Phyllis Anne Duncan (P. A. Duncan)'s Blog, page 62

The Year of Conferencing Writerly

At the beginning of 2012, I vowed to make regular attendance at writers conferences and workshops part of my writing life for the new year. So far, I’m on a roll.

March was AWP in Chicago, IL. Very intimate. Just me and 10,000 other writers. But it was an energizing experience, and I got to hear Margaret Atwood speak–one of my inspirations. I went to amazing panels and heard amazing writers read from their works. I came away thrilled that I was a minor character in such a life-affirming play.

March also brought the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, VA. It’s a bit disingenuous to call this a local conference because, though it highlights Virginia writers, the reach goes beyond the Commonwealth. The panels here are not entirely craft-focused, but they are practical. Where else would I have learned how to use Pinterest to market books?

In June there was Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop in Roanoke, VA. I blogged a great deal about that week, so I won’t belabor any points previously made. I’ll just say I’m still aloft on that cloud of euphoria. And I’ll be back for more next year and not just for the strength of the workshops and the quality of the instructors but also for the friends I made there.

Upcoming is the Virginia Writers Club’s “Navigating the Writing Life” on August 4 in Charlottesville, VA. This is a one-day conference packed with useful workshops, and if you’re within a few states of Virginia, I encourage you to make the trip.

Also in August on the 18th, is a one-day “Gathering of Writers” sponsored by Press 53 and held in Winston-Salem, NC. I’m making a weekend of it and am looking forward to a packed day of craft workshops and meeting great writers.

And last, thus far, and certainly not least is the James River Writers Conference in Richmond, VA. Last year I only went for the day and missed out on a lot. This year because the conference has grown in attendance, it’s moving to the Richmond Civic Center. Friday will be two intensive workshops, then Saturday and Sunday craft panels and readings by Virginia writers. I haven’t yet worked up the nerve for First Pages or the five-minute agent pitches. There’s always next year.

Has it been worth it? Oh, yes. There’s always something more to learn about writing, about yourself as a writer, and the writing life. And writers network, too. There’s nothing like shared experiences to bond people, and it’s always great to know you’re not the only one being rejected by publications.

The only problem is, once you starting going to writing conferences, you keep going back! In this case, that’s a good thing.

 

If You’re Interested…

…here’s a link to my feature article appearing in today’s Staunton News Leader: Playing with Fire. It’s about a local blacksmithing guild, and I did a lot of very fun and interesting research for the article.

If you don’t see the link on “Playing with Fire” above, hover your cursor over the “Published Works” tab above, select Non-Fiction, and scroll down to NEWSPAPER ARTICLES.

Friday Fictioneers Heard it Through the Grapevine!

You’ll get it when you see the picture. I’d thought when I saw this week’s photo that whatever story I wrote had to have the title “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” but the muses had a different idea.

Once again, Friday Fictioneers has encouraged me to expand my comfort zone with writing. I’ve been adamant about not writing fantasy, mainly because I’m no good at it, but this week’s story definitely has a fantasy element to it.

Because the Friday Fictioneers community of writers is so supportive, you have immediate comfort when you want to try something new. No one is going to say, “Oh, God, that was awful!” They will tell you what stood out for them, what line stays with them, and, if you are a bit off, the critique will be constructive.

And Friday Fictioneers keeps growing. We’d already become international a few months back, but last week there were 73 links to stories left on Madison Woods’ blog. That doesn’t count writers who post story links on participants’ blogs but not on Madison’s. I think we can safely say a couple hundred people participate in this weekly fun-fest.

My story this week is called “Asylum.” If you don’t see the link on the title, then hover your cursor over the Friday Fictioneers tab above and select “Asylum” from the drop-down list. Once you’re at my story, you can read other Friday Fictioneers offerings by clicking on “Click to view/add link” at the bottom of the page.

How To: Book Review

How To: Book Review is my guest post for Linda Jones Contemplates. Enjoy.

If You’re Interested…

…there’s a new post on my political blog, Politics Wednesday.

BTW, I only put the link here as an FYI. If you don’t like my political commentary, don’t click and read. Just sayin’.

Writer’s Block Interview

A nice interview with me–nice in that Jo made it very comfortable–about my writing process and works in progress appears at Writer’s Block. If you don’t see the link, click on “About Me” above and you’ll see the link there.

My thanks and gratitude to Jo Harrison for the interview.

“What do You Mean?” she asked.

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately as I read material for my critique group, in my capacity as a submissions reader for eFiction Noir and eFiction Sci-Fi magazines, and in reading books to review. Well, it’s disturbing to me, the Punctuation Queen. Most likely, the rest of you don’t particularly care–but you should, if not for the reason that, perhaps, one day I’ll be reading your work. [Insert evil laugh here.]

No, seriously, I’m finding that a surprising number of people don’t know how to punctuate dialogue. Here are a few examples of the incorrect punctuation; the sentences themselves I made up:

“What do you mean,” she asked with a frown?

“What do you mean?,” she asked, with a frown.

“What do you mean?” she asked? With a frown.

“What do you mean?” asked, Jane, frowning?

“I know what you mean” said, Jane.

“I know what you mean.” said Jane.

I hope you see where each of the above needs to be corrected. If not, here’s how you punctuate a question and a statement in dialogue (in most instances):

“What do you mean?” she asked, with a frown.

“That’s what I meant,” she said, with a smile.

