The Pen of a Ready Writer

Greetings, everyone!!!!  Today, I get to interview the lovely Kellyn Roth about her story, Adae .  This is my second Snow White interview, and I am having so much fun getting to talk with these authors. Everybody, please welcome Kellyn Roth! (cue whistles and clapping and cheering) Me:      Hi, Kellyn!   Welcome!   Can you tell me a little bit about your Snow White story? Kellyn: My novella is about a young queen, Adae, who doesn't really seem to fit in. She's convinced her younger sister would make a much better ruler than she, but tradition binds her to the throne. Her fairy godmother gifts her a magic looking glass on her coronation day, and the mirror, Carmelli, becomes her only friend. After Carmelli warns her of an assassination attempt, Adae must flee to the forest to hide from her more powerful sister. Necessary parts of the writing process: This is Aubrey a couple months ago, when I was writing.  She i...

These were the Special Unicorns!  They were the stories that received perfect scores from the judges feedback. Sarah Pennington: Blood in the Snow Cortney Manning: Yellow Bright Elizabeth Brown: Heir Esther Brooksmith: The Blood of Beauty

Here are the Finalists!  Do you know any of them? And four of them are Winners, and four of them are Special Unicorns! Elizabeth Buckles: Moonsilver Abby Jones: The Fighting Sullivans Skye Hoeffert: Falling Snow Ashley Lorraine Brown: We Were Children Once Maddie Wilson Morrow: Red as Blood Kathryn McConaughy: Overpowered Dana Li: Pilot Tide Rachel Holt Wallen: Snowbird and the Red Slippers Melanie Morgan: Der WieBe Diamonte Und Die Schartzperle Maddy Churchhouse: Solar Bright and the Seven Droids Jenelle Hovde: Raven's Heir Rebekah DeVall: Death's Mirror Sophia White: The Colour of Life Sarah Pennington: Blood in the Snow Rachael and Luke Morales: Appleseed Heather Love Fitzgerald: For Such a Time as This Cerra Anderson: The Dragons Challenge Elizabeth Brown/Betsy Waggoner: Heir Rachel Harris: The Owl's Talons Gabrielle Heffelfinger: The Nightmare Child Cortney Manning: Yellow Bright ...

Below are the Honorable Mentions.  Do you know any of them? Meredith Burton: The Princess and the Invisible Apple Tree Audie Thacker: The Reward Amy Green: The Fairest Rival Cortney Manning: The Fairest One Valerie Cotnoir: The War Within Rebecca Fox: Seventh Night Wyn Owens: But One Life Belle Currer (Cortney Manning): Blossoms of White and Gold Nicole Galbraith: The Poison App Claire Banschbach: Threads of Yellow, Blue, and Red Grace Taber: Sea White Jessica Mousolf: Liberation Madeline J. Martin: Baek Seol-ah

    It is late, and I need to go to bed.  But I wanted to stop by here before I go!  I had a wonderful night on the Facebook party, and I can't wait to share it all with you.      My full reveal and what I thought about everything will have to be tomorrow.  But just in case any of you weren't able to attend the Facebook party and you are itching to know...here are the winners!!!!     Our very own Skye Hoeffert is a winner!  You've seen her commenting on this blog.  Skye plus Jenelle Hovde, Cortney Manning, Maddie Morrow, and Rachel Wallen created the five winners.  Congratulations, guys!!!!  I'm so proud of you!!!      And, while I was not a winner, I did place as a finalist and a Special Unicorn, which feels like a joyous accomplishment.  So it's a happy day all around, and I'll be back tomorrow to talk about it some more.  Thank you again to everyone who cheered me on!

      I am still thinking about some of the powerful themes of Snow White. This story packs a big punch! There is the ideology of beauty and what defines it. There are opportunities to explore jealousy, pain, betrayal, grasps for control, and the way people react to trauma in their lives. There are reflections of truth and honesty, if you explore the role of the mirror. There are people who will show kindness, mercy, and forgiveness. There will also be judgements and consequences. There is family, friendship, true love.          The mirror in the Snow White story was the voice of honesty.  To me, it was a machine of facts.  It had no feelings.  It never considered anyone else's feelings.  It merely stated what it saw to be true.      In my story, it was a trusted source for a character surrounded by court intrigue and people who tried to manipulate you.  This is something that ...

