Women on Writing - WOW and WOW!
Women On Writing is an online magazine and community for women writers. Among major topics are novel writing, indie publishing, author platform, blogging, screenwriting, and more. Lots of contests and general jocularity sans frittering on the part of Earth's most powerful humans.
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When I get a new student in my nonfiction writing class, one of the first things I ask them is what they are writing. I don’t mean it as a trick question, but there are a lot of factors that go into identifying your nonfiction project. What is the age of your reader? When you give an age range, it helps to give a range that is similar to the ones recognized by publishers. Some of the ranges I see when I read marketing listings are 2 years to 4 years, 5 years to 8 years, and 9 years to 12 years. Figuring out the approximate age of your reader is only the first step but it is an important one. It impacts reading level, vocabulary and what they already know about your to…
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Sometimes we get into our cars knowing exactly where we should be heading to get to our destination but decide to head in an entirely different direction. Usually it's because we think another route will get us there faster or we'll avoid heavy traffic. What we often find though is that our traveling time wasn't shortened at all, and that heavy traffic was unavoidable. If we had just kept heading in the direction we'd traveled so many times before, and knew like the back of our hand, we would have gotten there exactly when we needed to or wanted to. Often, I've changed the course of my tried and true direction, looking for a faster, shorter route as a writer. I thought th…
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No matter how old people are or their feelings about reading, they have fond memories of picture books. These memories can range from reading with parents or grandparents at night books like, The Monster at the End of This Book or The True Story of the Three Little Pigs or just about any Golden Book. Memories, of row after row of hardback picture books with white tags on the spine in a school library or even a public one, are also front and center in readers' minds. Maybe some of these picture books were the first ones that you learned to read as a child, and now you are sharing your favorites with your kids--Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? or Don't Let the Pigeo…
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Without realizing it, I fell into a writing habit the past couple of months. It all started when I changed my weekend morning routine. Rather than turning on the coffee and skimming the news on my phone, I take out a notebook and write for a while. You see, this is remarkable to me because I've never been the type to embrace the idea of a writing habit. I've never thought it was for me. It reeked of the type of responsibility reserved for laundry, taxes, and Monday mornings. However, once I began to embrace this habit, I've started to write more. Not only that, my stories are better too. So, I wanted to share a bit of advice on how to find your writing habit. 1) A writin…
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Review of Cliffhanger: Jump Before You Get Pushed by Michael R. French This Young Adult story centre’s around a high school student body president election, but it’s about much more than high school, it’s for young adult readers and beyond! Touching on corruption and truths, this page-turner of a novel will have you on the edge of your seat, enthralled to read on and find out who wins the election and who wins at life. Brit is a play-it-safe Brainiac who never gets in trouble. She joins the election team for Matthew, (an old crush and seasoned leader) content to put her own leadership dreams to rest. But when she is blamed for hacking into Matthew’s campaign team serv…
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Victoria is super excited to see her first children’s picture book, If a Mantis Finds a Fly in the Sky, published and available for purchase. This book was inspired by her real-life pet Praying Mantis, Jade, who just passed away. Who knew one could get attached to an insect! If you have, or know of, kids aged 3-8 who are big fans of bugs and Seussian rhymes, this book is for them! Victoria is an APA style-certified editor and the founder of www.LocalEditors.com, which helps high schoolers craft their college application essays and graduate students polish and publish their theses and dissertations. Her published pieces have appeared in print and online in The Bark, Dog …
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Now announcing our next blog tour with author Karen Brown Tyson. Her book is perfect for anyone who wants to reset their life and faith walk with God. About the Book Has your life been interrupted? Do you want to know how to move forward? It's time to stop running in circles. When we experience setbacks and disappointments in life, God is ready to not only offer refuge but is prepared to provide redirection. In Time to Reset: A 21-Day Devotional to Renew Your Mind After Being Sidelined, Disappointed or Knocked Off Course, Karen Brown Tyson helps us: learn how to surrender to God's plan,become the best version of ourselves, God created us to be; andrefresh our faith. How …
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These days--these days of wearing masks and trying to keep apart from each other and not living "normal" lives and living with a constant undercurrent of fear of a microscopic enemy--we all need help. A boost. A reason to smile. This post began a while ago when I went to the bank. The drive-thru, since nobody gets IN the bank building these days... (which makes me think of what a terrible time this is for bank robbers. I mean, they've been out of work for months. They're probably depressed, watching Jerry Springer instead of holding up bank tellers, because I imagine it's difficult to make an appointment to get into the bank... and then rob it.) ... Back to the bank…
