An eighty-plus-year-old friend of mine is on a one-woman campaign to eliminate the word “iconic” from public discourse. She’s got a point.  But my own current choice for vocabulary to vaporize is “creative”, as in “I can’t write or make art because I’m not creative.” I suspect that creativity is simply a slightly more desperate form of problem solving, and its presence or absence is not likely what’s making it hard for anyone to write well. My father, the writer Bernard Malamud, used to say that his success was 10 percent talent and 90 percent effort.

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Guest post by Janna Malamud Smith, author of four books, My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud, A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear, and Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life. Her most recent book, An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Creative Mastery, explores the psychological obstacles artists face in their creative process. Her titles have been New York Times Notable Books, and A Potent Spell was a Barnes & Noble “Discover New Writers” pick. She has written for The New York Times, Boston Globe, and the Threepenny Review, among other publications. A practicing psychotherapist, she lives with her husband and two children in Massachusetts. For more info, please visit jannamalamudsmith.com.

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Remembering him and his ways has helped me understand that people stop writing––stop trying, stop practicing, stop revising, stop making the huge effort it takes to get good––because they trip over unconscious fears that lie like rakes across their paths, and they go splat, and it feels awful, and they figure the game’s up, and that they have no talent or they’re not “creative” enough. Of course, that’s a simplified version of my thoughts. And, of course, I recognize that many current circumstances––from the pressures of the Internet/social media revolution to the pressures of a terrible recession, and the competition in the arts & entertainment marketplace––have a large impact.

What especially captured my attention as a psychotherapist, and the focus of my new book, An Absorbing Errand: How artists and craftsmen make their way to mastery, are the quiet fears that derail people as they try to learn to write or make art. I am quite certain that IF you can stay in the game, your creativity will often prove adequate to your task. But the difficulty comes from learning how to recognize and tolerate your fears, so they don’t lead you to prematurely throw in the towel.

In my book, I examine the lives of various artists––from John Keats to Charlie Chaplin to Leni Riefenstahl to Julia Child to Michael Jackson––and use them as jumping off points for examining difficult feelings, and ways of getting them to power your writing project rather than halt it.

1. Fear of Being Seen

For example, there’s the fear of being seen.  Of course, if some part (or parts) of you didn’t want to be “seen,” or heard, you likely wouldn’t write.  Most people are drawn to writing because they want to express themselves, to have their say; and they want other people to pay attention.  But that wish for attention tends to be ambivalent, and is often closely paired with a profound sense of terror at the notion of being recognized by eyes you imagine as belonging to  “the enemy.”  It’s no accident that so much energy in the natural world goes to camouflage. Recognition , as in, “I recognize you” carries two very different connotations. One refers to feeling seen with loving eyes, and appreciated. The other, carries more of the feeling of being recognized as prey to be eaten. It’s life and death. Often times, as we write our way into areas where––without any conscious awareness––we start to write about feelings or subjects that either feel disloyal to people we love, or perhaps were somehow prohibited in our upbringing, we start to fear that we will be “recognized” in this frightening way.  Inner voices get going, hoping to distract us, telling us we’re stupid or evil or inept at writing. I know someone who stopped working on a family memoir because he couldn’t imagine letting the world “see” the portrait that was emerging.  I imagine he unconsciously felt guilty about his portrayal and feared being judged and criticized by family and community. The first step in dealing with the fear (and with all fears) is simply to recognize IT.

2. Fear of Being Humiliated

Closely related to this first fear, is a second of being shamed or humiliated. You write your heart out, and put what you’ve written out in the world, and everyone points at you and shakes their heads in dismay, or outright laughs. You are pathetic or disgusting or over-reaching. Or so your fear of humiliation suggests to you.  Shame is one of the most hard-wired, deepest feeling states we have. It’s universal, and likely it was incredibly useful in the distant past when we were more immediately dependent on our tribes and kin for our well being.  Shame is the way we collectively seek to eliminate behavior that endangers or harms the group. (Shame on you for making eyes at your sister’s boyfriend.) But for individual artists, writers – and people in general, shame is a much more ambiguous – and often useless-cum-destructive feeling. My hunch is that the fantasy of being shamed, of feeling profound public humiliation, stops more people in their tracks more quickly than any other feeling. Once again, awareness helps. But one good antidote to shame I discuss in the book is surrounding yourself with a group of friends, colleagues, perhaps fellow artists, that meets regularly , appreciates you, and helps you laugh off the shame states as they emerge.

3. Fear of Aloneness

The third fear is the fear of feeling the profound aloneness that can come with writing and other solitary artistic endeavors. Solitude is often a critical phase of art-making. People need privacy not only to concentrate and to be able to spend time deep inside their own minds and psyches. They need it so that they aren’t forced to reveal their work when it’s unready and too vulnerable. There’s nothing worse than having someone comment negatively upon (and even a slightly raised eye-brow can feel crushing) something that is only begun – or half-finished. On the other hand, we have so romanticized artistic solitude, that we don’t prepare people for how lonely it can be, and how hard it can be to tolerate that loneliness.  So, a good first step is to change your expectations about how much time alone is really healthy for your work. Maybe your solitude is too solitary, and that profound aloneness has to be tempered before you can succeed.

I hope you read An Absorbing Errand. I know that if you do it will help you overcome the obstacles that hinder mastery. Good luck!

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It’s day two of our annual 12 Deals of December, where we release a new deal of great savings on Writer’s Digest resources (books, bundles, etc.) from December 1st through December 12th. These discounts are big and meant to help you get more for less around the holidays. So without further ado, here’s today’s deal:

It’s time for our annual 12 Deals of December, where we release a new deal of great savings on Writer’s Digest resources (books, bundles, etc.) from December 1st through December 12th. (I love these offers because it reminds me of my favorite holiday song, the “12 Days of Christmas”). These discounts are big and meant to help you get more for less around the holidays. So without further ado, here’s today’s deal:

In honor of National Novel Writing Month, I’m going to be offering free content each weekday in November to help all NaNoWriMo participants (and, really, anyone who is working on a novel).
Here is today’s giveaway:

Day 30: Your book is finished—congratulations! You’ve achieved something extraordinary. And if you’ve still got a bit more to do, keep at it! But what do you do once your novel is complete? Well, first, you’ll want to start revising. But you’ll also want to start thinking about getting an agent. To that end, here’s a link to a special 90-minute webinar that Chuck Sambuchino, editor of our annual Guide to Literary Agents, recorded in front of a live online audience earlier this year. It details all of the tips and insights you need to know to get the attention of an agent and provide them with the information they need about your book. Good luck! To get this freebie, just enter your e-mail address below.

Looking for more NaNoWriMo resources?

Check out the special NaNoWriMo Resources Section in the Writer’s Digest Shop.

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Everyone defines success a little differently. Some define it as owning a giant house. Others define it as reaching a goal. In the writing community there are countless ways to measure success—completing a first draft, landing an agent, winning a writing competition, receiving that first royalty check, writing a hilarious tweet that gets retweeted several times, etc. So what does it mean to be a successful writer?

Personally I think writers struggle to define success because there’s always another hill to climb. It’s a “perk” of being a writer. Published your first book? You feel successful until no one bites on your second book. Had a column in a magazine? You’re riding the high life until you’re asked to write your farewell piece. But it’s this lack of a clear definition of success that keeps us motivated and thirsty and driven to accomplish more.

The first time I ever experienced a taste of success was not after I started writing my Questions & Quandaries column in Writer’s Digest, but when I received my first piece of fan mail. The note was kind and generous with compliments, but it was also the first time I ever felt appreciated for something I wrote (other than that time in sixth grade where I wrote that Mother’s Day poem my Mom loved). That was a great feeling and one that gave me a sense of success.

So here’s my Q to you: Will you ever consider yourself successful as a writer? If so, when? If you had to pick a moment thus far in your writing career that you felt was your most successful moment, what would it be?

