Melissa-Wanna-be something, but not sure just what that is.....

Hey all!

I am Melissa, I live in McKeesport Pa. I am the single mom of 3 girls. I have lots of talents, but writing is one that I find the most challenging for me. I am currently working on several different stories, and have a ton more on the brain.

So glad to see my long time good friend here. I really enjoyed the first piece you posted and can't wait to read more!

Hey Lyss thanks so much for giving me the invite! I am looking forward to the feed back. It is a goal to get publish at some point. (I guess you can say failure is NOT an option for me here.. ) I look forward to reading and learning from each member!

Welcome Melissa! Thank you for joining us here. I hope this group can provide an outlet for your ideas. I know what that feeling's like, by the way. Reading what you wrote, I wonder about two things...is there any thing we can do to provide a source of organization for your ideas? I myself have a terrible habit of leaving things, including my best ideas, all over the place, like on the back of bills or scraps of paper...so what if we had a personal section somewhere, electronically, that would be the go to place with ideas - maybe even one that could be completely private for each of us.
Also, is there anything we can do to help with the failure is not an option publishing goal? Look forward to meeting you.

Julie

Thank Julie for such a warm welcome! I think a place for us to put our ideas that you have is a good one. I think that it would make a good tool for us scatter brains out there!

I would love to be published someday, but have no idea on how to go about it. Also I am not all that confident in my writing abilities. This is an area that I never really developed. Any information that you could tell me about how to go bout it, would be appreciated. THANKS!

Melissa - we'll have to see about some kind of organizational tool. I don't know about you, but I've had a lot of luck getting my ideas together when I have some sort of form to put them into, something to write towards. In the workshop I'm in right now, there are all of these technical excercises we're doing, from "Steering the Craft".
For example, we did one where you had to write a 350 word scene using only sentences made of seven words or less. Since I'd finally bit the bullet and made a long ass list, hahah, I was able to just pull from that and it was amazing -- for about half a page, my crazy ideas were doing something that actually made sense. So, it's nice to have them somewhere, because you'll never know know when you'll be able to put them into action.
As far as the publishing goes, we'll have to get up more information about that too. I've found a lot of the publishing articles and advice is pretty run of the mill. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes very encouraging, sometimes, less so. The best advice I have -- and I don't have much, I do and have worked as a writer, but mostly in rather boring venues, like grants and newspapers (compared to what I thought I'd be doing when I was in college...) but the best advice I have is to decide what you have that's ready to go and get it out there. I've seen people with a whole system, every thing goes out on such and such a day, as it comes back with a rejection slip, turn it right back around and send it to another publication. Also, know what kind of place you're sending to, and contacts, networking, and etc, are good, too.
So, my question for you, after this long preamble...what are you looking to publish? Do you have anything ready?
I'd really like to help people get their work out there, and if there's any way I can through this group, I'll do it...
Here's a neat link: http://www.duotrope.com/

I have posted about 6 chapters of a story that I am working on here in the Novels section. That is one that I am looking to get published....Thanks for the advice, I think I am going to look into that exercise that you told me about. That looks like something that would be a bit of a challenge. Thanx!!

Cool. I'll check out what you posted (the chapters) but I want to make sure I have time to really read it, not just look over it
With that excercise...hold on, let me check...ok, I checked. With that excercise, I put up a link to the Google Books preview of le Guin's' "Steering the Craft". Not all the pages are there of course, but some with excercises are. My post is under "Books" on here.
Just so ya know.

--Julie