I used to love going to the barn dances at the end of the harvest season. Everyone had worked hard to harvest the crops. The cattle had been driven to market and the year was coming to an end. The nip in the air signaled the end of one very long, back-breaking season. It was time to let our hair down and enjoy the fruits of our labor. A country music band (sorry, I’m from Texas) played Cotton Eyed Joe while we did the Texas Two Step. We laughed and retold stories of comedy and calamity the year had brought. We rekindled relationships that had flickered during the season, separated by miles of cattle country. All too soon for any of us, the night came to an end. We’d literally […]
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Dealing with the Conference Blues
Today I’m going to talk about something that may seem a bit odd: The conference blues. “Oh, Tiff. You mean the post-conference letdown?” No. I don’t mean that at all. What I’m talking about is the deep sense of intimidation or “not belonging” that I’ve both seen in others and experienced myself at various writer’s conferences. This is something that I was completely unprepared for when I attended my first national writing conference in September 2006. I was so excited…so prepared…so overwhelmed. I remember when I got there I’d already been published in two national print publications [Today’s Christian and Charisma Magazine] and I’d also been a regular columnist for a local newspaper. Yet, as I walked around the group of about 300 people a voice in my head kept […]
Read the RestFrasier Contest Blog Tour
Hello! Usually, yes, we have Fabulous Fiction Friday… but because we have the Frasier Contest going on this month, I wanted to take this day to encourage you to stop by the following blogs this month and check what the Voices had to say about the Frasier Contest! February 6: Melissa Tagg http://www.melissatagg.com/ February 7: Beth Vogt http://bethvogt.com/ February 8: Andrea Nell http://www.andrea-michelle-wood.blogspot.com/ February 10: Michelle Lim http://thoughtsonplot.wordpress.com/ February 16: Edie Melson http://thewriteconversation.blogspot.com/ February 23: Lisa Jordan http://www.lisajordanbooks.com/ February 27: Julia Matuska http://painterspen.blogspot.com/ February 29: Tiffany Colter http://writingcareercoach.com/ March 1: Casey Herringshaw http://thewritersalleys.blogspot.com/ March 2: Jennifer Fromke http://jenniferfromke.com/blog/ March 5: Rachel Hauck http://www.rachelhauck.com/ Thank you all for your Blog post – and for more info about the Frasier […]
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TEE Explains: Why Do Editors (Not) Hate Writers?
Editors do not hate writers. Really. We don’t. Hate is such a strong word. So let’s make sure we apply it correctly, shall we? We hate misspelled words. Especially when we open a Word document and the word has a squigglyline underneath it that is Word’s way of saying, “Hey! I think you misspelled this word! You wanna’ check this?” And, obviously, you didn’t. We hate really long sentences that contain enough words to fill an unabridged dictionary and that, if you tried to read it, would cause an asthmatic to reach for her inhaler, and that sometimes, but not always, contain an overabundance of punctuation, but not always. (That example contained 45 words.I counted.) We hate commas thrown hither and yon throughout your manuscript with no rhyme or reason. Comma […]
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