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2011 Textnovel Contest Update

As you know, the deadline for entering the 2011 Textnovel contest has passed.  We are currently reviewing the stories in the contest and will post the list of semi-finalists by the end of September.  There will be 20 semi-finalists and they will have two weeks to continue to clean up their stories, after which we will pick 10 finalists.  They will have another two weeks to polish their work and then we will announce the winner.  We will post an announcement on this blog and on Twitter when the semi-finalists are announced.  Entrants can continue to polish their stories and get votes and views while this process goes on.  You also still have time to upgrade to Premium if you want to make sure the editors take a closer look at your story.  

MMS and Email Posting Issues

Hi Textnovel members, thanks for reporting MMS and email posting problems and sorry about the trouble.  Our developers will be looking into this starting tonight.  In the meantime, you should still be able to post from the website itself using your browser.

 

Textnovel Team

March Newsletter!

The March Newsletter is finally here!

You should receive it soon.

You can also view it here:

March Newsletter

Please take a look at all the articles!

The World is my Bison: Interview with Kate Laity

K. A. is the award-winning author of Pelzmantel (Immanion Press 2010) as well as Unikirja (Aino Press 2009), a collection of short stories and a play based on the Kalevala, Kanteletar, and other Finnish myths and legend, for which she won the 2005 Eureka Short Story Fellowship as well as a 2006 Finlandia Foundation grant.  With cartoonist Elena Steier she created the comic Jane Quiet. Her bibliography is chock full of short stories, humor pieces, plays and essays, both scholarly and popular and she also writes as Kit Marlowe and C. Margery Kempe. Currently, she is also working on her serial novel, Airships & Alchemy on Textnovel.com.

 

Textnovel: We are very honored to have Kate join us for a brief interview today. To start off, where do you get your inspirations and what makes you passionate about writing?

Kate: I get my information from everywhere; the world is my bison, by which I mean I make use of every bit of my life like the Lakota made use of every bit of the buffalo. Strange things collide and make stories. The wonderful writer Russell Hoban calls it, “being friends with your head.” You have to have an open playground up there. What makes me passionate is what animates every artist: there are things in my head that only I can see and I want to share them.

Textnovel: Where is your favourite place to write?

Kate: My favourite place to write is in a pub on the banks of the Thames. There is no city like London and no river like the Thames. When I can’t be there, any place will do. Give me a few minutes and a scrap of paper and I will be writing. Mostly I sit at my desk and write.

Textnovel: How long have you been writing? What were the major steps that got you where you are today?

Kate: I’ve been writing since I learned how to make words. I wrote for school and I wrote for friends, but early on I got the message that it wasn’t a practical way to live your life. But I never knew what to do, just what I didn’t want to do. I kept writing while I did other things, but what finally got me writing seriously was when I won Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions short story contest. He wrote me the most wonderful letter: it meant more than the prize! And when I met him not long afterward, he ran out from behind the table where he was signing and gave me a big hug and told me how everyone in the office loved my story.

Textnovel: Out of all your novels and works, which is your favourite one and why?

Kate: The next one! Always the next one. I’m very fond of The Mangrove Legacy because it was such a life saver for me, a little spot of humour and madness in a very difficult time of my life. My new novel Owl Stretching (that’s sitting with my publisher now as I agonise) is my favourite at the moment, because it was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut and the realisation that there would be no more KV novels. But I’m already planning the next one and it’s my fave because it’s still an idea...

Textnovel: Who is your favourite author or what is your favourite book?

Kate: Oh, too much, too much — I have favourites in every genre and time period. I can’t compare Beowulf with Pride and Prejudice or Imajica because they’re all doing such different things. I will say one of the most influential books in my life has been Alice in Wonderland and of course also Through the Looking Glass. They have forever warped my mind (in a good way!). I have many many favourite writers, but two who are in the top of my mind at present (because they figure in the next novel) are Angela Carter and Kingsley Amis.

