NEW USERS! INTRODUCE YOURSELVES!

Hi! My name is Laura and I'm a jeweller and gemology student. I write primarily young adult science fiction/fantasy and self-published my first novel a couple years ago; it's off to a slow start, but I'm pleased to say it's at least had 80 sales so far (mostly ebook). Right now, I'm working on a Regency Steampunk series, a dystopian series, an alternative history/fairy tale retelling, and a humorous fantasy (think Jasper Fforde). I'm also getting into illustration and concept art and made my first submission to IotF on the last day of the 4th quarter. Hoping to enter WotF at some point as well, but, so far, writing short is proving difficult.

~Laura H.

Hello Everyone!

I have to confess I have been lurking on the boards since sometime in 2017. Although I have always loved reading SF&F, I had never written it. So I challenged myself to try. I was very intimidated but keep writing and entering. My first submission was 4th Qtr 2017. After 2 rejections, I got my first HM, followed by another R, then a SHM 1st Qtr 2019. Another R followed and then a SHM 3rd Qtr 2019.

I owe my first nibbles at success to ALL the wonderful advice and encouragement found on here as well as from Dave Farland's newsletters. I can't believe how much my writing has improved, and I am still learning. You guys rock!!

I'll be pasting this on the Qtr link as well, but thought I would start out here first. And a very special thanks to Wulf Moon. I am hoping to enter the new challenge you just posted.

Happy Writing!!

Hoping to enter WotF at some point as well, but, so far, writing short is proving difficult.

Welcome Laura. Maybe you can think of it as the first chapter of your next novel.

Impressive resume StarReacher. You will do well here, enjoy.

Welcome to the Forum, Nicole! Have fun, expand your horizons with us, and and we look forward to your addition to the positiivity here! We are all helping one another to succeed.

Cheers!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

Hi! My name is Laura and I'm a jeweller and gemology student. I write primarily young adult science fiction/fantasy and self-published my first novel a couple years ago; it's off to a slow start, but I'm pleased to say it's at least had 80 sales so far (mostly ebook). Right now, I'm working on a Regency Steampunk series, a dystopian series, an alternative history/fairy tale retelling, and a humorous fantasy (think Jasper Fforde). I'm also getting into illustration and concept art and made my first submission to IotF on the last day of the 4th quarter. Hoping to enter WotF at some point as well, but, so far, writing short is proving difficult.

~Laura H.

Welcome, Laura! Sounds like you have a wide range of writing interests! That's a good thing, variety is the spice of life, and of writing.

My friend, Stephen Stanley, was the first to win both WotF and IotF contests. It can be done!

Writing long fiction and writing short are two different skills, with some crossover. Honestly, sales in short fiction can help sell your long fiction in traditional publishing. Credits are taken note of, the higher the better. It's why so many have had successful career launches only after winning Writers of the Future. This contest is known in the industry for discovering the best new writers, so it's a good idea to concentrate your efforts on it. You mention you're challenged by writing short. I have an exercise in my SUPER SECRETS topic to help with that: KILL YOUR DARLINGS. You might want to give it a try.

Do post to the quarter you are submitting to, as the bulk of encouragement happens there.

Welcome aboard!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

StarReacher, welcome to the party!

I would be very proud of that Silver you just got. It was no small thing to win a silver this last quarter. As I've said, scrape your medal, there's gold just under the surface.

Thanks for your good words about my challenge both here and in the Super Secrets topic. I am so glad it's helping people. It's my desire to shave years off aspiring writers' learning curve. Most of those secrets took me many years to learn, and more to accurately apply.

Glad to have you! Glad you intend to join the Volume 37 challenge coming up! Have fun!

All the beast!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

Hello all the new people.

Hello fellow writing people! I've been following Wulf Moon's success and mostly due to being impressed with him, I decided to finally speak up and get a bit more involved. So hi!

Here, a couple paragraphs of intro. I'm an Oregonian living in Japan for 14 years now. I always loved writing though I've had trouble staying the path. I won 3rd place for fiction at the University of Oregon in 2005 then moved to Japan and didn't write much. I finally got back into writing seriously thanks to my pal Justin and his Eugene Writers Anonymous. Started doing NaNoWriMo and workshopping via email with them 2012-2015.

I first submitted a story to the WotF contest for the 4th quarter of 2015 with a rejection. I snagged two Honorable Mentions in 2016 and another two in 2017. The blue of the HM hard copy is so comforting! In 2016, I dropped by the Willamette Writers Conference to pitch two novels and attend classes. That was such a blast to meet some folks from Eugene Writers Anonymous in person. Agents invited me to send samples of my work but I dropped the ball and never did. I hope to revisit the novels and pitch them again soon.

