I've spent this past year absorbed in my day work as a teacher. I subbed most of the year, but the last quarter I had a long-term gig, which took more time and planning to do right. I love being a teacher, but it does take away from my writing time....but ya gotta earn the money, so....
Speaking of winning, I did, in the fall enter the Scinti.com writing contest and was informed on Halloween that I was in the top 20 / 200+ submissions for a short story about real life experiences. After the final two weeks of popular voting, which happened with people "liking" on the story on Facebook, I came away with third place! Not bad at all! It took a lot of time and effort to promote myself and hit up my friends and neighbors for "like" votes, but I did it. My goal was to make the Top 3...1st or 2nd would have been lovely, but the top two had such extreme amounts of votes, there was no way...3rd was very reachable if I worked for it enough and managed to get people to vote. Not much different than if I had to promote the book or a story via live talks or signings to generate sales.
In February, I made top 3rd in WOW, (Women on Writing). Didn't get any farther than that, but judging was done by actual judges at every level. There was no personally promoting my work to gain ground.
A writing mentor of mine, Wendy Beckman, started a nifty critique group this past March, which has been very helpful. It has given me an audience where at a monthly meeting I can share parts of my story with fellow writers and receive helpful feedback. I've been needing people to beta-read who aren't just nice friends or family members. I need to find out what a total stranger's impression of my work might be, so this has been a very good experience.
I also joined a memoir writing group on Linkedin.com. Mostly the ladies and one man on there just promote themselves and give nice remarks to the other writers. I'd like to see more actual sharing of writing pieces over there, but the group is new, and that may come in time.
In April I did submit an article about "Why I teach" to the publication, Teaching Tolerance. I'm waiting to see if they want to use my proposal or not. I figured something from a Spanish teacher who educates students about other cultures, works with all kids at all levels of learning with multiple abilities might be something unique for them. I suspect they typically only get submissions from regular ed teachers. My reasons for actually liking my job as a substitute would definitely be unique. Maybe this coming school year I'll hear more back from them.
Just this past week I made Top 5 or 6 in a contest at Awordwithyoupress.com in the Victor Villaseñor first sentence contest. The premise was that the 1st sentence is your hook and first impression you give a possible reader. You want to compel them to continue on with the book. Along w the 1st sentence, I had to give the 1st paragraph. A winner of a previous contest was their judge, and again this competition did not involve having friends "like" or vote...It was all up to a non-partial judge.
I'm pretty happy with my results, especially for being a newer writer.
Here is my 1st sentence and paragraph:
When asking the classic question, “Where did I come from?” Mom and Dad began by telling me that I came from God. I found that piece of information very confusing because the first picture they have of me was of a dark haired woman holding me with her back turned. My baby face peers over her shoulder. Bare trees and a light blue Volkswagen with Ohio license plates can be seen in the background. For a long time I wondered if God was a brown haired lady from Ohio who drove a classic Beetle.
So you see, as busy as I was with work at school and tutoring kids at night, I did what I could to promote the writing. Last summer the attorneys I met suggested I promote by finding some competitions, so I did! This summer I have done a massive edit job to reduce the word count of REUNIONS even more. I am down to 119,000 words from close to 145,000 to start with. Pretty significant. A benefit to a lower word count is cheaper to print in traditional book form. I'm not sure if it would matter so much in digital form.
At any rate, the book is there and making progress. Very slow progress, but still moving forward.
Plan for more progress:
1-Re-submit soon to Clifton Hills Press, where the lady told me last year she was interested but had no time and too few staff to handle the work for a year.
2-Continue to search for opportunities to promote the book and myself as a writer via contests and writing communities in real life and on line.
3- Keep attending Wendy's writing group meetings and have an excerpt ready to be heard and critiqued every time.
4- Finish the book editing, (again!). Continue to comb through the story to make sure I have presented people and situations in true but non-hurtful lights as much as possible. My book isn't about venting or getting even with someone in the past. It's about raising awareness for the feelings of adopted kids, especially those whose adoptions have been closed and find that unfair and frustrating.
Hopefully my next blog post here won't be so late. Summer, my busy book time, is speeding by way too fast already.
P.
