Thanks to all the readers and writers who joined us for Week 13 of #TuesdaySerial! It’s a terrific week with 22 entries, including two debuts from Elizabeth Flora Ross and Paul Anderson! Thanks to all of our writers and readers! Please let us know if we have made any mistakes on the entries and/or marking items as debuts.
We also want to share some news for all writers of serials. Yesterday afternoon, The Penny Dreadful hosted a chat with guest EpiGuide to discuss the “Web Series Writing Month” that they are hosting. Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? National Novel writing month takes place in November and participants attempt to write 50,000 words. If they complete 50,000 during the month then they “win” bragging rights. Well, Web Series Writing Month – WeSeWriMo – is a somewhat less formal version of NaNoWriMo specifically for web series and takes place in August. It actually encompasses all forms of web serials such as podcasting, comics, etc. Participants are able to specific their own goals, since an appropriate goal would be different depending on the medium. A suggested goal might be to aim for 150% of your normal monthly output for your serial. If you are interested in participating, then here are some things you should do:
Check out the chat transcript provided by the fabulous folks over at The Penny Dreadful from Tuesday July 27 in which EpiGuide chats about WeSeWriMo.
And then check out the WeSeWriMo Page for more details and to sign up.
Any #TuesdaySerial contributors who are participating in WeSeWriMo, please let us know by sending us a message on Twitter (@TuesdaySerial). You’ll get a special mention in our TuesdaySerial reports during August.
Tell all your reading and writing friends about us – we’ll be back for more next week!
So, here is the final list of all of this week’s participants. Happy reading & writing!
ps Writers, if your story is missing, please leave a comment on this post with the Title, author and a link. Readers, be sure to check the comments for any late additions.
For Spoken Sunday this week, I have done an audio recording of a story I wrote earlier this year that won the “Write On” February Challenge. The story is “Waiting for Spring” and you can check out the full text and audio recording by going here.
I have been doubly-honored … I have received the Fabulous Flash Award AND I have received it from one of my favorite writers – Mark Kerstetter! He’s written a most-eloquent post (that left me blushing) about why he bestowed the award upon me. I enjoy Mark’s stories so much and to top things off, he hangs out over at Escape Into Life (one of my favorite surfing sites on the web) and does some terrific things for them as well. So, I’m very pleased to receive this award – which originated over at Mad Utopia – and very flattered at all the nice things Mark has to say about my writing.
So, now, I have the responsibility to pass this award on to four other writers. I wanted to highlight four terrific writers, not necessarily members of #fridayflash, who I think everybody should check out:
Aaron M. Wilson – Aaron writes terrific flash, short stories and he’s writing a web serial called “Bike Mechanic” that promises to be quite a ride (pun intended). Check out his blog “Soulless Machine” for all the scoop.
Sarah Joyce Bryant – Sarah writes short stories and essays, but her real forte is memoir. This young lady is a very talented writer and one to watch for sure. Start reading her now and in a few years you can say “I knew her when …” Her blog is “The Night Writer.“
Isabel Joely Black – I have just recently been introduced to Isabel’s writing and she’s got a style all her own and has created a world that I enjoy visiting. So, go check her out now over at her blog “Between the Words.“
Noelle Pierce - Noelle is another writer that I have recently come to know. I am enjoying her serial “Closing Time,” and I have also discovered that there’s a whole other side to Noelle including novels and short stories! You can check out her main blog for more info.
Okay, mission accomplished. I hope i’ve introduced you to at least one or two writers that you didn’t know before. All are very much worth following and reading!
Thanks to all the readers and writers who joined us for Week 12 of #TuesdaySerial! It’s a terrific week with eighteen entries, including two debuts from Clive Martyn and Isabel Joely Black! Thanks to all of our writers and readers! Please let me know if I have made any mistakes on the entries and/or marking items as debuts.
Tell all your reading and writing friends about us – we’ll be back for more next week!
So, here is the final list of all of this week’s participants. Happy reading & writing!
ps Writers, if your story is missing, please leave a comment on this post with the Title, author and a link. Readers, be sure to check the comments for any late additions.
My audio recording for this story can be found below and the text follows. For more audio recordings and information about #SpokenSunday, click on the menu item above “Audio Recordings.”
The woman behind the desk stares at the computer screen through her thick glasses and taps on the keyboard. I walk to the opposite side of the counter and wait for her to look and acknowledge me. Tap tap tap on the keyboard.
I step closer to the counter and say softly, “Excuse me.”
Her eyes scan back to the monitor. She leans in, squints her eyes and continues typing.
I say, louder this time, “Excuse me. I need to lodge a complaint.”
Her fingers freeze in mid-air and her pupils shoot towards me. The skin at the edge of her left eye twitches a couple of times as she studies me through her spectacles.
I sigh. This is going to be more difficult than I thought.
