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Short Non-Fiction - Fictional Worlds

5 Great Blog Posts

February 26th 2010 12:34
Nanoedmo is almost upon us, and come Monday I will be posting the beginning of my March editing workshop. In the meantime, here are five great blog posts for you to read:

~The Definitive Guide To Choosing A Topic For Your New Blog is a post over at Skelliewag talking about what to do before you create a new blog. It's the first in a series and I suggest you read them all if you're looking into creating a new blog, or your first blog. I hope this helps you.

~Out Of Sight In My Mind is a post on Six Sentences, which is a place where writers submit six sentence stories in the hopes of having them posted. It's a lovely little thing about secrets.

~How I Know I'm A Writer is a post at SF Novelists talking about what it means to be a writer. I really enjoyed this post and have subscribed to the blog itself as well.

~Six Questions for Camille Gooderham is a post over at the Six Questions blog interviewing Camille Gooderham, editor of Every Day Fiction. Some of you might know its relative, Every Day Poets, which published my poem Haunted (clicky) early last year. The publications only pay a dollar, but it gets your name out there and they are high quality publications.

~The Horrible Editorial Blacklist is a post at Incipit Vita Nova, a blog I just discovered today. The post talks about the rarity of blacklists, and in the comments there's an excellent discussion about their existance and what gets a person on a blacklist.

I hope you enjoy the links and your weekend as well. Thanks for reading.
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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Fiction, Short Non-Fiction
   


Phoebe: A Cat

February 22nd 2010 12:33
Seven or eight years ago, it's hard to say now, my grandmother took in my aunt&uncle's cat who didn't like other cats. Phoebe was only supposed to stay with her temporarily, but it turns out that my grandmother never found a place to send her-or maybe she just never had the heart to let go of the kitty.

For the last eight months or so, I've been living with my grandmother, which, of course, means living with Phoebe. Phoebe was a beautiful cat, black and brown with a little bit of white. She was old, she was overweight and when she was left alone too long she would get angry and poop in the doorway, we loved her just the same.

About three weeks ago, Phoebe stopped eating. My grandmother tried all sorts of things to get her to eat, but nothing worked.

Yesterday my grandmother woke me up to tell me to say goodbye to Phoebe, that soon enough she would be leaving to be put down. She was crying. I couldn't cry, so I went to Phoebe and I gave her a few final minutes of attention. Our eyes met and I told her that I loved her. I said goodbye.

I went back to sleep.

When I woke up, my grandmother told me that the deed had been done.

Now I'm sitting at home on the computer, and Phoebe is nowhere to be found. She isn't sitting by me on the couch. She isn't meowing for attention.

The house is empty.

I am alone.

Phoebe was pretty much the most demanding cat I've ever met. She loved people. She loved attention. She didn't like to be alone, and I liked her company. Now I am alone, and with any luck she's sitting on Daddy's lap eating cat treats.

I knew when I saw her yesterday that she was ready to go. She was holding on for a while, saying her goodbyes. They have been said. She looked me in the eyes and she said goodbye to me in her own way. She started to meow, to cry.

My grandmother said she wondered if Phoebe knew. I think Phoebe did know. I think she was meowing her last goodbyes, asking for one last hug before she went.

What does this have to do with writing?

Writing is a very solitary profession. Other people tend to be very distracting when we are trying to write, so we lock our doors and turn off our phones. Many writers have pets, and develop strong relationships with these animals. We talk to them about our characters and they give us funny looks. We pet them absentmindedly when we've hit a block. We look at their cute faces and we see bundles of joy, of love.

I think every writer should have an animal, one that can be close to them without distracting them from their work too much. One that they can talk to and cuddle and love when they can't deal with other humans. It's kind of like a witch's familiar.

Phoebe was not my animal, but I loved her all the same, and I will miss her quiet, attention-seeking presence sitting next to me on the couch as I write my stories.

Phoebe is gone.

I am alone here.

The apartment is quiet.

Phoebe has finally left like she was supposed to... just not quite in the way she was supposed to.
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What I've Been Doing For the Last Year and a Half

February 12th 2010 23:45
I have two names.

One of them is the one you know, Dianna.

One of them is the one that most of my friends know, and that name is Skittlez.

I got the name early in my first year of high school, but it didn't really come into use until a little over a year ago.

You see, a year and a half ago I became a raver.

Don't judge me, don't assume that I do drugs, don't assume that I'm a terrible person out to corrupt your children. Raves are not about drugs, they are about people and music. They are about PLURR, Peace Love Unity Respect&Responsibility. They are about finding a place where you belong when you've never quite belonged anywhere else.

And today I want to let you guys know about my rave life. I want you to know about my home, about the Big Bop.

Here is today's post:

The Big Bop
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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Difficulty Focusing

February 5th 2010 02:30
For the last couple of months, I've had issues focusing on my writing for any consistent period of time. There's been a lot of stuff going on in my social life and I had a lot of catching up to do for end of semester.

I haven't been as committed to this blog or to my other writing as I should have. I've let other things that aren't, in the long run, as important influence what I do with my time. In the last two months I haven't gotten much of anything done. There will be a later post to explain some of it, but it really boils down to me worrying too much about certain friends of mine, and trying to spend as much time as I could on something before I lost it


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Blogging Commitments and Terry Pratchett

February 2nd 2010 12:35
I've decided that I'm going to cut back my goal blogging frequency to 5 posts a week, Monday-Friday. This is in an attempt to reduce the pain in my wrist so that I can work on other things more.

