion previously had been about ensuring that you were using the correct word. She wanted to point out that you could use a word, that in terms of definition would make sense, but, which might have a more accepted definition that would take the word out of context. Her beta readers were quick to point out the mistake she had made. In a love scene, she described the man caressing his lover's "spare breasts"--- the author, had of course, meant to illustrat...

The good thing about the  NYC Midnight  contest is the feedback that comes with every entry. There is a forum set up on the site, explicitly designed for competitors to post links to their stories to receive peer feedback. And, as a bonus, the judges send an email with their own feedback.  This is a new experience for me. Most of the competitions out there that I've entered feel so very distant. You send your story into the ether of blind-judging and wait until the "winner announcement date" to know whether or not your story sucked--- and when you didn't place, there's nothing to indicate how close  you might have come to placing.  There is a sense of community at NYC Midnight, one that is intent on encouraging writers and developing writers with constructive feedback.  I've included what the judges said about my piece. Apparently, I understood the Romantic Comedy genre better than I thought I did. And, the parts the judges felt needed work were exact...

The officials just posted the results for Round 1, which took place last month over the Aug 19th- 21st weekend. For Round 1, my assigned genre was Romantic Comedy, my assigned location was A Hair salon, and my assigned object to include was A Box Of Tissue. The resulting story,  A Night In Before The Night Out , placed 11th. Not a stellar showing, but, as it was my first attempt at NYC Midnight challenges annnnnd as I have never written a Romantic Comedy in my life, I think I did fairly well--- especially considering that any story ranked 16th+ did not receive any points for this round. In hindsight, my story was grossly lacking any sort of conflict or plot movement, and as Romantic Comedy isn't a genre I read, I was at a loss as to what the story should contain. I think the judges were a bit too giving, or lenient, in assigning my ranking in the group. Round 2 starts tomorrow night... while I'm attending FenCon VIII in Dallas. It should be interesting to see how I fare try...

Figures.... this weekend is setting up to be an Epic Win, and I have to set myself up as an Epic Fail.... So many wonderful things are aligning in my microcosmic/nerdy universe for this weekend that I can hardly stand it... and lo, I am hardly standing at all *pathetic sigh* September 23rd kicks off----      1/ FenCon VIII in Dallas,  linked here . It'll be the first time I've seen a literary convention and the first time I've seen any part of Dallas, other than the airport. I can't wait for this road-trip!      2/ The second part of the First Round of NYC Midnight Flash Fiction contest,  linked here . I don't really know how I'm going to manage to get this story written in 48 hrs while the convention's going on--- let's hope the hotel's WiFi doesn't flip out--- I blogged about the first part of the First Round  here , and posted my first round story,  here , if you'd like to give it a read.     3/ Season 7 of one of ...

So, there's this nifty little community called  NYC Midnight . For the last few years, they've sponsored a Flash Fiction Challenge. I missed the deadline to register last year by a day, so I was more than determined to get promptly registered this year---- well, I almost missed it again. In fact, I think I slid in with only a couple of hours to spare. But, in the realm of deadline challenge writing, hours equate centuries of time. I registered, and waited. Not until the exact stroke of midnight on the start of the challenge weekend do we know what we will be writing. Everybody starts on a "blind", as it were, even-playing field. When the hammer falls and the emails are sent, a countdown clock begins--- it's quite ominous actually, one feels the pressure of saving the world as the clock ticks down the seconds. 48 hours. That's it. Think you can save the world in 2 days? Oh, but wait... Just like any other dramatic hostage, 'fate-of-the-world-in-yo...