Back when I first decided I wanted to be a writer all I thought about were writing books. Since then I’ve learned a lot about the writing world. I still think about writing books but I have also discovered that there are a lot of opportunities for new writers. One of them being magazines.
There are many magazines looking for freelancers to do articles for them. It doesn’t matter if you’re 12 or 20, it is very likely a magazine out there is interested in what you have to say.

One of the best ways to find these magazines is to buy a writer’s market book. If you do a search for them you’ll find ones with lists and lists of topics for you to write on. I’d say it’s a fundamental tool for any freelance writer. You could also do a Google Search for magazines but a writer’s market book will give you more choices and over-all information than you’d be able to get in a full day of internet surfing.

You might be thinking “I don’t know what to write about.” Well, I thought the same thing a couple years ago but I learned something since then that has given me confidence: write about what you know.

When someone approached me about writing for her homeschooling magazine my first thought was: “But my Mom’s the one who homeschooled!” Then my friend reminded me “You might not have been the one doing the homeschooling but you were on the other end, the one who was homeschooled.” And since then writing for the magazine from a graduated homeschooler’s perspective has given me all kinds of ideas for articles!

If you’re alive than you’ve had life experiences, write about those. If you’ve had trouble with something chances are that someone else has too and would like to know how you dealt with it.

It’s important to do research on the magazine before you query them with your article/short story/poem so you know what age group and what topics they publish, if they like what you show them they might even ask you for more!

One Heart

We Did

*Gasps for breath* Well, I’ve been running a marathon! An editing one, that is.

Yesterday I realized, to my despair, that I had to do some major editing in certain areas of my book “Silver Blood.” Cutting, pasting, fitting, dissecting, ect. Or, as I told my husband “I am going to preform surgery!”

It is very difficult to completely remove an element from a book. In my case I had to remove a character (minor but scattered throughout the book) and move information from the middle of the book to the back.

Airith, one of my main characters, falls in love with X-Sayda, the wild daughter of an Outland chieftain. She encourages Airith but then betrays him by marrying someone else for power. After her husband is poisoned (suspicious, anyone?) she decides that she wants Airith after all. By then he has realized what sort of person she really is and refuses her. Though the Witch Queen encourages Airith to marry her to gain power and influence.
Originally X-Sayda is only met or mentioned a few times in the book, her and Airith’s past relationship is only hinted at.

I decided: “I should add more of their relationship to the book.” So I did.
Then I realized: “By adding all these extra parts I am making my word count higher than I want. And how am I supposed to make this all time-consistent?”
So I said: “I’ll just take her out completely!” Then I realized she was involved intricately in a major part of the book. So….I made her a minor part again. Sigh.

Have you ever had to remove parts from your book/writing or add parts that gave you grief?

Where does the inspiration that fuels your writing come from?
Movies? Other books? Dreams? Conversations?

Mine can come from all of those, inspiration seems to hit when you least expect it. Today I went somewhere I never thought to go for inspiration – a nature museum.
In my family it used to be tradition on birthdays to go to the museums here in Ottawa (Science and Tecnology Museum, Nature Museum or the Aviation Museum) Of all of those my favourite was the Nature Museum or “The Castle Museum” as we liked to call it.

Can you guess why?

I, however, had not been there in years. So, I made a point to visit it since I now live in Ottawa. Today was National Museum day so my husband and I got to visit for free!

To put all your fears at rest, that was not a REAL dinosaur, despite what you may think…

At one point I was looking intently into a display case and saw some vesuvianite (a green crystal). I thought my husband was standing behind me so I cried out excitedly: “I have some of that at home!” as I turned towards him. Then I realized that it was not my husband behind me as I had thought. It was a woman who ran off rather quickly O_O

They had some of my favourite kinds of birds; loons, falcons and hawks!
One of my characters is named Falcon 🙂

I also saw a kestrel for the first time and was imediately reminded of Lloyd Alexander’s book: “The Kestrel.”
He was a favorite author of mine when I was younger.
Have you ever visted somewhere and unexpectedly found inspiration? If so, where?

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke– my all-time favourite book! And here is why:

The Covers for the whole series are amazing. I was the first thing to attract me to it. It captures the feel of the books without giving anything away.

The Quotes at the beginning of each chapter pertain to the plot. I enjoyed studying the quotes and trying to guess what would happen next.

The Plot was brilliant: Mo, Maggie’s father can read characters out of books! He accidentally reads a particularly evil one out and reads his own wife in! He spends years trying to get her back. Maggie discovers she has her father’s gift and they both find themselves on an adventure that usually only happens in books.

What reader hasn’t fantasized about meeting their favourite fictional characters?

The Descriptions, next to the plot, were my favourite part of the books. Cornelia Funke has a wonderful gift for description, some times I would re-read parts just because I loved the way she made words come alive.

The Characters were 3D, you really fall in love with their quirks and even though Dustfinger, the fire-dancer, can frustrate the reader, the story would not be the same without him.

I Disliked the swearing. Mild swearwords though they were, I was shocked to find them in a children’s book.
The plot was wonderful but the story’s pacing was not very good. In the first book Mo, Maggie and Dustfinger get captured and escape too many times. The book felt dis-jointed at some parts.

The Verdict: well, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Inkheart is my favourite book. So, I absolutely love the series!

