http://www.derekcpower.com A little blog about writing. en-ie x86-install-service http://www.derekcpower.com http://www.derekcpower.com http://www.derekcpower.com/archive/2012/05/10/the-short-story/ 10-05-2012:

So today I, on a whim, went onto the Irish Times website to see if they had any information about the short story contest. It turns out that they have printed up a "Long List" of entries, which runs to seventeen pages. The list was closed today and I didn't make it.

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The search continues, as we all knew it would. Beyond being told that my work had been sent onto another department in a publishing house I have no real news to tell. The inbox has been fairly quiet and no amount of clicks can speed up the process.

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Just this very minute, well maybe the previous one, I submitted my entry into the Irish Times short story contest. According to the entry page the contest winner will be announced on May 26th so if I win or not I will pop the story up here for folks to read on may 27th.

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I just finished, as in on the bus this morning, the first rewrite of <i>The Fairy Detective</i>. As I read the last words of the novel I was hit with one of those strange feelings.

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As noted already I have started doing rewrites of <i>The Fairy Detective</i> on the bus coming into work every morning. With the rare day missed due to either <b>a)</b> being too tired or <b>b)</b> watching a show instead I have made good progress. Twenty chapters and as of this post I have twelve of them gone through.

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For once an entry not about submissions and rejections :). Don't worry they will return soon enough no doubt.

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Just got my first rejection email of 2012. Nice to see that the trend is continuing. Once again it was a nicely phrased email that went along the lines of "Sorry, nothing we can do with this." and once again lacked anything in the way of help.

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Happy New Year!

Read On...]]> http://www.derekcpower.com http://www.derekcpower.com/archive/2011/12/14/random/ 14-12-2011:

When you are trying to get a book published you tend to think about nothing else. A lot. It will crop up in general conversation, because you were thinking about it and it just gets blurted out without any real thought being put into it. As such, through all your own fault, people around you become aware that you are trying to get something printed and out in the public domain.

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Got another letter in the post yesterday.

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I've been writing on and off for a number of years. I have consistently been writing for three years and in that time have written three completed novels.

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Received my confirmation email this morning that my submission had been added to the mountain of submissions for the Irish Writers Centre Novel Contest.

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In my ever expanding search for avenues to try and get published I stumbled across a contest being ran by the Irish Writer's Centre.

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I really like agents that accept submissions via email. It makes the whole process that bit easier to do. Plus it saves money on printing and postage. Not that this is a huge cost really (at least I am not on the breadline trying to get a book out there to pay the bills). My main gripe about printed submissions is making the time to actually print the things out :D.

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Today I submitted to the last of the possible Irish outlets that I have open to me for <i>The Ogra Pig</i>, Penguin Ireland.

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Just got my second rejection letter for <i>The Ogra Pig</i>. Alas what can you do? These things happen. Apparently Stephen King had a nice and interesting approach to rejection letters.

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Right, it is time to get the finger out and start firing off a few submissions.

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I am getting that <i>itch</i> these days. Since finishing my last novel I haven't been doing any writing these days. This is bad, it is frowned upon, but it is a necessary evil I suppose.

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My first Agent Rejection arrived in my inbox today.

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Getting a book published is not unlike a game of chess.

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So today I got back my fully edited draft of <i>The Ogra Pig</i>. To be honest I am a little excited. This is the first time my baby has been viewed by somebody who didn't know me. For all intents and purposes the feedback I got was fantastic.

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One of the most risky things a writer can do is show their work to somebody else. This is a simple truth.

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One mistake you often hear made by fledgling writers is that they fired the book off to agents without once editing it. That somehow they, out of every writer on the planet, had come across the secret to writing a word perfect tale in one sitting.

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Once upon a time I used to try and follow a principal when doing my writing that I have to follow every day in work: Write it once and write it well.

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I am one of the unfortunate sort of folk that suffers from migraines. I won't get into how bad they are or how annoying (I've another blog for that sort of thing ;) ) but they do have a nasty habit of getting in the way of writing.

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Every journey starts with a single step.

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Hello and welcome I suppose. After roughly five years of being a "writer" and working on four novels I decided it was time to get an online presence. Some little corner of the Internet where I could share with others my thoughts and feelings on writing, as well as chronicling my Journey from "writer" to, hopefully, published author.

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