Post your answer below. In fact, if I get more than 50 responses I’ll pick my favorite one and give that writer an opportunity to write a guest post for this blog about finding writing success. Help me get over that 50 mark by tweeting this or posting it to Facebook:

What Defines Writing Success? (& A Chance to Get Published With @WritersDigest) – TBD

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Q: I don’t understand the difference between who and whom. Can you please explain to me, in simple terms, how to differentiate between the two?—Anonymous

The confusion between who and whom is one of the most common problems writers face. It can be tricky to find the correct use, and sometimes you may feel like locating the person who invented both words and smacking him upside his head. But there is a difference.

Who is used as the subject of a verb or complement of a linking verb. It’s a nominative pronoun. It was Carl who broke all the pencils in the house. When writing a sentence, first find the verb(s)—was and broke. Then, find the subject for each verb: Carl and who. Since who is a subject, it’s correct. Who needs a crayon to write this down?

Whom is used as the object of the verb or the object of a preposition. It’s an objective pronoun. You asked whom to the dance? In this case, the subject and verb are “You asked.” The pronoun following the verb is the object of the verb, therefore whom is correct. He’s already going the prom with whom? This pronoun is the object of the preposition with, so whom is the right pick. Be careful, though. Make sure the prepositional pronoun in question isn’t also a subject—if it is, then you use who. For example, I cheered for who played hardest. While the pronoun follows a preposition (for), it’s also the subject of the second verb (played). When placed as a subject, always use who.

One way to remember is to check to see which pronoun can replace the questionable word. It’s a little trick I learned back in elementary school: If it can be replaced with “he,” you use who; if “him” fits better, use whom. Sometimes you may need to split the sentence to see it. For example, It was Carl—he broke all the pencils in the house. Who should be used here. You asked him to the dance? Whom is the correct choice.

And when in doubt on the “who whom” debacle, recast the sentence to avoid the issue altogether.

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You’re at the doctor’s office for a regular check up when the doctor suggests you get a flu shot as well. You hate shots, so you come up with the most outlandish excuse as to why you can’t get one. Start your story with “You’re not going to believe this, but … ” and end it with “And that’s why I can’t get a flu shot today.”

Post your response (500 words or fewer) in the comments below.

Want more creative writing prompts? Consider:
The Writer’s Book of Matches

In August we asked folks to submit their best tales or fictional stories that have a new beginnings theme. More than 150 writers sent in their short essays. We’ve whittled it down to our five favorites, but now we need your help selecting a winner. Here’s how you can help:

Read the five finalists listed below then cast your vote in the comments section in any of the posts for this competition (you can comment on this post or on your favorite story, whichever you prefer). Deadline to vote is October 1, 2012. Over vote per registered user.

Here are the finalists:
Cheerios and Coffee
The Shoes
New Year’s Morning
Honey and the Moon
A Fine Pickle

The more votes the better, so feel free to spread the word on your favorite social network with something like this:

Help @WritersDigest pick a winner for its Write It Your Way competition – http://bit.ly/NMGmn7

Award-winning writers start somewhere. Why don’t you start with us. Click here for a list of upcoming Writer’s Digest writing competitions.

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Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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Here is one of the five finalists for the Write It Your Way August competition. Read it now (and the other finalists) and vote by October 1 to help us pick a winner. The theme for this Write It Your Way competition was “New Beginnings” and entrants were allowed to take that theme in any direction they liked. Click here for a list of upcoming Writer’s Digest writing competitions.

When the plus sign on the test stick leached bright blue, Madelyn Henry threw up. Stunned, she leaned on the bathroom sink for support.  What a pickle this is, she thought.The only upside to the whole disaster was she finally knew why she had felt so sick lately.  She wasbeing taken down by something no bigger than a lima bean. A loud knocking on the door startled her.

“Who are you?  Elvis?”Madelyn’s sister, Tina, didn’t wait for an answer. “If you’re still alive in there, would youmind hurrying up?” Hersarcasm seeped like noxious fumes through the door cracks.  “We’re already way late for work. We’ve missed the train twice this week and it’s only Tuesday!  Go figure.”

“Sorry,” Madelyn muttered. “I’ll be right out.”  Her hands shook as she wrapped the test strip in tissue and dropped the mummified evidence ofnew life in the trash bin. Shedidn’t want to face her sister, not yet.  Hearing the familiar clacking of Tina’s three-inch Prada’sgoing down the hardwood stairs, Madelyn exited the bathroom andtiptoed in the opposite direction toward the bedroom at the end of the hall.

After a gentletap on the oak door, Madelynentered.  Her father appeared asleep as she made her way across the modestly furnished master bedroom.  She eased down on the edge of his bed and smoothed back his fine silver hair.  He grinned, one eye closed and the other conspicuously squinting up at her.

“Morning, Dad.” Madelyn spoke in hushed tones.  “Tina’s angry with me because I’m running late and we missed the train again.”

“It’s New Jersey into New York, for heaven’s sake.  Get the next train, there’s always a next train.”  He was suddenly wide awake.   Gesturing to the pillow at the foot of the bed, he asked, “Sweetie, could you put that behind my head?”

As the goose-down settled behind him, Madelyn caught the familiar scent of yesterday’safter-shave mixed withthe sweetsmell her father had just before his insulin kicked in.  She spied the used syringe on the bureau, along with an alcohol pad and its packaging crumpled together like origami.  Tina had obviouslyhandled the injection while justdown the hall her kid sister had her head in the toilet.

“Ah, perfect.”  He looked about as comfortable as possible given his arthritis.  “What a gift you are.  Both my girls are angels.   Tina’s just a bit more…,” he rubbed his bristly chin, “….feisty, controlling, a real pain in the backside but a damn good attorney.”

He reached for his magnifiers at the bedside.  With trembling fingers, he propped them low on his nose; a sharp nose like a pointed finger thatseemed to grow more prominent while the rest of his body receded inward.  He tilted his head upward and stared thoughtfully into his daughter’s face as if memorizing her features.  Lately, his eyes were always watery and Madelyn couldn’t tell if it was cataracts or had he been crying?  Either way, when it came to her father’s mortality, it was as if her heart had a slow leak.

Though reluctant to deal with the day ahead, Madelyn forced a waxen smile, leaned in, kissed her father’s forehead and whispered so-long, at the exact moment Tina barged through the door.

“What?  Am I missing something profound;the ole man’slast words; hisfinal breath?”  Tina smiled broadly in her father’s direction and then shot her sister a scowl.  “Tomorrow, I’m having a driver take me to thetrain.  You’re welcome to join me but we’ll be early!  What a concept!”  Tina paced, one poised hand on her chin and the other on her hip; courtroom mode. “How many timesdo you expect me to fall in the same hole before I smarten up and walk around it?  Huh?”

Madelyn was certain her father was enjoying this scene; the drama queen that was his Tina, his oldest daughter. Try and she might, Madelyn could not make a lucid connection to the holes Tina was going on about.  The question was obviously rhetorical.

Tina pointed at Madelyn.  “I can’t believe I asked my firm to hire you!  What was I thinking?  We’ll be lucky if we get there by lunchtime.”She turned on a heel the diameter of a knitting needle, closed her eyes, shook her head and sighed, “It’s been the family joke, forever; Madelyn will be late for her own funeral.”  Tina mimicked the phrase.“For the record, you’d never be late for your own funeral because I’ll have made the arrangements.  On the other hand, I’ll end up wrapped in trash bags in your trunk until you bury me somewhere in the yard.”  Tina sighed and turned to leave, apparentlyresting her case.  “Bye, Dad, for the second time this morning!”

“Fifth, but who’s counting?”  Dad winked at Tina.

“Hilarious, pops.” Tina said dryly. “I’ll be waiting in the car, Madelyn, emphasis on waiting.”  Tina strode from the room.

“Why would anyone want to be on time for their own funeral?”  Her father asked no one in particular.  “I’d want to be so late you’d have to reschedule mine.”

“I know I need to get better at being on time.  I’ll start tomorrow.”  Madelyn winked at her father.  It felt odd winking at him; his wink always meaning so much more while simply conveying; everything’s okay, kiddo.

