Instead of writing several more posts, I’m just gonna lump ’em here.
My first fiction publishing is coming out soon. Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal accepted a fiction short and it will be in their Nov/Dec issue. They’ve already published a nonfiction piece.
As an aside, it is technically not my first fiction publication. I’ve had fiction published but that was like, I dunno, 20 years or so ago I guess. Besides, I’m not that person any more. Really.
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Should a writer write what will sell or should a writer write what they feel? Something to ponder, eh?
As a potter, we had what we called our ‘bread and butter’ pieces. Items that I didn’t altogether like to make, but they sold and that is what counted. Need to sell something to get more clay to make what I really wanted to make. Friend of makes this little raw figures doing hillbilly type stuff. They sell like hot cakes! But what he really wants is to make more art pottery. But since those usually sell for a much higher price (and therefore not as often nor as many), he continues to make the hillbillies in order to feed his family.
Reminds me. He used to make this one piece, weird but they actually sold. He took slabs of clay and pressed them into this fiberglass mold of a bowl. Huge thing. He’d do two of them, turning one upside down on the other, joining them then at the seam. Once that was done, he then cut into the top (what was once the bottom of a single one), making a slit. He then folded the slit back in various ways, did some other stuff to the object, then raku fired them. However, we at the studio used to call them his ‘twat pots’ cause if you looked at them while they were in that raw stage of being made, they were very Georgia O’Keeffe looking! His wife hated those, by the way.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, bread and butter. I am thinking that my Butch Girls romance books will be my bread and butter. They’ll sell (lesbian romance, in my opinion, has only in the last few years risen higher in standard than pulp fiction) I am certain, and since they are in a series, I should be able to sell more than one.
But what I really want to write is fantasy and science fiction. But that market is already stuffed to its not-so-proverbial gills.
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Speaking of writing what I want vs what has a better chance of being sold, I think I am starting to lean further into the erotica again. I don’t know why but I feel the urge again. It happens periodically and I ease it by writing some decent smut with a plot. I’ve got this one fiction, more than likely considered a romance, that I don’t fade to black with. I get down to the little dirty details. I write on it when urges like this come on or when I am writing cleaner romance and can’t put in the details. Simple Sarah was like that. Very clean except for a few places.
One publisher is currently accepting short stories for an erotica anthology but it is about vampires. Don’t get me started on that genre bend.
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You know how you feel you are ready for something? You feel all confident and sure of yourself? Then, you are in line to present your idea or self and then you…panic.
What about this part? Or that? It’s not enough!
That is the mode I am in lately about my NaNoWriMo project. I realized there were some points I’d not quite yet figured out. I still want to just write it without the confines of an outline or too much pre-planning. But there are some details that need to be fixed, else I will stall. And dwell. Don’t you just hate it when you dwell?
I’ve been ready to go, ready to start writing, then two days ago I started to sweat. But I think that’s because I was coming down with either a cold or seasonal allergies. Then I’ve had two days of headaches. But I want to write! I want to figure these things out! But my brain is stuck in ‘uhhnn’ gear. You know, where someone asks you something and you just stare at them you know you should answer but it won’t come out.
As you can tell from my wide assortment of posts in the last 24 hrs, I am feeling better. I had other things to do today but I did get some writing and planning done. Not much, but enough. Did you read the Winter Cometh post? I wrote that today, well, yesterday, Friday, whatever. I like it.
One last note and I will go. What the heck happened to the weather? First we about drowned, then we cooked, sizzled, simmered and baked. Now we are freezing! It is 33 degrees for crying out loud!! I’m cold! Sheesh!
Okay, done.