You have all be working hard and honing your craft; we want to see your name in print. It’s time to show the world what this community is capable of, and to that end, later this year we will be publishing Volume I of our very own literary review.

• We are looking for submissions in two categories, creative non-fiction/memoir and fiction. Pieces should be no longer than 1500 words, and should be as polished and perfect as you can make them.
• Submissions will be read and scored by a team of readers from the editorial staff and the community (more on that to come!). Accepted authors will be published in the fall of 2012 volume of Precipice.
• We are accepting submissions from any and all writers; there’s no obligation to participate in our prompts in order to be considered.
• Submissions will open April 1, 2012, and close May 1, 2012; a reading fee of $2/submission will apply.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the editors. We will be establishing a FAQ page here on the site as we approach the submission deadline.

We can’t wait to see what this community produces!

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This past month, Nancy, Angela, and I have all vlogged about music and how it inspires us. In that spirit, the final Red Writing Hood prompt for the month will be musical as well. We’ve written about playlists before, so let’s look at music differently.

For Friday, let your character be inspired by music. It doesn’t have to be a specific song or genre, it doesn’t even have to exist anywhere outside your mind. Show us in 400 words or less how your character reacts to a piece of music. It can advance a story line or provide a character sketch–or both!

Come back and link up with us on Friday.

Happy writing!

It’s Tuesday and time to link up! This week’s prompt was:

We’d like you to explore friendship. You can talk about a current friendship or one from your past, a friend you met over kindergarten snacks or happy hour at your first job. Examine your emotional interest in the friendship and the role it plays, or played, in your life.

The word limit for this prompt is 400 words. While that may not seem like many words to devote to a friend you’ve known for thirty years, try to provide us with a snapshot that encompasses your feelings about the friendship.

Can’t wait to read! And please, only link up if you have done the prompt.

Nothing comes.

My mind churns; perhaps if my novel isn’t speaking to me tonight I can twist together a blog post from the thoughts dancing around my brain, twirling from one edge to the other without stopping to settle into stillness long enough for me to transpose them onto the page.

Writer’s block happens to all writers.  We long for more time to devote to our craft, to pour out our stories, to hone our work into the image just out of reach in our dreams. But what happens when we manage to carve out the time to finally sit, and the words crowd together in our minds or scatter to the corners, refusing to work together in even the roughest of drafts?

When you’re feeling stuck, it’s tempting to find distraction; the important thing is to distract yourself in a productive way, so that you can break through your mental barricade instead of just wasting time.  The next time you’re facing writer’s block, try one of these 5 tips.

Freeze Out Facebook
Facebook isn’t the only culprit in the internet’s plot to suck you into the vortex of writer’s block for all eternity. Be honest with yourself about your personal on-line distractions and close those windows, no matter how many times you try to tell yourself you’ll just check your favorite Twitter hashtag for one minute. Personally, I go onto Pinterest to find a craft for the kids to do the next day and end up falling into the rabbit hole of my dream wardrobe or the cerulean waters of Bora Bora until I emerge dazed and ready for bed.

Chat Up Your Characters
You may not know where your story is going, but if you’re in the middle of a work in progress, you have a character or two to dissect. If you can’t see their present; try to find out where they’ve been. Visualize and describe them, imagine what covered the walls of their childhood bedrooms, fill their iPod playlists with their favorite songs. Delve into aspects of their personalities that don’t seem to have direct bearing on your story, and you might be surprised to discover a new direction for your project.

Stand On Your Head
Don’t attempt that in the literal sense, unless you’ve been practicing yoga as part of your 2012 healthy living goals. Shake up your writing routine. Always write at a laptop? Try pulling out a notebook and ballpoint pen. Write at home? Try the library or a coffee shop or simply a different room in your house.