When she heard the bleating sound of her car horn, Madelyn turned to go.

“Hey, you listen to me.” he said. “Who says we have to obey time?  Where’s the spontaneity, the romance?  I couldn’t tell you what todayis, I’m hard-pressed to remember themonth and year!   No more of this late for your funeral nonsense,I don’t want to hear that anymore. Truth is, Madelyn, you need to stop worrying about me so much and have fun, go on dates.  C’mon, there must be one decent guy in that World Trade Center you work in worthy of my little girl.”

There had been someone.  A business man fromthe North Towerhad showed an interest in Madelyn a few months back.They rode the elevator together once in a while, got to talking.  She grew to trust him.  Then,he brutally raped her and she was now pregnant with his baby. Things couldn’t be worse, she thought.  Already, this unborn entity was wreaking havoc on her life, making her sick andlate for work, clumsy, not to mention dishonest.  So why did the thought of the abortion she’d schedule cause a lump to rise in the back of her throat?

Suppressing tears, Madelyn made her way to the door and lightened the subject.“Just for the record, Dad, it’s Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, but you knew that, silly.”

“Well, it looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous day so enjoy it.”   He dismissed her with a blown kiss and she pretended, as always, to catch it. She slid out the bedroom door and the car horn blared again.As she closed the bedroom door behind her, Madelyngiggledwhen she heard her dad say, “Jeez, Tina, relax! You’d be early for your own execution.”

Is this your favorite Write It Your Way Finalist? If so, vote here or on this post by commenting that it’s your favorite.

Be sure to read the other finalists:
Cheerios and Coffee
The Shoes
New Year’s Morning
Honey and the Moon
A Fine Pickle

Here is one of the five finalists for the Write It Your Way August competition. Read it now (and the other finalists) and vote by October 1 to help us pick a winner. The theme for this Write It Your Way competition was “New Beginnings” and entrants were allowed to take that theme in any direction they liked. Click here for a list of upcoming Writer’s Digest writing competitions.

Hot, heavy air filled Debbie’s lungs and weighed her down. It was a typical August night in Michigan. She wondered if this was how her mother felt when she left. Did she have any doubts?

At times, she thought the night breezes whispered to her. Did her mother leave messages in the wind? Debbie listened intently but she could never quite make out the words.

This was the first time Debbie had ventured onto the dark road in twenty-two years. The dirt was soft and felt cool between her toes. The white stones, embedded into the road, glistened as if they were her beacons to safety.

The slight breeze stirred Debbie’s white nightgown. It jarred vague memories, fleeting flashes, of her mother’s gown cascading around her legs as she glided away from the house. It was the only time her mother seemed to come to life. She walked with purpose, following the beaming white stones to her safe haven.

“You’ll be back. You always crawl back!” Debbie’s father stood in the doorway, waiting for a response.

Her mother sped up, her nightgown fluttering as if she was an injured dove trying to take flight. The tops of the trees swayed, pointing her down the mysterious path.  Her mother’s long blond hair faded into the mist as she passed the last tree that was visible through Debbie’s bedroom window. Then her mother was gone.

Debbie’s mother had threatened to leave many times, wandering off for hours then reappearing, her feet covered with black dirt. No one bothered to ask what made her unhappy. The moods breezed in and out as she did. No one questioned if she would come back. Before that night, she had always come back.

Debbie often wondered what could have been so terrible to make a woman leave her children behind. As she advanced into adulthood, she started questioning all her own choices. She saw her mother looking back at her in the mirror. Debbie wondered how she ended up in the same place.

Like her mother, Debbie had married the first man who looked her way. Her husband let Debbie raise the children while he continued to enjoy his life as if he didn’t have any obligations. He said Debbie couldn’t let anyone love her so he had to find it elsewhere.  He threw the word “crazy” at her like a dagger. Her father’s voice was in the house again.

Her mother’s warnings of discontent rang in her ears.  “Being a mother isn’t enough. My dreams died when you were born. When you have kids, you won’t be able to do anything.”

Debbie’s mother had thrown her moccasins in the ditch the night she left.  She always claimed they pinched her feet and suffocated her. The shoes, protected under rocks and dead tree limbs, were waiting to whisk Debbie away.

Debbie put on her mother’s shoes and took a few steps down the road. She paused, wondering if she should follow her mother’s path.

As she took another step, her mother’s shoes slipped off her feet. Weathered and plain, they didn’t seem as menacing as her mother claimed. They didn’t suffocate her. Debbie laughed through a stream of tears. She pitched the shoes into the woods. They were just an old pair of shoes that didn’t fit.

Is this your favorite Write It Your Way Finalist? If so, vote here or on this post by commenting that it’s your favorite.

Be sure to read the other finalists:
Cheerios and Coffee
The Shoes
New Year’s Morning
Honey and the Moon
A Fine Pickle

Here is one of the five finalists for the Write It Your Way August competition. Read it now (and the other finalists) and vote by October 1 to help us pick a winner. The theme for this Write It Your Way competition was “New Beginnings” and entrants were allowed to take that theme in any direction they liked. Click here for a list of upcoming Writer’s Digest writing competitions.

Dawn was giving a faint rosy glow in the eastern sky on New Year’s morning.  There was a fresh three-inchblanket of snow over the landscape. The air was crisp and cold.  It promised to be a beautiful, clear winter’s day.  In their upstairs bedroom, Marvin and Susie snuggled cozily and snored softly in deep and peaceful slumber.  Theywere happy for a breather following their first hectic Christmas holidays together.  No alarms were set, no more “To Do” lists, and no hurry to do anything in particular.  So far they were doing a good job keeping their first New Year’s resolutionto sleep in as long as possible.

In his sleep Marvin reached over and drew in his pregnant wife.  Her rounded tummy was just big enough to require elastic waistbands and loose tops.  Susie was beginning to show, but not quite big enough for what she considered real maternity clothes.  They had inherited this old farmhouse from Susie’s grandmother.  Most of the time they loved it, –the quaint architecture, the high ceilings and hardwood floors, and having a little land and privacy without being more than a few miles from town.  However, they were still not used to not having central heat.  They hadn’t figured out yet how to bank the fire in their bedroom fireplace and it always went out around four a.m.  Consequently they ending up sleepingunder every quilt and comforter they owned.  At this early morning hour it had not yet become too chilly and their accumulated body heat was sufficient.

Marvin was having a dream about his courtship days with Susie, shortly before their May wedding.  In his dream they were sitting close and talking about their then future wedded life together.  In his sleep, Marvin hugged Susie even closer.  Then his dream took a strange turn.  Two complete strangers began to play badminton in Susie’s parents’ living room.  The badminton players moved closer and closer to where Marvin and Susie were sitting, trying to have a private and intimate conversation.  Marvin’s dream self was becoming increasingly annoyed and was about to say a few irate words to them when his consciousness was forced awake and he realized someone was throwing snowballs at their bedroom window.

Grumbling to himself he carefully withdrew from his sleeping wife and went to the window.  Parting the curtain cautiously he saw their friend Linus throwing another snowball.  Marvin waved, then involuntarily drew back as the snow connected with the glass only an inch or two from his face.  Linus waved up at him excitedly.  With a deep sigh, Marvin opened the window.  Marvin whispered loudly, “Linus, what are you doing?!”

Linus called out with a booming voice, “Hi Marvin!  I wanted to be the first to wish you and Susie a Happy New Year!  Isn’t this a glorious morning?”

About this time the frigid blast reached the sleeping Susie.  She snapped awake.  “BRRR!  Who opened the window??  Marvin!  What are you doing?!  It’s freezing out there!”

Marvin sighed again.  “It’s Linus, Honey.  He came over to wish us a Happy New Year.”

“I’m going to ‘Happy New Year’ him!  What time is it?!”  She reached a hand out from under the covers, looked at the clock and shrieked.  “Is he crazy?!  Get rid of him!”

“WHAT DID SHE SAY?”

