John Woodington The official site for the author.

Humane Society Walk for AnimalsPosted by John Woodington on February 11th, 2010

This May 1st, my wife and I will be doing the Humane Society Walk for Animals to raise money for cute little puppies and other pets that need homes.  We have set ourselves a challenging goal of raising $1000.00 for this walk, all of which will go to the Human Society, of course.  If you would like to donate to this cause, just go to our website and click the “Make a gift!” link just beneath the little progress thermometer.  If donating money isn’t your thing, maybe you’d be interested in buying a handmade toy for your own dog.  My wife has handmade dog toys for sale on her Etsy site, and the proceeds from the sales of these toys will all go to the Humane Society.  Please consider making a donation.  As you can see, my little dog Oscar (a mini dachshund) is begging for your support:

Oscar pleading for donations. What a beggar.

Coyote Ugly. Really Ugly.Posted by John Woodington on January 25th, 2010

I live in Minnesota.  Been here since birth.  And yet, each year, Minnesotans surprise me with the things they do to pass the time in the winter.  They drive their cars onto the ice and take bets as to when said cars will break through in the spring.  They entertain false hopes of the Vikings ever winning a Superbowl (Six fumbles in one game?  Come on!).  They make a castle out of ice every few years and let people walk around it on tours.

I thought I’d see it all, until I drove out onto Lake Charlie in Alexandria for a day of ice fishing with my uncle.  We saw a dog standing off to the side of the ice road in the distance.  As we got closer, we realized it was not a dog.

It was a coyote.  So, of course, we got out to take a look.

And not just any coyote–a frozen coyote.  Here’s our theory: Some dude hits this coyote with his truck and kills it.  Some other dude sees it the next day, after it’s been sitting out in the freezing cold air all night, and decides that it would make a really nice accoutrement to the entrance to Lake Charlie, throws it into the back of their truck, and props it up in the position in which you see it above.

Next day, a city boy and his uncle stop by to do some ice fishing, and the city boy decides he needs a picture with the frozen coyote.  So there you have it.  The white thing in its mouth is not a rawhide bone as I had first suspected, but is instead its frozen tongue.  Pretty cool, huh?

And my understanding of my fellow Minnesotans becomes even more cloudy…

New Puzzler Backronyms and Novel UpdatePosted by John Woodington on January 19th, 2010

The new Puzzler competition at Narrative sounds like a good one, and I’m pretty excited to see what kinds of “Backronyms” I can come up with.  What is a Backronym you ask?  Why, it’s a normal word whose letters have been used to make and appropriate acromyn.  Such as “Cop” – Constable On Patrol.  So you take any word you want, and come up with a spiffy acronym for it.  I can’t wait to try.  Off the top of my head:

• Blog – Bad Listing on Google
• John – Just Open His Novels
• Acronym – A Crappy Reference One Never Yneeds Mbecausetheysuck

 Or something like that.  At least it isn’t trivia this week.

I’ve rewritten the first chapter of my novel AlieNation, and I think it is much better.  Turns out I didn’t have much dsescription about…anything, which was pretty crucial considering what goes down in Chapter One.  Or, I should say, what goes up.

Be on the lookout for an unbelievable picture of me confronting one of the scariest beings in Minnesota on a lonely, frozen lake.  It may involve beer….

Finally, I love Fictionaut.  Have I said that before?  Well, nevertheless, it bears repeating.

How Good Are You at Google Searching?Posted by John Woodington on December 16th, 2009

Narrative is really letting me down with their recent Puzzler competitions.  This week’s Puzzler is yet again a series of questions for you to answer, basically a how-good-are-you-at-Google-searching-in-disguise-as-a-literary-quiz Puzzler.  These are a real waste of time, in my opinion.  The Puzzlers where you actually had to write something were so much more intriguing.  I don’t believe I’ll participate again until there is something to write, rather than somethings to answer.

In my own writing news, I’m working on a short story currently titled “Reunion,” about a guy who meets up with a high school sweetheart by chance through their respective infant children, and whose presence sends his life in a direction he would not have thought possible.  I’m also trying to figure out what changes I need to make to my short story “Lawnmower Boy” before I consider it ready to send out for publication.  And I’m also tinkering with a short story titled “Airport Town in Autumn,” about a vacation town that goes a little crazy when all the tourists leave for the season.

On top of all that, I’m gearing up to begin editing the novel I drafted this past winter and spring, titled AlieNation.  And by gearing up I mean sitting and avoiding working on it by telling myself that I need to work on short stories first.

And still yet on top of that, it is wicked cold up here in Minnesota.  So cold that when I take my dogs outside for a bathroom break, I have to breathe through my mouth, because breathing through my nose freezes all of my nose hairs.  A little gross?  Sure.  But seriously.  Wicked cold.

Publishing Novels and Novellas, and the Unfair Advantage of Holiday ThemesPosted by John Woodington on December 11th, 2009

A quick Friday post for y’all.  The snow has fallen here in Minnesota, and it is quite beautiful.  I say this because I am not forced go outside to use the bathroom as my dogs are, and they are not very thrilled by the -2 degree weather (not counting the windchill).  I used the cold days to finish reading War and Peace, and in light of the fact that no one wants a lengthy description of my feelings on the book, I will just say that it was grand in scope and bold in its achievements, and while it wasn’t a page turner, I do feel the better for having read it.  Since it was a rather lengthy read, I’ve decided to wait a week or so before continuing on my Russian Literature journey, and read through the latest issue of The Missouri Review before picking up Anna Karenina.

In writing news, I’m working on a couple of short stories, and also toying with the idea of trying to publish a novel that my agent was unable to publish before we parted ways.  Not sure how I feel about putting all the effort into getting it published, though it would be nice to see a novel of my own creation in print.  Finding a publisher is the hard part, of course.  Could be a full-time job in itself.

We’ve been talking about the possibility of publishing novellas a little bit here, and I have received scientific proof that a novella can in fact get picked up for publication, as can be seen in this release from  Publishers Lunch:

NYT bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry’s Christmas novella THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS SONG, to Roger Cooper at Vanguard Press, for publication November 2010, by Kimberly Whalen at Trident Media Group (NA).

Yes, it’s a Christmas novella, which means it had an unfair advantage against all the other non-holiday novellas up for publication, and yes, it is by an established writer, but still.  It can be done, and there’s the proof.

Snowball in FallPosted by John Woodington on October 15th, 2009

While the title of this post could potentially refer to the amounts of snow we’ve recently received here in Minnesota (I did, in fact, make snowballs and throw them at one of my dogs, who decided that he enjoyed trying to eat them mid-flight) it is actually in reference to a cool new Literary Puzzler competition at Narrative Magazine, which is going on right now.  A snowball poem is “a poem in which each line consists of a single word, and each successive line is a word exactly one letter longer than the word above it.”

Here’s a link to the website for the competition, which is four weeks long, and consists of four weekly mini-competitions.

I wrote a little snowball poem and submitted it, and if it does not win, I’ll post it here so y’all can see it.

In other, related news, “Lawnmower Boy” is getting dangerously close to its goal of 4000 words.  About 300 more to trim before I’m there.

And in reading news, War and Peace is a very long book.  I can confirm this.