Textnovel: What's a regular day like for you?

Kate: I get up and do some exercise because if I don’t do it before I wake up it doesn’t get done. If I’m going to campus, I might check Twitter while I eat breakfast — it’s where I get most of my news. Between teaching and meetings I check email and Facebook, if my office hours are slow, I’ll use the time to write blog posts. After I walk home I make some tea and relax for a bit, as it’s about the only time I have to read, then it’s pretty much writing the rest of the night. I bounce around between projects and social media, as Facebook and Twitter keep me from living inside my head all the time :-)

Textnovel: What is your favourite English word of all time?

Kate: Neorxnawange

Textnovel: For an aspiring writer, what advice would you give?

Kate: Grow a thick skin! For years I wrote things and hid them in a drawer in my desk. Foolish! So what, one editor doesn’t like something you wrote? There is nothing you can write that everyone will like. You just need to find the people who do like it. And they’re out there, so persist as Octavia Butler wrote, just keep at it — do it for the joy it brings. Everything else is gravy.

Thank you very much for your time! We wish you the best!

Connect with her and keep updated on these sites:

www.kalaity.com

katewombat.blogspot.com

facebook.com/k.a.laity

twitter.com/katelaity

 

Check out her books:

The Mangrove Legacy

 

Reminder About Content and Terms of Use

We want to thank everyone for continuing to contribute new stories and adding to their existing stories.  Its a good idea from time to time to remind ourselves and each other of some of the standards we are trying to follow on this website.  In particular, we are trying to keep this website teen-friendly, which means that many users may be under 17 and as young as 13 or 14.  To accomplish this, we all have to exercise appropriate caution and restraint in the types of scenes and images we post.  Also, we on the team have to occasionally have conversations with authors to help them realize that sometimes things that might be appropriate in another context aren't appropriate for the larger audience we have. 

Here's an excerpt from our Terms of Use about explicit profanity and sexuality:

* You agree to be respectful, not to post or hyperlink to content that contains libelous or unlawful material, racist remarks, vulgarity or obscenity (including partially obscured words) or any form of pornography (including images of humans who are nude or nearly nude and engaged in sexual activity or what could be interpreted as foreplay to sexual activity), or information that may be used to cause harm or injury; harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, or obscene communications; or information that is invasive of another's privacy, such as including a person's name or recognizable description of a real person in a story, unless you have their permission.

We thank our members for keeping these standards in mind when posting content. Textnovel is as much a community as well as a place for writers to express themselves. If you notice content that does not follow these standards, please let us know.

 

Writers' Tips: Seeds

by Oleander De Winter

Each day, before I get on the bus to work, I try to find a seed. I look everywhere, from the nooks and crannies of my apartment, to the parks and streets of my neighborhood. I search for something, anything, out of which I can coax some small form of life.  When I find one, I take it onto my first, almost empty, morning bus, and I start to grow that seed. I plant it, give it water, and make sure it has enough sunshine. Now, I know what many of you are thinking at this point. How exactly are you growing a seed on the bus, De Winter?
I’ll tell you.

As writers, we are always looking for new ideas, are we not? Well, for me, those ideas are very much like the seeds from which we grow our food, or the plants that decorate our houses. We draw sustenance and beauty from these wonders, but not without sustaining them first. It is the same for any writing that we do. The idea starts as something small and minor in our heads. Yet through nurturing it, it becomes something wondrous. Poems, short stories, and novels can come from something when written down is as small as a mustard seed. The Lord of the Rings trilogy came from the single seed of one line written by J.R.R. Tolkien while he was grading essays. “In the hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit.” So, dear writers, if we are to be good writers, we should start by finding these seeds, and nurturing them. We need to become mother (or father) to our ideas.

