LAWG-er rhythms... (sticky post)

Looking for a supportive, yet informative climate in which to grow as a writer? You might like the Lancaster Area Writers Group. We meet the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble in the Red Rose Commons shops off Fruitville Pike, just outside Lancaster City.

You are invited to bring up to five double-spaced pages of your manuscript to share with the group. You may certainly bring enough copies to share with the group as you read. How many is enough? Usually eight or ten copies is the most you need. Copies optional. If you don’t want to read your writing yourself, one of our group facilitators can read your work for you.

Membership is free. We just ask you come to the group, ready to listen and ready to share.

Why not join us next time? Arrive early, buy a latte, and wind through the aisles to the back right corner of the store, beside the children's section. You'll find us in a cozy seating area, surrounded by cookbooks.

Friday's Find...Mslexia Writing Workshops

Would you like a few tips on recycling a piece of failed poetry or prose? How about some quick and dirty tips for writing stronger dialogue? Some ideas to thwart writer's block. Or to jumpstart your writing, despite yourself?

I found a wonderful site with 31 free-for-the-asking "workshops" to help you improve your writing at Mslexia, a writing magazine published in the U.K. that offers lots of online resources and links for writers.

Each workshop is about a page long but filled with fresh tips and suggestions for polishing your prose.

Though Mslexia is a magazine for and by women writers, the writing workshops will help anyone, regardless of gender, desiring to improve as a writer. Here's a sample from the introduction to the workshop on writing in the first person:

"Did you realise that you can write in first person, without writing about yourself? This may sound obvious, but to many writers it’s a new and startling idea. Using a first person viewpoint is not a promise to write faithfully about your own life and times. It is just a way of structuring your narrative.

Writing in first person is an excellent way to begin building character. The ‘I’ viewpoint encourages intimacy and so can cushion the transition into character. It is also (usually) the most comfortable and accessible viewpoint for the new writer..."

After introducing each workshop, the workshop leader, writer Margaret Wilkinson (a lecturer for the Creative Writing MA at Northumbria University and a prose writer for radio, screen and stage) provides a few really good guided exercises.

While reviewing the workshops for this post, I learned about thirty good...no...GREAT tips.

If you are at all serious about becoming a better writer, shoot on over to the workshops at Mslexia. You have nothing to lose but your writer's block and bad habits.

Technorati tags: Mslexia, writer's+block, writing+workshops, Friday's+Find

Looking for an Agent for your work?

I have found some great websites for finding the agent that's right for you. Most will sort by genre or category. Most will give you basic contact information and if the agent accepts e-queries. If the agent's web link is provided, I have found it to be helpful to visit the agent's website before querying. Agent Query and Writersnet are free sites. Writer's Market is a pay per year site although I think you can join for a month at a time if you'd like to try it.

http://agentquery.com

http://writersnet.com

http://writersmarket.com

You Need to Know Duotrope

What if I told you that there is an easy-to-use electronic site that lists thousands of markets for fiction writers, that is well maintained, and is completely free of charge.

If you don't believe such a site exists, then you don't know about Duotrope's Digest. But you should.

After finding and then submitted dozens of pieces using conventional sources and means, I tried Duotrope. I was seeking a market for PG-rated humorous fiction. I found several using Duotrope. I submitted my piece electronically and within three weeks, I got my first acceptance to the Duck & Herring Company's Pocket Field Guide.

What exactly is Duotrope? Here's what one expert had to say:

Duotrope's Digest (duotrope.com) is a free database of markets for English-language poetry and fiction of all lengths. Besides a searchable database of more than 1400 publications, Duotrope offers a submissions tracker, a calendar of upcoming deadlines, and detailed statistical information about markets and submissions.

All services are free. Registration is also free.

The first thing you see when you enter the Duotrope.com website is the search form, which is what makes Duotrope such a valuable marketing research tool. From here, you can search the database for the fiction markets most suited to your work. The database is divided into categories for short fiction, novels and collections, and poetry. Within those divisions, you can search by attributes such as length, genre, pay scale, theme, submissions requirements, and publication type. Duotrope returns a report summarizing the markets that match your criteria, along with a second report that includes markets that may be close to what you need.

Clicking on the links take you to a more detailed summary of that publication's needs and requirements, including a summary of the editorial needs, a reproduction of the cover of a typical issue (if relevant), and a link to the publication's website. You also have access to statistics about the publication's acceptance rates and response times. Duotrope's database includes all genres, from Westerns to romance to literary fiction and experimental poetry. Several new titles are added every week. Markets range from online reviews and tiny poetry journals that offer no payment or only a token payment, to many major magazines including the New Yorker and all the major SF/F publications.

Duotrope's information is updated frequently and all links are checked regularly. Registered users of Duotrope's Digest. can use the submissions tracker to monitor where they have submitted manuscripts, how long the manuscripts have been under consideration, and whether it's time to send a follow-up query.

You can subscribe to a weekly mailing of updates for short stories, poetry, or novels/anthologies (which I do). The mailing details new markets added to the database in that area, upcoming deadlines for themed publications, and markets that have recently opened or closed to submissions. This last is especially useful for those submitting to literary journals that often don't read for part of the year.

Duotrope's biggest strength is its large, searchable database of frequently updated information. The search cuts research time significantly over scrolling through long listings. The listings are highly reliable, which reduces the time you need to spend validating and checking. The submissions and deadline tracking help you manage your deadlines and keep your stories out to their appropriate markets.

If you don't believe this fellow, read what others are saying about Duotrope here.

Or just try it for yourself.

Duotrope calculates your acceptance rate as you enter information. Thanks to Duotrope, mine currently stands at over 16%, which Dutrope tells me is better than average.

Welcome to our new site

Hello everyone! We had a great meeting a few weeks ago with lots of good writing and new members. If we have a large crowd, like we did last time, we often break into smaller groups so everyone gets to read. If you are comfortable, tell the group you would like to hear all comments, good and bad. If you're not ready for that, just tell the group you'd like to stay positive.

I have improved my writing by coming to the LAWG meetings. Hearing others read and the comments the group has for that member is the most instructive thing we do. When you are able to hear and understand bumps in another's work it becomes much easier to see the bumps in your own. I'm looking foward to seeing you next Tuesday.