Life Lately — Writing Wins

Hey, y’all. I hope things are going well in your part of the world. Life lately for me has been pretty good.

This summer, I made it a priority to focus on my writing, and while that doesn’t show much here on this blog or over on my Facebook author page, I have made some significant gains. I’m going to break these down by month:

JUNE 2019

1) I am a member of COMPEL, which is a Christian-based writer’s group of sorts organized through Proverbs 31 Ministries. They have a ton of great content, and I enjoy working through their courses at my own pace.

During this month, they had a challenge for their members to write a short blog post about something I have learned as a writer or advice I would give.

Though ultimately, I did not “win” this challenge (as in, my blog did not get featured), I count it a win that I submitted something.

2) Also in June, The Write Practice (of which I am also a member) hosted a Summer Writing Contest.

Once again, I did not “win” in terms of the contest, but my story WAS published over on Short Fiction Break. You can find a link to that on my stories page or here: “Grow Toward the Light.”

Recently, I received feedback from the judges on my submission, and this feedback was so helpful and constructive. One judge wrote that my story made it to the second round of elimination, which I was STOKED to read.

If you’re interested, TWP hosts these contests seasonally, and I highly recommend participating, not only because everyone has the option to have her story published, but also because it is a workshopped contest. Each participant must submit his story to a workshop, critique three other contestants’ stories, and revise/edit that workshopped draft.

Theirs is an excellent approach to a writing contest, and it follows the page’s mission of establishing a writing practice.

JULY 2019

A Contest

1) The first round of NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction contest took place in July. In each round, participants are organized into a group, and each group is given a genre, location, and object that must be employed in those members’ stories.

My genre was “spy,” my location was a tattoo removal shop, and my object was cheesecake.

When I received my assignment on the Friday night the contest began, I did a little brainstorming, then went to bed. I woke up at 2:00 in the morning with my characters talking to me, got up, and wrote a rough draft.

With some guidance and feedback from my friend, Laura, I was able to write one of the best stories I’ve ever written. Seriously, y’all. I’ve never been more proud to call a story mine.

Last week, I received the results of that round, and y’all, my story placed third in the top fifteen, which gives me 13 points (the number one spot received 15 points). This puts me in a better position to advance to the third round, where the top five writers from each group in the first two rounds compete.

Overall, this first round was a huge win for me, and no matter how I do in the second round (of which I’ll write more here shortly), I am just so proud to be able to say I placed third in this round. That’s the highest I’ve ever scored in this particular annual competition.

A Course

2) Perhaps it was the high from finishing a story I could be so proud of, but I joined a course with The Write Practice; it’s called Write to Publish, and the goal is to produce something publishable (whether on one’s blog or on a platform like Amazon) at the end of eight weeks.

Though I started really well on this course, I had to go back to reality at the beginning of August (reality being my college teaching job), and time got away from me. Luckily, the kind folks at The Write Practice are super understanding, and they moved my membership to the next cohort of this course. While I didn’t finish this course on time (yesterday was the end of eight weeks), I will finish it by the end of this year.

A Career-Building Website

3) In conjunction with this course, I was encouraged to build an author website, which resulted in this lovely piece of digital property on which I’m posting. I am so thankful for the impetus TWP gave me to finally invest in my writing by investing in my author branding, and I look forward to seeing and participating in all the ways this could and will go.

AUGUST 2019

1) August was a return to the real world and work. I’m so grateful to have had the summer, for the most part, off. While I did teach a course, I had a great deal of spare time that I don’t usually have, and that time allowed me to make some major strides forward in my writing career. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

After such an eventful summer, August was low-key in comparison. I continued to write, though not as much as I would have liked, and I managed to meet with my writing buddy and friend, Laura, once for one of our Sunday writing afternoons.

I needed August to get back in the swing of things at work and to let that high of July level out a bit. It prepared me for this month, September.

SEPTEMBER 2019

In General

1) Laura and I met early in September for a writing Sunday, and I’ve gone to the writer’s group I’m part of twice so far this month, which is fantastic because I haven’t been since earlier this summer.

I have written daily this month more than I did over the summer, which is saying something, and I have to give a large amount of that credit to a program I joined that focuses on morning journaling and goal setting. I’m keeping this one close for now, but know that I’m seeing some amazing changes already, and I’ve only been a member for two weeks now.

Contests

2) This past weekend, round two of NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction contest took place.

For this round, my genre was “mystery,” my location was a dog park, and my object was a taser gun.

Following the pattern I established in the first round, I did some brainstorming/pre-writing on Friday night and went to bed. I didn’t get the same experience of waking up at two in the morning. This main character didn’t speak to me the same way.

Ultimately, though, I wrote a rough draft that clocked in at 1700 words. The limit is 1000. One of my writing friends, June, was kind enough to read my draft and provide extremely helpful suggestions and feedback that helped me knock it down to 1300 words.

At that point, I had to start “killing my darlings” as Stephen King suggests, and I slashed the final 300 words necessary to meet my word limit.

What resulted was an…okay…story. Admittedly, I’m not as pleased with this one as I was with the first. I remain hopeful that it will do well enough to put me in the top five of the first two rounds and move me into the third. I’ll know in November and let you all know as well.

3) Speaking of NYC Midnight, they have a a new competition for microfiction, stories that are 250 words or less. And, well, I joined this competition as well because apparently I’m not busy enough as it is. 🙂

If you’re interested, give it a shot! It’s a fun experience, and even though the author of my next number below doesn’t recommend paying to participate in competitions like this, it is so worth it for those of us still learning who need the motivation and the feedback provided.

A Reading Win

4) I read a great book, Playing the Short Game by Douglas Smith, that has inspired me to focus on my short stories. For the longest time, I’ve dreamt of publishing novels, but what this summer has taught me is that I have potential with short stories, and I want to develop that potential.

This book by Smith gives some excellent, practical advice on how to build a career through short story writing, and I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to do the same.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The last few months have been amazing and challenging and just so rewarding. I am growing and stretching my writing in ways I never imagined possible, and it’s giving me the confidence to branch out in many other areas. Undoubtedly, if I keep this up, my life will change. I can’t wait to see where it takes me, and I hope you’ll stay along for the ride.

How about y’all? What are your wins here recently? What do you want to brag on yourself for? Share your “life lately” answer in the comments below!

Much love,

Rachel

Currently:

Reading: Willpower Doesn’t Work by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Listening: When I’m working, whether it’s grading papers, writing stories or blogs, or reading for either, I love listening to classical music on YouTube. There’re some fantastic playlists there. But this one, y’all, is my favorite.

Watching: While I don’t watch a lot of TV or movies, I am SO. FREAKING. STOKED. for the NCIS season premier next week. ZIVA IS BACK!