Writing advice and musings from the desk of Marianna Boncek
The hardest part of writing is not the writing part. It isn’t even editing. The hardest part about writing is selling your work. I have had a modicum of success. I have three books with small presses, one which is now an audiobook. Some of my short stories have appeared in literary journals. A...
I learned genealogical psychometry from my mother in-law. She could hold things and tell a story, not necessarily a psychic story and I’m not even sure they were the true stories, but she was a collector of family stories and there were quite a few of them. Her house was crammed with antiques and...
Yes, I am participating in National Novel Writing Month yet again. NaNoWriMo is an annual writing project where crazy writers who find lack of sleep invigorating attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days from November 1 to November 30. There are no prizes, but a person is considered a winner if she...
I have been volunteering for about year as a facilitator for an organization called The College Guild. Their website explains “The College Guild provides non-traditional correspondence courses to prisoners across America.” The courses are free, non-credit courses and available to any prisoner no matter their circumstances. Every three weeks or so, I receive an...
I have been reading submissions for a literary journal for a few months now. The way it works is the editor receives a submission and sends it on to two readers. We each read the story individually, give it a thumbs up or thumbs down and can add some comments if we like. If...
At my age, my mother was retired. She was of a generation that was promised a pension and social security payments for life. It was a pretty sweet deal. Like so many of their generation, they dreamed of a life of ease in a warm climate. But I am not of that generation. I...
I had the great honor of being guest speaker at the inauguration of Sullivan County’s first poet laureate, Mark Blackford. I first met Mark when he was a student in my 11th grade English class. He was a wild child back then suffering from every adolescent trait teachers find annoying. It became clear that...
I entered National Novel Writing Month with a clear purpose and a plan. I wrote some very good scenes for my young adult novel and I saw the arc forming clearly. I was going nail it in November. Then my 93-year-old father had a massive stroke. It would be an understatement if I said...
November is National Writing Month. NaNoWriMo, as it is called, is a non-profit organization that encourages people to write a 50,000-word novel in one month. Obviously, the month chosen by the organization is November. Thousands of people through-out the world hunker down and spend each day trying to write their 1667 words (the number...
As I go about the task of trying to find an agent for my novel I have been thinking a lot about failure. I have been working hard researching agents, reading books that agents I seem to like have represented and writing and re-writing my query letter. I know that the vast majority of...
