Vampiric Fluff

More good news!  My poem, Vampiric Fluff, has been accepted for inclusion in Adventures for the Average Woman.  Yay!  I’m not sure when it’s due to be published, but I’m pretty happy just the same.  I really enjoy being accepted by publications that offer contributors copies — I still get a huge thrill out of seeing my name in print.

I think it’s interesting that I am having so much success with my poetry, it’s something I thought I did well in junior high school but then as I got older my faith in my ability to write poetry faded.  It’s quite surreal to see that other people like what I write, and very, very rewarding.

Published @ SHINE

My Fatherhood drabble has been published at SHINE.  You can check it out here –> Fatherhood . 🙂

I’m very pleased with this drabble, it’s been published at two places so far and I think it’s pretty well done.  It confuses me, however, that flash stories I’ve done since then that I think are superior to it keep getting rejected LOL Perhaps it’s the subject matter — things being left unsaid is something everyone can relate to, but maybe not everyone ‘gets’ stupid gangsters or visits from beyond the grave.

Food for thought I suppose, but I’d be lying if I said it would be likely to affect what I wrote in the future 🙂

Twenty3

Some of my poetry was accepted for the seventh issue of Twenty3 Magazine, however it’s a bit complicated. The magazine is restructuring* so I’m not exactly sure when my work will be published, or in what format. I’m not even sure which poem I submitted was accepted (I submitted three) but it’s exciting nonetheless. I’ll be sure and update as I discover more details 🙂

*I know a few details, but I’m not sure it’s my place to reveal them just yet 😉

A Merry Christmas

My flash story, A Merry Christmas, has been published at Flash Flooding — yay. You can read the story by following that link, and if you do, please rate it — but do it honestly, I don’t want any gratuitous 5s.

Aside from that and the usual process of writing and submitting nothing else is new that’s related to my writing. I continue to work on the Haven novel-in-stories and I’m editing the ‘On a Mission’ novella to take out about 3 chapters and make it a tighter read. Exciting, no? 😉

Fatherhood

My drabble ‘Fatherhood’ was published at A Long Story Short on the 7th.  If you want to read it all you need to do is follow the link below — it’s all there, complete with my ‘Evil prevails’ email signature LOL  I wrote ‘Fatherhood’ in response to a challenge on NaNoLJers for father’s day, and, as I’m sure you can imagine, I had my stepfather, Clark, in mind when I did.

Fatherhood
by Rhonda Parrish

Poetry.Com

A few months ago I made the mistake of submitting a poem to Poetry.com’s “poetry contest”. Oy. What a mistake!

As far as I can tell Poetry.Com doesn’t really have a contest — as soon as you submit your poem they start sending you notifications about how “Your wonderful poem has been selected to be included in such and such poetry anthology.” Then, though they assure you there is no obligation on your part to buy a copy, you really ought to because they expect to sell out very soon. Not only that, if you send them an extra X amount of dollars they will print your bio on the page opposite your poem — or you can get it laminated on a plaque — or rolled up and shoved into a bottle, or any other number of “wonderful gift ideas”!

Holy whack. As irritated as I am that I’ve opened myself up for this sort of junk mail and the like because of my “contest entry” I have to admire them in a way. By relying on the vanity of writers they’ve certainly made themselves a lot of money. I’d wager that by refusing to by these hardcover books, plaques, messages in bottles and the like I am in the minority — I must be or they wouldn’t still be in business. They obviously make enough money selling authors copies of books that include their poems to not only break even, but generate a profit. As annoying as that is, I still have to, grudgingly, offer them a thumbs up.

That being said, I’m never entering their “contest” again. 🙂

Busy but productive…

I’ve been incredibly busy of late.  With Christmas coming up, volunteering at my daughter’s school and working for clients I haven’t had much spare time left over for writing or submitting.  Maybe I was just burned out from NaNoWriMo though because last week I started writing again, short pieces mostly, but on Saturday I started working on a novel.  I even submitted a couple things to publishers today, so hopefully I’ll get back into some good work habits 🙂

How To Save The World

What Can You Do?
By Rhonda Parrish

The ice caps are melting, oil companies are destroying pristine land, children are starving, genocides continue unabated, oceans are being over fished, forests pillaged and human rights are being trampled everywhere you look. What can you do? Everywhere you turn there are wrongs that need to be righted, things that need to be changed — but you’re just one person! What can you do?