At the end of 2017, my life fell apart. I had a hard time climbing back up from rock bottom through 2018. Joni Labaqui sent me an email wondering what happened. I'm glad she did. I'm submitting regularly as of 2019. Apparently not at my previous level of quality: no HMs this year though we'll see how Q4 pans out.

I've skimmed through the Secret Bonus Challenge posts and will likely join the Volume 37 challenge. Will post there later? In the meantime, I've bought Farland's new Wonder book and the How I Got Published book with Moon's essay. I'm currently working on a flash fiction piece in response to Moon's Deception prompt which I'll cut to 500 then rephrase to 250. I've done flash before and it's always fun. Now I'm thinking about what to do with NaNoWriMo and how that might or might not help my novels get ready for pitching again (might just ignore NaNo and focus in on revising the novels, or not, and do a full rewrite). Also, where to focus a new story in prep for submission to the 1st quarter of 2020.

Anyway, I've said too much! I hope you're all doing well with your writing and life in general. Glad to finally say hi. Enjoy the weekend.

BTW, I might be up for doing critiques with a few others as we get closer to the Q1 deadline.

Hello oishisushi911 - I imagine living in Japan for so long gives you some unique insights that are useful for this contest. That's nice to hear Joni sent you an e-mail, and it's good to hear you're back on track.

Welcome RJK. You said just the right amount Glad you are back up after a difficult 2018.

I'm trying to decide about Nano this year too - so I can commiserate on the difficulty of deciding

Joni Labaqui sent me an email wondering what happened

A query from Joni just like that is what brought me back from a severe case of rejectomancy.
Welcome RJK.

Hello fellow writing people! I've been following Wulf Moon's success and mostly due to being impressed with him, I decided to finally speak up and get a bit more involved. So hi!

Here, a couple paragraphs of intro. I'm an Oregonian living in Japan for 14 years now. I always loved writing though I've had trouble staying the path. I won 3rd place for fiction at the University of Oregon in 2005 then moved to Japan and didn't write much. I finally got back into writing seriously thanks to my pal Justin and his Eugene Writers Anonymous. Started doing NaNoWriMo and workshopping via email with them 2012-2015.

I first submitted a story to the WotF contest for the 4th quarter of 2015 with a rejection. I snagged two Honorable Mentions in 2016 and another two in 2017. The blue of the HM hard copy is so comforting! In 2016, I dropped by the Willamette Writers Conference to pitch two novels and attend classes. That was such a blast to meet some folks from Eugene Writers Anonymous in person. Agents invited me to send samples of my work but I dropped the ball and never did. I hope to revisit the novels and pitch them again soon.

At the end of 2017, my life fell apart. I had a hard time climbing back up from rock bottom through 2018. Joni Labaqui sent me an email wondering what happened. I'm glad she did. I'm submitting regularly as of 2019. Apparently not at my previous level of quality: no HMs this year though we'll see how Q4 pans out.

I've skimmed through the Secret Bonus Challenge posts and will likely join the Volume 37 challenge. Will post there later? In the meantime, I've bought Farland's new Wonder book and the How I Got Published book with Moon's essay. I'm currently working on a flash fiction piece in response to Moon's Deception prompt which I'll cut to 500 then rephrase to 250. I've done flash before and it's always fun. Now I'm thinking about what to do with NaNoWriMo and how that might or might not help my novels get ready for pitching again (might just ignore NaNo and focus in on revising the novels, or not, and do a full rewrite). Also, where to focus a new story in prep for submission to the 1st quarter of 2020.

Anyway, I've said too much! I hope you're all doing well with your writing and life in general. Glad to finally say hi. Enjoy the weekend.

BTW, I might be up for doing critiques with a few others as we get closer to the Q1 deadline.

Thanks for your kind words, RJK Lee. I'm impressed with you as well. It's no easy thing to rise back up from trials in order to keep pursuing a dream, but you have done so, and I commend you for it. It's interesing you are from Eugene, Oregon. I lived there for over a decade, and was a member of the Wordos writing group. We met every week at Tsunami Bookstore with some excellent writers like Jerry Oltion, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Bruce Holland Rogers, and Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith would check in from time to time even after they moved to the coast. I moved to the San Juan Islands in 2000, and I believe these other groups sprang up after I was gone. It's good to have support from peers, and I'm glad you've joined us. You will find we are all about supporting each member in their endeavors, not just to win this contest, but to write professionally and to have our words read.

I look forward to seeing you in my Volume 37 Challenge! Enrollment is next week!

Welcome aboard!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

Hi! I’m Amy but you can call me AJ if you like. I’m lucky to have stumbled into some amazing people during my writing journey, and I’m here to meet a few more! I’m getting edits done on my first novel, a fantasy. Super exciting!

Can’t wait to meet you all.