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I had the amazing opportunity to visit St. Thomas U.S.V.I. over spring break. We were nervous about taking this trip, as we we were still waiting on our first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, but then we started thinking that my oldest daughter is a junior in high school and we may not have her to vacation with us much longer. We took the necessary COVID-19 tests the U.S. Virgin Islands required to arrive on the island, and off we went (at the time we planned the trip they had zero reported cases). I knew one of my favorite authors, Elin Hilderbrand, was on the nearby island of St. John because she goes there to write for five weeks each spring. I kept joking that I’d love…
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by Stephanie Dethlefs I love lists. I love maps. I love schedules, routines, and plans. I’m spontaneity-challenged. I want to know what’s coming, always. I know these things about myself (and, perhaps more importantly, my husband knows them about me.) I’ve always leaned into this characteristic in all areas...except writing. I hated prewriting activities when I was in school. I just wanted my stories to emerge from the pencil like water from a faucet. I would avoid writing outlines with a pout and a touch of procrastination. I turned in first drafts and pleaded innocence. In elementary school, this plan worked fine because I had no inner editor. As I got older, that…
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I struggle. I changed that sentence oh so many times - I struggle with ____________ (time management, not always understanding, being patient, parenting, finding time to write, and the list goes on). Ultimately though - I'm sure you can relate with the simple sentence: After all, each of us struggles with something, right? I left WOW! Blog Tours for a while because I was having a difficult time managing my mom role while managing tours. I thought leaving the tours would be the answer. It wasn't. I'm back. I was missing the lovely bloggers and authors I had worked with. This got me thinking about how we often don't know what the future brings and how things will turn …
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It was a glorious Easter this year, and what made it extra special was the gathering of all my family at my house. Yay! But that called for extra special cleaning AND cooking on the Saturday before, which looked a little something like this: Clean the downstairs where all that gathering would be (which took a couple of hours even though it’s only me and Libs here and I basically occupy the same 10 square feet every day). Rest for an hour. Or so. Fix the muffins and the pasta salad (which took another hour or so ‘cause there were two kinds of muffins and I didn’t really know what I was doing, pasta salad-wise). Rest for an hour. Or so. Clean the kitchen and an upstairs …
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Sally Basmajian is an escapee from the corporate broadcasting world. Before fleeing the business, she was Bell Media’s Vice President and General Manager, Comedy and Drama. She is currently finishing Draft #1 of a historical novel and sketching a number of short memoir and fiction pieces. In February 2020, she was awarded first prize in both the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories for Ontario’s Rising Spirits contest as well as third prize in WOW’s Winter 2020 Flash Fiction Contest. She completed her Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing at Humber College in 2019 and holds a Master of Arts in Musicology from the University of Toronto. interview by Marcia Peterson WOW…
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In 2030, viruses, spy drones, terrorism, and joblessness have eroded American optimism. People want something to believe in. As demonstrated in a Midwest high school election, politics have taken on the inflexibility and dogma of a new religion. Only true believers will survive and prosper. Or so they think. This book is perfect for anyone, including young adults, or someone who likes mystery/thriller/romance with a strong, conflicted heroine. Print Length: 276 Pages Genre: Political ThrillerISBN-10: 1732511756ISBN-13: 978-1732511750Publisher: Moot Point Productions Cliffhanger is available to purchase at Amazon.com. You can also add this to your reading list on GoodRe…
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Hello WOW Readers! I have been one of the first-tier contest judges for WOW’s quarterly flash fiction contest for over a decade, and it has been a huge pleasure to read your stories. I am writing this blog series on Flash Fiction Contest Tips to help you strengthen your flash writing and maybe even place in one of our contests! Tips are based on our scoring criteria and craft trends I’ve seen throughout the decade. We all know the first sentence of your story is crucial. It sets the mood and tone, often introduces the protagonist and/or setting, and might be the reader's first glimpse into the story's problem or conflict. It should at least pique the reader's interest, i…
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It doesn’t matter who the writers are that I’m talking to. It might be my critique group. It might be my accountability group. It might even be my students. If someone is having troubles getting their writing done, they will blame it on time. And that makes a certain amount of sense. There are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. We can only get so much done. But long before most of us run out of time, we run out of energy. Think about the language that you use when you hit that low. You say you are run down, you don’t have any . . . energy. To find the energy you need to write, try these 4 things. Monotask Is that a word? I’m not sure but I like it. F…
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My mother had an oversized black leather handbag she carried everywhere especially as she grew older. Although she had smaller ones in different colors that could coordinate with whatever she was wearing, this one was an appendage on her arm whether she was going to the supermarket, the doctor's office, a family gathering, or special event. It was most likely purchased from Sears, her favorite department store, and it was spacious enough to hold everything but the kitchen sink; from candy she always had on hand for a fidgety child at the doctor's office or her grandchildren at a family gathering, to important documents she never left home without, a pack of Kleenex, one …
