submissions – Jean's Writing

Need to Find Inspiration?

Published on June 21, 2015June 21, 2015 by Jean M. Cogdell7 Comments

Summer time and the living is easy.

Time to write and time to read.

If you need inspiration? I’ve got a couple of ideas.

First sign up for some writing prompts.

You’ll find everything from one word, multiple words, to pictures. Some will arrive in you inbox daily, weekly or quarterly.

Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers
Mash Stories (3 word prompt & contest every 3 mos)
100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups
Lillie McFerrin Writes Five Sentence Fiction
Describli – Describe Your World
Daily Prompts at The Daily Post

You can choose to link up with other bloggers using the prompt or you can –

Polish and enter your masterpiece in a contest.

Here are a few I found.

The Saturday Evening Post’s fourth annual Great American Fiction Contest. (deadline July 1, 2015)
Mash Stories (3 word prompt & contest every 3 mos current deadline July 15,2015)
Share Your “Silver Linings” Story at Good Housekeeping (deadline Sept. 1, 2015)
Flash500 (deadlines Jun 30, Sept 30, & Dec 30, 2015)
Five Magic Spindles creative writing contest (deadline Dec. 16, 2015)
Tethered by Letters third annual Summer Literary Competition (Aug. 31st, 2015)
The Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (deadline Aug. 31, 2015)
The 2015 Ernest Hemingway Flash Fiction Prize (deadline Dec. 1, 2015)
WOW! Women on Writing (Summer contest to begin soon)
The First Line Literary Journal (deadline Aug 1, 2015 Fall Contest)
Story Magazine (theme contest deadline Jul 15, 2015)

Do you have a favorite writing prompt that inspires you?

How about contests or call for submissions? Any you think I’d like to hear about?

Let me and the other writers know in the comments section. Much obliged.

Remember to pass this on to your Facebook and Twitter pals.
If you’re not already, please follow me @jeancogdell on Twitter or jean.cogdell on Facebook!

Write your best Horror in 2 Sentences and Win

Published on October 29, 2014 by Jean M. Cogdell31 Comments

On The Porch

The attack came out of nowhere. Fear strangled my scream as claws raked over my skin.

Now your turn!

My inspiration came from a great meeting with my fellow SWAG (Sachse-Wylie Authors Group) members last week. So, in my last post I linked to the original Two Sentence Horror Story thread hoping to inspire my readers.

Ruth Glover ran with it, click and read her Halloween 2 Sentence Stories.

I’ve decided to go a step further.

Write and win!

The Challenge!

Submit:

Submit, in comments, your best original Horror story in 2 sentences with a link back to your website.

Vote:

Vote on your favorite!

WIN:

A $10 Amazon gift card.

Rules:

Submit an Original 2 sentence horror story
Link to your website (that’s how I’ll contact winner) and
Vote on someone else’s story by comment.

Winner:

One writer with the best ORIGINAL 2 Sentence Horror Story will be selected by the votes received.

Myself excluded. Get writing – and submit.

Challenge ends.

5pm Central Time October 30th, when the spooks come out!

Need more inspiration? Check out…

Two Sentence Horror Story

How to write Flash Fiction

Published on April 24, 2014 by Jean M. Cogdell3 Comments

I’m not an expert, but I love flash fiction. Love to read it and love to write it.

As with any story flash has the same three parts.

A beginning. Choose a moment in your character’s life that tells us a lot in a short amount of time. The plot must be simple. A hint of conflict and plot involvement is sometimes all it takes.

A middle. Be concise. Here is where you start cutting. Edit everything out of the story that isn’t vital to moving the story forward. Remove modifiers, such as “very,” “quite,” and “actually.” This is where you must plan every word and cut all “pretty purple” words.

An End. The story needs to be wrapped up in a nice package for the reader. Whether that package is five hundred words or two thousand words. Remember flash has but a hint of the depth within a short story or novel.

The rule to show, rather than tell, is especially important in flash fiction writing because your goal is to maximize the impact of each passage. Paint your characters and action with small, vivid scenes. Mike Resnick says, “Brevity is not just the soul of wit; it is damned hard work.”

Another way is to think of your flash piece as a thirty minute TV sitcom. You have but thirty minutes, make each second count. There is no room for scene building, you must introduce the main character to the reader, where they are, what’s happening and bring everything to a satisfactory conclusion in 1800 seconds.

There is little room for elaborate words, purple prose or run on sentences. The flash fiction piece needs to be concise, tight and as elusive as poetry in story form.

Quite the challenge.

Each ezine, magazine, anthology or contest has different rules and word count. Check and recheck those rules. The rules are important and word count will help you tighten the story.

Read, read, and read some more. Reading flash fiction will enable you to understand the craft. Next, write and submit somewhere to someone. This is the scary part for some of us. I get sweaty palms every time I hit that submit button. But as a friend once said to me, I already have a no. This time I might get a yes.

Then do it all over again, write and submit.

Since I’m no expert, I’ve put together a list of websites to help us all. Please click on the links above and below. Together maybe we can learn and enhance our flash fiction writing at the same time.

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”~ Pablo Picasso

Who writes flash fiction? Famous authors dead and alive…

NATIONAL FLASH FICTION DAY IS COMING!

21st June 2014

Stories in your Pocket Flash Fiction Chronicles Blog Accepting Flash Fiction Every Day Fiction Haunted Waters Press