With a completely straight face Marvin called down, “She said, ‘Happy New Year’.”  Then under his breath he mumbled, “and a few other things.”

Susie wrapped herself in all theblankets androse like a column from the bed.  She waddled to the bathroom. Marvin was disappointed she hadgiven up so easily, but then again being pregnant did make her have to go more often.  Herefused to stifle a yawn as he asked, “What are you doing out so early, Linus?”

“ARE YOU KIDDING?  IT’S THE FIRST DAY OF A BRAND NEW YEAR!  A FRESH START, A NEW BEGINNING, A CLEAN SLATE JUST WAITING TO BE WRITTEN ON.  WHO CAN SLEEP ON A DAY LIKE THIS??”

“Well, actually, a lot of people could, at least for part of the morning.”  Marvin heard the water running and hoped she’d come back to bed when she was through.  He turned back to Linus, “Besides, it’s awful cold out …”

“COLD?!  JUST ENOUGH NIP IN THE AIR TO MAKE YOU FEEL ALIVE!  JUST BREATHE IN THAT CLEAN AIR.”  Linus leaned back his head, spread out his arms and took in a big breath to prove his point.

In his peripheral vision Marvin saw something jelly like and bright blue rolling down the roof, gaining momentum as it went.  He heard the bathroom window close as recognition set in, and nanoseconds later the large water balloon landed squarely on Linus’s upturned face.  Marvin bit his upper lip to keep from laughing out loud.

The column of blankets waddled back into the room and plopped back on the bed.  Susie’s muffled voice gloated from within, “I’m no physics major, but that gable gave a perfect trajectory.”

Marvin looked out at his wet friend with a mixture of humor and sympathy.  “Are you okay, Linus?”

Linus remained very still, trying to keep his composure while his body adjusted to the blast of cold water.  “She’s not a morning person, is she?”

Marvin allowed a little smile.  “No, my friend, she’s not.  But she’s all mine.”

Linus paused, thinking things over.  “Nuff said.  I think I’ll go home now.”

“Sorry to dampen your ‘New Year’ spirit!”

“What was that?  I’ve got a little water in my ear, don’t think I heard you.”

“Happy New Year, Linus!  Go home and get dried off before you catch cold.”

Linus’s voice trailed off as he walked away, somewhat less enthusiastically, “Right.  Happy New Year to you too.”

Marvin shut the window and closed the curtains.  “That was very naughty of you, my dear!”  They both burst out laughing as he dived in under the covers with her.

Is this your favorite Write It Your Way Finalist? If so, vote here or on this post by commenting that it’s your favorite.

Be sure to read the other finalists:
Cheerios and Coffee
The Shoes
New Year’s Morning
Honey and the Moon
A Fine Pickle

Here is one of the five finalists for the Write It Your Way August competition. Read it now (and the other finalists) and vote by October 1 to help us pick a winner. The theme for this Write It Your Way competition was “New Beginnings” and entrants were allowed to take that theme in any direction they liked. Click here for a list of upcoming Writer’s Digest writing competitions.

She wakes slowly. There is nothing but the sensation of warmth on her skin.

Time passes. How much? How little? She doesn’t know. There’s something cool – a breeze, slowly easing over her. She becomes aware that she’s lying on firm earth. The breeze blows again, and she feels something – grass? – tickle her face.

The warmth defines itself into light. Sunlight. Radiating through her closed eyelids, painting the insides red.

She hears the gurgling of water as waves fold over themselves, lapping at the shore. She’s so warm. She doesn’t think.

Something fills her. Something easy. She remembers the word for it now – peace.

She doesn’t know how long she lies there. Days? Years? It feels like seconds and seems like eons.

She opens her eyes.

She’s lying between two trees. The grass is high all around her, and as it parts in the wind she catches glimpses of a vast lake at sunset. The sun is suspended low in the sky, with gold-rimmed clouds drifting across the horizon. Across the water, there are two cliffs opposing each other, with a channel between them. She guesses that it leads to the sea.

Closing her eyes, she drifts in and out of dreamless sleep. There’s nothing but this moment, and the next one, and the next.

Until – the shadow of a feeling. The trigger is a name she can’t remember, a body she can’t place. Life springs into her limbs, and as she stirs, she remembers her name.

With her name comes memory. Mother, surrounded by her garden. Father, reading her a book. She and her friends going to carnivals. Husband dancing with her on a beach. Daughter sitting patiently while she braided her hair. Son asking her approval of a girlfriend.

More. Graves of friends, family. Husband sinking into dementia. Son killed in combat. Daughter by her bedside, holding her hand, saying tearfully, “I’ll see you soon.”

Of course. She looks up at the sky, at the sun which hasn’t moved in all the years she’s been here. I’m dead, she thinks. Well, this isn’t so bad.

She gets to her feet. To her left, a sandy path winds through a wood of wide-spaced trees. This is very strange, she thinks. She tries to listen for the chirps of birds, the buzz of crickets, but hears nothing, save for the sound of the wind threading through the leaves. The complete silence unsettles her.

She thinks of all the people she’d like to find here. She looks around eagerly, pushing aside branches, peeping around trunks, expecting to see their eyes looking for her, too. She finds nothing.

Disappointed, she walks along the footpath. Strangely, in the trees, there are things that she recognizes. There’s a huge staircase, leading to nowhere. A block of morgue doors stands in a glen, ivy clinging to the metal. A tire swing hangs from a huge oak.

She realizes something: she’s not tired anymore. Gone is the feeling of lugging around a failing machine. Gone is the stiffness in her joints. Gone is the pain in her chest.

It seems everything else is gone too. When she makes to touch her face, she can’t feel anything. When she looks down she sees nothing.

She hits a tree, throws herself on the ground – when she falls, she floats. I don’t have a body, she thinks, and gives in to panic.

What did I do, what did I do, what did I do? She tries to speak but she has no voice. Is this some kind of hell? Anguished, she makes herself relive every wrong she had ever done: hit her children; let her friend drug herself to death; kissed the man that was not her husband. Humiliated classmates in the schoolyard, and later, cafeteria; alienated her father for years because of something he couldn’t control. And the other, greater sins, that were less definable into moments: greed, selfishness, cruelty.

Pride. Much of that, too much of that. The pettiness she’d had as a child, grown into snobbery. The people she’d hurt, the relationships she’d let die, because she wouldn’t admit she was wrong. Well, I admit to my faults now, even if it’s too late. Maybe whatever controls this place will take pity on me.

Something does ease, for she’s able think clearly again. It’s all you can do to keep walking, she says to herself. Taking a deep breath, she stands, and makes her way down the path again.

The woods reveal more sights: a collegiate courtyard, the smoking ruins of a bomb shelter. A gate between two trees; leading to what?

Something sounds, so suddenly that she stops in her tracks. Warily, she looks around, half expecting the Devil himself to leap out and grab her.

The sound resumes as she begins walking, and she looks down at tanned feet strong and smooth. She runs down the path, jumps around, twirls through the dusk. As soon as she thinks about what she’s doing, she’s laughing, harder and truer than she has in years. She’s still laughing quietly as she continues walking.

And then, the path ends in a T. To her right, the path leads to a weathered dock. Tethered to it is a small sailboat, bobbing in the water.

To her left is her home: her childhood home. Through the screen door, murmurs and the scent of cake baking waft out. She can hear the creak of a rocking chair and the sounds of children playing.

A hungry, powerful ache yawns inside of her. She smiles, even as tears spring to her eyes, and goes toward the door. No wonder she hasn’t seen anyone! They’re all in there, waiting for her.

She thinks of the boat, and she stops at the mailbox, looks back. Where would the boat have taken her?

Looking back at the house, she wavers. She wants nothing else but to run to that house, to greet all the people she knows are there. But are they? How can they be real if everything else in the wood comes from her memory?

She goes to the dock. She doesn’t remember this boat. She’s sure of it. Her house didn’t have a dock; and anyway, she’s never sailed on a boat like this.

As she comes near, its sail swells with a stiff wind, and the boat strains at the rope that anchors it to the dock.

