John Woodington The official site for the author.

The Best Weight-loss Plan EverPosted by John Woodington on April 7th, 2010

On Monday, I discovered the most effective weight-loss plan in the history of the world.  I call it the “Stomach Flu” plan.  In twenty-four hours I lost about 90 pounds.  At least, it felt like I did.

Glimmer Train has a nice little interview with Thomas E. Kennedy, in which he describes and provides a great little exercise called the “cut-up technique” which gets you to stop thinking logically and start writing better.  Scariest of all is that it makes sense.  And works.  I may have to try it.

The Alexander Patterson Cappon Prize for Fiction is taking submissions until May 18th, and if you win, you get $1,500.00, which is like $8,765.93 in Writer Money and $12,346.17 in College Money.  Of course, there’s a $15.00 reading fee when you submit, but that’s about as low of a fee as you will find for a prize that size.

My short story “Memorial” was rejected by Crazyhorse, though the rejection email disappointed me a bit.

We are sorry this particular manuscript was not selected for publication in Crazyhorse. We hope you will send us another soon, though. We could not publish Crazyhorse without the fine writing submitted to us. While we regret that the large number of submissions we receive makes it difficult for the editors to respond personally, we want to emphasize that an editor personally read your manuscript. Devoted reading is part of the Crazyhorse editorial mission; it is also our own personal one.

I was really hoping for an image of a truly crazy horse to come violently neighing out of my computer screen to slap me in the face with its oat bag and shriek at me that it hated my story and it had bigger fields to gallop through.  Basically Mr. Ed after a trough of Mountain Dew.  Ya feel me?

Super Important Writing Contests. Or Not.Posted by John Woodington on February 6th, 2010

Just got an email about a few writing contests that are oepn for submissions now, though I kinda feel only one of them is worth entering.  The first is a contest for younger peeps through the Ayn Rand Institute.  Write yourself an essay about how you are better than everyone else in the world, and you could win $2000.00.  The second one is the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, in which you can write a story that will create a religion that charges its members an entrance fee to make them think we’re all made out of alien spirits that floated around volcanoes way back in the day.  For accomplishing this feat you can win $5000.00.

Note to self and rest of world: Shouldn’t a contest from the Ayn Rand Institute offer the greatest monetary reward?  Isn’t the almighty dollar the greatest achievement in their world?  And to be beat out by a guy who created a religion?  That’s what I’d call a Double Rand Whammy.

The third contest, and the only one I’d consider entering (because I’m too old and too nice for the Rand contest and too sane for the Hubbard) is the New South Writing Contest, which rewards good prose and good poetry in the amount of $1000.00.  I think this contest holds the most prestige for me, so I may check it out.  Either that, Or I could write up a quick sci-fi story and see what the L. Ronners think about it.

In a significantly unrelated topic, I do not care about who wins the Superbowl, so long as it is a good game, and I’m not waiting for Payton to run out the clock throughout the entire fourth quarter.  Naw meen?

One other thing that popped up in my head this week:  I am currently working on a novel.  I also have realized through the reading and rereading of said novel, that there are various portions (chapters, really) that could be published separately as short stories.  Has anyone tried this and found it successful?  Will it help chances of novel publication later on?  Or hurt them, for that matter?  I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, experiences, and feedback.

Rejection, eBook Costs, and NeologismsPosted by John Woodington on February 2nd, 2010

We’ve talked about rejection here before.  Many types of rejection, but mostly rejection of the literary kind.  Terrence Cheng has some very good words about rejection (and not just the literary kind) over at Glimmer Train.  I like the Glimmer Trainers.  They’ve always published great writing, but they’ve also made a big effort to publish writing about writing, especially in their Writers Ask mini-magazine thang.  I’ve gotten a couple of these juicy tidbits, and they never disappoint.

Apparently eBooks will be costing more in the near future.

The new Puzzler at Narrative is a good one.  Finally.  Invent your own words.  I love it.  I’m always inventing my own words, because, as we all know, the ones that are already out there just don’t cut it sometimes.  Check it out: Gidottta.  Yep.  That’s a word of mine.  Gidotta.  You know, like, “Hey, gidotta my face, bra!”

So I’ll have to work on that.  Because “Gidotta” prolly won’t win me some Narrative competition points.

Finally, I’m about 50 pages into my editing of my novel AlieNation.  That title will change, don’t you worry.  Luckily, the book seems to get better as it goes, so it’s got that going for it.  That also means I’ll have to pump up that beginning a little more before I call it done.  The goal is to get it done in time to pitch it to an agent or three at a writing conference this summer at Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania.  Should be fun.

America Loses a Giant – J. D. SalingerPosted by John Woodington on January 28th, 2010

We lost Salinger today.  His short stories are, for me, some of the best examples of creativity in the form.  I’ve got Catcher in the Rye on the shelf, waiting to be read later this year.  Salinger avoided the public eye, and apparently wrote a bunch of books that he never brought out for publication.  Maybe we’ll see them posthumously, like Pirate Latitudes.

