JM Strother

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Podcasts for the Time-Challenged

Writers 1 Response »
May 182012
By Catherine Russell – FFDO Correspondent

Making time for self-improvement while writing, reading, and meeting all of life’s other obligations is a problem faced by aspiring authors everywhere. Downloading podcasts is one of the easiest and (usually) free ways to claim time for education.

A podcast is a downloadable audio program that you can listen to on a device (either computer or mp3 player) at your own leisure. You can listen to content on virtually any subject you like, usually without cost, whenever it is convenient. It is an easy way to snatch some extra story or nonfiction time when you are otherwise engaged doing dishes or driving to work.

Podcasts can be downloaded manually from your computer, but a much easier way is to simply use a podcatcher. If you use your phone as an mp3 player and you have internet connectivity, you can download a podcatcher application. If not, you can also search and download one onto your computer. My personal favorite is DoggCatcher on my Android phone, available through the Android Market. Another method would be to use Google Reader on your computer, open up the audio in another tab, and listen while browsing the web or doing other things.

In the interest of reclaiming time that would otherwise go down the drain with the dirty dishwater or out the window while driving, here are a few suggestions for aspiring authors and other bibliophiles.

Podcasts

I Should Be Writing by Mur Lafferty (@mightymur) – started out as a podcast for wannabe fiction writers. Now that she had published with a traditional publisher as well as self-published several podiobooks and ebooks, she continues to share her journey, commiserating with her listeners, cheering their triumphs, dispensing advice, and interviewing authors.

Grammar Girl by Mignon Fogarty – a podcast of quick and dirty tips for the grammatically challenged, or just those who would like to brush up on their punctuation skills. Not only is the show informative, it is entertaining as well.

Functional Nerds with Patrick Hester (@atfmb) and John Anealio (@JohnAnealio) – not specifically a writing podcast, but one that features interviews with many genre authors for those looking to stay current on new and upcoming books and authors.

Writing Excuses features four professional writers discussing the craft of writing. The podcast begins with the declaration, “Fifteen minutes long because you’re in a hurry and we’re not that smart.” While the format is short, the podcast hosts most definitely give intelligent and thoughtful advice.

So, if you have not tried these podcasts before, I urge you – in the interest of both education and entertainment – to reclaim some of your driving time by giving them a chance.

—–

Author Catherine Russell shares her life with her high school sweetheart, their son, and two ferocious puppies in the Wilds of Ohio while writing short stories, editing her novel, and learning more about the craft every day. Her work has been published in Flash Me magazine, Metro Fiction, Beyond Centauri, and the ‘Best of Friday Flash – Volume One’ anthology. More of her writing can be found on her writing blog at ganymeder.com.

Posted by JM Strother at 12:36 am

Happy (belated) Birthday to Us

Celebration, Community News, Friday Flash 9 Responses »
Mar 232012

A birthday cake with one candle by Hatem RiahiYesterday was FFDO’s first birthday. Despite repeated reminders that it was coming up I somehow managed to miss the date. Like a bad father who can’t even be at his kid’s first birthday party, I was off doing something else. At any rate, I don’t want the anniversary to pass completely unmarked, thus this (albeit late) post.

Happy Birthday FFDO, and thank you to all the folks that make it happen. That includes the terrific Tiger Team (Angie, ED, Estrella, Susan, and Tim), as well as all the folks who read and write #FridayFlash. None of this would happen without all of you.

We have grown over the course of the year, and now have 101 on site members, 93 subscribers, and 347 members on Facebook. Not bad for an Internet writing meme. We hope to grow more in the next year, and toward that end are implementing some more user friendly features. You’ll hear more about that from Tim soon. We are also looking for suggestions from you, the readers and writers, on suggestions on how to improve the website and bring you more features you might find useful.

So if you have any suggestions, or even general comments, please feel free to express them below. We hope to see you all here again next year.
~jon

Photo by Hatem Riahi (HatM) via Flickr Creative Commons: attribution, noncommercial, and share alike

 

Posted by JM Strother at 4:25 pm

The Good, The Bad, and the Exciting

BOFF 2, Community News, eMergent Publishing, Friday Flash 7 Responses »
Mar 152012

Three hot air balloons being filled.It has been some time since the last update on BOFF 2, but rest assured we are getting closer to a launch all the time. As an editor, I have been less than great at keeping everyone informed on how things are developing, so all participants have every right to think I am just full of hot air. Hopefully, this post will help make amends for past shortcomings.