Finding Seeds

 
Now, where does one find the seeds that can be used for a story? The answer is, of course, anywhere! People, objects, places, and shows will all have their secret seeds that they will yield to you, if only you are willing to search them out. If you are walking to work, and on the way, you see a tree that you find particularly beautiful, take its seed. Or, if perhaps seeing a homeless person wrapped in a blanket on a cold day touched you, do not reject the seed of sadness they offer you. An object in your home may hold some special significance for you, and therein is your seed. The most important thing in your daily writing life when it comes to seeds is to be active in seeking them out all the time. Always listen. Always look. You’d be surprised at the results you find.

Planting The Seed

When you find a seed that you like, make space for it your mind. Till the garden in the part of the mind where you’d like it to be planted. This simply means to spend time thinking about your seed, and how a story might be created it. If you noticed a tree on your way to work, perhaps a story of a tree house in its branches would be a good place to start.  Two lovers could have had their first kiss under it, and maybe even their last one. This is very easy to do on the morning commute, especially with headphones. All that’s necessary is for you to withdraw into the garden of your own mind, seed in hand, and imagine all the things that the seed can become. Professionally, I believe writing teachers call it soft time. When what you’re thinking of puts a smile on your face, or plunges you into a deep sorrow, you’ve got the makings of a story.

Water and Sunlight

  But thinking about the seed isn’t enough. Once you’ve planted in your mind, you’ve got to give it the nutrients so that it can grow. So grab your watering can. And by your watering can, I mean your writers journal. Which should be with you. Anywhere. And Everywhere! Once you’ve got that seed in the ground, you have to put the work into it.  Nurture it right away, or you might lose it. And that means, it’s time for what writers call hard time, the time spent writing words on the page. A seed must be watered regularly to grow, and even more carefully as it becomes the plant. So too must you write regularly. The water you give will be the words you put to the page, providing the seeds with its nutrients. It’s the beginning of letting your story grow, but not all there is to it.

Your seed, your growing story now needs the attention of the sun. Yet the sun does not have only one ray, but many. By reading your own story, your ray shines down on it, as you add and remove parts of your growing story to make it beautiful. Others too, when they read your work, will offer their own rays in the form of suggestions and critiques. As your plant grows, some leaves and buds will wither and fall off, making way for new ones. But without the two necessities of sand and water, of production and critique, your seeds growth may be stunted and never reach its actual potential.

New Life

 
So, why are we doing all this, De Winter? Why even bother to look for seeds and to put all the effort into nurturing them. Quite simply because we, as writers, are creators of life. The characters created hundreds of years ago still live today, as much as any real person does. They influence people, bring them joy or sorrow, and even coax people to fall in love with them.  What better reason, what better purpose, can our lives be for, but for the creation of life like that? So be mindful, dear writers, in your daily lives, of the seeds strewn about. Pick them up. Grow them. So that the great creation of life that is literature in our society may continue.

 

 

 

Life of a Writer: The Coffee, the Moon and the Keyboard

by takatsu

All is quiet and still. Outside, the cool wintry air rattles the windows gently, stirring you from your thoughts. It's been hours since the world around you went to bed. In the deep of the night, there is silence throughout your house. All doors shut, all lights turned down. Even the moon outside is muted, staring sullenly and sleepily at you. Only your face is illuminated, like the ghastly glow of an apparition in a horror movie. The screen glares, etching blue light into your eyeballs. Your eyes sting from fatigue and exhaustion. The bed calls. Yet, you must not give up.

There is more to write.

It is the call of duty.

Writers weave magic in the deep of the night.

Yes, sometimes it is only at nighttime -- when all is silenced -- that inspiration hits us.

Our only companions: the coffee, the moon and the keyboard.

This is something I've experienced a lot in the past two months! I've decided on a goal of writing at least 6-10 (cell phone novel) chapters a day till I finished book one of my novel project. Within two months I finished 60k words, totaling nearly 90k words for my first completed novel. Surely, that is something I can brag about. Despite my satisfaction at my accomplishment, I have only now come to realize how much hard work is involved in being a writer.