There’s a writing competition over at Writer’s Digest that’s worth checking out, though apparently I should’ve known about this competition prior to this, considering it’s been going on for 79 years.  My bad.  I’ve only been around for 26 years and a few months, so you can’t blame me too much.

I’m still enthralled with Fictionaut, and the quality of the writing posted there just keeps getting better and better.  It is so far the only site I’ve found that has users posting literature worth reading.

Time for sleep.

Rigged Puzzler and Cool Google DataPosted by John Woodington on January 27th, 2010

I’m not going to dwell too long on the Narrative Puzzler for this week.  It’s fine, it’s not answering a quiz, it’s creative, though it’s just a little lame.  And the whole thing might be a little rigged.  I mean, if Misha Hoekstra can win with the submission she sent, and continue to lead the leaderboard overall for all puzzlers, then I’d say there’s something fishy.  I mean, what was clever about the winning entry?  “Reading?”  Give me a brizzake.

In far more interesting news, check out this blog about what men and women really think, as can be seen by the searches that Google populates when you type in a few words.  Now that’s fodder for debate.

Condolences to writer Neil Gaiman for the passing of his cat, Zoe.

In writing news, I’m about thirty pages into the revision of my novel, AlieNation, and it’s going all right.  I really want this to be a poignant novel and a novel that turns pages, and finding that balance is always a challenge.  But I enjoy it.  Not as much as I enjoy meeting dead coyotes (see the post before this one) but pretty close.

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.

Not New Narrative PuzzlerPosted by John Woodington on January 13th, 2010

Last week’s Narrative Puzzler competition was for people to write a six-word story and submit it.  This is what happens when all the six-word stories that get submitted to a competition like this end up sucking:

While we received many entries last week, few were complete stories with a full narrative arc: conflict, action, and resolution.

So guess what this week’s Puzzler competition is?  THE SAME THING.  So fear not, if your story sucks this week maybe everybody else’s will too, and they’ll redo the whole competition.  Craziness.

In writing news, I’m almost done reading through the first draft of my novel AlieNation, and it’s reading pretty smoothly, though there are definitely some things  that need improvement.  Like that weird title…

Malahat Novella Competition and Narrative PuzzlerPosted by John Woodington on January 8th, 2010

The Malahat Review has a novella competition open right now, and it’s submission period ends February 1st, so get your 10,000 to 20,000 word stories into the mailbox (no email for this one, suck) soon.  The only problem I have with this competition is the submission cost.  Most competitions have submission costs, though they don’t typically exceed $20.00 per story.  The submission cost for this competition is $40.00 (if submitting from the US, since Malahat is in Canada).  That’s a lot of money.  In writer money, that’s the equivalent of $176.50.  In college money, it’s $212.07.  Don’t ask about the conversion rate–it’s accurate.  I’d understand this hefty submission fee if the prize for winning the competition was comparable.  A lot of competitions I submit to have a $20.00 submission fee, but a $1000.00 to $3000.00 top prize.  The top prize for this competition is $500.00.  Then again, they also pay $40.00 per printed page for the winning story, and since it’s a novella, that’s a lot of pages, so that may make up for it.  Had I the requisite $40.00, I’d submit, but I think I’ll save my money for groceries and beer.

Unrelatedly (not a word, but go with it) Narrative has a new Puzzler challenge out, and it is actually one where you are charged with writing something, as opposed to answering trivia.  The challenge for this week is to write an entire story in six words.  Sounds awesome.  And challenging.  The shortest story I’ve ever written is around 300 words, so I’ll have to trim it down a smidge.  Or write something from scratch, which is most likely what I’ll do.

Entries are due next Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 (pronounced “twenty-ten”, as you know).

Finally, I’m very much enjoying chatting with people on Goodreads, and am looking forward to future discussions about short stories, novels, and writing in general.

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.

Narrative Puzzler, T.C. Boyle, ePublishing, and War and Peace…whew!Posted by John Woodington on December 2nd, 2009

So there’s a new Puzzler challenge this week from Narrative Magazine, and it’s one in which you have to answer six questions about memoirs.  I think that calling this sort of challenge a “Puzzler” is misleading and inaccurate–it should be called a “Test Your Googling Skills” challenge.  Or something like that.  I knew none of the answers to the six questions.  Then I went onto Google.  Now I know all the answers.  And I sent them in.  We’ll see.

I mentioned I’ve been accepted to write  fiction on the Fictionaut website.  It was nice to see that T.C. Boyle is on there as well.  Everyone is contributing high-quality work, which makes me happy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the pros and cons of ePublishing lately.  Here’s one of many places where this topic is discussed.  I want to read up on it some more before I discuss it in length here, but I’m sure I’ll rant about it soon.

Finally, I’ve got a hundred pages left to read in War and Peace.  This thing is a beast, but it’s nearly conquered.  Then I’ll read some critical analysis on it, and transition over to my newest copy of the Missouri Review, which has been sitting on my shelf with plaintive eyes, patiently waiting for me to pick it up and read it through.