I love writing. I love this blog. I love a lot of the things that I've written here, a lot of the things that I've said. I love reaching out to other writers. But in the end, the writing I love the most is my fiction writing, and if I have to cut back on my blogging to be able to do so comfortably, so be it


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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Ouch!

January 29th 2010 17:29
As most of you know, I've got really bad carpal tunnel. Sometime over the winter break, I lost my wrist brace. Because of that and doing a lot of work very quickly for school, I'm in quite a lot of pain.

I'm going to be taking a long weekend away from the blog in the hopes that my wrist will feel better by Monday, if only a little bit


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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Link Love: Blog Posts and Websites

January 25th 2010 13:11
I've been doing a lot of writing related web wandering lately, and I've stumbled across some great reading material. So here goes...

Blog Posts
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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Reaching Your Goals in 2010: Tips For A Newbie

January 13th 2010 12:45
On the WriYe forums I found a thread from a newbie writer asking for advice. This person has never written a novel before this year. So I got to thinking: what kinds of advice would I give to a newbie writer? I may not be a well known author with dozens of publications under my belt, but I've been writing for about half my lifetime and I like to think that I've learned a fair bit about it throughout the last few years.

So I've come up with a few tips for reaching your writing goals in 2010. These are tips aimed to help the beginner, but they're also good to keep in mind no matter how many years of experience you have. So here goes


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Quick Survey

January 12th 2010 23:57
I'm just putting this out there a second time because the first time I didn't get very many responses. I've built a quick survey to find out why you read Fictional Worlds and what you want to get out of it. You can do the survey by clicking here. It shouldn't take more than two or three minutes.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your response. Without your help I can't know how to make Fictional Worlds a better reading experience.
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Death

January 12th 2010 12:21
This is what happened when I did a free write... it's one of my creative writing exercises for school.
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Free Write-Death


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Sad Farewells

January 11th 2010 12:54
I want to talk briefly about something that's going on in my personal life today.

In Toronto, we have quite a lively club scene. For a year and a half, I've been partying at a club called the Big Bop, at all the all ages events I could make it to. It's a pretty grimey, really old building, but it has character and I've come to love it and many of the people that I've met in it over the last year


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Top Fifteen And Quick Thoughts

January 8th 2010 13:19
I got an email yesterday saying that my poem Unchained has been listed as one of the top 15 writing pieces published at Uhuru. You can find the list of submissions here (clicky). This is a selection of the most popular pieces, those with the highest ratings and those the editor likes the most. I'm really proud to be on that list.

My posts have been short of late but I've been working on workshops for this blog. Over the next few days I'm going to be doing prompt/free writes for my English class and I will be posting the prompts and my responses here


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Kittens!

January 5th 2010 13:15
I don't have much to say at the moment... I'm very tired as I'm writing this post. Later on today I will be doing a fantasy rant. Expect it around eight or nine PM EST.

In the meanwhile, look at an incredibly cute cat


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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


What Would You Like to See Here in 2010?

December 30th 2009 12:49
2009 is coming to its end, and overall, it's been a shaky year for me and for Fictional Worlds, but overall I think it's been a good year for my blog-I can't necessarily say the same thing for my case. There are going to be changes in the coming year, there are going to be new things, new thoughts, new journeys.

Take a few minutes to complete this survey and help shape the future of Fictional Worlds


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Interview with Robert J. Sawyer

December 22nd 2009 12:31
The interview with Sawyer last night went very well. He seemed to be very real and nice. I asked him if I could post the interview, and he said yes, so here it is. It's somewhat paraphrased but the most important sentiments are intact.

Me: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
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Not Much To Say

December 18th 2009 13:03
I don't have much to say today. It's the last day of school until the new year and I'm hoping the break will allow me to get everything together. I've been stressed out and unbelievably exhausted since Nano. I'm hoping a few days of down time will change that.

I'm going to be taking the weekend off and just resting. I know posts have been scarce this December but it's been a really bad month


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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Thoughts About Life...

December 17th 2009 12:43
Life is a bit rough for a lot of people right now. Personally I've been having troubles sleeping, I've had a lot on my mind, and the words have not been flowing. When they do, they are slow.

Someone in my family is going through a transition. He is becoming a woman; he is a transexual. And I don't care. My best friend is gay, one of my other closest friends is trans. In fact, we're lucky in that our family is very open, very accepting


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Posted By: Dianna G - Category: Short Non-Fiction
   


Pain

December 11th 2009 12:15
Just a short post today... the last few days my wrist has been really, really unbelievably sore, so I'm taking a day off from writing to try and recover it. Wish me well and on the weekend I will return with the long overdue credits post.

Thank you for bearing with me through the last couple of weeks; I feel bad for the scarcity of my posts, and can only hope that you find value in what you get.
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One Last Thing To Look Through

October 10th 2009 18:31
The workshop will be starting on Monday, and I will not be posting here tomorrow. I just wanted to give you guys a link to one more useful thing:

The Educated Worldbuilding Guide is a wiki (and a thread on the Nanowrimo Fantasy forum) which has information on different cultures, geography, linguistics and other such useful information


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Course Materials/More Thoughts

October 9th 2009 11:59
To participate in this Pre-Nanowrimo course, you're going to need lined paper, graph paper, blank paper, pens, and pencils.

You want to think about what themes you might enjoy exploring in your writing, what kinds of religion you're comfortable writing, what kinds of climates you're comfortable writing in, and what viewpoints you're comfortable with. All great writers will at some point challenge their comfort zones as far as these things go, but your first Nanowrimo (or even your second) is not the time to challenge those comfort zones


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