The day has finally arrived!  The winners to the Rooglewood contest were announced this morning.  Hurray! I recognized three titles in the top 10: Guardian of our Beauty, The Brightest Thread, and Freeze/Thaw.  And you have no idea how excited I was to see those names!!!  I'm so proud of you guys! Congratulations to all the winners and finalists!  I'm looking forward to hearing more of your stories soon! If you haven't yet, please head over to Rooglewood's page to see the winners list and the other five finalists ! For those of you who won the contest, you will now be plunged into the exciting world of editing and publishing.  But the rest of us have to wait on the stories that will emerge this summer. What do we do while we wait? Keep writing and read some good stories, of course!!! To help us with that, my friend, Emily Ann Putzke, will be on my blog this afternoon to talk about her favorite writing websites.  Emily has thr...

I am too excited to write a normal post.  Please accept this writerly expression of my anticipation instead.  See you all tomorrow!!!!!      Once upon a time, there was a princess who received a prick from a spindle that turned her into an authoress.  She was immediately locked away in a tower, there to dream up endless plots and worlds and characters and write them down.  She was told that someday she would be awakened from her dreamy state and introduced into the publishing world by an acceptance from a publishing company (practically the same thing as a kiss from a prince).      On the last day of February (the 29th, no less, for it was a leap year), rumors were whispered through the tower.  A prince would be passing through on the morrow.  Was he the one?  The authoress did not know.  All she could do was to fall asleep and wait for the dawn.  In the morning she would know if his kiss awakened her or if...

This is the part when I think it gets really hard.  Because five days can seem like an eternity. But what happens at the end of those 5 days? Today I want to talk about what happens if you win.  Because, honestly, that excites me more than I let on.  And it scares me a little bit, too.  In a good way. There's a good scared and a bad scared.  I talked about that many months ago.  "Bad scared" warns you to get out of a bad situation.  "Good scared" is the feeling you get when you are about to do something that takes a lot of courage but you know you will be glad that you did it. If you win this contest, your name will be posted on the announcement page along with the title of the story you worked so hard on.  And then you will work with Rooglewood's editors and marketers to polish up your story and share it with the world. You will have to make changes.  But you will also learn a lot.  And it will be worth it.  That's t...

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?

Hi, guys!  Thank you for joining me!  I'm continuing my countdown to Rooglewood's announcement on March 1st.  We have only 12 days to go!  And it's SO nice to wait with you guys.  As you know, this year's Rooglewood contest is the third of its kind.  The first year, the contest was for Cinderella retellings, and, last year, it was a Beauty and the Beast retelling.  Have you read either of those anthologies?  Did you like them?  Do you own a hard copy of them?  Or an ebook version?  Or both? I read both anthologies.  I have Five Glass Slippers in paperback, and I have Five Enchanted Roses as an ebook.  And, of course, I'm looking forward to adding Five Magic Spindles to my collection. But what I really wanted to talk about today was Five Glass Slippers (partly so that I'm thinking about something different than this year's anthology but still somewhat related).  For those of you who have read it, what were you...

Ladies and gentlemen,       We are in the final two weeks of the countdown.  In fourteen days, the five winning stories will be announced.  Huzzah!      Shall we count down the last 14 days together?  Time flies faster when you are with good friends.  If I write a "countdown post" twice a week, maybe March 1st will be here before we know it.  I could share something contest-related on Mondays and Thursdays.  How does that sound?      Okay, here it goes.      I know we've all seen some of the wonderful stories that Rooglewood had to pick from.  Maybe you read the blurbs shared in the  September Show and Tell  or on some of the blogs around here.  Maybe you proofread a friend's story before she sent it.  Maybe you wrote a great story and submitted this year.  But I think we are all agreed that the Rooglewood team had an awesome set of stories from which to choo...