Well, you can sit around feeling bad and thinking about how much better the world would be if people listened to you, you could talk to your like-minded friends about why the world is going to hell and why the human race deserves destruction or you could do something about it.

So you’re only one person, so what? What starts with one person can grow to be more — and if you’re just going to give up rather than TRY to do something to make things better what makes you better than all the people whose actions you despise? I hate to say something as trite as ‘if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem’ but to some extent it’s right. Sure, you can’t save the world all by yourself, but you can make a difference — if you try.

What are you doing to prevent global warming? To protect the environment, stop over fishing and over farming? What are you doing to stand up against the oil companies you rage against? Oil companies, the fishing industry and the lumber industry all spend millions, probably billions of dollars to protect their interests; they advertise, they lobby, they put their money where their mouth is — do you? Have you written a letter to your mayor? Your premier? Your senator? Prime Minister? President? Have you donated time or money to the causes you DO support? Do you refuse to buy products with too much packaging? Recycle? Compost?

Children all over the world are starving, living in poverty without clean water to drink, food to eat or schools to go to. What are you doing to help? “The governments of those countries are so corrupt,” you say, “that when we give them money only a fraction of it makes it to the people who need it.” So? So what? In a world where $100 can make a huge difference in a child’s life, isn’t it worth spending $400 to get that $100 to where it needs to be? So what if most of the money doesn’t get where it belongs –do you think not sending any is the answer? It’s only money. How much is a child’s smile worth? The feeling of a full belly? A mosquito net to prevent malaria? Clean water? How about supporting impoverished children in your home country? Are the food banks too corrupt to deserve your donation?

Genocides occur — still. Despite all the protestations of ‘never again’ they go on. What are you doing? Have you marched against them? Written letters? Sent money to support those who are there dealing with displaced persons and war orphans? Have you educated yourself about what’s going on in your world, or have you just covered your eyes and ears and waited for it all to go away?

Don’t say you can’t afford to do anything — many things that you can do won’t cost you anything — hell, lots of stuff will save you money. Have a yard? Grow your own vegetables. Walk to work instead of driving or take the bus if that’s not plausible. Write your government officials — let them know how you feel. Refuse to support companies whose practices you don’t approve of. Educate yourself and other people about issues going on in the world. And yes, put your money where your mouth is. It’s ridiculous to say that you can’t afford to donate anything to the causes you believe in when you sit in front of a big screen television every night, eat good food and have a roof over your head. Donate something — anything. Give $10 to the food bank, or to feed hungry children in other countries, or buy mosquito nets. Adopt a child in a developing country through Foster Parents Plan or a similar organization. Give money to Amnesty International or environmental groups.

Do something! Anything is better than nothing — the only thing that doing nothing accomplishes is ensuring the status quo. While one person may not be able to save the world all by themselves, they can make a difference. And who knows if people see what you’re doing they may just decide to follow your example and then you just might save the world after all.

Writer’s Market and Emails

Writer’s Market appears to be back to 100% again — yay!  I wish I had more acceptances to update it with and less rejections, but it’s all a part of the process right?

Speaking of the process — I’m looking for someway to email myself to remind myself about upcoming contests and reading periods for some of the markets I’m likely to submit to most.  I’ve heard rumors that Outlook can be taught to do this, but I haven’t figured out how.  If anyone wants to instruct me, or knows of a website/program that will email me at pre-scheduled times, I’d love to hear about it.

Another One Bites the Dust

I forgot to post on the day it happened, but I finished my NaNoWriMo novel — yay! On the 24th I breeched the 50k mark, that’s a full three days faster than last year. The novel is…well, terrible — but it’s done and in 30 days. I’ll be adding it to the ‘never to be seen again’ pile where it belongs 🙂 Already I’ve got ideas for next year’s novel though, so hopefully the quality will improve for 2007. It would also be nice if I managed to finish editing my 2005 novel before 2007, but I’m not holding my breath 🙂

My NaNoWriMo Progress

I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.

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