4,000 to 1

Other imprint's slush pile
Originally uploaded by Katertot

First, something fun.

National Public Radio is hosting another writers' competition. This one has to do with writing titles. In honor (well, kind of) of the late Robert Ludlum, NPR is asking listeners to tweet their attempts at the worst possible title for a spy movie. In order to read the entries, go to Twitter and enter #AbsurdSpyMovies in the 'search' box. Some of my favorites include: The Carradine Complication, The Freudian Fling, and "Live and Let Tie-Dye". I'm also proud of mine: The Gordian Nautilus.

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Okay, onto today's real topic. Slush.

No one likes to think about slush piles. Not editors, not agents, and certainly not writers. The very idea of a slush pile can make hardened writers tremble and turn gray. Today's blog title, "4,000 to 1" is actually a statistic that was posted on Mike Resnick's recent article Slush. This is the odds of a new writer being accepted by Asimov's magazine. And the picture for today's post? You guessed it - it's a slush pile.

Over the next few posts, I hope to help you improve your slush-pile odds. But let me be clear: I cannot guarantee that you will be accepted!! I am speaking as a somewhat newbie writer myself (though, I will say that I have a dozen or more publishing credits!) Certainly, I suffer from slush and rejections as much as anyone.

But even though there is no magic formula to success, there are concrete things that you, as a writer, can do to help your manuscript the best it can be and - hopefully - make it to the top of the slush pile.

Sometimes Summer Gets in the Way

It's been so long since I've last written that when I tried to enter the Blogspot site, I was sent to the login page. It's like being asked for your ID at the neighborhood bar. But to be fair, I haven't written in a while.

Sometimes summer just gets in the way.

Well, I'm back with a few new ideas for posts (including some on how to proofread a story and what makes a story work), but for today, I'd like to share a fun bit that I found on NPR (National Public Radio).

Writing flash fiction is difficult. It may not seem that way, but it is. The fewer words a story contains, the more difficult it is to tell the story. It's like trying to run a household on a tight budget. There's no room for extras.

Enter NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Writing contest. Last June, National Public Radio asked its listeners to submit stories that could be read in three minutes or less. After slogging through 5,000 submissions, the results are in. You can read the winning entries here.

Flash fiction has never been something I've been able to write. I guess I'm just too verbose. But I had a fun time reading these winning entries, and I hope you will too.

It's good to be back!