A member of HTTS and HTRYN attended Fantasy Con.  Here’s part of her story:

I’ve been networking a bit online, and after stopping to chat with a short story editor I’d become friendly with, I found myself sitting next to the head of a small but high-profile SF&F publishers. . . . I got talking to him and, lo and behold, one of the types of book he is currently looking for matched up perfectly with my “elevator pitch” that I’ve been rehearsing in my head for the past several months! Long story short, he asked me to email him some sample chapters and a synopsis.

The moral of the story is: be brave – and be prepared!

Are you brave?  Are you prepared?  You can be both.  Take a look.

From the Eureka forum of How to Revise Your Novel:

I wrote a four thousand word essay and sent it in to my local paper without an invitation, and they called me (the same day!) and asked if I could take 4,000 words down to 400.

It was hard; I had to give up a lot…but thanks to the HTRYN my article stands at 397 words but still manages to keep the most important point. Not bad for a 90% reduction.

It may not seem like much, but I was able to write about something I care about.

This is also the first time that anyone who makes a living writing has ever said “Wow.” when they read something I wrote…

Now I want more of that please, I like it!…lol

This post deserves plenty of congrats and the usual “Tell us more about the process you used” questions. Also confetti.

A Sideways writer reports the sale of her story, a modern fairy tale, to an anthology.

The acceptance letter reads in part:

Thank you for your submission to [our] anthology. We have been quite inundated with many stellar works from authors around the world, and we are very excited to offer this compilation of cautionary tales for the children of today.

I am pleased to accept your work, “The Power of Music,” for inclusion. . . .  this is a fabulous story, and I would love to publish it in the anthology.

And this is followed by the promise of “more specific details on payment, a contract, publishing date, etc.”

What could be better than a discussion of payment, contract, and publishing date?

Log in to add your congratulations.

A Sideways writer struggles with the Inner Critic during the first draft.   She worries about getting everything right: conflict, characterization, setting, pacing, and all the rest.

Meanwhile, her sentences seem to her flat, pedestrian, awkward, and dull.  She worries that she has no talent and can’t get a good start on her novel.

How do you clobber that Inner Critic?  Log in to share your ideas and maybe glean some new ones, too.