She looks back at the house. The door is still invitingly open; the sound of laughter still entices her. It hurts to look away. She touches the dock, feels the rough wood beneath her fingers.

And then the sunlight recedes from the forest until only the dark outlines of trees remain. The golden light bleeds from the sky across the water, from the boat, through the two cliffs, and out to sea, stretching to the horizon. The prow of the boat turns so that it’s directly on the path.

Giddy with recklessness and the unknown, she climbs into the boat, sitting on the narrow bench. Reaching across, she pulls the rope up and over the dock, setting it on the seat beside her as the wind strengthens and guides her toward the sun.

Is this your favorite Write It Your Way Finalist? If so, vote here or on this post by commenting that it’s your favorite.

Be sure to read the other finalists:
Cheerios and Coffee
The Shoes
New Year’s Morning
Honey and the Moon
A Fine Pickle

Here is one of the five finalists for the Write It Your Way August competition. Read it now (and the other finalists) and vote by October 1 to help us pick a winner. The theme for this Write It Your Way competition was “New Beginnings” and entrants were allowed to take that theme in any direction they liked. Click here for a list of upcoming Writer’s Digest writing competitions.

Sometimes the world decides to spin faster than you expect; and you find yourself tipping your coffee onto the guy walking in the front door of the café.

“Oh, crap. I’m so sorry,” I said, the words mashed up as I nervously dabbed the coffee from his cerulean blue tie with the little black diamonds.

“It’s alright,” he replied. I caught sight of his blue eyes—that perfectly matched his tie—and took a step back in an ‘of course you’d be gorgeous’ stance.

He grinned.

“I feel terrible.” My napkin was crumbing in my hand.

“No, really, it’s fine,” he set his briefcase on the table beside us. “I’m Jack,” he said with his hand stretched out toward me.

“Kate,” I replied and took his hand in mine. “Today’s such an important day for me, I just knew I’d find a way to mess it up,” I said.

“It’s just a little coffee, it happens.”

“I’m glad I didn’t ruin your day.”

“Not at all, but I think you at least owe me a cup of coffee.”

I smiled.

******

It didn’t take me long to explain why the day was so important. I had a job interview at the accounting firm three blocks away, and like clockwork, I had missed my bus. I had only enough money left from my last paycheck to pay my phone bill, not take a taxi.

“Because without my telephone I can’t call my dad and have him wire me money in case the interview falls through.”

“Sounds like a good dad. Mine would tell me to deal with it and hang up.”

We laughed. My eye caught the brown stain of coffee on his neat, but not too neat, white shirt. I could imagine him getting home in the evening and laying around in his unbuttoned shirt while he watched Bill Maher. I bet he ate Cheerios every morning and probably most nights. I looked down at our brown paper coffee cups and then to my watch.

“Ooh, I have to go,” I said reluctantly. Jack stood tall as I grabbed my things and we both pushed in our chairs.

“It was nice of you to run into me,” he joked. When I opened the door, he spoke again. “You can run into me here tomorrow at nine if you want.” I said okay and left.

******

I met him for coffee each morning that week. My interview turned out good, and I was called for the job on the following Wednesday.

“Friday’s the last morning I can meet you here,” I said, but I didn’t expect him to look upset about it.

“Why?”

“I got the job. I start Monday.”

“Oh, well then meet me for dinner.”

I have to admit I was shocked. I didn’t think that the thing we had going on was turning into something like that—whatever that was.

“I mean,” he started to say after an awkward moment of silence. “Would you like to have dinner with me?” I thought about Cheerios.

“Sure,” I nodded with a smile. “What do you normally have for dinner?” I asked trying hard not to laugh.

“Um, well…” and he proceeded to explain how he rarely ate at home. He frequented sushi bars, sandwich shops and the pizzeria about a mile from my apartment. We decided the pizzeria would be the perfect place to celebrate my new job and made plans to meet there Monday night.

*******

I changed out of my corporate silk top and put on a cotton sweater to match the dark blue skirt I had worn for work. I felt tired from the day, without my usual coffee and all, but I couldn’t wait to see him. I entered the pizzeria at seven and searched the room for Jack. He waved me over to a corner table.

“I love how dark it is in here.”

“I know, that’s why I come,” he said. “Some nights I just want to go unnoticed, and this is the perfect place to just… I don’t know, blend in to the shadows.”

I could see what he meant from the minute I entered the building. The circular tables—dark and heavy—fit together tightly in the room. The lights were very dim and hung over the table so the only things that were clear were the broad features of his face. Halfway through the night I realized we were sitting closer to one another on the rounded bench than we had started.

“This was really nice,” I said and found my hand nearly touching his on the table.

“You should come here again… we should together,” he said.

“You know, there’s one thing I need to ask you.”

“Sure.”

“Who are you? I mean, who are you really? I know nothing about you except how you like your coffee.” He smirked at me.

“Well, you know my name.”

“I know your name, but nothing else.”

“I only know your name, and how you like your coffee.” I smirked back.

“Then tell me something, anything. Work? Family?”

“Okay, I’m a…” he looked away and then caught my eye again with a sort of winced look, “an auditor.” I laughed loudly. “I know. I imagine you think I’m a nerd.”

“No, I just think it’s funny. I mean, we’re probably the two most boring professionals and yet I’m never bored with you.” I felt my heart jump after I said it, but it was too late to pretend I meant something else. A week had passed since I met Jack, and yet I felt as though I had known him for much longer.

*********

It didn’t take long for us to find the inner layer of my gray, Egyptian cotton sheets. Never had my entire bed felt so warm and as lively as it had that night. Never had I let go so easily either. We sat up all night talking about ourselves; he wore my sheets and I wore his white shirt. We ate Cheerios at two in the morning and watched the rainfall over the city at dawn. I wasn’t tired at work Tuesday morning, nor was I any other morning that week. Or for the rest of the year, come to think.

I do sometimes—when I’m nestled in beside him and all I can hear is his breathing—think about the morning we met. If he had been late, by only two seconds, I would never have bump into him. It’s funny how the earth spins in our favor when we least expect.

Is this your favorite Write It Your Way Finalist? If so, vote here or on this post by commenting that it’s your favorite.

Be sure to read the other finalists:
Cheerios and Coffee
The Shoes
New Year’s Morning
Honey and the Moon
A Fine Pickle

Big News: For the first time ever Writer’s Digest is packing up its writing and publishing knowledge and heading to Hollywood (no, they aren’t making a movie about us … yet). We’re bringing our Writer’s Digest Conference to the West Coast (why should only East Coast writers have all the fun?) and we want you there. Here’s the scoop:

Event: Writer’s Digest Conference West
When: October 19-21
Where: Hollywood, CA (Loews Hollywood Hotel & Spa)
Why You Should Attend: Writers looking to write better, get published and connect with agents.
Highlight: The Pitch Slam, where you get one-on-one pitch meetings with agents.

Register now for the Writer’s Digest Conference West.

Here’s the full rub:

DETAILS

Join us at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa in Los Angeles, CA, October 19 – 21, 2012, for all of the informative sessions you’ve come to love from WD Conference, now on the West Coast. Register now and start making your travel plans today. If you register before July 19, 2012, you can get an early bird discount.

This is the first year for a West Coast WD Conference, and we’re excited to bring you the very best sessions, speakers and publishing advice, set against inspiring views of Los Angeles. Get real-world advice on getting published in today’s ever-changing market, with a focus on sharpening your writing skills, polishing your pitch and selling your work.

THE PITCH SLAM

Be sure to attend the Pitch Slam, a fast-paced, three-hour event with agents who are actively looking for new writers to represent. We’re adding new agents every day and expect to have at least 20 in attendance.

GET THIS: To date, at least 8 writers who have attended past WD events have told us they signed with agents they pitched at the Pitch Slam. If that isn’t enough reason to come, I do not know what is. The Pitch Slam unquestionably works. Start on the conference website and click on “Success Stories” on the right side.

Who’s Speaking?

