Linda K. Sienkiewicz's Blog, page 55
August 9, 2015
Countdown to Publication – 30 days!
Thirtydays tillmy book release date. Just one more month and September 8th will be here. I’m super excited, but I didn’texpect to feel this anxiety that makesmy stomach flutterand my brain spin.
I guess it’s not hard to understand. For awriter, anovel ismore thanwords on paper. In the Context of Loverepresents a dream I’ve nurturedfor years. Obsessively. It followed me around all day. At night, it lay next to me in bed, breathing and grumbling long past lights out. It contains my heart and so...
August 6, 2015
What, Why, How: Cynthia Harrison
WHAT?
I am a writing fiend; I write everything. Journals. Journalism. Poetry. Book reviews. Masters Thesis. Blog. Short stories. Novels. Even a movie treatment for HBO. The fascinating history of all this is in my creative writing memoir (disguised as a textbook) for my college freshman creative writing students. I tell my writing story, with examples, and give homework exercises to get the creative juices flowing.
One bored summer, feeling sorry for myself because I was teaching not writin...
August 2, 2015
Baby Skunk Saved by Brave Cop
This was high drama in tiny Rochester for a sleepy Sundaymorning. I stepped outside to grab the morning Free Press andmy neighbor called out to me, “Come see this. There’s a baby skunk with a cup stuck on its head.”
The little kit, blinded by the cup, was running circles in the road. It would bump into the curb and toddle back out. I gotdizzy watching it. Valerie said she had already called the police, but the dispatcher doubted they could do anything. My heart was breaking. We watched, helpl...
August 1, 2015
What, Why, How: Molly D. Campbell
WHAT?
Fiction and flash fiction. Humor blogging.
WHY?
If you had told me fifteen years ago that I would become a novelist and blogger, I would have scoffed. I had a career or two, raised my two wonderful daughters, nursed my husband after he suffered a massive stroke (he recovered fully, thank God), had a great time for eight years as a receptionist at a veterinary practice, and then, finally, began writing at the suggestion of a friend who thought I wrote funny emails.
It was a revelation t...
July 27, 2015
Speak without Shame: Sexual Assault
Admitting that you’ve been sexually assaultedisn’t easy. The shame, the self blame, and the humiliation over being intimately violatedrunsdeep. For some,it’s easier to pretend it didn’t happen, until something triggers amemory and it all comes back.
For me, the trigger was Facebook and that annoying friend featurecalled “People You May Know.” The name of my assailant and his photo popped up, mostlikely because ofone or two mutual friends from yearsago. The momentI saw his face, intense feelin...
July 25, 2015
In the Context of Love GIVEAWAY!!
To enter the US Goodreads Giveaway for a pre-launch copy, click below. My publisher will send books to 10 lucky readers on Aug. 24th. If you win, you’llget to read and review the book 2 weeksbefore anyone else!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
In the Context of Love by Linda K. Sienkiewicz Giveaway ends August 23, 2015.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Add the book to your Want-to-Read list on Goodreads. If you’re too excited to wait,pre-order the book onAmazon!
From B...
July 20, 2015
What, How, Why: Rick Bailey
WHAT?
Subjects happen along. What I’m writing today will be shaped by something that happens tomorrow.
A few weeks ago I saw a photograph of Heidi Klum stretching a pair of underpants, which reminded me of buying my first pair of microfibers in Florence, which reminded me of seeing, in a church close by the market, Masaccio’s Adam and Eve being ejected from the Garden of Eden, newly aware of their nakedness, suddenly in need of briefs and, of course, salvation. It hadn’t occurred to me that I...
July 16, 2015
Query 100 Agents
These numbers will tell you why you should make a pact with yourself to query at least 100 agents:
Number of agents I queried in an eight-month period: 83
Number that did not respond at all: 35
Number that rejected my initial query: 32
Number that requested more material and then rejected it: 11
Number that were reading it when I got a two offers of representation: 5
The query process for my literary novel in 2010 wasa long eight months of highs and lows and more lows. Giving up was not an op...
July 13, 2015
Frustration
The other day, my seven-year old granddaughter and I madecritters out of sea shells.She did the designing and I handled the hot glue gun. I had to do my best to interpret her visions. I learned she’s particular. She didn’t want anything too crazy or make believe. No putting eyes on any old shell. I’d show her something and she would laugh and say, “Oh, Nana,” as you would say to a silly child, “Not like that.”
After we ran out of sea shells,she wantedmake a three dimensional paper peacock and...
July 10, 2015
What, How, Why: Ruth Foley
WHAT?
Poems. Lots and lots of poems—formal, free-verse, all the stuff in the middle. A list of five things that don’t suck (almost every day). Reviews, talks, emails. Too many emails. But then poems again. Editing Cider Press Review. And when I’m not doing that, there’s water and being on and/or in it; teaching; reading obsessively; a specialty in English as a Second Language; a deep abiding love for Cary Grant; and keeping the greyhounds and the backyard bees content.
WHY?
The long version...
