Writely Applied

Found a few places for you to apply your writing today, both at Today.com.

Visit A Poets View where Joanne Olivieri is looking for submissions to her poetry and writing ezine called Ya’Sou! Ezine! that has been in publication since 2000. Currently it is an ezine exclusively. Not a writer or poet? She will consider art blogs as well.

If Joanne wasn’t busy enough with that she has a fun writing contest going on over at My City By The Bay …her everything San Francisco blog. Apply your skills at writing from a photo prompt and win a cool prize.

Of course if you’re reading this and you still don’t have a blog, please apply today at Today.com and share your writing. There is a link in the left sidebar calling out to you.

Trust me, if you’re a writely applied writer than you are busy and those are the only places you need to be in the coming days to apply yourself.

Enjoy!

It has been a busy day and for fun I had to rush and check out the Writer’s Digest forum to see which five stories were chosen as finalists in Contest Prompt #14. Sorry to say, I checked out the Writer’s Digest forum and my short story from their prompt is not posted to be voted on.

And my response…well at least I tried. I can add this to my short list of rejections. There is nothing more inspiring than a pile of rejections and I’m well on my way with my first rejection of sorts in a very long time.

Sure I have my blog(s) and other such writing bits when I gather the strength but in my land of fiction, my land of print dreams, I have made the first step.

Soon Sundays at WritelyApplied will take on an even more inspirational slant. I’m hoping it will be a bit more on topics related to Christianity and writing. I initially thought that I might leave Sundays alone but if you do happen to be online maybe you will find something you are searching for here.

In addition the past few days have been sparse with posts and while my intent is to go back to multiple posts a day some weekends will require time to prepare for the coming week. As in all of our writing, it is all about setting goals and planning each day.

With that being said, since it has been busy around here there may be a few days with single posts but I hope to be back to my originally planned blog programming soon.

I entered the Writer’s Digest Prompt Contest #14. They wanted 750 words and I gave them 750 words exactly. Was my story good? I may think so but of course I’m realistic. It is my first bit of fiction in a long time.

I have to give a huge thank you to Rose at Writing.today.com. She popped over and was very encouraging. As busy as I’ve been I thought I wouldn’t do it but then I remembered that I wasn’t the only one struggling with keeping on track with my writing. Since I read the prompt and immediately shared it with you, a story was brewing in my head. It was written in my head before I hit the pillow the other night and then I just had to throw the words down on paper.

And I did.

Having computer issues last night I retired early and left my husband in charge to hunt for a computer bug, not yet to be found by two virus checkers, but my service provider is convinced I have one. So we are down to one post today.

As luck would have it, I’ve found a topic related to writing and baseball. One hundred years ago the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) was formed. Apparently times were tough in those days for journalists, I imagine for a lot of working people, writing or otherwise, and the BBWAA was the answer.

Pretty much the organization sounds like a ticket to a baseball game to me. Sweet. Even sweeter is the ability to elect players into the Baseball Hall of Fame…I knew I should of became a sports journalist. My early writing days were middle school when I couldn’t take gym due to bum knees. They let me write reports, much to the dismay of my friends who envied my straight A’s.

Year after year I wrote about the current sport being played each season at our school. The biggest sport at our school was soccer. How many times can I write about the rules of soccer? TOO MANY.

Then came high school and an introduction to who would be my favorite gym teacher. Somehow we came to an agreement that I would write exclusively about baseball. I have a box of baseball articles in the basement yet today.

Journalism at its finest, really. My proudest moment was when my teacher asked me which team I favored when I wrote an article about the 1981 World Series featuring the Yankees and Dodgers. She couldn’t tell from my writing. Wow, wouldn’t it be refreshing to find those qualities in our news stories today.

I may have missed that calling but I’m writing now so I can’t believe that I’m not doing what I’m supposed to.

For the past ten days I’ve found some wonderful quotes and information from many writers and other individuals over the decades, maybe even centuries. I do think the writers of the Baseball Writers Association rightly fits in with this company…don’t let who does and doesn’t make their way into the Baseball Hall of Fame cloud your judgment on all the talented baseball sports writers over the years.

Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.

Miguel de Cervantes

Edgar Allan Poe – To The Lake

Diligence

Progress

Delay

Path to Your Imagination

October 9 marks the birthdays of both Miguel de Cervantes (1547), novelist, Don Quixote and Bruce Catton (1899) a U.S. historian and writer, Civil War.

Sooner or later

you must move down an unknown road

that leads beyond the range of the imagination,

and the only certainty is that

the trip has to be made.

- Bruce Catton

Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.

Miguel de Cervantes

What are you putting off? Are you in danger of ruining your great design? All I can say is have the paper and pen ready…bring the laptop…and of course find the momentum here and don’t let that next great project wait. You may have too much at stake.

Miguel de Cervantes was the author of Don Quixote, perhaps the first “modern” novel. Like many of us, Cervantes was a working writer, meaning he had to make a living elsewhere to ensure survival. He was a writer to the end and from some of his famous quotes it is obvious he knew the value of hard work and that what we put into something reflects what we will get out of it.

Here are some quotes of value to the hard working writer from Miguel de Cervantes .

It is one thing to praise discipline,
and another to submit to it.

That which costs little is less valued.

In order to attain the impossible,
one must attempt the absurd.

Every man is the son of his own works.

Sounds like he gave birth to everything he wrote. I imagine his works exemplified the meaning of blood, sweat and tears.

So, feeling a little tired, a little less motivated, sometimes we have to work harder in spite of that and in doing so we can recognize that our work will be of that much more value.

How many irons do you have in the fire? Are you burning your candles at both ends?

Progress

is the sum of small victories

won by individual human beings.

- Bruce Catton
U.S., historian and writer, Civil War