The Good
We will be sending out emails shortly to all the authors who have made the cut. All stories were selected after careful consideration from a pool of anonymous entries. While not perfect, it was the most fair method I could imagine. Thanks to all the judges who performed this difficult task. Without you, there would be no BOFF 2.

The Bad
We will also be sending out emails to all the authors who did not make the cut. For me, as Editor, this is the hardest part of the job. I will have to send emails to folks I have come to know over time, many of whom I regard as friends, and let them know the bad news. The only thing that makes it bearable is the fact that the stories were judged blind. Still, judging is subjective. Just because one story got a higher score than another does not necessarily mean the one was better than the other. You may have simply gotten judges that did not particularly like your genre. Or one who had just read another similar story, so the concept no longer felt fresh in their minds. Please do not take “No” as a failure. It is not. It is simply a set back. Your story will likely easily find another venue.

The Exciting
We will also be including a proposal to the authors who made the cut in the acceptance email, probably as an attachment. We have had a very generous offer from a publisher, one many of you will be familiar with, to do the typesetting, cover, production, and distribution of both the ebook and print versions. That’s right, we have the opportunity to have the BOFF 2 published with an actual imprint, that of eMergent Publishing. Regular participants may know the publishers of eMergent, Jodi Cleghorn and Paul Anderson. Both are members of the #FridayFlash community, and some of you have even been published through them previously. I have as well.

When I first set up #FridayFlash, we had to come up with a name. That quest lead me to Jodi Cleghorn, who I described at the time as “a lovely soul.” She has proved this once again, along with Paul, via their very kind offer. In short, eMergent is allowing the #FridayFlash community to publish through them at minimal cost as one of their community projects – i.e. a public service. Full details will be included in the forthcoming email.

To move forward on this, we simply need buy in from our authors. So read over the email when you get it and let us know if you are in or out. No response will indicate a decline, and we will not be able to include you. I sincerely hope you will all buy in, and we look forward to taking the #FridayFlash community a little higher in the world of publishing. We sincerely want to help you soar.
~jon

Public Domain photo by John Storr, via Wikimedia Commons. Thank you, John. The world needs more folks like you.

Posted by JM Strother at 11:31 pm

Read an eBook, Save a Tree

BOFF 1, eBooks, Promotions Comments Off
Mar 042012

Cover for the Best of Frdiay Flash Volume OneIt is “Read an Ebook Week” and to celebrate we have “The Best of Friday Flash – Volume One” for sale over at Smashwords at 50% off. If you’ve been considering trying out the BOFF no better time than the present. The collection spotlights the best from the first year of #Friday Flash and includes stories from award winning authors Dan Powell and Michael Solender, just to name two of our wonderful authors.

The collection represents all that is good about #FridayFlash: a wide mix of genres, both new and established writers, and world wide representation. You will recognize the names of many #FridayFlash regulars and may discover some new favorites along the way.

So what are you waiting for. Get thou to the Smashwords. For the paltry sum of $1.50 (US) you can have your very own copy of the original BOFF. I think you will find it well worth the cost of two Cokes, and the vending machine won’t steal your change. The sale starts today and runs through March 10th.

~jon

Posted by JM Strother at 9:13 pm

Metro Fiction: Open for Submissions

Community News, Guest post 10 Responses »
Jan 192012

Metro Fiction LogoWhen I heard about Metro Moms Network’s new fiction section, and that it is edited by long time Friday Flash member P.J. Kaiser, I was beyond pleased – I was overjoyed. P.J. is a wonderful writer and one of the most pleasant and giving people on the web. If you don’t know her be sure to visit her blog, Inspired by Real Life, and spend some quality time. I contacted P.J. right away and asked if she would be so kind as to do a guest post for us here at FFDO. She has graciously agreed. So please welcome P.J., read her post, and then go check out Metro Fiction. ~jon

Metro Fiction: Open for Submissions
by P.J. Kaiser

I am pleased to announce that Metro Fiction is officially open for submissions. We are a paying market and we are looking for your very best flash fiction. Interested? Read on…

Metro Fiction is the fiction column at Metro Moms Network. I am the editor and my editorial advisor is the multi-talented Debra Marrs. An important component of the Metro Moms Network is the online magazine which provides content aimed at urban parents across many content areas including topics related to both parenting and work-life. Metro Moms Network supports all mothers (and dads, too!), but particularly those who are starting up small businesses or doing freelancing work. The Metro Moms Consulting Network meets once a month and serves as part brainstorming session and part support group for entrepreneurial-minded moms. Metro Moms Network also hosts an annual parenting expo and other events throughout the year.