Learn from the best at this year’s Writer’s Digest Conference West. Get helpful insights from bestselling authors and award-winning writers like James Scott Bell, Steven James, Elizabeth Sims and many others, plus well-known industry experts.

Featured Sessions

Ask the Agent Panel
Friday, October 19 · 5:10 – 6:30 pm
This is a Q&A session for you to ask literary agents practically any publishing question. Find out what they really think about query letters, live pitches, self-publishing and more.

Crafting the Perfect Pitch
Friday, October 19 · 6:40 – 7:30 pm
Attending the Pitch Slam? This is a can’t-miss session. Get insights on how to perfectly prep your pitch (and your work) and learn how to get comfortable and stay confident so you can make a great first impression.

A Self-Publishing Author’s Guide to Contracts with Dana Newman
Sunday, October 21 · 10:00 – 10:50 am
Thinking about going it alone? This session is critical for authors who are looking for success in the self-publishing world. Learn details about the basics and the fine points of literary agency agreements, collaboration agreements and much more.

Register for these, and all of our other sessions here.

When I turned 50, I decided I’d procrastinated long enough.

I committed to write my first novel — you know the one, the story that’s wandered around in your mind for a decade or two.

I gave myself a deadline. I blocked some spare (yeah, right) time on my calendar. I pulled out a few notes I’d jotted through the years.

*****************************************************************************************************************************
Guest column by Judy Christie, who writes fiction with a Louisiana flavor. She’s the author of the Green Series (Abingdon Press), about a big-city journalist who winds up running a little newspaper in Geen, La., and “Wreath,” a young adult novel (Barbour Publishing). When she’s not writing, she likes to chat on her vintage green Kitchen Couch, which probably is itself a good topic for a novel. You can contact Judy at www.judychristie.com, on Facebook and @JudyChristie. For free weekly tips on writing and various and sundry other topics, check out her podcast on iTunes.
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What I didn’t know about writing a novel far outweighed what I did know. I wasn’t a scholar of the fine art of POV or pacing or tension on every page. I had no idea what head-hopping was, and I was clueless about word count.

But I had noticed bestselling authors had something in common. Despite differences in genre, style, voice, settings, or characters, they developed a writing habit.

After years of procrastination and fear, that lesson helped me write my first novel and five since.

When I flounder as a writer, it’s because I’m inconsistent with my daily writing discipline. When I produce my best stories, I rely on that basic lesson from the masters – words on the page.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that on my most rewarding and productive writing days, I use a kitchen timer, set for an hour at a time. I track how many hours I actually write — as opposed to time spent Tweeting, Facebooking or wandering around my friends’ blogs.

You’d think at age fifty-five I wouldn’t need such a trick, but, after all, it took me fifty years to write a novel.

About a year ago, I started keeping a separate calendar to track my writing hours and my word count each day. While my ego finds that somewhat insulting, those strategies keep me on track when I’m tempted to fritter away my precious writing time. I find I have little tolerance for the zero-word days.

For me, not writing has become harder than writing. Procrastination saps my energy and creativity. I say “no” to certain things to say “yes” to these stories I want to tell.

Whether you are twenty-five or fifty-five, a full-time best-selling author or a frazzled writer on the side, there’s apparently only way to be a successful writer:

Sit down and write.

************

Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Enjoy funny parenting blogs? Then you’ll love: The Life Of Dad
Sign up for my free weekly eNewsletter: WD Newsletter

Q: Could you define the difference between a writer’s voice and style in creative writing?—Ralph G.

Here’s the breakdown: Voice is your own. It’s a developed way of writing that sets you apart from other writers (hopefully). It’s your personality coming through on the page, by your language use and word choice. When you read a Dave Barry column, you know it’s his. Why? He’s developed a distinct writing voice.

Style is much broader than voice. Some writers have a writing style that’s very ornate—long, complex and beautiful sentences, packed with metaphors and imagery (think Frank McCourt and John Irving). Others have a more straightforward style—sparse prose, simple sentences, etc.

Here’s one way to think about it: WD tries to have all its articles fit a similar style—conversational yet straightforward. But between the covers, each piece is written by a different author whose own voice colors his particular piece. So the continuity of the magazine stays together, but each piece is still different.

************

Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Enjoy funny parenting blogs? Then you’ll love: The Life Of Dad
Sign up for my free weekly eNewsletter: WD Newsletter

Over on the Guide to Literary Agents blog, Merry Jones’s looks at How to Write a Great Opening Line. In her analysis, she shares what she considers eight of the best opening lines in fiction. My favorite from her list is “It was a slow Sunday afternoon, the kind Walden loved,” from Ken Follet’s The Man from St. Petersburg. It immediately sets the scene and gives you a glimpse of the main character’s personality.

My favorite opening line of all-time, though, comes from a book that really helped shape my adolescent years (for the better). It hooked me in and I wasn’t able to put it down until I had finished it, which is the No. 1 key to any great opening line. Here the line that pulled me in:

—J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye

If all opening lines were as captivating as Salinger’s, I’m not sure I’d ever get anything accomplished around my house—much to the chagrin of my wife.

Now that you’ve seen mine (and possibly Merry Jones’s), what I want to know is: What’s your favorite opening line to a book? Post it below in the comments section for a chance to win a free copy of Novel Writing, a 128-page magazine packed with advice on how to hook readers from chapter one, create unforgettable characters, get published and more. I’ll pick one commenter at random from my trusty hat. Plus, get an additional chance to win a free issue just by tweeting this:

What’s Your Favorite Opening Line to a Book? (& Win a Free Copy of @WritersDigest’s Novel Writing) - http://bit.ly/QhuJSS (via @BrianKlems)

Deadline to enter for a chance to win: September 24.

************

Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Enjoy funny parenting blogs? Then you’ll love: The Life Of Dad
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Q: My writing course instructor insists that I should go back through my novel manuscript and use only one space after periods instead of two spaces. I was taught that it was always a double space after period. Is she wrong or am I just a dinosaur?—Anonymous

The “two spaces after period” rule was instituted during the days of typewriters. Typewriters had only one font, so all the letters were monospaced, or took up the same amount of space. That means that the skinny “l” and wider “w” occupied the same amount of space on paper. To make reading easier, the two-space rule was born to give the eyes a break between sentences.

Enter the Writer's Digest Short Short Competition Deadline: November 15

A big congrats to Rebecca Czarnecki of Denver, Colo., whose short story “Between Shores” won our July Write It Your Way competition. (The theme for the July competition was “Summer.”) Her story ranked No. 1 out of nearly 350 entries. Enjoy Rebecca’s story below and don’t miss your chance to enter the upcoming Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition, which offers a grand prize of $3,000!

Between Shores

by Rebecca Czarnecki

Virginia summers are hot and endlessly wet. Stepping outside is like getting slapped with a damp and molding paper towel. So, when the bodies of Kaylee and her younger sister Hannah were found caught in an eddy of a river, it seemed like maybe they’d stepped in for a dip. They were floating, side by side, still faces gazing at the hazy blue sky.

Kaylee was my lively friend who loved horses, butterflies, and wrote notes with me through English class. Her was life choked out of her by a man they wouldn’t catch for five long years.

Most summers my family escaped with a tent to Colorado and, after Kaylee’s murder, I was desperate to leave. Instead, my parents bought a security system — a Doberman puppy named Kylie. They hoped she would grow into a man eater. It felt like a crummy trade. I wanted to tell my parents that a dog, even a Doberman, would not protect their daughters from a killer who abducted pretty teenage girls with brown hair. Three years later when Kylie only barked at her reflection and fancied herself a 90 pound lap dog, we gave her away.

Already locked in my own despair, I was now chained to this graveyard town just so we could care for a puppy. I didn’t think my parents had to worry about me. At fifteen, my brown hair was an untamable bush; braces and oversized glasses completed the picture. No one would mistake me for pretty. Not like Kaylee.

