Writing Challenges

I've been wanting to write this post for a while, mostly because my memory is a shifty thing nowadays.

YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!

Where was I...

Right, well, by the time I remember there's a writing challenge I want to do, I've already missed half of it. So I'm compiling a list of writing challenges in one handy-dandy place. If I've missed your favorite, let me know and I'll add it to the list.

You think you got the chops to be a writer? Well do ya, punk? Then sign up for one of these challenges and show your mad skillz.

Dang kids and all their bling verbiage...

Monthly Challenges
Slice of Life Story Challenge - March

Every Tuesday during March, post a 'Slice of Life' story (Slice of life is a phrase describing the use of mundane realism depicting everyday experiences in art and entertainment). This challenge is also designed for writing classes in schools.

A to Z Challenge - April

"...you would start beginning April First with a topic themed on something with the letter A, then on April second another topic with the letter B as the theme, and so on until you finish on April thirtieth with the theme based on the letter Z. It doesn't even have to be a word--it can be a proper noun, the letter used as a symbol, or the letter itself. The theme of the day is the letter scheduled for that day."

Green Moms Network Blog Writing Challenge - April

Post as many times during the month as you feel comfortable. Use the provided topics. Members entered for awards.

Camp NaNoWriMo - July

Write 50,000 words during July. Awesome support system.

WriteNow Blog Challenge - August

Write a blog post every day for the month of August.

October Memoir and Back Story Blogging Challenge

This challenge is in your own creative hands with multiple options. The overall theme is Memories. This year (2013), blog on odd-numbered days and blog hop (reading each other’s posts) on even-numbered days.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) - November

Write 50,000 words during the month of November. Awesome support systems.

StageofLife.Com Writing Contest

Each month, StageofLife.Com posts a writing prompt for everyone's different life stages. Prizes offered.

10 Day Writing Blogger Challenge

This challenge runs for 10 consecutive days, but will remain open to join in, for 5 months (JULY – NOVEMBER).

Insecure Writers Support Group

The first Wednesday of every month, post your thoughts on your blog. Talk about your doubts, fears, struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others and connect with your fellow writers.

Weekly Challenges
Trifecta Writing Challenge

Trifecta consists of two weekly challenges: one weekday prompt and one weekend prompt. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/p/challenge-instructions.html#sthash.qQEVgdyH.dpuf

Trifecta consists of two weekly challenges: one weekday prompt and one weekend prompt. Editors mention top three winners, while the top winner receives 'Trifecta Winner' logo for their blog.

Trifecta consists of two weekly challenges: one weekday prompt and one weekend prompt. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/p/challenge-instructions.html#sthash.qQEVgdyH.dpuf

What If? Weekly Writing Challenge

Every Sunday, What If? Weekly Writing Challenge will issue a challenge using a what if scenario. You have until Thursday at midnight, Eastern standard time, to get your post in.

So what are you waiting for? Get writing!

Reach For The Stars

Motivational Me, Circa 2010

In honor of the Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG) two-year anniversary, I started back to the gym today. Well... yes, I started going back to the gym, but not for that reason.

Three years ago, I took the Body For Life challenge. I lost an amazing 35 lbs. and felt great. I took a writer's workshop in St. George, Utah with David Farland and made lots of friends. Life felt like it was finally going in the right direction.

After three years of watching the scale climb past my beginning Body For Life weight, things are looking pretty bleak. I've developed Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and to complicate matters, I have teenagers. Which came first, the teenagers or the anxiety? You decide.

But I digress...

So, after encouragement from my doctor and therapist, I finally decided I really needed to go to the gym. My wife, knowing we both needed gym time, got us all squared away so we could start going again.

And then nothing happened.

Why?

Well, mainly my GAD kicked in because, lets admit it, the world--and life in general--is just better when you stay in bed all day. The biggest problem I was experiencing was failure to start.

'Tomorrow,' I'd say. Daily. Until I realized it wasn't true. I wasn't going to start unless I actually did it. So I decided to skip my morning refill, and start off slowly at the gym. And I enjoyed it, even though I was out of my comfort zone. Now I won't be able to beat myself up for starting. Now it's about continuing.

One of the things that motivated me to jump in was an address author Stephen Lovely gave to the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. He began by discussing several strong points that studies have found concerning mental health and creativity.

"First, the suicide rate among writers and artists in nearly 20% higher than the among the general population. Second, writers and artists are 10 to 20 times more likely to suffer from manic depressive illness than non-artists. Third, writers and artists are nearly 10 times more likely to experience major depression. The lives of writers are full of mental illness, mood disorders, psychosis, anxiety and hospitalizations. The only good news for we fiction writers, is that the poets suffer far worse.

The link between mental illness and creativity has been studied at length, and it's pretty clear that both share a genetic and/or neurological substrate, a common ancestor. Whatever genetic inheritance you received from your ancestor that predisposes you to be a creative writer, chances are that same inheritance may predispose you to suffer from mental illness. It's not that having a mental illness allows you to be a talented writer, but that being a talented writer makes you mentally ill. Don't laugh, plenty of people believe this.

. . . .

I want to tell you about a drug I take for this problem. A drug on which I've come to depend. This drug increases cerebral blood flow increasing the supply of glucose and oxygen and nutrients to the brain, while removing toxic substances. It improves the brain's performance increases alertness and attention and memory and the ability to process complex thoughts. It prepares and stimulates brain cells to bind together, even encourages the growth of new cells as you age, replacing dying cells And, get this, it alleviates depression and relieves stress and increases confidence.

It's a writers dream drug.

Do you know what it is? It's not Adderall, it's exercise, specifically aerobic exercise. In my experience, exercise has done more good for the sustained project of my writing than just about anything else."