Or a variation:

With a frown, she asked, “What do you mean?”

With a smile, she said, “That’s what I meant.”

The latter correction also employs a little variety in your dialogue structure. You can get a little tired of a constant string of “she said” “he said” and so on. Flipping the tag to the beginning is a good way to break up a chunk of dialogue.

“What’s a tag?” you ask.

A dialogue tag is what you put after the line of dialogue: “said” or “asked” plus the noun or pronoun–like a mini-sentence. And, trust me, “said” or “asked” are your dialogue tag friends. Use them well and frequently, but don’t substitute things that aren’t dialogue tags.

“What do you mean?” he frowned.

Exactly that–”frowned” is not a dialogue tag. You say words, you ask words, but you don’t frown words. You may say or ask as you frown, but some verbs just aren’t dialogue tags. And if you limit yourself to the simple tags of “said” or “asked,” that frees you up to do some showing and not telling.

For example, you could write: “You don’t love me,” she pouted.

Any of us who have children or grandchildren know what a pout looks like, but why not “show” us the pout by describing it. Is it joking, how sincere is it, it is coy?

Her lower lip protruded as she frowned and blinked away non-existent tears. “You don’t love me,” she said.

See how much more we learned about the dynamic between the two speakers with a description of the pout?

Anyway, I digressed a bit from punctuating dialogue, but, well, these things needed to be said. Because most of my previous experience was as an editor, I often get bogged down in the bad or lack of punctuation. That means the story drops a few notches in quality for me.

Now, if I see one comma out-of-place, I won’t quibble, but when bad punctuation, especially for something as fundamental to writing as dialogue, is consistent, that tells me the writer doesn’t really care about his or her work, that the concept of “getting published fast” has won out over good writing.

What’s a good punctuation reference? The Chicago Manual of Style covers just about everything you need for writing. If you’re an AP Manual fan, switch. The AP Manual is for magazine or newspaper writing, where the punctuation, in particular, is different. The CMS is what most editors of literary magazines prefer. Otherwise, a decent college grammar handbook will do. Many writers I know like Garner’s Modern American Usage, which may be more up-to-date than an old college handbook. Usage and preferred punctuation do change, after all.

Pull out something you’ve been working on, and take a look at your dialogue. Is it punctuated correctly? Are your dialogue tags really tags? Are there opportunities to show more and tell less?

Story Cubes Challenge – Weeks 12 and 13

A trip to see some family in New England precluded writing a story for Week 12 of the Story Cubes Challenge, then along came the prompt for Week 13 in the midst of a lot of  house- and car-related issues. The result is you get a backwards two-fer–one story from two prompts.

I’ve written stories about the beginning of both Mai Fisher’s and Alexei Bukharin’s careers, so here’s a story about the end. The story is based on the actual arrest of Serbian General Ratko Mladic, who’d been hiding in plain sight in Serbia for more than fifteen years after his indictment as a war criminal for the massacre of Bosnian Muslim men and boys near the U.N. Safe Area of Srebrenica in July 1995. Several stories in my collection, Blood Vengeance, deal with this event, the largest incident of genocide in Europe since World War II.

The character Vojislav Ranovesic is from an unpublished novel of mine entitled Self-Inflicted Wounds. It’s also based on actual events in the late 1990′s and 2000 surrounding the murder of dozens of associates of and government officials for Slobodan Milosevic. Mai and Alexei go in to try and find out who is behind the murders, and Ranovesic is the “one good cop left in Yugoslavia” whose help they enlist.

Here are the two rolls of the cubes:

Week 12

Week 13

And here’s what I saw:

Week 12 l. to r. -  scales/justice; baseball/hit out of the park; up against a wall/pushing; eating; key; dancing; falling down the stairs; keyhole/lock; hand-in-hand/romance.

Week 13 l. to r. -  crying; thinking/thought; question/inquiry; present/giving a present; tree; carrying/burden; kicking a ball/soccer; laughing/happy; lightning/lightning bolt.

The story is “26 May 2011,” and if you don’t see the link in the title, hover your cursor over the Spy Flash tab above and select it from the drop-down menu.

If you’d like to try the Story Cubes Challenge, pick a prompt from the left, write a story of any length, and post a link to it on Jennie Coughlin’s blog.

Friday Fictioneers – Being Creative at the Car Repair Shop

It’s been one of those weeks where few, if any, opportunities to write have been presented or made–more like a week of Friday the 13th’s. Monday was a travel day. Tuesday was one of those days where you rue home ownership: A plumbing issue and meeting with the insurance adjuster for the storm damage to the roof. Wednesday was phone-calling to arrange roof repairers and set appointments for plumbing estimates, then conducting part of an interview for a newspaper article. Thursday was roof repair, receiving plumbing estimates, baby-sitting, and the second part of the article interview.

And that brings us to today, Friday, as I sit at the car repair shop because both driver-side windows will go down but won’t come back up. At least they have free Wi-Fi because the inspiration for today’s Friday Fictioneers’ story came to me about ten minutes before I left the house.

The link to read other Friday Fictioneers is below my story, “After The Rapture.” If you don’t see the link on the title, hover your cursor over the Friday Fictioneers’ tab above and select “After The Rapture” from the drop down menu.

If You’re Still Interested…

…there’s a new post in my political blog, Politics Wednesday. The writing connection is that F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Steinbeck inspired the topic of “Different From You and Me.”