Weird Circular #15 December

The December Weird Circular

December 01, 2017

December's Weird Circular is live with submission ideas, prompts, and more!

Welcome to the Weird Circular

Dear Fellow Writers of the Weird:

I was at Armadillocon in the beginning of August, where I met Tamora Pierce, whose books I read obsessively as a child. Pierce told a story of how she came to write her first book series, Song of the Lioness. 

Pierce wrote the book for adults, but her agent wanted her to rewrite for teens. So she began to take the story to the home for wayward girls where she volunteered as a housemother. The girls would clamor for her to tell Alanna's story every night, around the big wooden kitchen table. Tough, hard girls, who perhaps had been given up on, found hope in Alanna's story.

This story really struck me, because it occurred to me that Pierce had found an audience that truly needed her work, and she was writing to that audience. 

This month, think about your audience. Who needs your work? How can you reach them, and what do they love? Why? I hope this exercise will help you to come to love your reader, and thus create characters with empathy. 

- Holly 

Submission Calls

Eye to the Telescope, Deadline Dec. 15. Theme: Arthuriana. Speculative poetry. 

Other Upcoming Submission Windows: 

Need more submission ideas? Check the

newest markets,

, Duotrope's

,

, or Literary Mama's

.

YOU SHOULD BE WRITING

Prompt #1: I borrowed this prompt from one of my favorite teachers, Kathy Fish. It's about tension, which is something I often find rather easy to create in my work. But the best tension is fulfilled in some way, so I'll be offering suggestions on how to expand that. Read the full prompt at her blog. Write a tense scene. Make weather another character. Use subtext. Involve a small animal. Bonus Round: For revision, look back at your piece. Consider this question: How is that tension fulfilled? Is it sustained the whole piece, or does it dive up and down? How can you make the tension you're creating come to a satisfying end for your reader? Apply these questions to your revision process.

Prompt #2: In the fantastic writing guide, Writing the Other, there is a discussion of the "unmarked state." I won't go into too many details as you should just buy the book to see what I mean, but this prompt is pulled in part from this concept. Write a story where your character's background, experiences, race, gender, disability, or other "marks" are vital to the story itself. However, don't get pulled into the trap of making these parts of your character a negative catalyst. Instead, focus on how they help, guide, inspire, or heal your character in some way. Bonus Round: Bonus points if you write this piece from the point of view of someone other than yourself, or inspired by someone who has a different background than the one you're familiar with. This can require a lot of research, but it is worth the experience of stepping into someone else's shoes. 

Prompt #2: Take a famous person from history and write them into your work. This might be from their voice speaking a poem, to a random cameo, to them entering at the end of the piece to save the day.Bonus Round: Bonus points for choosing someone who you're unfamiliar with. Again, research! You can try this exercise multiple times. Historical figures often can serve as unnamed inspiration too, for example if you're looking for a way to explore a new character and you need a rich background to draw on, you can research an interesting person in history and draw from their life experiences.

Editing tip of the month: I want you to look this month at that one piece that you haven't quite figured out how to fix yet. Maybe the piece is one that feels stagnant or boring, even to you as the writer. Maybe it's just not quite there yet. Look specifically at the structure. How have you structured the piece? Now, look for a different structure that ties directly to the piece's point. Alternative structures can be fun to explore: black outs/erasure, epistolary (letters), montage, collage, surveys, journals, histories, research papers, recipes, lessons, and rumors.

Inspiration from the Ether

News From Your Corporeal Host

  • I was interviewed by Spider Road Press's Patricia Flaherty Pagan about writing flash fiction. SRP is a fantastic woman-owned-and-run press here in Houston, publishing stories by and about strong women. Read the interview here.

  • My poem, "We Have Always Lived" appeared in the Nonbinary Review Issue #15 (November). This poem is an erasure of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

  • In November, I wrote 10 short stories in 30 days for NaNoWriMo. You can read excerpts from my NaNoWriMo drafts on my blog.

  • I was interviewed by The Daily Author podcast, part of Wooden Pants Publishing, on my NaNoWriMo process. Listen here.

  • I'll be working on an end of year awards eligibility post this month. Stay tuned! 

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