Tag: McCrillis

Writers Guild Updates

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By Linda Donaldson

A reminder – our June meeting on the 17th falls on Father’s Day. We start at 1 pm and meet till 3 pm. Please bring 10 copies of any work you’d like to share up to 3 pages long, and remember to put your name and email on your work for further feedback.

Anne Kaler began our May Writers Guild meeting by announcing our Literary Journal plans for this year. The former Fall 2017 issue, with the theme of “Justice and Mercy,” will be posted mid-June as the Summer 2018 issue. The Editors have chosen the theme “Transformation“ for the Winter 2018 issue with the deadline of October 31, 2018. Submission guidelines will be posted soon on the blog. Continue reading “Writers Guild Updates” →

Left Brain, Right Brain

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By Bob McCrillis

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do. How many times have we heard that old saw?

There is an ocean of advice out there for the would-be author. We have our choice of webinars, seminars, boot camps, and retreats. Each one promising that, with their system, we will release our inner book. Trust me, I’ve drunk deeply from this well. No matter what course or system, step one is always, always prepare an outline.

Bob cropped tightI diligently took notes on such arcana as story arcs, critical turning points, characterization, and the primacy of points of view. According to the books, my next step — the first that called for actual writing — was to prepare my outline. The more detailed my outline, the better. The outline should include major and minor turning points, and the critical conflicts. My next task was to complete detailed worksheets describing my characters. With that done, writing your novel is mere word play.

To this I say, Balderdash! And again, Balderdash! Continue reading “Left Brain, Right Brain” →

What Genre Do You Work In?

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By Bob McCrillis

I admit, I thought the question was a little silly the first time someone asked. Genre, unless you were an English Literature professor, was a euphemism for formula and no one wants their work to be viewed as something written to a formula.

Bob cropped tightIt didn’t take long to discover that the question of genre is critically important to the people who sell books. Readers tend toward books similar to the ones they’ve already read and enjoyed – hence the popularity of a series. If you’re in the business of selling books, knowledge of the preferences of the market is critically important. Continue reading “What Genre Do You Work In?” →

The Great Divide

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By Bob McCrillis

Leaving the cloistered world of writing a novel to take a few baby steps into the arena of publishing has been as sudden and sharp a change as stepping out of a spruce thicket to find myself standing on the head of the Old Man In The Mountain with the whole state of New Hampshire spread out under my feet. For many, that would be awe inspiring. For me, it was terrifying.

Bob cropped tight

Terrifying and, at first exposure, insurmountable. The numbers speak for themselves according to UNESCO in 2013, there were a little over three-hundred thousand new titles published in the United States. If we assume that those that were published were a small percent of the manuscripts submitted, I think it’s fair to say that my novel is competing for attention with ten or fifteen million other works. The experts say there are around one thousand literary agencies in the United States so…well, you can do the arithmetic. Even if all of my assumptions are off by fifty percent, there’s a huge number of manuscripts fighting for attention. Continue reading “The Great Divide” →

April Writers Guild Meeting Recap

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By Linda Donaldson

Many attendees came to share work at the April meeting of the Writers Guild. We got started right away with Melissa Triol’s short story about a widow confronting the man who possesses her dead first husband’s watch. The woman’s slow, understated unraveling of the terrible facts of this man’s betrayal make for an armchair gripping read.

Melissa’s story will be a perfect fit for what we are calling our upcoming Spring 2018 issue of the Literary Journal, the theme of which is Justice and Mercy. We expect to post this issue in the next few weeks, and to announce the theme of the Fall 2018 issue of the Literary Journal. Thanks for your patience! Continue reading “April Writers Guild Meeting Recap” →

Help From an Unexpected Place

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By Bob McCrillis

Sometimes, agents are as nutty as writers, or so it seemed.

On his submissions requirements was ‘if you haven’t read and absorbed all of the Query Shark archives, you’re not ready to query’. Query Shark? What the heck was that? And why would I need to review its archives?

Bob cropped tightBeing a compulsive rule-follower, I dutifully Googled Query Shark and found the blog. Okay, a blog about queries might have some good information before the pitch for an online tutorial course for the low, low price of only …

I clicked on and discovered a treasure trove that I would have hoarded for myself, if I could – why help the competition? My good angel prevailed. Continue reading “Help From an Unexpected Place” →

One Writer’s Secret Weapon

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By Bob McCrillis

I’m a terrible editor.

It’s an affliction that has cost me at least one potential agent. At a book signing for one of his clients, I started chatting with him about doing yet another complete rewrite of my novel. My elevator speech interested him and he encouraged me to bring a query package to a conference at one of the local colleges scheduled for a few months in the future.

Man, I knew I had this one locked. I had a great story, an inside track for an agent, and a couple of months to finish the rewrite. Imagine my humiliation when, after proudly handing him my query, he started through it then took out his pen and began circling things. Not editorial issues or voice possibilities, but obviously missing or duplicated words, “he” where I meant “the”, and even inconsistent spelling of a name between the first paragraph and the fourth on the same page! Continue reading “One Writer’s Secret Weapon” →

August Guild News

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Our next Writers Guild meeting is Sunday, August 20th from 1:30pm to 3:30pm in the Cultural Center (the Red Barn building) on the beautiful grounds of Pearl S. Buck’s historic home at 520 Dublin Road, Perkasie, PA 18944. We welcome all writers and would-be writers to join us at this monthly (from March to October) roundtable discussion.

Bring ten or more copies of a 3 or 4 page selection of your work if you wish to share it for comments. Be sure to include your name and email address on your work for additional feedback.

Bob McCrillis Publishes First Book Continue reading “August Guild News” →

On First Looking Into Dickens’s Oliver Twist

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(With apologies to Messrs. Chapman and Keats –but I needed a title)

By Bob McCrillis

Always on the lookout for a bargain, I found myself perusing the public domain table at Barnes & Noble. For those unfamiliar with these offerings, they are cheap hardback editions of classics that are no longer protected by copyright priced with the student budget in mind. Continue reading “On First Looking Into Dickens’s Oliver Twist” →

July Guild Meeting Highlights

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By Linda Donaldson

Eight Writers Guild members came together this past Sunday for our July meeting. For the benefit of our new member, Holly Odell, we went around the table and introduced ourselves and told about our current writing projects.

It was announced that Sandy Cody, a presenter at PSB Writing Center workshops, and Guild member, sent two links from Authors Publish magazine: First Eleven Literary Journals that Read Submissions Blind (without regard to the author’s identity or previous publishing history). Second, a free PDF  The 2017 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.

Anne Kaler congratulated Bob McCrillis on the paperback proof copy he brought of his new collection of short stories published through CreateSpace. Entitled Puckerbrush: Stories of the Journey to Manhood. Bob had just finished rereading and marking the editing changes he plans to make before correcting them and releasing the book for publication. Continue reading “July Guild Meeting Highlights” →