I lean in closer to her. “Look, I need to tell you that the young lady who performed my pedicure and manicure did a simply atrocious job. Where do I begin to tell you all the things that she did?” I shake my head. “I specifically asked her to cut my toenails short, but they look like talons. I asked for my fingernails to be rounded and the corners are so sharp I have already poked myself twice. And when removing my cuticles, she drew blood on two toes and four fingers. Look!” I splay my fingers on the countertop. She pushes her glasses higher on her nose and leans in to study my nails. The blood has mixed in with the pearl white nail polish providing lasting evidence of her bumbling.
Her voice surprises me in its softness. “Are you very certain you wish to file a complaint?”
I glance at the blood-streaked nails and crinkle my brow. “Are you kidding me? You’re lucky I’m not filing assault charges. Look – can we get on with this? I need to get back to my job site. I’m a construction worker and I have an enormous pile of lumber to sand today.”
“Sand?”
“Yes. I use a power sander. I’ll wear gloves, of course.”
“Yes, of course.” She turns back to her computer, purses her lips and holds her fingers above the keyboard. “Very well. Name?”
“Ingrid Sampson.” I spell out the letters as she types.
“Address?”
“Why do you need my address?”
Glaring at me again, she says, “We keep very precise records and take complaints quite seriously.”
I say, “547 Peachtree Lane.”
While she types, my eyes drift across the desk and land on a display of business cards propped up next to her keyboard. The embossed letters read: “No Complaints Nail Salon. Tabitha Silke, Proprietress.” I grin and almost laugh out loud at the irony of the name.
Her head swivels back to me. I sober up quickly. “Nature of your complaint?”
“Well, I just told you – she didn’t respond to any of my instructions and she injured me in several places.”
She raises her eyebrows, dainty, over-plucked, brown arches. Click click click on the keyboard. “Very well. Is there anything else you wish to add?”
“Isn’t that enough? I could have permanent scars on my fingers and at a minimum I’m going to have to redo my manicure. These cuts are going to burn like crazy when I use nail polish remover …”
Pulling gently on her ear, she closes her eyes and wiggles her nose. As my eyes grow wide, the reception desk, the woman and the surrounding room dissolve into a pink mist.
*****
I stand in a small workroom. My manicurist stands at my side. I look down and realize I’m wearing a smock like hers over my clothes. She places her hand on my arm and leads me towards the door. “Come, your client is here.”
My mind spins. “What? Where am I?”
She stops, releases my arm and turns to face me. “There are no complaints allowed at this salon. Anybody attempting to complain can never leave. I was a butcher until I came in for my manicure last week.” I nod slowly. I look down and the wounds on my hands and feet, as well as the polish have vanished. My mouth drops open as she leads me out the door.
My client, a young girl with flaming red hair, leafs through a magazine while her feet soak. I give her a weak smile.
She lowers her magazine and says, between chews on her chewing gum, “Make sure you get rid of all the callouses on my feet. The last place I went to didn’t buff them enough.”
I meet her eyes for a moment and then survey the array of tools laid out next to me.
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll do my best.”
Thanks to all the readers and writers who joined us for Week 11 of #TuesdaySerial! It’s a terrific week with twenty entries, including two debuts from ThoreyO, J. Dane Tyler and Dan Luffey! Thanks to all of our writers and readers! Please let me know if I have made any mistakes on the entries and/or marking items as debuts.
Tell all your reading and writing friends about us – we’ll be back for more next week!
So, here is the final list of all of this week’s participants. Happy reading & writing!
ps Writers, if your story is missing, please leave a comment on this post with the Title, author and a link. Readers, be sure to check the comments for any late additions.
Have you heard of SpokenSunday yet? If you like listening to podcasts, then you’ll *love* Spoken Sunday! This weekly event is hosted by Benjamin Solah and he’s set up a separate blog for it called (quite cleverly) “Spoken Sunday.” You can also find Benjamin on his own blog where he writes fiction and writes about radical politics and popular culture.
Many of the contributors to SpokenSunday (including myself) use a tool called “AudioBoo” which allows you to record from your iPhone and upload to your own personal AudioBoo page. I’ll be using it for periodic audio digests and for reading some of my stories. I think I’ll be posting each contribution to #SpokenSunday in a separate blog post so you won’t miss it. There are also a few other ways you can check out my audio recordings. One option is the “Audio Recordings” menu tab at the top of my blog, which will take you to a listing of all of my recordings. The next option is to check out my AudioBoo profile page which has a list of all recordings, plus you can see comments (and leave one yourself!). And the final option (that I know of!) is to subscribe to all of my AudioBoo’s by clicking the “iTunes” button on my AudioBoo profile page. If you subscribe, episodes will automatically be downloaded to your iTunes when they are posted.
Okay, now without further delay, here is my contribution for this week, which is an audio recording of the second episode of my serial story “The Pianist.” The text, if you are interested, can be found here. Unfortunately my recording went a shade over the AudioBoo five minute limit and so I had to record it in two sections. Here they are:
Enjoy! And please leave me a comment either here or over on my AudioBoo page to let me know what you think! And hop on over to the #SpokenSunday blog to check out other fun recordings.