So anyway, that hit me pretty hard, and I knew I needed to do something. It's all about finding balance, and when you don't have any, moving in a positive direction is a good thing.

Now I'm exercising. Are you?

To listen to Stephen Lovely's full address, download it from iTunes under the Writing University podcasts.

Review: Bloodborne

Bloodborne by Gregg Luke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I enjoy LDS thriller novels because I never have to worry about the content. Better still is when I get to read Gregg Luke's work! So far, this had to be my favorite Gregg Luke novel.

Bloodborne deals with a race to stop money-grubbing psychotics from releasing a viral infection through mosquitos.

The Good
The novel takes place in Hawaii and Utah, but Gregg does an amazing job with his scene locations by turning them on their ear. For instance, his Hawaiian scenes take place on an off-limits island that gets very little rain and is consequently not as lush as the big island or Maui. In Utah, his characters hide out in an awesome, hidden away cabin.

Gregg also has some great twists with his characters and reveals them perfectly. One character has a particularly large bombshell that literally dropped my jaw.

Great tension, characters and locations really made Bloodborne rock!

The Bad
There weren't any large character motivation problems or plot holes that I saw. So, no. There wasn't anything I didn't like about this book.

The Spin
If you like thrillers and prefer clean content, pick up Bloodborne. Sure it's written for the LDS market, but religion takes no part in the story, only preventing a plethora of sex, violence, and profanity from seeping into a great story.



View all my reviews

Review: V Wars

V Wars by Jonathan Maberry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



V Wars is a compilation of vampire stories edited by Jonathan Maberry. Like World War Z, V Wars is a chronology of a supernatural uprising across the globe.

I'm a huge Maberry fan, so I was plenty excited to pick this one up.

The Good
The authors in this anthology provide new additions to vampire legends while detailing old lore. Each story is well written and engaging making for a fun read. My favorite stories were by Jonathan Mayberry, Stefan Rudnicki, and James A. Moore. Heck, even "Heartsick" by Scott Nicholson shouldn't be missed to see a good-ol' boy bigot get what's coming to him.

The audiobook version has incredible narrators and was just plain awesome.

The Bad
My biggest complaint with V Wars, is that there is NO actual war. Yeah, yeah... there's a brief head nod to a military squad going in to fight the vamps, but it ends there. The majority of the book describes changes individual characters go through on the physical, psychological, and societal level. You never get to 'see' an actual war as you do in World War Z. I felt like this really hobble the entire compilation.

Worse still, some of the stories drag a bit. Overall most of the stories have good pacing, but I felt like several dragged on with mundane details.

My only complaint with the audiobook version is that Lisa Renee Pitts, who narrates 'The Ballad of Big Charlie,' tends to hitch words every now and then. She does great character voices, but the hitching, particularly around names, is annoying.

The Spin
When it comes right down to it, if you like vamps, you'll like V Wars. The diverse variety of vampires make for an interesting read as the characters see what they're turning in to. The stories are well written and fun to read. But if you're hoping for more than individual vampire stories, you'll be disappointed.



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Review: John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End by David Wong

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



John Dies @ The End, is worth reading if you can overcome the drawbacks.

The Good
I can guarantee that you will never know what to expect in this story. It reads like an ADHD high-school geek on crack, and that ain't bad!

The Bad
First, there is a lot of profanity in this book. I know the whole, 'teens swear' argument, but too often, writers hurt their stories by emphasizing bad language. It wasn't always necessary in this story, and ended up detracting more than highlighting tension.

Second, you never really get close to any of the characters except the narrator. You like and sympathize with them, but never really know them. At least, I didn't form any great attachments to any of the characters.

The Flip Side
Overall, this book was a fun and quick read. The swearing made speed-bumps in the readability of the story, but the insane plot line made we want to keep pushing on. So really, it's somewhere between three and four stars.



View all my reviews

Finding Your One Percent

I've always enjoyed blog posts from the Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) and finally got around to joining. Fortunately, something happened this week that is great material for my first IWSG post!

Note: I can never actually keep track of the timeline of my therapy sessions. They're an hour long, but feel more like fifteen minutes. And the exact wording of the conversation? Forget about it...

Imposter Syndrome
I started therapy for general anxiety disorder a couple weeks ago, but this weeks session hit me particularly hard. I'd like to share what happened, because I think it bears something critical for those of us with imposter syndrome (which I just learned is an actual psychological condition and not just the woes of being an aspiring author--insert cheesy grin).

Here's what it is:

"Impostor syndrome, sometimes called impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome, is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be." (Wikipedia)

During this weeks session, my therapist asked me to tell her something that I could say, "I'm good at that."

In all honesty, I was quite comfortable with shamefully replying, "Nothing."

See, there are things I like to do, but I'm not really 'good' and anything. In fact, I think I SUCK at everything.

Finding Your One Percent
Well, my therapist narrowed her eyes (that's only a guess--I was crying too much to tell) and asked me, "Is there anything you think you do well at all? It doesn't have to be 100%. Something that maybe you're 1%."

I admitted writing. And that was hard.

I've had some success with my writing, so I really couldn't say no. One percent isn't that much. But the real reason I said, 'writing,' is because writing makes me happy. Sometimes I even catch myself writing something and saying, "Hey! That ain't half bad."

As aspiring unpublished authors, we often think success is classified by agents and book deals. But those of us who have spent any time researching the industry know it's a complete crap-shoot to get published. You can be an incredibly talented author, but getting published still requires timing and a bit of luck.

The Take-Away
You're not an imposter, so what are you 1% good at? Don't let your enjoyment of something be denied because you're not 'perfect' at it. Live in the moment and find something you're 1% good at, then revel in it! That doesn't mean you won't improve or write the pants off Stephen King after you polish off your cheese danish. But you are at least 1% good at something.

And that's pretty cool.