A Quick Poll
January 23, 2008 by J.C. Hewitt
I plan to wrap up my series on Revising Your Novel in a week or so. Once I do, I want to start a new series that would run for at least 10 days. At the moment I have five topics in mind. Those are:
- Writing short stories
- The submissions process
- Blogging for writers
- Exploring writing careers
- 21st Century Poetry (so far)
Please let me know in the comments which topic interests you, or feel free to suggest a topic of your own.
I’d say the short stories one is most appealing to me.
Writing Short Stories is apealing, (and probably the most popular) however, I would cast a vote for the submissions process. This largely due to the recentness of the NanaWriMo… we just dealt with narative type work. Also, it logically follows from editting.
You know, I think they’re all potentially great topics and I don’t think I can settle on just one. However, I’d narrow it doen at least to “blogging for writers” or “exploring writing careers.” I’ve been looking for a writer-centric perspective on blogging, which seems like both the next generation of writing and sort of a low point in human evolution (I’m sorry, I’ve read some simply terrible blogs…) But then again I’d also like to see something about careers in writing, as all the books I’ve read on the matter seem very dated.
My pick is Writing Short Stories.
I Choose Writing short Stories and 21st Century writing…….
I think they are all great topics I would want to know more about. I’m just getting my personal writing blog up and going so I would have to pick Blogging for writers. After that, it would be Exploring writing careers.
The Submission process, please! For first time writers, like myself, it’s a mysterious process that is more nerve wracking than writing a novel. I feel that my failures, thus far, are because of my ignorance as to how the submission should be formated and what an agent/publisher reviews once they recieve the package.
I’d pick Blogging for Writers or 21st-century poetry. They all sound great though.
I like the submissions process and short stories ideas. Thanks.
Poetry or short stories sounds good to me.
I’d have to vote for blogging as I have a writer friend who needs some advice/assistance in this area.
My choice would be Short Stories
I’m curious about what you’d say about 21st century poetry so far.
My choices would be Writing Short Stories and Blogging for writers.
I would like to read the mechanics of writing short stories. Tons of websites and books already wrote how to blog, and submission comes after writing, so I opt for the bolts and nuts of short stories.
All of the above, in exactly the order you’ve listed them.
But hey, re blogging for writers, did you know about our friend The Cerebral Mum’s new blog devoted to this topic? Blogging Personal? It’s really good!
Short stories and submissions.
Are you going to talk, perhaps, about submitting short stories in particular?
Since there isn’t much of a market for short stories, many writers submit to contests. In the old days, you might eventually get feedback from editors.
I have never submitted to a contest. I might if I thought I would get some feedback. That would be worth more than the monetary awards, which hardly ever mean anything.
How do you figure out if a short story contest is worth submitting to? I would like feedback, but I don’t intend to spend hundreds of dollars in application fees without the chance of learning something.
Exploring writing careers.
Hi Jai,
If/when I do submissions, I will attempt to cover every possible medium and length. From short stories to web sites to novels and non-fiction.
I’d like to learn the process of writing short stories. Something like that moivates me better than the submission process. Maybe also poetry.
I have been thinking about starting a blog and am wondering even where to start, other than doing a lot of writing to have on hand. What are the questions I should be asking myself
before I even start? Once started I don’t want to have to give up on it too soon.
Thank you to everyone who participated. Here are the results:
Writing short stories 11
Blogging for writers 7
The submissions process 5
21st Century Poetry (so far) 5
Exploring writing careers 4