Blessings of the Sun
Summer Solstice greetings!
Even now, the sunlight begins to wane. We enjoy the heat and warmth as we prepare for the coming harvest, the inevitable culling. For some, those with their hands and roots deep in the soil, it is a literal harvest. For others, it is a harvest of ideas.
For me, much attention and energy has been going into Conclave: A Journal of Character and before that, ABNABooks.com. These lush literary gardens are filling with blossoms and fruits, and I anxiously await the Fall to see what we will take away from the crop.
The Fall is also my time to write, the time when I am most inspired, most driven to get the words on the page. I think it is all that lush darkness wrapped around me.
But now, in the warm Chicago afternoons, I will run with my children in the sun and try to cherish the warm breezes on my face. Summer is the time to enjoy our passions, to honor life around us, to celebrate the relationships we have. Even for those who are not sun-worshippers, many will miss the glow and light when it’s Wintertime.
“I am the fire that clears away the old
I am the holy light that guides you to your soul
I am the Flame Of Love for which you yearn
I am the sun that will always return.”~Lisa Thiel, “Litha”
Bright blessings to you and yours.
~Valya
Process
First the spark, the idea, the pull toward the blank page that compels you to turn away from the world to create something new.
You write and write and stare into space and write and write and drink coffee and write and write and distract yourself on the internet while the idea percolates in your head and write and write. Then at some point, you decide you’re finished. You print out the whole thing just to see what “the book” looks like. You show it around to trusted confidants.
You listen, smile, and bristle accordingly. Then you revise and revise and stare into space and revise and revise and drink coffee and revise and revise and distract yourself on the internet while hoping that this version is better. At some point, you decide that again you’re finished. You show it around again, and maybe mail yourself a copy (just in case).
This goes on for some time, maybe weeks. Maybe years. At some point you decide it’s ready. You’re ready. You struggle to write the perfect query letter and synopsis. You write and write and stare into space and write and write and drink coffee and write and write and distract yourself on the internet while dreaming of book signings and maybe a new laptop. You send off piles of queries to agents and publishers—some electronic, some paper. Then you wait.
Rejections trickle in. You keep track of them in a folder, maybe on a spreadsheet. You send out more queries, and you remind yourself that Ray Bradbury had about a thousand rejections over his 30 year career, and Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time was rejected by 26 publishers before being accepted by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
You revise and revise the query letter. You send out more batches and maybe start a new project or again distract yourself on the internet. You wait. Drink more coffee. Wait. Stare into space. Add more rejections to the folder or spreadsheet. Wait.
After weeks or months or years, you get an email or a call from an agent who loves your book and wants to represent you.
You do the happy dance in your kitchen and call your mother. Maybe you post it on your blog, or update your facebook status…”is finally published and doing the happy dance in the kitchen.” You talk to your agent, sign your agreement, and wait. Weeks pass, months pass. You work on the new project or again distract yourself on the internet. You wait. Drink more coffee. Wait.
The agent updates you with rejections. Maybe you decide to edit the manuscript, maybe you try smaller presses. You wait.
Finally (or so I’m told and have read in fairy tales), finally your book gets accepted and PUBLISHED.
But this is not “The End.”
Dennis Cass has a wonderful little video interpretation about what often happens next. Check it out:
One reason we started ABNABooks.com was to create a place for not-yet-published and already published writers to promote their works. We drew from and built on the ABNA community that grew out from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. I keep hoping that we can find a way to generate buzz. Maybe we need to explore other options of promotion as well…like those suggested by Cass. We need to promote our promotion site.
Maybe we need a video…
Conclave Journal Seeks Character-focused Photography
Most of you know that Conclave: A Journal of Character is accepting character-driven submissions of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, flash fiction, prose poems, and dramatic excerpts; but we are also accepting black and white photographs.
We seek photos of pristine composition and revelatory content, black and white photographs that evoke personality, an unforgettable story, a compelling emotion, the decisive moment.
The photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, father of modern photojournalism, captured characters. When speaking of Martin Munkácsi’s photo, Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika, Cartier-Bresson said, “I suddenly understood that photography can fix eternity in a moment.”
French humanist photography of the 30s, 40’s, and 50s was photography of character. French humanism was a dominant form of documentary photography from the late 1920s until the 1970s, and it still influences contemporary photography. Other photographers who captured photographs of character: Dorothea Lange, Jacob Riis, Diane Arbus, and many others.
The photographs should appear to be candid and generally have the background in focus. We are not looking for posed photographs or photographs that have been significantly photoshopped. It is our hope that the photographs we print will transcend mere portraits or snapshots; they should reflect the style and sensibility of Cartier-Bresson’s work.
We are generally not looking for landscapes or nature photographs. In most cases, the photographs we print in Conclave will be of people, although we recognize that there are ways to capture character in setting or with animals.
We are a character-focused journal, and we want the photographs that we feature to reflect that sensibility. Clearly, there are other styles and methods for capturing character in photography. Like Cartier-Bresson, we are looking to capture “fixed eternity in a moment.”
We are accepting submissions on the Conclave site, but we’ve also started a flickr group:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/conclave2008
With the excellent writing and photography submissions, this is shaping up to be a great inaugural issue!
We’re accepting submissions until July 1, 2008. So if you have writing or photography to share, visit www.conclavejournal.com
Announcing Conclave: A Journal of Character
Conclave: A Journal of Character is accepting submissions for its debut print issue, Fall 2008. We will accept submission from April 1-July 1, 2008. Prepare your fiction, nonfiction, poetry, dramatic excerpts, or photographs for submission and visit: www.conclavejournal.com
Conclave is an annual print journal that focuses on character-driven writing in contemporary literary fiction. Conclave seeks writing that centers around well-crafted and authentic characters: like Leopold Bloom, Huckleberry Finn, Anna Karenina, Hamlet, Miss Havisham, Hannibal Lecter, Hester Prynne, and others. Whether you love them or hate them, these characters are unforgettable and infuse their stories with life beyond the page. Those are the kinds of characters that we’d like to have populate the pages of Conclave: A Journal of Character.
We look forward to reading your work!
Valya Dudycz Lupescu, Editor
www.conclavejournal.com
ABNA Books April Newsletter is Online
One of the gifts to come out of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award experience has been the community of writers. Although the forums on the Amazon.com site will most likely disappear after Amazon announces the winner on April 7th, the ABNA authors will have a permanent home on www.ABNABooks.com
ABNA Books currently has over 80 authors participating on the site, 55 authors on the forum, over 69 published books and 75 not-yet-published books.
This month’s ABNA Books online newsletter features the first column by ABNA Books feature columnist Ian Thomas Healy, as well as new columns by ABNA authors Rebecca Crandell and Tom Maremaa. We have several other “firsts,” as we feature an author interview with April L. Hamilton, who is paving new ground with her IndieAuthor movement. We also have Leah Davidson’s Book Review of 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published And 14 Reasons Why It Just Might, by Pat Walsh.
Be sure to check out the newest featured published and not-yet-published books by ABNA authors, and stay tuned for the latest news.
To read more go to http://www.abnabooks.com/page0/files/OnlineNewsApril08.php
A Question of Character
I’m working on a project that has me thinking about characterization, and I was pondering what makes a character unforgettable?
So I ask you, what are the most memorable characters you have encountered in fiction–good or bad, classic or contemporary, adult books or children’s. What characters have remained with you to this day and why?
Another Excerpt Available on www.thesilenceoftrees.com
Another Excerpt on www.thesilenceoftrees.com
I’ve added another excerpt from my novel, THE SILENCE OF TREES, on the www.thesilenceoftrees.com Web site.
Click here or go to the “About the Silence of Trees” section and select “Excerpt from The Silence of Trees.”
This particular scene occurs when Nadya is on the train heading to Germany.
Thank you.
