The Storm is Coming: An Anthology

And you can win a free paperback copy! Announcing the release of The Storm is Coming: An Anthology.

Storms can come out of a clear blue sky, or they can build over a long period. They can take many forms, all terribly destructive: a tornado or hurricane that destroys all your belongings, an abusive spouse who destroys your sense of well-being, or human actions that can devastate an entire society.

In this collection of short stories, poetry, non-fiction, and images, you will find the range of approaching storms, and the range of emotions involved in such cataclysmic events. Within these pages you will find Mother Nature on the warpath in the form of tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, and vengeful plants. You will find storms approaching in the form of an abusive spouse, a fed-up spouse, and the down-trodden. You will find murder and suicide. But, as is always the case after a storm passes, you will also find life beginning anew.

To celebrate the release of this anthology in both paperback and ebook formats, Sleeping Cat Books will send a copy of the paperback to one reader chosen at random. The rules for entering this drawing are below.

The Storm is Coming: An Anthology is now available in paperback and for Kindle and NOOK.

Please visit these contributors’ blogs as we continue our blog tour to celebrate the release:
2 April: Gill Shutt – Fog on the Brain
3 April: Carole Bellacera – Musings and News
4 April: Randy Mixter – Writing for Fun and Profit
5 April: Joe Massingham – Joe’s Blog
6 April: Catherine McGuire – Cathy McGuire – Writing and Art
7 April: Ransom Noble – Ransom Noble – Writer

Rules for Entry

• Comment on this post (Leave a Comment/Reply below) between  1 April 2012 and 30 April 2012.
• Be sure to use a valid email address when you post so that we may contact the winner. (This email address will not appear on your comment when you post it.)
• One entry per person. You may comment more than once, but your name and email address will only be entered for the first comment.
• The winner will be chosen at random on 1 May 2012 from all of the unique commenters on this post. The winner’s first name will be announced on this blog that day.
• In the event that we are unable to contact the winner by 7 May, a second name will be chosen at random and announced on that day.

Please include a bio paragraph written in third person in the cover letter of your submission. Submissions will only be accepted through the button on our website.

Fiction: no more than 5,000 words.

Deadline for submission: 1 July 2012

Theme: Character (cover image below and character profile on our website)
We have tried to include enough detail to give you a reasonable idea of who this character is without restricting you to any particular location or time. We will entertain any type of submission (sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, mystery, etc.) as long as Cherie is clearly the character we’ve created. She does not have to be the main character in your submission, but she must have a prominent role. You do not have to stick strictly to the character traits we’ve included, but again, she must be recognizable as the same character. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Submission fee: Free

Contributor compensation: Those whose work is chosen for inclusion will receive one complimentary copy of the anthology, and will also be eligible to purchase up to 10 copies at production cost plus S&H, rather than retail.

Cover for as-yet untitled character anthology

This collection of short stories, poetry, non-fiction, and images covers the range of approaching storms, and the range of emotions involved in such cataclysmic events.

Your pre-order of this anthology will help defray the production costs, including supplying each of the talented authors with a complimentary author’s copy. Please see the Reward levels on the pre-order site to select the package that’s right for you.

Submissions for the anthology will be accepted through 31 December 2011. We still have plenty of room for fiction, essays, images, and poetry meeting the theme “The Storm is Coming” and the image on the submission page.

Our online short story workshop is also up and running. Please visit the website for more information.

Please visit our workshop page to sign up for this workshop, and to see everything else Sleeping Cat Books has to offer. The first two lessons and the personal feedback that comes with them are provided absolutely free of charge. While you’re there, don’t forget to check out the Anthology submission guidelines. The deadline is 31 December for this spring anthology!

Submissions are now open for the Sleeping Cat Books anthology to be published in the spring of 2012. This anthology will be a black and white paperback, and may include essays, short fiction, poetry, B&W photography, or B&W graphic images. We will consider any genre, as long as the submission relates to or typifies the theme and cover artwork. We’re looking for submissions that clearly portray the tension of an approaching storm, whether actual or metaphorical. No pornographic content, or any material that would not make it into a rated R movie.

