Hey folks, just taking a little break from Children’s Writing Month to make some important updates
Guest post at LongShort Stories
My good friend Wayne Long is celebrating the 2 year anniversary of his site, LongShort Stories. It’s a great site that includes a lot of great short stories that folks can subscribe to. Wayne has got a great writing style and his stories are a fun read.
Wayne asked me to write a guest post to help celebrate and he posted it today.
Do me a favor and go check out Wayne’s site to help him celebrate his 2 year anniversary.
Flashy Fiction e-book
There’s just one more week left to promote the Flash Fiction e-book that includes your submissions from last month. If you contributed, make an extra effort to promote the book this week. Remember, the more the book sells, the greater the contest prize.
Feedback on Children’s Writing Month
Since I announced that June is Children’s Writing Month, traffic and comments have dropped to record low levels. I’m curious how folks feel about writing for children. Is this a second best kind of writing? Is there just no interest in he genre? Like I said, I’m very curious to know.
Community Expansion Challenge
Last month I posted a community expansion challenge, whereby I would select a writing blog that was not part of my normal rounds and then reach out to all of the commentors on a particular post. I chose to go to Renegade Writer. I posted a comment on a post with 23 commentors and then reached out to those commentors, visiting their sites and commenting or subscribing to their feeds. Here are the results:
<!– @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } A:link { so-language: zxx } –>
Damon Brown – http://damonbrown.net/category/blog/ journalism and such
Jill U Adams – http://www.jilluadams.blogspot.com/ writing portfolio
Mimi – http://www.whatmimiread.blogspot.com/ A new England Journalist
Elaine Appleton – http://www.appletongrant.com/Elaine_Appleton_Grant/Blog/Blog.html Writer/journalist
Andrew Mcmillen – http://andrewmcmillen.com/ This guy is awesome!
Kat – http://katarzynaradzka.today.com/2009/05/31/may-overview/ Writer blog
So far, only one has contacted me back in any form. It will be interesting to see what happens as the month progresses
Thanks for indulging this list of updates. As always, thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for the list, I’ll enjoy going through it tonight when I have some reading time!
Tracy´s last blog post..People who need pupa are the pluckiest people
Thanks for dropping by, Tracy.
I’d be interested in your thoughts!
George
Aw, no, I don’t think writing for children is second best! My commenting has dropped off to nothingness just in general–due to craziness in my life on an Amish farm, family stuff, and being swamped with deadlines. I just reminisced about my childhood memories of books and child authors in an interview I recently did. Danny and the Dinosaur was always my favorite book (I still have it!).
And I can’t imagine my childhood without super awesome children’s authors and parents and teachers who inspired and nurtured my reading habits.
I totally think writing for children is extremely important. Although it isn’t really my genre, I commend those who write for children feeding their little minds and encouraging them to use their imaginations!
*smiles*
Michele
Michele´s last blog post..Blogging: How Does it Affect You?
I admire children’s writers and think writing for children is harder than writing for adults—far too hard for me to do.
Re: your comments project: When you say only one of the people whose blogs you commented on has responded to you in any way, are you including a reply comment on the blog? I don’t respond to commenters in e-mail except on rare occasions when they ask a question that is best answered privately. However, I do reply to every comment. Commenters can subscribe to comments if they want to read my response. I’m just wondering if you consider that responsive.
Lillie Ammann´s last blog post..Creating Fictional Characters—Part 1: Characters Are Story People
Hi Michele,
I still remember some of my favs from my early days. Harry the Dirty Dog is one of them. I actually found a copy so now I read it to my daughter! Coolio!
George
Lillie,
Thanks for coming by. In all of the instances listed above, I posted a comment on their most recent post and subscribed to comments. Most of them were subscribed to as well if that was an option.
It has only been a week, and honestly it doesn’t bother me if there are no more responses, I’ve still expanded in my view.
I hope to see you here again.
George
George:
Many writers are not and don’t aspire to be children’s authors, so this isn’t a major topic for many. I am always pleasantly surprised to discover that famous authors (such as Arthur C. Clark) has written for children. I have an unpublished children’s Christmas story I wrote as an assignment in a creative writing course in college, so I am interested in the genre. Good kids’ books are the key to turning children on to reading and writing at a young age, so they are already inveterate readers when their peers announce that “Reading is dumb and boring!”
Writing for children is hard. However, children’s books and authors should interest all parents who read to their children.
[rq=822,0,blog][/rq]Catch Your Daydreams
George! I just noticed this incoming link on my blog. Thanks so much for your comment and link! You da man!
Andrew McMillen´s last blog ..A Conversation With Stu Watters, Australian Independent Record Labels Association CEO
Hey Andrew!
Glad to do it. Cheers, mate!
George
Hi George,
Thanks for touching base! Your post got caught in my (eager) spam filter, but I did get your message this morning.
I look forward to reading your blog!
Best,
Damon Brown
Author, “Porn & Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture” (October 2008)
http://www.twitter.com/browndamon
Damon Brown´s last blog ..New Editor of About.com Mobile Games
Damon, I just love your style. It’s a pleasure to go see your work – always.
Thanks for coming by!
George