Amazon Semifinalists Launch ABNABooks.com
Community Creates Literary Site for Networking and Promotion
CHICAGO, Illinois – March 10, 2008 – ABNABooks.com, an online showcase, network and marketplace for writers, was launched on March 1, 2008. ABNA Books is a place for writers to present their work, keep track of fellow writers’ news and publications, and get the attention of publishers and agents.
What began as a group of entrants and semifinalists in the “Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award” contest, evolved into the Association of Breakthrough Novel Authors on ABNABooks.com. Through the Amazon discussion forum, participating writers grew into a community, working together to improve their writing and promote their books.
Brainchild of semifinalist Valya Dudycz Lupescu, ABNABooks.com establishes a more permanent home for ABNA writers and their works.
“Several writers and reviewers mentioned that they wanted a way to stay in touch and to find out about the publications of other entrants,” said Lupescu. “ABNABooks.com provides us with the place to do that. The general public can also subscribe for a free monthly update about news and publications.”
Selected as a semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Lupescu’s debut novel, The Silence of Trees, gained more than 200 positive reviews from customers and reviewers. Lupescu and her husband, Mark, decided to create ABNA Books to maintain the community started during the contest, while at the same time providing the public with a place to track the manuscripts and publications of this talented group of writers.
“Since the manuscripts in ABNABooks.com have been pre-screened in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award competition and most have received positive reviews from Publishers Weekly, I can see it as a legitimate source of good literature,” said Enrico Antiporda, author of the Top 100 Semifinalist entry, A Light in the Cane Fields. “I foresee literary agencies and commercial publishers mining the website to add to their catalogue.”
With short synopses, lengthy excerpts, and prior publications, ABNA Books provides agents and editors a snapshot of writers’ projects and potential. The site also provides a place for comments and reviews, so that an author’s following and marketability may be glimpsed.
Patricia O’Sullivan has been an active participant on the Amazon forum since its creation. Her novel, The Hope of Israel, was also selected as one of the Top 100 Finalists. “What arose from this forum of competitors were friendships and writers’ support networks that sustained entrants during five long months of a public review period of their manuscript excerpts,” said O’Sullivan. “One might have thought the culling of entrants would have destroyed the ABNA community of writers. The opposite happened. What began as a contest became a community.”
For more information about ABNA Books please visit www.ABNABooks.com
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About ABNABooks.com:
ABNA began as a group of entrants and semifinalists of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Through the forum, they grew into a community of writers working together to improve their writing and promote their books. ABNABooks.com is the next step in their evolution, a place to maintain that solidarity while promoting their work and perfecting their craft. ABNA Books is an online showcase, network, and marketplace for writers created by Valya Dudycz Lupescu and her husband, Mark Lupescu. It’s a place for writers to present their work, get the attention of publishers and agents, and help each other in the process of publishing and promotion.
The Silence of Trees is on ABNABooks.com
The Silence of Trees is among other not-yet-published titles on the ABNA Books.com site. You can download and read longer excerpts than were featured on Amazon’s site.
Click here for my excerpt, and I invite you to leave a comment.
Check us out.
ABNA Books.com
Check us out!
Authors Bite Nails Awaiting?
Awesome Books, Not Appreciated?
Accolades But No Awards?
What is ABNA Books?
ABNA is the Association of Breakthrough Novel Authors.
We started as a group of entrants and semifinalists of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Through the forum, we grew into a community of writers working together to improve our writing and promote our books. ABNABooks.com is the next step in our evolution, a place to maintain that solidarity while promoting our work and perfecting our craft.
ABNA Books is an online showcase, network, and marketplace for writers. It’s a place for writers to present their work, get the attention of publishers and agents, and help each other in the process of publishing and promotion.
If you are an ABNA Entrant, Semifinalist, or Finalist, I invite you to submit your information and upload your manuscript on the Submit Book Info page. If you’ve already published , add your title to our Amazon affiliate store. Check out the columns written by ABNA writers, and there are more features to be added in the coming weeks.
Come back often. Tell your friends.
Check us out!