Thanks to all the readers and writers who joined us for Week 10 of #TuesdaySerial! It’s a terrific week with nineteen entries, including a debut from Tim Van Sant! Thanks to all of our writers and readers! Please let me know if I have made any mistakes on the entries and/or marking items as debuts.
Tell all your reading and writing friends about us – we’ll be back for more next week!
So, here is the final list of all of this week’s participants. Happy reading & writing!
ps Special thanks to Icy Sedgwick for our avatar!
pps Writers, if your story is missing, please leave a comment on this post with the Title, author and a link. Readers, be sure to check the comments for any late additions.
ppps Special thanks to Tim Van Sant for helping us fix the numbering problem on previous #TuesdaySerial reports
One of my Twitter friends, Greg McQueen, is preparing for an upcoming podcast on the subject of E-books and has asked people to share their opinions and thoughts on e-books. This will be a brief post since I am writing when I should be sleeping, but here are my thoughts …
Borderless information. Much has been said about the idea that e-books are an ideal way to disseminate information and education and I absolutely believe that this is true. With the technological barriers getting lower and lower all the time (e.g., the lower cost of e-readers), people in the four corners of the planet are starting to have the same opportunities for education as those in developed countries. This brings new meaning to the term “globalization.”
Lower cost to readers, but lower earnings by writers. This point is self-explanatory, of course, since generally the price of an e-book is lower than a printed book. The hope would be that a wider audience will make up for the lower cost, but this won’t be the case for all, or even most, writers.
Difficult to find quality writing. Ron Charles, from Washington Post Book World, recently said on Twitter, “I’m not at all convinced that e-publishing will let millions of new authors bloom… How will we find gems in this flood?” This question is in the minds of publishers and others confronting the new reality where any author with a word document and a bit of ingenuity can get their ebook published for free. It’s a crucial concern and speaks to the need for readers to be open to new authors and the need for authors to find new and creative ways to build their readership.
Sometimes e-readers can be high-maintenance. Making sure that the battery is charged, making sure that you have internet connectivity if necessary, figuring out which program to launch, etc. For example, on my iPad, I have around six different ebook apps. I’m experimenting in the hope of finding one app that meets my needs. Our WIFI works just fine downstairs, but it’s often difficult to get a connection upstairs in our home. A book is more difficult to carry, but you simply open it up to the bookmark and resume reading.
Sometimes I find that I have a shorter attention span with an ebook than I have for a printed book. I’m not sure why – possibly it’s due to the similarity between an e-reader and a computer – i.e., reading on the web. Of course, in my case, much of what I read is on the web – blogs, Friday flash stories, Tuesday serial stories, etc. I’d be curious whether anybody else feels they have a shorter attention span with ebooks.
For some people, the need to own a physical book is still very important. In defending our eight overflowing bookcases that line our bedroom, my husband cites a study that showed a direct link to the number of books in the house to the intelligence of children raised in that house. I doubt that they will find as strong a correlation between intelligence of children and the number of books on the parents e-reader. My husband adores printed books so much that he owns a Kindle for convenience sake (he does a lot of business traveling), but he buys used printed copies of all of the books that he likes on his Kindle.
So, Greg, I hope you found this a teensy bit helpful and I invite all my readers to add their thoughts via the comments.
Have you heard of SpokenSunday yet? If you like listening to podcasts, then you’ll *love* Spoken Sunday! This weekly event is hosted by Benjamin Solah and he’s set up a separate blog for it called (quite cleverly) “Spoken Sunday.” You can also find Benjamin on his own blog where he writes fiction and writes about radical politics and popular culture.
Many of the contributors to SpokenSunday (including myself) use a tool called “AudioBoo” which allows you to record from your iPhone and upload to your own personal AudioBoo page. I’ll be using it for periodic audio digests and for reading some of my stories. I think I’ll be posting each contribution to #SpokenSunday in a separate blog post so you won’t miss it. There are also a few other ways you can check out my audio recordings. One option is the “Audio Recordings” menu tab at the top of my blog, which will take you to a listing of all of my recordings. The next option is to check out my AudioBoo profile page which has a list of all recordings, plus you can see comments (and leave one yourself!). And the final option (that I know of!) is to subscribe to all of my AudioBoo’s by clicking the “iTunes” button on my AudioBoo profile page. If you subscribe, episodes will automatically be downloaded to your iTunes when they are posted.
Okay, now without further delay, here is my contribution for this week, which is an audio recording of the first episode of my serial story “The Pianist.” The text, if you are interested, can be found here. And here is the audio recording:
Enjoy! And please leave me a comment either here or over on my AudioBoo page to let me know what you think! And hop on over to the #SpokenSunday blog to check out other fun recordings.
Thanks to all the readers and writers who joined us for Week 13 of #TuesdaySerial! It’s a terrific week with 22 entries, including two debuts from Elizabeth Flora Ross and Paul Anderson! Thanks to all of our writers and readers! Please let us know if we have made any mistakes on the entries and/or marking items as debuts.
