Ghost story sent

I just entered the ghost story contest. Keep your fingers crossed that I at least get some positive feedback. I don't expect to win. I just want to make some contacts. Of course, if I placed I'd certainly be happy. :-) I'll know by December 4th.

Nano is a bust

I just couldn't sustain it with 5 classes teaching and a class at Butler, plus other crap that I got suckered into. But I also stopped for a good reason. A contest!

British Newspaper Holds Ghost Story Contest

Posted by Prize Reporter on 11.15.10

From Henry James to A. S. Byatt, literary authors have long conjured spirits from beyond the grave, and as the weather cools and the shadows grow longer, the Daily Telegraph is honoring the form of the ghost story with a writing contest. Until Saturday, November 20, the British newspaper will accept short story entries, and on December 11 will publish the winning story along with illustrations.

"To be any good, a ghost story needs a structure, characters, a narrative line—dialogue is optional," says judge Susan Hill, author of literary novels such as The Beacon (Chatto and Windus, 2008) as well as crime fiction and ghost stories, most recently The Small Hand (Chatto and Windus, 2010). "Above all, the ghost must have a purpose. It may be revenge for harm suffered. It may be to explain some past incident. It may be to protest, to offer information—the whereabouts or contents of a will, a murdered body or the identity of a killer."

The Telegraph's Lorna Bradbury and Andrew Franklin of Profile Books will also judge. Their shortlist will be announced on December 4, and the finalists' stories will appear on the Telegraph's Web site on that date.

Stories should be no longer than two thousand words may be e-mailed or sent via postal mail to the Telegraph's offices. Full guidelines appear at the end of Hill's article on literary ghost stories on the Telegraph's Web site.

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So that's what I've been working on! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Floyd will not leave me alone!

How dare I go and try to write a novel WITHOUT Floyd being in it! He popped up over the weekend and, well, all hell has broken loose in the thing! But that's okay! This NaNo project has made me realize one thing-- I need to write what I was meant to write. I started out trying to do something different, that was still "ghosty" but in what I thought would be a more "literary" way. But, well, then Floyd showed up. I realized that I can still be "literary" in what I do because it is not really commercial, typical genre fiction either. So here is what it comes down to: I am going to strive to be the female George Saunders. If you don't know who he is, look him up. Then go buy "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline" and have a chat with me. He uses some elements of the paranormal, but it's definitely literary. So, that's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna be me!

I almost gave up

Last night, I had the overwhelming urge to switch project for NaNo. I think the problem is that this project is serious, and I also miss the main characters from my other novel, which I'm making into a series. But then I asked myself which novel I'd feel more comfortable writing at this break-neck pace and I decided to stay with my original NaNo project. That's the thing about NaNoWriMo--it's an emotional and mental test, not just a test of discipline. I know one person who restarted a project this first week. It's just tough, but I'm going to stick with what I've got going and just try to make it easier and more fun to work on than it has been the past 6 days.

Great news about my MFA program!

http://www.butler.edu/absolutenm/templates/?a=2241&z=22

Why is this so hard today?

The ideas are coming fast and furious. This NaNo project could really make a great thesis novel for me. Each day, I think of a new complication for the Protagonist. So it's not that I'm having writer's block. far from it. But today my head is throbbing. Grading is piling up. I feel overwhelmed and am asking myself why I even started NaNo again this year. But I don't want to give up. Yet, I feel paralyzed. ARGH! Once I get on a roll, it will be fine. But I have just stopped and started all day. If I could just find someone to do all my grading. . . .

My NaNo Widget

My new blog!

My new blog, focusing on Paranormal Prose, both my writing of it and about it. Stay tuned for the weird and interesting stuff I'll be posting here.