But the focus of my post is Metro Fiction. This is the part of Metro Moms Network that’s purely for fun. We encourage our moms to take time for themselves. By publishing our stories on Sundays when a partner or other caregiver might be able to watch the kids, we hope to help facilitate a healthy reading addiction.

Submissions for Feature Stories were closed when we launched, but we have decided to open submissions effective immediately. We pay semi-professional rates and although we are still growing our audience, we feel that we provide a great opportunity to find new readers for your work. And the most exciting part? We have plans to expand the Metro Moms Network into additional regional sites and to produce e-book and print magazines which are all opportunities to extend the audience for our writers.

Let’s talk genres. As we see in the Friday Flash report each week, flash fiction covers a wide range of genres. We are interested in seeing most of it at Metro Fiction. I want our readers to never know quite what to expect. I also want them to know that if they read something that isn’t their cup of tea, they can come back for the following story and be delighted. I can mainly define what we’re looking for by telling you what we’re not looking for. We’re not looking for stories that are too dark, too horror-y, or too tragic. Our readers are looking to take a break and be entertained, not be creeped out or traumatized. You will see our detailed guidelines on the submission page.

I’d like to encourage everybody to stop by and have a look. If you have something ready, please submit. If not, then keep us in mind as you’re writing future stories. We do not accept reprints, but we allow an exception for pieces posted on your personal blog more than six months prior to submission.

Thanks to members of the Friday Flash community for your support of Metro Fiction during our incubation and launch. And thanks to Jon Strother for the invitation to come and tell you guys about Metro Fiction.

Please let me know any questions you may have in the comments. We look forward to reading your submissions!

Photo of P.J. Kaiser

P.J. Kaiser is the editor at Metro Fiction, the fiction column at the Metro Moms Network. She stays at home in Hoboken, New Jersey with her two children and writes and edits between loads of laundry. She writes mostly short fiction and hasn’t settled on a genre yet. She has been published in various anthologies including “Best of Friday Flash Vol. 1,” and one of the “Literary Mix Tapes” anthologies from eMergent Publishing: “Nothing But Flowers.” She can be found at her blog “Inspired by Real Life.”

Posted by JM Strother at 1:00 am

The New Collector Is Up

Community News, Friday Flash, How-To, Notices, Services, Tech 4 Responses »
Jan 172012

Frday Flash BadgeWe are making a few changes here at FFDO to try and keep the site fresh and exciting. We just launched a brand new Collector courtesy of Tim VanSant. We think you will like it better than the old TikiWiki tracker we’ve used thus far in that it looks much more crisp, is easy to use, and has a couple of new options.

The new features of the Collector are four fold:

  • There is a new field to indicate if your story is part of a series. While we encourage you to write stand alone stories we know many of you write serials and we’re fine with that. Now you can tag them as such when you list them.
  • There is a new field to indicate if your story is narrated. Some of you do podcasts of your stories, which I really enjoy. The new Narrated flag will mark such stories making them easy to find for those who enjoy listening. Both these tags will eliminate the need for you to append such information to your titles, making for a cleaner look.
  • The Collector is now interactive in that once you enter your story details it gets listed at the bottom of the page. This will replace The Master List on the old tracker.
  • All the entries go into a new database. Tim hopes that this will eventually make specific searches possible.

We realize that some of you do not want to wait for the Report to come out and prefer to browse The Master List on Friday or Saturday in order to find and comment on stories in a more timely manner. Listing the stories at the bottom of the tracker as they are entered should help quite a bit in that regard. As of now Tim has it set to list stories added within the last six days, but he may fiddle with the settings over the next couple of weeks for best effect.

And the new database should help people find your old stories as it grows over time. All the more reason to add your links to help create that long tail we always hear about. If someone reads one of your stories and likes it they could search for your name and find all the rest, thus driving more traffic your way. We hope to incorporate the stories from the TikiWiki database sometime in the future as well, but some technical issues will need to be resolved before that happens.

Another improvement enabled by the new Collector is that the entire Friday Flash Report will now be much more automated. The old process was semi-automated thanks to Susan’s good work, but there was still a good deal of drudgery involved. Truth be told, that is why the Report was often late on my part, it simply became a burden to face each and every weekend. Now Tim has it much more automated, so hopefully he will not feel overburdened anytime soon. It also means that the Report will be much more timely than it has been of late.