Hi! I’m Amy but you can call me AJ if you like. I’m lucky to have stumbled into some amazing people during my writing journey, and I’m here to meet a few more! I’m getting edits done on my first novel, a fantasy. Super exciting!

Can’t wait to meet you all.

Welcome, Amy. Glad you found us! Congrats on completing your first novel! Getting a win in Writers of the Future would be a great credit to help sell it! Do post to the quarter you are entering, as most of the support happens there. And do check out the other folders--lots of great publishing info here!

See you on the Forum!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

Hi Amy. Hope your novel becomes a best-seller right out of the gates.

Wow. Several weeks. No new members introducing themselves. Come on, new members! Say hello, we promise not to bite...hard.

Walks away, singing a little song:

"Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
And he keeps it, ah, out of sight
You know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
So there's never, never a trace of red..."

Hello,

I am Candice Lisle. I was listening to the Podcast with Martin L. Shoemaker and he mentioned a forum. I IM'd him to find out which forum he was talking about and he pointed me in this direction. In the podcast he said it was very helpful to him. So here I am.

I wrote my first science fiction story in 6th grade. My teacher sent me out of the room on an errand. I came back early to be embarrassed by her reading my story out loud to the class. English teachers and college professors all have told me that I am a good writer and should be published. But none of them told me how to be published. At FanX this year, Todd McCaffrey listened to a story idea I had and told me to enter this contest. So I wrote it up and entered. I am happy to be here.

Welcome to the forum Candice. Looks like you'll fit in well here. Check the other threads and you'll find a gathering of helpful aspiring writers willing to help you achieve your goal.

Thank you. I am finding that writing is a hunger which does not go away and cannot be filled. I live in Salt Lake City and am finding that lots of famous authors come here. Meeting them just increases my hunger to write. I am also writing Picture Books which is harder than it sounds. I want to make children into everyday heroes. But I also love writing science fiction!!! This genre allows so much creativity that it is almost unbelievable.

Thanks for introducing yourself, Candice. Writing can be a lonely business, so it's good to find your tribe that understands the beast. Do post to the quarter you are entering--much of the support happens there. Check out all the other interesting threads--lots of information to not only help you win this contest, but to become a professional writer.

Welcome aboard!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

Thank you. I feel properly welcomed.

Hello hello, I'm new here!

Since writing is what keeps me sane, I thought I'd embrace it. I write both poetry and fiction. Sometimes more speculative, sometimes a wee bit less.

Looking forward to making some new friends here!

Welcome aboard, Jasmine! You've come to the right place for support in writing speculative fiction. That's what this Forum is all about!

Do post to the quarter you are entering. Most of the chat happens there, but there's plenty of other topics to aid you in your writing!

All the best!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

My apologies for neglecting this page. It's great to see so many new people joining us.

Dont be shy, feel free to jump in and join the conversation. And dont worry about asking questions that you're sure has been asked before. Ask away.

Hello from NZ ,
Always been a writer. Until I joined a writers group last year I didn't know such groups/writing competitions existed.
Loving that there are so many contributors (to the forum at least ) from NZ and Australia.
Write mostly magikal realism, some of my pieces slide over to science fiction.
Enjoying reading the forums varied topics.
cheers Gebe

Welcome Jasmine and Gebe. Explore the other threads and meet your fellow forumites.

Hello from NZ ,
Always been a writer. Until I joined a writers group last year I didn't know such groups/writing competitions existed.
Loving that there are so many contributors (to the forum at least ) from NZ and Australia.
Write mostly magikal realism, some of my pieces slide over to science fiction.
Enjoying reading the forums varied topics.
cheers Gebe

Welcome, Gebe! Glad you are soaking up the knowledge to advance your writing! May it serve you well. Don't forget to post in the quarter you are entering. Most of the chat happens there.

And yes, we have a lot of thunder from down under. Good writers, them Kiwis!

Cheers!

Wulf Moon
Forum Moderator

Looks for all the new members walking the Hogwarts corridors in invisibility cloaks. "Reveal yourselves."

As she removes her cloak, Candice's Ravenclaw scarf falls to the floor. She picks it up wondering what it portends. She feels a warm draft of fragrant air, as if someone had just walked by. Who else is here, she wonders?

Hey hey, I'm a longtime lurker of the forums and am hoping to finish off a story to enter 37 Q1 (my first time). I live in Melbourne where I'm studying creative writing and working in comms and tourism. I tend to find short stories difficult. Most of them end up becoming comedies, even if I didn't originally envision it as comedy. I guess that's just my style. The reason I signed up to the forum was to ask for recommendations of comedies that have won WOTF so I can read to get a taste of what makes Dave laugh.

Also may as well ask if anyone is going to WorldCon in New Zealand in 2020? I'm heading there solo and in need of friends.