Where have I been?
I’m not entirely sure. See, I’ve been working and editing… and… well that’s all I can remember O_O Oh! Yes! I’ve also been reading!

I started a fantasy book that I decided 3/4’s of the way through – sucked. So, while I was looking for a birthday present for my husband at Chapters the other day (where else would I look?), I glanced around for a book to read. To my dismay, all I saw were…. fairy, vampire and werewolf books. *Sigh* I think my generation doesn’t have good taste in books. Not that I have anything against paranormal books, but the obsession that goes along with them doesn’t sit well with me.
Then! I remembered… “What was that book…? That one I read about on the author’s blog…?… Ah-ha!”

And that, my friends, is how I bought “Incarnate” by Jodi Meadows.

 Synopsis:
Ana is the first “newsoul” to be born in Range. For thousands of years people have lived, died, and been born again while keeping the memories from their previous lives. Ana, however, replaced someone. She was never supposed to be born. Her mother hates her and many are afraid there will be more like her that will replace old souls.
At 18 she travels to Heart, the city where most of the population of Range lives. Along the way she is rescued from drowning by Sam, a music composer. His body is around the same ages as hers but he has lived and died hundreds of times.
He watches out for her and takes her to Heart with him. There, Ana searches for the reason for her existence.
The counsel, however, isn’t as eager as Sam is to receive her and she is subjected to their rules. They claim it is for her safety and benefit. But she asks too many questions about things others think she shouldn’t. She finds herself in danger of being killed. Ana and Sam form a strong attachment through music which quickly becomes much more.

What I liked:
It was unique. I’d never read a fantasy book about reincarnation before. The book kept me engaged all the way through.
I liked that Ana accepted help from Sam. Most female characters tend to try to be too tough and it’s hard for me to relate to them when I am frustrated with them every time they get into a conversation with their romantic interest. Ana, however, had a nice balance of independence while still relying on others. Her character development was well paced.
The imagery in the book was also quite good. Imagery is something that I have always found hard to write but Jodi Meadows had enough description to give me a vivid picture in my head without overwhelming with details.
The book is well written.

What I Didn’t Like:
I appreciated the idea that a soul isn’t defined by it’s gender but I wasn’t a fan of the idea that people’s souls were reincarnated into both male and female bodies, depending on the life-time.
Sam and Ana make some suggestive comments to each other near in the latter half of the book. In my opinion, books for teens have far too much of that these days. “Intimate” scenes are uncalled for, especially in books for teen girls (I ought to know, I’m still one myself). I prefer to read and suggest a book to friends without being uncomfortable about parts in it. I returned “The Graceling” by Kristin Cashore to Chapters for that very reason and ranted to my friends about how annoyed I was.

Verdict:
Over-all, I liked “Incarnate” and look forward to the sequel!

Back when I first met my husband he sent me a story that he wrote using only dialogue, which inspired me to write one of my own. This is what I came up with:

Thinking too Much  
by Grace R. Pringle 

“What have you been doing?”

Writing is a habit. I say this because I seem to have fallen out of it this past year.
It is so easy to say “I’ll write that down later” or “if I put it on my desktop in plain view I’ll get around to it for sure.” What usually happens is that automatic dismissal of that project forms every time it catches my eye.

Here are some lessons I’ve learned (I re-learn them often.)

–Writing needs to be made a daily activity. It isn’t a matter of fitting it into your schedule it’s a matter of simply DOING it. Don’t skip out on it if you are too tired that day or feel too busy. Not so easy, I know.

–The life of a writer isn’t exactly cookie-cutter “go to work, get money, come home.” It’s: write, write, write, I-have-a-billion-other-things-to-do-right-now-but-I’m-going-to-write-anyway, write, write, write, research-publishing-companies-authors-and-writing-tips-till-your-eyes-blurr, write, write, write…

–Eating shouldn’t become an option.
It’s hard to write when you’re thinking about how hungry you are, no matter how interesting a conversation your characters are having.
Some people find it motivating to write first thing in the morning with breakfast as a reward for their work. However, I have found that extremely unhelpful so I eat first.

–Grabbing the opportunity to write whenever you feel motivated is key to getting something written.
If you pass those opportunities off then you lose some of your most powerful writing.
When you are passionate and interested in something a reader will notice it.
Not to say that is an excuse to not write when you don’t feel like it.

Is it October already? The 15th you say? Now I’m worried. It happens to be my birthday in a week and that always gets me into a reminiscing mood, thinking over the past year and what’s been done in it.

Here is my list of accomplishments:

~ I resolved to edit/write more of my books (that was done in short spurts and for short times)
~ Started writing articles for a magazine (before this year I didn’t think I had anything article-worthy but it seemed all that was needed was the right subject).
~ Planned a wedding (not on my own, thank goodness!) and got married.

~Started a writer’s book club called “The Signature Literary Society” with several other writing friends
~ Moved out of home and into an apartment with my husband
~ Bought books
~ Got a part-time job
~ Decided cooking wasn’t so bothersome after all!

In that order. Though, “bought books” MIGHT have been a “whole year” thing.

Next to getting married, my niece’s birth was my favourite event of the year 😀

I have some truly wonderful people in my life and a Father who loves me; this year was beautiful.