The life of a writer or any artist is a gruelling one. Many of us experience working late into the night. Whether it's because inspiration hits us late or because there is a lot to write. Sometimes things happen during the day and our daily writing goals aren't completed.

In the past two months, I've discovered I've grown up a lot. I used to be the laziest, most distracted person ever. But now I realized I CAN hold to goals and I've never worked so hard before. I still continue to battle onwards as I go through editing, which proves to be the most difficult part of writing. And I continue to work hard on my other music or art projects relating to the novel.

The creative process is a very difficult one. Persevering late into the night to keep to a goal is very difficult. Exhaustion sometimes completely overwhelms me.  But I keep rereading and rewriting until I am satisfied, until I can output the word count I promised myself. Even when there is no inspiration, even if I don't want to write, I force myself to keep going. I've got something to finish! 

When I take a break and become lax, I tend to start a bad habit and the break ends up longer than I expected. Soon, weeks pass and I realize I have done nothing.

Its better to keep going.  To realize that no matter how difficult, its better to fight the good fight, to stick with my goals, and to focus on victory no matter what it takes. This kind of fighting spirit is something writing has taught me and I will carry this attitude through the rest of my life.

Don't give up. Fight on. Victory is yours.

 

Join our blogging team: check out - Recruiting

News Blurb: Time Bomb eBooks!

 

by AJ Best
www.ajbestwrites.com
ajbestwrites@gmail.com

A news article on the 13 News website informed me of something that I was quite sure could not possibly be true. Unfortunately, I have heard the ‘rumor’ several times in the past couple of weeks.

Harper Collins is allowing libraries that have purchased e-books only to have them checked out 26 times before they ‘disappear’. Let’s take a walk on the wild side and see what this means.

Michael Crichton comes out with yet another book (Pirate Latitudes) and this book is on the top sellers list for quite a while. My local library purchases this book for $27.95 and, as of the day I wrote this, has had that book checked out 13 times.  We will assume 1 check out per week. So in a total of 26 weeks, if it were an e-book, POOF it would be gone. Luckily, that is not the case with hard copies of books. My local library stated that their hard copy books last at least two years in their system.

Now let’s get some stats for that same book in e-book format. The library would pay $8.99 for this book (approximately). They have 26 checkouts until it goes POOF. The same book in paper will last for 2 years, that is 104 weeks (rounded to the nearest whole number) at one check out per week you would have to purchase the book 4 times per the 26 check out rule. This would then cost the library $35.96.

I know that a mere $8.01 is not going to break the bank, but if you look at the state of affairs for the local library system, you may have a slightly different feeling on this.

I love e-books, I write e-books, but when it comes at the expense of the library system in any state, or country, I can’t join Harper Collins and say they have a good idea. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Japan Tsunami 2011

Our hearts go out to our brothers and sisters in Japan who are struggling with the tragic effects of the earthquake, tsunami and now nuclear crisis.  It is truly a heartwrenching situation and nothing can express what they must be going through. You will be in our thoughts and prayers. We encourage those interested in donating to disaster relief efforts to do so through established charitable organizations.

Google Crisis Response has a webpage where you can keep updated and make donations direct to the Japanese Red Cross:

http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Keep an eye out on the forums also for any member-led future projects that might aid the relief effort.

-Textnovel Team

A Few Quick Updates

Hey all!

Just a few quick updates about our site! Things have been super busy but all is going smoothly.

Currently working on the next issue of the newsletter and The Voice (blog article collection)! Hopefully that can go out sometime soon.

 

Mobile Site Updates (please continue to check if there are issues):

- Reading/Writing functions complete

- "My Account" includes my library, private messaging, profile, privacy settings, and so forth.

- Almost everything is complete! Thanks to the dev team!

We will soon launch our beta mobile site officially!

 

Forum has been cleaned up a bit and more organized, please head over and interact with our community! http://textnovel.com/forum

Don't forget about the live chatroom http://tinychat.com/textnovel

 

See you around!

Textnovel Team