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Month: January 2013

Writing Opportunity: writeorama.com

Writing Opportunity: writeorama.com

I’m feeling a bit under the weather today (headcold impairing my brainzes) so I don’t have much in the way of stuff from my own head. So I figured I’d share this cool thing I received in my e-mail this weekend from Aniket who manages http://writeorama.com/

I am pleased to inform you that prompts are back on write-o-rama.

New authors appreciate any help they can get to promote their books.
To do our bit in helping with the promotion, we’ll be having a featured book by a newly published author every month.

The idea is to use the book title and cover as a prompt and write a story/poem in 500 words or less.
The author of the book will pick the winning entry and the winner would get a free copy of the book.

The featured book this month is ‘The League for the Suppression of Celery’ by Wendy Russ.

Do write to participate in the contest, and also help spread the word about new books by these awesome folks. Looking forward to your stories.

–Aniket, write-o-rama

Sounds pretty cool to me. I’ll definitely be taking part in writeorama, once I get my head cleared. I hope you do too.

On Writing: You Don’t Need A Fancy Desk

On Writing: You Don’t Need A Fancy Desk

I’ve been doing a bit of woodworking the past month, building a coffee table with a removable top for storing Lego and other toys. I’ve never done a major woodworking project in my life and certainly never built furniture. But the kids got a bunch of Lego for Christmas and I thought they needed a nice surface play on, so I figured why not. Also, Lego tables to purchase go for $100 at the cheapest. I figured I’d be able to make something for less than that.

My “workshop” isn’t much to speak of. I do my work in my basement, unorganized and chaotic. My tools have no home, really. They are on a pile in the floor. I had never used my table saw before this project.

However, if I decided I’d have to wait until I had a proper workshop I’d never built anything at all. You don’t need fancy tools to do something. YOU. JUST. NEED. TO. START. I started and this is what I accomplished:

table2

table1

table3

Not perfect, but certainly not bad. Anyway, it’s the same with writing. You don’t need fancy toys. You don’t need that Macbook Air. You don’t need that beautifully large desk inside the rotunda of that gorgeous Victorian home. You don’t need absolute silence, or the kiss from a unicorn under a rainbow. To write all you really need is to begin.

It could be a napkin in the coffee shop. It could be the back of the mortgage bill while you are lying in bed, unable to sleep. It could be at your laptop on your lunch break at work. It could be any or none of these things, so long as you just write.

You don’t need a fancy desk. Heck, you don’t even need to know what you’re doing. I didn’t, and things turned out okay.

I Love Girl (Excellent Short Story by Simon Rich)

I Love Girl (Excellent Short Story by Simon Rich)

Simon Rich is an excellent writer who writes funny stuff for things. One such funny thing he wrote was for a short story published in the New Yorker titled I Love Girl. It’s written in the voice of a cave man struggling with self identity and wanting for the affections of Girl. It’s a quick and funny read and I highly recommend it. Here is an excerpt:

I love Girl. I will explain what that is. When I look at her, I feel sick like I am going to die. I have never had the Great Disease (obviously, because I am still alive). But my uncle described it to me. He said there is a tightness in your chest, you cannot breathe, and you have anger toward the Gods. I was going to ask him to explain more, but then he died. My point is: Girl makes me feel this way, like I am going to die. There are many women in the world. By last count, seven. But she is the only one I ever loved.

Tell me you don’t want to read more of that. Simon Rich also happens to have a new book coming out January 22nd (2013 for those reading this in the FUTURE) titled The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories. I can only hope it’s as good as this short story.