     Greetings, dear friends!  I have returned to the blogging world!      My absence provided me a lovely break from deadlines.  I must admit, as much as I love writing, the weeks with no posts to schedule were refreshing.  I highly recommend taking the occasional break, if you can.      My sabbatical was not empty.  I have been writing -- lots of journalling, mostly.  And I started working at the veterinary clinic again (yay!).  But that's not the biggest thing that has happened.       The biggest thing is that I now have a boyfriend. And he is awesome.  And this has inspired me to do a bunch of journaling because I have to wrap my brain around this new life journey and because I think better on paper.  I'm sure you writers can relate.      I will do my best, over the coming months, to not bore you with sappy posts. ;)  But I am excited about the things God in ...

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....

No, I'm not talking about Christmas presents. I'm talking about the stories for the Rooglewood contest.  In two days is the deadline for turning in your submission forms -- so if they haven't already been sent in, you have 2 days to get them postmarked and on their way. I finished my drafts and some edits on all of my stories earlier in the fall.  Then I got terribly overwhelmed and decided to hide and pretend that there were no stories waiting for me on my computer.  I was like the little frilled lizard on The Rescuers Down Under, with my hands over my ears, dancing around singing, "Dadabaduba, dadabaduba, I can't hear you!" Which, as cowardly as it sounds, was probably a good thing.  Because, essentially, I was taking the recommended break so that I could come back with fresh eyes.  I just didn't know that's what I was doing.  I thought I was procrastinating. But then, last Tuesday, I sat down and read through AAM.  With a big gulp, I decided...

Ta-da!  I just submitted my AAM manuscript to Rooglewood Press for their 5MS contest.  Although, at the moment, I feel less like "ta-da" and more like... Yeah. It's always a bit of a leap of faith to let a story go. But it feels good to send it, too.  I hope it fairs well.  I'm sending my submission application forms for the other two stories to Rooglewood tomorrow, and I'm going to try to have both of them ready to go by December 20th. Godspeed, my little stories....

     He placed his foot on the first step and his skin prickled with the knowledge that an hundred arrows could be released into his flesh with the flick of a finger.                                                                                                                      ~AAM

Attention, those of you participating in the Rooglewood contest, please check out an important announcement on the Rooglewood page: http://www.rooglewoodpress.com/#!writing-contest/c22i6 The guidelines haven't changed for us -- we still have the same deadlines. But there is a window of time wherein any submitted forms will have to sit patiently in an inbox for a while. In other words, if you submit your application tomorrow, you can count on not getting your "please-send-your-story" email until December 20th. Applications must still be postmarked by December 16, and stories must still be submitted by the end of December. So really, nothing has changed for us, except now we are prepared to be patient. I don't know about you, but I'm actually glad to know I have that long for edits without feeling like THEY are waiting on ME.

     “Don’t worry.  This won’t hurt you,” the little girl said majestically.  She wiped the leaf on his lips.        Detlef sucked in a breath as his eyes started to water.  “Won’t hurt?  It burns like pepper on an open wound.”      She scrunched her face and peered up at him hopefully.  “Won’t hurt…much?”      He laughed.  “Whoo-eee.”  And blinked the tears away.  "I'll be reluctant to try your cooking when you grow up."

     Greetings, fellow writers and readers!  I decided it was time for an update on our contest entries.  Can you believe it is November already??? THE COUNTDOWN Deadline to turn in submission forms: 6 weeks 2 days Deadline for submission of stories: 8 weeks 3 days Announcement of winners: 17 weeks 1 day      Are you getting excited yet?  We still have a little bit of time left, but the end is in sight!      I am still working on mine, and these final few weeks bring up a few new challenges. 1) The "Oh, no, this is a mess" challenge      The deadline is approaching and your story is only halfway done.  Or it's completely written but has major plot holes.  The challenge here is NOT TO PANIC.        This is where SPINDLE was a week ago.  And it was not cooperating.  In all honesty, I wrote and rewrote a dozen times.  It was like pulling hens...