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Remember those t-shirts that our grandparents and parents used to buy us when they left us at home and went on an adult vacation--the slogan said something like, "My grandma went to Hawaii, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." Apparently, this "lousy t-shirt" saying is something a lot of people write about--I'll let you do your own Google search. But I bring it up today because I just returned from a retreat/vacation in Memphis with my daughter...and came back with a new t-shirt--not a lousy one! We booked an extra big hotel room, brought a lot of snacks, and spent a good deal of time lounging around, reading, and relaxing while she played games on her tablet and made v…
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Today I am excited to interview Vicki Sutherland Horton, one of the runner-up winners of the Fall 2020 Flash Fiction contest. Make sure you read her story The Winter the Moose Moved In and then come on back and read our interview. Vicki's bio: Vicki Sutherland Horton lives in the Victorian seaport town of Port Townsend, Washington. She is a retired educator, with deep roots in the Pacific Northwest. Through her writing, Vicki is interested in exploring the often unrecognized contributions of women in history. Vicki is a wife and mother and finds great joy in being a grandmother. She is a long-time participant in FisherPoets, a yearly gathering in Astoria, Oregon where …
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We are excited to announce another reader review event featuring the dystopian fiction book Sins of Our Mothers by Nicole Souza. Join us as we share reviews of this thought-provoking book and interview the author. Don't miss this giveaway where you can also win a copy of this book for yourself! First, here is a little bit about Sins of Our Mothers: It has been fifteen hundred years since the solar flare devastation of the Global Catastrophe. Due to the radioactivity in the harvesting fields, society dismisses its defective children as nothing more than flawed products of the malfunctioned seeds in the field. But Lyratelle, a hyper-observant musical prodigy, believes the…
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Congratulations to Cassandra Crossing and A Future, Bright and Free and all the winners of our 2021 Quarter 1 Creative Non-Fiction Essay Contest! Cassandra’s Bio: Cassandra immigrated to the US in hopes of a better life, yet she found heartaches and pain. She changed her name to fit in, yet even after many years, she’s viewed as a foreigner. But as in the movie, “The Cassandra Crossing,” they survived a catastrophe, she’s a survivor. She finds joy in nature and in the little things life offers. She writes from personal experience about love, despair, loss, and hope. Her work includes short stories, creative non-fiction essays, flash fiction, plays, and poetry. She’s als…
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This past month I made an enormous mistake of getting an idea. I have to say it was actually a pretty brilliant idea, and I even made efforts into making it happen. Then I changed my mind. I don't know about you but I get "bright shiny object" syndrome when it comes to stuff with my blog and writing. I like to go after new ways of doing things, and that's happened to me a couple of times this year. First, I wanted to do some massive celebration of my blog's 10 year anniversary. I even started contacting some of the original contributors from when I first launched my blogs and some of the authors I featured those first few years. Well, that fizzled out when I didn't he…
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There's the saying that everybody knows: It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings. Well, this fat lady is singing... but it ain't over. It ain't done. My book is finished. It's published. It's available for pre-order (on Amazon). And yet there are still changes being made. This is the cover of my book. The art was created by Jessica Esfahani, a truly gifted artist. She imposed newspaper headlines from 1921 onto the silhouette, and hand-drew the ruins of Greenwood. It was a brilliant design, in my opinion. Since I'm not Stephen King or James Patterson or Jodi Picoult, my books are POD (print on demand). There's not a warehouse full of cases of my books (which is what my husb…
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There’s a hierarchy when it comes to landing that first job. Remember your first job as a teenager? Mine was slinging popcorn and sodas at a movie theater and working as a junior employee at a department store in the mall. It’s never too late to earn money with your writing talent. I’m 44 years old and have never published a novel, but I’ve written a few that I hope to put out in the world one day. In the meantime, I’ve been working for more than 20 years writing marketing copy and newspaper, magazine and online articles. In my day job as a magazine editor, I nurture plenty of writers who may have never written articles before for regional publications, but a lot of them …
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Gwen Gardner writes clean, cozy, lighthearted mysteries with a strong ghostly element. Since ghosts feature prominently in her books, she has a secret desire to meet one face to face—but will run screaming for the hills if she ever does. Her lifelong love of books and reading transitioned naturally into a love of writing, where adventure can be found around every corner—or down a dark, twisting alley. She thinks there is nothing better than a good mystery (being an excellent armchair detective herself), unless it’s throwing a ghost or two into the mix to “liven” things up. Don’t worry, though. Ghosts may be tricky to keep in line, but it turns out they’re darn good sleut…
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