I couldn’t cry. Even standing in front of her heart shaped tombstone, picturing her under my feet, I couldn’t cry. In place of tears, a fever burned me from the inside out, turning me into a girl shaped vessel with nothing inside. And I was just a friend. What must her now childless parents feel? The rumor was Hannah had not been a target, that she likely got in the way of Kaylee’s abduction — collateral damage.

My parents did their best, but when your kid has never lost anything more significant than a gerbil, it’s hard to know what to say. One July evening, we were eating dinner on the deck and swatting mosquitos when my mom spoke up.

“Girls, I know you’re disappointed we couldn’t take a big trip this summer.”

“It’s okay,” my older sister Molly, replied. I caught her sneaking a glance at me. She’d always wanted a dog.
“Well, your dad and I thought we could get away for at least a couple of days. Maybe board the dog and go to Chincoteague?”

I practically choked on my spaghetti, trying to reply, “For Pony Penning Day?” “Yeah.” Dad smiled, his voice quiet, “Would you like that, Bea?” This trip was for me. Having hashed over every horse book known to man with Kaylee, Misty of Chincoteague was one of our all-time favorites. I felt about Pony Penning Day the way most kids did about going to Disney World.

I could rattle off facts about Chincoteague at machine-gun pace: Chincoteague is an island off the coast of Virginia; it is buffered by Assateague Island, which is inhabited solely by wild ponies; the residents of Chincoteague hold an annual pony roundup and auction to benefit the Volunteer Fire Department; mounted salt water cowboys herd the ponies on Assateague before swimming them across the narrow channel between the islands.

My parents made the plan to escape to Chincoteague way too late to get a hotel room. So at 1:00 a.m. the day before Pony Penning, we piled into our aging van and rumbled off into the darkness with cicadas and tree frogs singing us goodbye.

My sister touched my shoulder. “Excited, butthead?”

Translation: I love you. I’m happy to watch these stupid horses swim if it makes you feel better. “Yeah!” I nodded vigorously. She grinned, put on headphones, and curled up in her bucket seat and fell asleep. I envied her ability to sleep anytime, anywhere.

I pressed my face to the window and peered into the night, remembering the day I saw Kaylee ride in a competition. She was so polished and confident on the back of a big chestnut horse, taking jumps in a fluid motion. Later, she bounced out of the ring with a blue ribbon fluttering from her hand and I was there to hug her.

Choking down a sigh, I tried to squash the hot shards of sadness pushing from every pore. How did you cure grief?

I wrenched my thoughts back to Chincoteague. It was a favorite weekend getaway for us, we’d just never made it to Pony Penning. You could cruise around Assateague on a bike while ponies regarded you like a bizarre flightless sea bird. Kaylee would’ve loved it. She would’ve understood the beauty in the wild, storm-beaten islands.

My parents took shifts on the four hour drive. At one point, Mom reached back and squeezed my knee, her blue eyes glinting. I had heard stories of her as a kid riding her bike, switching it with a stick, and urging it into a gallop.

We got to Chincoteague around 5:00 a.m. — plenty early to get good positions on the shore. My sister awoke with a groan, “Can I stay in the car?”

Mom cut her eyes to me.

“I don’t care.” I shrugged. This moment was mine.

“I’ll stay here with her,” Dad volunteered all too eagerly. “Wake us after and we’ll go get breakfast.”

“You’re going to miss out,” Mom scolded, but it was halfhearted.

She and I left, weaving our way through the growing throngs of watchers. With a little direction from locals we got the scoop on the best place to wait. We slipped off our shoes and waded into the shallows. The sun was coming up, washing everything in pale gold, and a pleasant breeze rippled over the ocean, carrying scents of the warm day to come. Time slipped by, and all eyes were trained on the opposite shore. Suddenly, someone shouted, “Here they come!”

Ponies and cowboys surged up to the beach. Hundreds of hooves danced across the sand. A few sharp words from the herders and they all plunged into the water. In that instant, the ponies transformed into something elemental: air and sea-foam and sandy turf. The light burst over their necks and shoulders, spray flew around them. Heavenly creatures. A gift from Kaylee.

I rolled my shorts up and waded deeper. A well rose inside me, flooding the heat of my grief. My inner tide finally crested and tears coursed down my face. I heard myself quietly call out, “You can make it.”

Mom stood by my side. “You can make it.” She wasn’t looking at the ponies.

The day grew brighter as though the ponies pulled the sun with them. They powered across the channel, snorting salt water. There had never been a morning so brilliant. Everything that would come later flashed through my mind: waking Molly and Dad, breakfast, the end of summer, the start of a new school year. I willed myself out to those horses, caught between two shores, between earth, sky, and water.

“You can make it.”

************

Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Enjoy funny parenting blogs? Then you’ll love: The Life Of Dad
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If you’re like me, you have a Goodreads account and occasionally use it to update your list of books that you’ve read—but haven’t used it for much else. Goodreads Community Manager Patrick Brown offered up this guest post to me on how authors can use Goodreads to their benefit. I found the information very useful and informative, so I thought I’d share. Here it is:

5 Ways Writers Can Get the Most Out of Goodreads

As the head of the Author Program at Goodreads, I get to work every day with a variety of writers: bestselling authors such as Neil Gaiman, Maggie Stiefvater. Diana Gabaldon and Margaret Atwood, and new authors looking to unveil their long-nurtured book into the world.  It’s a fantastic job and there’s nothing better than seeing readers get excited about their books.

The Goodreads Author Program is free and we currently have more than 48,000 authors in our program. Over the years, the same question has come up: “How can I get the most out of Goodreads?”

So, I thought about the authors who have been most successful on our platform and came up with five pieces of advice. If you follow them, you’ll be off to a strong start toward helping your book be discovered by the more than 10 million readers in the Goodreads community.

Patrick Brown serves as the Community Manager of Goodreads, the largest book recommendation website in the world. Prior to heading up the Goodreads online community, Brown was an independent bookseller at Book Soup and Vroman’s Bookstore. With an intense interest in group interaction online and a love for books, Patrick helps connect people with one another and with their passions. Currently Brown heads the Goodreads Author Program and Customer Care Team. He supports and cultivates one of the largest literary presences online by answering member questions and growing the Goodreads Community through social communication.

1. Use Goodreads to help build your platform.

Every author today needs a platform. By creating a Goodreads author profile, you actually get three major benefits. First, you become part of the Goodreads community, which allows readers to easily check out the latest information about you, see a photo of you, and browse which books you have written. And it allows readers to view the books you’ve read.

Second, you can sync your blog with your Goodreads profile. Not only does your blog help make your author profile more interesting, but there’s an added benefit to having your blog on Goodreads. Each week, we send an email to members with new blog posts from authors they like.

Third, you can promote events­–simply add your events and invite your Goodreads friends to attend. Virtual events, like online discussions and book releases, are just as welcome as bookstore signings and author appearances.

Bonus Advice: One part of building your profile is making sure that your metadata is accurate and full. This point might sound a bit dry, but accurate metadata is absolutely essential for online discovery. Make sure that each of your books has the correct ISBN/ASIN, publication date, and cover image. Even something seemingly as trivial as page count is important. Many Goodreads members like to update their progress through the books they read—”I’m on page 231 of 540.” This translates to great news for you, the author, because when readers do this, their friends on the site often comment and discuss. Unless, of course, you didn’t enter the page count for your book.

2. Use giveaways to generate those all-important pre-release reviews.

By analyzing our data, we know that the number of reviews – regardless of whether they are good and bad – significantly impacts the amount of interest in a book. When a Goodreads member reviews a book, it automatically appears in the updates of all their friends on Goodreads, providing word-of-mouth marketing.

But how do you get those reviews? The pre-release giveaway is a very effective way to get your book read and reviewed. Each month, more than 1,500 titles are given away on Goodreads. But not all giveaways are created equal. To get the most bang for your pre-release buck, we recommend running multiple giveaways, each open for about a month. Your first giveaway should ideally start about three months pre-publication. Then, a few weeks before your book hits the shelves, run a second giveaway. This is what the publisher of the new Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruin did and the results have been tremendous. There is no limit to the number of giveaways you can run on Goodreads.

