The Writer's Mind Game

     It amazes me how much writing is like a mind game. We talk about this in sports. If you want to be the top of your sport, you have to believe that you can do it.
     Even for top athletes, this is not easy. Thoughts come. "It's too far. It's too high. You won't make it this time. Your opponent is better than you." When you are breaking records, you are asking your body to go beyond what it thinks it can do. If you give in to those negative thoughts, all of your physical efforts will fall short. You won't make it.
     You have to turn it around. "I can do this. I'm good at this. I will reach my goal. I can push harder because I have even more to give."
     Artists know about the mind game, too. Your emotion is visible in the lines you create. What do you think about as you portray your subject? Whatever it is will be visible in your art. The end goal is different (no marathons or long-jumps here), but you still have to have joy in what you do.
     Joy.
     If you love what you are writing, there is a much greater chance that, regardless of your genre, people will love reading it. They will pick up on your joy as a writer.
     People love joy.

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Goodbye and God Be With You

It's rather fitting that some things come to a close on this day -- the last day of the year. I submitted my last entry into the Rooglewood contest this morning. I can hardly believe it took me until the day of the deadline to send it in because I'm usually earlier than that. And, even with the extra time I took, I still felt a little bit like maybe I could have done better if I had more time. But there was no feeling of regret when I hit "send." Mostly it was just a prayer that Rooglewood would hear the heart of the message when they read it and that maybe, if I win, they could help me bring the full potential out of my little story. And there was also a feeling, after working on these stories for more than six months, that it felt good to close that chapter and move on to the next one. I did it. I wrote them. And I'm really proud of them. Last year, the act of hitting "send" on my contest entry catapulted me into an anticipatory state....

The Countdown: Eight Days

Eight days. Do you know what that means? Barely over a week. Tomorrow will be one week from the announcement date. Are you excited? I am. So, today, I want to talk to those who wrote something for the contest, whether or not you entered it in the end. What made you start writing your story? What was the first inkling of an idea that tickled your brain? What was it that you liked about your premise? As you wrote, did you have a favorite character or a favorite scene? And are you glad you wrote it down? Do you feel like you learned and grew in your ability as a writer as you tried out things for this contest? And, if your story isn't included in this year's Rooglewood anthology (either because you didn't submit it or because it didn't fit with the other four stories selected), what will you do with it? Will you market it elsewhere? Or will you lock it away in a drawer?

Rooglewood Countdown: 12 days

For the next 12 1/2 days, as we do our final countdown until March 31st, I'm going to do 4 posts asking about something you would like to see in the Snow White collection. There are so many ways all of us, writers and readers alike, can win in this contest. Maybe a familiar name makes it into the final five -- hurray! Maybe a story in your favorite genre ended up in the collection this year -- woohoo! Maybe you finally get to read a winning story about an evil king and his Snow White son -- how awesome! So, in celebration of all the many things we can root for, I want to know some of the things that you think would be cool to find in this year's set of winners. Without further ado, here is my question for the day: What is a point of view you would like to see in this collection? Would you like a story written from the prince's perspective? A story from Snow White's p...

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