Nothing Much To Post

My sister often complains that I don't post often enough, so in order to oblige her I am posting a "Nothing Much" post.

I spoke in an earlier post about a "writers" website where I am writing articles for the practice and feedback. Within this site is an area that they call "Marketplace" where actual magazine publishers/editors will advertise for writers by providing a list of specific topics to write about. If your article is selected by the publisher - you are awarded a small monetary compensation, but more than that, your name and work gets printed in their magazine.

I chose to write two articles for a publication called: Western Life Magazine. The two topics are: "Cowboy Humor: True Stories about Horses" and "Cowboy Humor: True Stories about Cattle." Only one article can be written per topic, but you can write an article for as many topics as you like. Since my experience with these subjects is limited only to horses, and calves (once) these are the topics I chose.

As with posting articles on the rest of the site, you are rated by your peers (blind rating: author's names are not included during the rating process to keep it fair and impartial). Rating in the top five does not ensure publication, as that is left up to the editor of the magazine. However, it does draw their eye to your article before the others. So far, my article about horses is rated #1 of 34 total articles; and my article about cattle is rated #1 of 28. While this is quite gratifying, I am still hoping that the publisher feels the same way. (They are not obligated to select any particular one, or any at all.) The deadline for posting articles for this magazine was Sept. 28th. I don't know how long it takes to be notified of the results, so I am now awaiting word with all of the patience I can muster. ;o)

For those of you who would like to peruse the articles, and even read others for comparison the following are the links:

Horse article:

http://www.helium.com/tm/577123/instantly-moment-stories-beautiful

Cattle article:

http://www.helium.com/tm/610721/gonna-raise-holsteins-boyfriend

In addition to working on improving my "article-writing" skills, I am also studying the magazine market for short story publication. I have found quite a few, and I'm now in the process of writing a short story to try my hand in this venue. I've learned that writing short stories is far more difficult than writing a novel, as you have to quickly elaborate on characters, dialog, setting, plot, etc... and do it all within a 6,000- to 15,000-word limit; all while engaging the reader from beginning to end.

Still, I've been thinking that it would be really nice to be published, even in small "rags," as many novelists are while writing their novels. It helps to have previous writing credentials when submitting a work to agents and publishers alike. So, I'll try to find some decent publications to write for, fiction and non-fiction, toward this end. Of course, if anyone has a magazine suggestion, please pass it along in your comments or email. :o)

Below is an example of one of the publications for which I am now writing a short story, in the hopes of acceptance.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/fiction.shtml

So, Friends and Family, please wish me luck!

Signing off....