Please include a bio paragraph in the cover letter of your submission. Submissions will only be accepted through the button on our website.

Fiction/essays should be no more than 5,000 words.

Photos/images will be printed full page (full bleed) and must be exactly 5.125″ by 8.25″, at least 300 dpi, and may be either landscape or portrait. Keep in mind that the left side of a portrait image or the top of a landscape image will run completely into the binding of the book and should not contain critical elements of the image.

Deadline for submission: 31 December 2011
Theme: The Storm is Coming (cover below)
Submission fee: Free
Contributor compensation: Those whose work is chosen for inclusion will receive one complimentary copy of the anthology, and will also be eligible to purchase up to 10 copies at production cost plus S&H, rather than retail.

Potential cover for upcoming anthology

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Does this actually work? Yes, it does. I’d been in a slump as far as internet traffic to my website went, with no visits at all for several days in a row. This past weekend I decided that I was going to be proactive and become a regular visitor and commenter on a POD publishing forum. I tried to answer any questions I felt I had the knowledge for, and participated in discussions. The result? My website link has been clicked many times in my signature line in those posts. It’s gratifying to view my increased web stats after such a small amount of effort. I intend to keep it up and continue to be active on this forum, and perhaps find others.

Until today. You see, I’d grown a bit bored with where I was in the story. I’d mapped out nearly the entire plot before NaNo started, using the phase outline approach I’ve discussed in a previous post, but at the point where my committment flagged, it was starting to feel too repetitive. I told myself that I was afraid of the prospect of having to revise, and that’s why I’ve never finished a novel.

I’ve been reading Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones lately and it seems to have given me some inspiration. I opened up my novel files today, reviewed where I was in the narrative, reviewed my phase outline…and decided to cut out an entire chapter of phases. Just gone. Out the window. And the next chapter in my outline was the climax of the plot, which is what I’d been wanting to get to, apparently, because I had no problem setting to work once I’d skipped the boring part that had been staring me in the face. A little summarizing and I was off and running again. That’s not to say some of the cut phases won’t wind up in the revisions. But bypassing them now has allowed me to move forward, and that’s the important thing. You can’t publish without a finished manuscript, and you can’t have a finished manuscript without having a draft to revise.

So if you’re facing “the wall” in your work, think about skipping the part that’s giving you trouble and writing a scene that you can see clearly in your head—the scene that’s just been dying to get out and on the paper. Sometimes what we call writer’s block is really just our subconscious telling us that this part that’s holding us back isn’t really important to the story.

Personally, I find that my comprehension of any material is much lower if I listen to someone read it to me than if I see the printed words myself. I’ve never actually tried to listen to an audiobook, but I can’t imagine that it would be much different than having someone read a piece of a news article to me. I just can’t seem to grasp the full content without seeing the text myself. Perhaps the type imprints itself and imparts its meaning more directly to my conscious thought than sounds coming through my auditory system can. I’m interested in others’ experiences with audiobooks or having someone read anything to you. Perhaps it could be related to the right brain/left brain differences?

That said, I recently read an article in The Writer magazine (“Writing out loud” by Randall Silvis, May 2011) about listening to your own work in draft form. The article points out that “Reading is an aural experience. …When we read, we hear the words.” I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. When I read, I can hear characters’ voices in my head. I can hear the poetry in particularly well-written prose. We’ve all read works where the words have their own lilt, their own music in your head.

In order to achieve this music in their own work, Silvis and others recommend that writers either have someone read their draft back them, or record themselves reading the draft and then play it back. This allows the author to note any awkward phrases or stumbling blocks in their phrasing, as well as dialogue that doesn’t ring true.

So in the spirit of Audiobook Month, why don’t you try creating an audiobook of your draft, even if it’s just for your own editing use?