Bonus Advice:  For some added attention, pair your giveaway with a self-serve advertisement. These inexpensive advertisements allow you to target your giveaway to precisely the right sort of reader for your book. You can target by comparable author or genre. Giveaways supported by ads attract roughly 56% more entries than giveaways without ads.

3. Make it easy for fans to write reviews.

If reviews are essential for discovery, it makes sense to encourage your readers to review your books on Goodreads. Your website likely already has Facebook and Twitter badges on it, but is there a Goodreads “G” on there, as well? Add a Goodreads badge and encourage people to leave a review of your book.

Bonus Advice:  Reviews on Goodreads don’t just appear on Goodreads, they are also exported to many other sites, including Google Books, Powells.com, USAToday.com and more. So, a Goodreads review works harder for you than other reviews.

4. Join the discussion.

Goodreads is home to more than 20,000 book clubs and thousands more groups about nearly every topic imaginable. Find a few groups that interest you and join them. But here’s the tricky part: don’t talk about yourself as a writer initially. Use the group as a reader first. After you’ve been an active and enthusiastic member for a bit of time (we recommend at least a month), you can approach the moderator about hosting a discussion of your book. Popular groups like The Next Best Book Club, Romance Readers Reading Challenges, and The History Book Club regularly host chats with authors.

Bonus Advice: While it may be tempting to join the largest groups, you may be better off becoming a member of several smaller groups where you can get to know readers more easily. Always keep in mind with this tactic that you are essentially walking into a great party where everyone loves books. Who would you rather talk to? The person who will engage in a conversation with you about your interests and be genuinely interested in a broad range of topics before you then discover that they are an author? Or the person who walks up to you and says, “Hi, I’m an author and I’d like you to read my book”?

5. Be a reader!

Authors are, by nature, tremendous readers. Goodreads is first and foremost a site about sharing the love of books. Share yours by talking about what you read. Reviews and reading progress updates are two major sources of activity on the site. Members love seeing what authors are reading and if they have common favorite books.

Bonus Advice: If you’re not comfortable writing reviews, make an “inspirations” shelf and add the books that have meant the most to you as a writer. Not only will these books show up in your update feed for your fans to see, they will also make your profile a more engaging place for readers.

For more information about or to join the Author Program, please visit Goodreads Author Program.

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Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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Thanks to everyone who participated in the Cliches Contest and contributed their cliche examples. We had a record number of comments on this blog (WOW!). The overwhelming support on Twitter really left me humbled that so many of you enjoyed the post. As a special thanks, instead of giving away just one copy of the “25 Agents Who Want Your Work” issue of Writer’s Digest (as promised), I pulled some strings so I could give away five to five random participants! Here are the winners:

KelleySheppard (commenter)
Darden North (commenter)
KarenDoll (commenter)
Monique Berry (from Twitter)
Greg Dominguez (from Twitter)

Once again, I appreciate the participation (and all the fun cliches). And thanks for visiting my blog. Check back in often as I promise to hold more contests with giveaways and prizes, as well as provide as much practical advice and thoughtful tips for writers as I can.

Don’t forget to download your copy of the October issue of Writer’s Digest, which features:

• 25 AGENTS who are looking for new clients (possibly you!)
• How to query an agent
• Techniques for building suspense
• The WD Interview with Patricia Cornwell
• And more!

Download your copy here and gain access to the list of agents immediately.

Cliches drive me bonkers, especially when it comes to writing. They are boring and abused and about as fun to read as the instruction manual of a Dustbuster. Writing is supposed to be a creative process, and there’s nothing creative in rehashing some trite phrase that is so old it was probably used by Moses as he parted the Red Sea.

So I asked the Writer’s Digest team of editors to help me compile a list of the 12 cliches in writing that need to be permanently retired. Here they are (in no particular order):

1. Avoid it like the plague
2. Dead as a doornail
3. Take the tiger by the tail
4. Low hanging fruit
5. If only walls could talk
6. The pot calling the kettle black
7. Think outside the box
8. Thick as thieves
9. But at the end of the day
10. Plenty of fish in the sea
11. Every dog has its day
12. Like a kid in a candy store

And those are just the tip of the iceberg (oh wait, there’s bonus cliche #13!).

Now that you’ve seen ours, what I want to know is: What cliches annoy you the most? Post it below in the comments section for a chance to win a free copy of the new October issue of Writer’s Digest (which features a list of 25 agents who are looking for new clients, as well as how to submit to each one). I’ll pick one commenter at random from my trusty hat. Plus, get an additional chance to win a free issue just by Tweeting this (be sure the hashtag is there so I can track it):

12 Cliches All Writers Should Avoid (& Win a FREE copy of @WritersDigest) - http://bit.ly/QBBT2o (via @BrianKlems) #wdCliches

Deadline to enter for a chance to win: August 30.

Another article you may also enjoy on the topic is:
10 Tips to Avoid Clichés in Writing

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Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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After I queried publishers, an editor from a large publishing house requested my manuscript. Soon after submitting it, I received a letter noting her recommendations for revising. She also stated that I may resubmit. What are the steps to resubmitting? Also, it’s been a year since she sent the letter. Has too much time passed? —Joan K.

The rules of resubmitting a revised manuscript are pretty simple: Make the changes suggested by the editor and then resubmit ASAP. Be sure to reply to the email that includes her original invitation to resubmit. This serves to remind her that she prompted you to do so, and will also refresh her memory of the relationship (no matter how small) the two of you had developed, and her interest in your story. (If your correspondence occurred via snail mail, then include a copy of the letter in which she welcomes you to resend the revised copy.)

The key is to make sure she realizes she had a previous relationship with you and your manuscript. She’s probably read thousands of proposals and hundreds of manuscripts since then, so her memory of your project could be shaky. The more you can remind her that you once wined and dined her and that she expressed an interest in a second date with your book (after a little grooming, of course), the better your chances are.

But I’m not going to lie to you: It probably doesn’t help that it’s taken you a year to get back to that editor. It’s possible that she is no longer seeking the type of work you pitched, and is instead looking to fill her list in other ways. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow through. If the editor took the time to give you notes, she must believe there is something special about your manuscript. The sooner you can get the revised version back to her, the better.

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Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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Can you tell me if there are any literary agents who represent nonfiction writers looking to publish magazine articles, and if so, where I might find one? —Ted C.

Agents don’t typically represent freelance writers. Why not, you ask? Consider their business model: Agents will get behind any body of work they believe in that has the potential to generate a substantial income. Agents make their living by earning a percentage of what their clients make. So the wages of freelancing—generally consisting of irregular one-time payments for short articles—don’t generate enough dough to entice agents to get in the game.

Freelance writing for magazines is a do-it-yourself endeavor, where you need to research, query and make connections on your own. This is often more challenging than the writing itself, so even if agents did represent freelancers, they’d likely want a bigger chunk of the paycheck for all this work. And, considering those paychecks are mirroring the ever-shrinking editorial budgets of magazines, this would be impractical for a freelance writer.

I’m sure it’s possible that somewhere in this vast universe exists a person or two who may agent freelance magazine writers, though I don’t know of any. If you happen to find one, keep in mind that there are no industry standards for this type of an agent to abide by, so he’d have free reign to play by his own rules. Consider also that magazine editors are accustomed to working with their contributors directly and may not be open to submissions through an agent. So proceed cautiously and be sure you know exactly what you’re getting into.

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Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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Many people adhere to a belief that you use the article “a” before words that begin with consonants and “an” before words that begin with vowels. But that isn’t the rule, and it’s important to avoid this rookie mistake before turning over your manuscript to agents and editors.

The real rule is this: You use the article “a” before words that start with a consonant sound and “an” before words that start with a vowel sound. For example, He has a unique point of view on the subject and talked about if for an hour. The “u” in “unique” make the “Y” sound—a consonant sound—therefore you use “a” as your article, while the “h” in “hour” sounds like it starts with “ow”—a vowel sound.

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Follow me on Twitter: @BrianKlems
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