The staff here at FFDO really appreciate the writers who participate in Friday Flash, be they regulars, debuts, or one-time posters. We strive to keep the site vibrant and alive and are always open to suggestion on how to improve things. If you have any questions on the new Collector, or have any suggestions you would like us to consider please feel free to leave them in the comment section below. You are the best writing community I’ve ever been associated with. Thank you for your ongoing support and participation.
~jon

Posted by JM Strother at 1:05 am

The #FridayFlash Report - Vol 3 Number 33

Community News, FridayFlash Report 6 Responses »
Jan 142012

This is my farewell Friday Flash Report, brought to you by technical magic of Tim VanSant. We have been working behind the scenes to get the entire Collector/Report process more user friendly and automated. Actually, Tim has been working behind the scenes,  and the time has come to take the wraps off the new and improved Collector. We think you will like it.

I am also taking this opportunity to bow out of the Report. Tim is going to be taking over this slot. After nearly three years of doing the Report I am ready for a change. I’ll still be involved in FFDO, just not on this page anymore.

Well, enough of that already, what about the stories? We had 39 stories this week with 3 debuts. Please welcome Karla Locke, Jose, and Steven Montano to the Friday Flash Community. And please welcome your new Friday Flash Report Editor, Tim VanSant.

If your story is not in the listing below please visit the new Friday Flash Collector and enter the details. As always, keep on writing. ~jon Continue reading »

Posted by JM Strother at 7:18 pm

The #FridayFlash Report - Vol 3 Number 32

FridayFlash Report Comments Off
Jan 092012

We had 44 stories in the Collector this week including one debut. Please welcome Joe Lerner to the #FridayFlash community. If your story is not in the listing below please visit the afore mentioned Collector and add the details and we’ll add it to next week’s listing. Also, if you are having trouble seeing all the buttons on the Collector please let me know. I am, but I’m not sure if it is just me and my computer or if it is a more general problem. If it is a general problem we hope to have it cleared up soon. In the mean time, keep on writing.
~jon Continue reading »

Posted by JM Strother at 11:21 pm

The #FridayFlash Report - Vol 3 Number 31

FridayFlash Report Comments Off
Jan 032012

Happy New Year!

We had 34 stories this week with one debut author. Please welcome Chris White to the #FridayFlash community. Welcome aboard, Chris.

The holidays seem to have taken a toll on the number of stories we had this week, but still plenty of great reading to be found in the listing below. If your story is not included please visit the Collector and add the details and we’ll include it in next week’s listing.

I hope you all had a terrific holiday season and wish you the very best in the New Year. ~jon  Continue reading »

Posted by JM Strother at 3:05 am

What Ever Happened to BOFF 2?

BOFF 2, Community News, Friday Flash, Notices 14 Responses »
Dec 292011

The youngest black hole knownOne of the most frustrating things a writer faces is sending a submission off into a black hole, never getting a response, not knowing what the heck is going on. Unfortunately BOFF 2 has become something of a black hole for all of you who have submitted. It is well overdue and we are sure the frustration level on your part has to be approaching the limit. We apologize for being so unresponsive and will try to set things straight in this post.

We had 82 submissions in all for BOFF 2. Our initial plan was to have 52 stories chosen from the general submissions to represent one story for each week of a year, the reader’s choice story, and then up to three editor’s choice stories as we have three editors. If you do the math that means a total of 56 stories possible, meaning 26 stories will not make it. We thought one round of judging would bring enough clarity to the situation that we would be able to make those 56 selections without too much trouble. However, after the initial round of judging, wherein every story received three votes, we found that there were only a few stories that had clear cut results, meaning about two-thirds were still a muddle our my minds.

We also had to work around the fact that the submission manager we are using decided that the free account could only have five staff members. Since we have three editors that left room for two judges, which slowed things down, as we had to juggle judges in and out to get three votes on each story. As a result things pretty well bogged down into a state of angst and indecision, at least on my part.

Hopefully that is now all behind us. We have decided to take the stories with 3 positive votes forward and then subject the remainder to another round of judging in hopes that will bring further clarity to the situation. As a result BOFF 2 is now making forward progress again. Additional judges have been recruited and they are now working their way through the stories. As before they will have to be juggled in and out, but the judging process should be completed within a month. We hope we can have the whole project wrapped up by the end of the first quarter of 2012 (end of March, early April time frame).

If after reading all this you have decided you’ve had enough of my bungling around and you wish to withdraw your story we certainly understand. You may be able to find a better home for it elsewhere. If you decide you want to stick with the BOFF we sincerely thank you, and hope we can make your wait worthwhile. Please feel free to use the comments below to ask for further clarification, offer moral support, or simply vent.

We here at FFDO wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year, and great success on the publication front. Keep on writing.
~jon

Photo from NASA, Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Patnaude et al, Optical: ESO/VLT, Infrared: NASA/JPL/Caltech

Posted by JM Strother at 10:18 pm
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