Pick Up a Book
Reading an old favorite can put you in a writing frame of mind. Revisiting a book that’s had an impression on you can remind you of what you love about storytelling. Are you drawn to novels threaded with humor or ones seeped in melancholy? Do you prefer plot-driven or character-driven stories? Ask yourself how your work in progress or new project aligns with what you love about books. While it’s important to stretch ourselves as writers, when you’re struggling it may help to ground yourself in your strengths, at least until you hurdle your writer’s block.

Take a Break
I could easily use this fifth spot to tell you to write something, anything that comes to mind, and sometimes that works. Other times, you may legitimately need a break, a day or two or five to recharge your batteries and let your ideas percolate a little. The crucial thing about taking a break is to be honest with yourself about how long of a break is going to be beneficial to your writing. Use the time to enjoy your family or friends or time in your own head, without the shadow of a blank computer screen. And be sure to keep a notebook nearby for when inspiration decides to visit again.

Tell us how you deal with writer’s block (or brag about how you’ve never experienced it!)

This week, we’d like you to explore friendship. You can talk about a current friendship or one from your past, a friend you met over kindergarten snacks or happy hour at your first job. Examine your emotional interest in the friendship and the role it plays, or played, in your life.

The word limit for this prompt is 400 words. While that may not seem like many words to devote to a friend you’ve known for thirty years, try to provide us with a snapshot that encompasses your feelings about the friendship.

Come back this Tuesday, link up, and share your thoughts.

Try to read as many as you can, or at least the one in front of and behind you.

Have a great weekend!

Image courtesy of stock.xchng

This week we challenged you to try a piece using one of the writing tools you’d like to polish a bit. Some examples we talked about in our twitter chat were writing from a different point of view, engaging our characters in conflict, or improving descriptive writing.

There were no subject restrictions, but a photo was provided in case you needed a little push.

Cam shared the beginning of a brand new novella project.

Nancy describes a woman at a possible crossroads in Phantom Pains.

Angela tests out the male point of view in Hats.

So let’s see those polished tools! Link up, but only if you’ve done the prompt. Also, visit some of your fellow writers and applaud their efforts on writing outside of their comfort zones.

Some of my favorite storytelling tracks:

Image courtesy of stock.xchng

Tonight’s the night! We are going to have our Write on Edge/Read on Edge Twitterchat-tacular!

At 9 pm EST, we will meet on Twitter to discuss our book club selection, Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. We will use the hashtag: #writeonedge. I will be moderating with my new Twitter handle: @occasionalninja

Many members have found success using Tweetchat. This does the hash-tagging for you once you plug it in.

Did you intend to read the book, but  between New Year’s resolutions, work, family, and laundry, it just didn’t happen?

You’re still invited.

We’ll frame our discussion using Angela’s thoughtful series about writing weakness.  

If you have read, (gold star for you!) please bring a question or thought from the text.

All participants should consider some of Anne’s thoughts about:

Dialogue:

“Dialogue that is written in dialect is very difficult to read.”

“Nothing can break the mood of a piece of writing like bad dialogue.”

“Keep exposition to a minimum in dialogue.”

“The better you know your characters, the more you’ll see things from their point of view.”

“As you learn who your chracters are, your compassion from them will grow.”

“There shouldn’t be just a single character in your work for whom you have compassion.”

“The villain has a heart and the hero has flaws.”

Character Development:

“Knowledge of your characters also emerges the way a Polaroid develops; it takes time for you to know them.”

“You are going to love some of your characters because they are some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.”

“A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.”

“Don’t pretend you know more about your characters than they do, because you don’t.”

Narrative/Setting:

“Just as everyone is a walking advertisement for who he or she is, so every room is a little showcase of its occupants’ values and personalities.”

Plot:

“If you want to know your characters, you have to hang out with them long enough to see beyond all the things they aren’t.”

“Plot grows out of character. If you focus on who the people in your story are, if you sit and write about two people you know and are getting to know better day by day, something is bound to happen.”

“Find our what your character cares most about in the world because then you will have discovered what’s at stake.”

“You need to be moving your characters forward, even if they only go slowly.”

Looking forward to seeing you all tonight at 9 pm EST!