Have you been reading Whispers and Echoes?

For those that don’t know, Whispers and Echoes is the little lit journal that I run.  Started back in 2017, it’s recently been relaunched with a new look and a new home, and honestly, I can’t tell you how honoured I am when people send me their work for consideration.

I think the new look matches perfectly the short writing the journal focuses on – flash fiction in 100 words or less and poetry in 10 lines or under.  The simplicity and starkness of the colours on the site – all black and white and greyscale – goes well with the brevity and punchiness of the writing.

If you’ve yet to take a look, please do, and while you’re there, why not read the first few pieces that have already been posted.  Don’t forget to support the authors by liking and commenting, if you’re so moved.  And if you would like to submit to the journal, you can find all the information you need to do that too. 🙂

Have a great weekend!

A Little of This, A Little of That

I must apologise for my lack of presence around the blogosphere in recent weeks.  I’ve been a little preoccupied with offline projects.  How I envy all those who can blog daily and juggle four or five WIPS! 😉  Anyway, I thought it might be fun (for me, if not for you) to let you know what I’ve been up to…

What have I been working on?

A couple of weeks ago I finished my revisions for The Winter Ghost, my paranormal fantasy mystery novella (gosh, that’s a mouthful!).  While I’ve been letting that sit quietly for a few weeks, I’ve returned to The Sacrifice and The Summoning, a novel-in-progress that centres on my amateur witchy sleuth, Andromache Jones.  Having not worked on this in over a year, my progress is slow but steady, and when it’s time to go over The Winter Ghost again later this week, I’m determined to keep this project ticking over.  I would love to have the first draft completed in the next couple of months, if I can…but…

Beta Readers

My main priority at the moment is The Winter Ghost, and the next novella in the series.  If, when I have another read through of TWG this week, and my alpha reader thinks it’s good to go, I am hoping to ship it out to half a dozen or so beta readers to see what they think.  If you would like to volunteer as a beta reader, I would love to have you read this story, so please get in touch!

Weekend Writing Prompt

Please know, that while I’ve not been commenting on responses to the WWP, I have been reading and liking them.  So if I liked it, I read it.  Some of you may know that I suffer with anxiety, including social anxiety, and sometimes I do struggle with leaving comments, especially if there’s a lot to leave; it just gets too much for me.  I’m not deliberately ignoring anyone or think that your writing doesn’t deserve a comment, it’s just the way I am and some months are worse than others…

Submissions

It’s also been a while since I submitted any of my writing to magazines / journals / anthologies.  The last piece I submitted was a short story to an anthology back at the beginning of November!  So that’s another thing I’ve been working on.  So far, three pieces have been sent out, and one of them has been accepted!  Woohoo!  Fingers crossed for the other two.  Submitting my work is another thing that effects my anxiety, especially when there’s been a big gap between submissions.  My aim is to try and reduce that gap so that it has less of an impact on it…

Whispers and Echoes

It’s been a while since I closed submissions to Whispers and Echoes – eight months, I think.  This long a hiatus wasn’t my intention at all.  In fact, I had planned to reopen to submissions back in January.  However, I was mulling over changing the format to one that required a little less time and commitment (but no less love!) and that issue seemed to take a while to resolve itself.  But it has now, and I’m pleased to say that I am opening submissions again on the 1st June!  Yay!  And everyone reading this is being favoured with advance notice.  If you do wish to submit to the journal, head over to the Whispers and Echoes site (I’m still putting the finishing touches to it – what do you think to it?) and check out the submission guidelines – and if you want to submit early go ahead!  I’m hoping to see the inbox fill up with your work 😉

I think that covers everything, at least writing-wise.  How’s everyone’s writing going? Let me know in the comments.

If you made it through to the end, thank you so much for reading and enjoy the rest of your week!

Outcast and Other Words

I’ve added the last of the submissions so far into our community web anthology (doesn’t that sound good!), and thought now would be a great time for an update.

The anthology, now titled, “Outcast and Other Words”, can be found here:

https://outcastanthology.wordpress.com/

As you can see, I designed a mock front cover, should anyone wish to use it.

If you follow the link to the anthology’s website, you will notice that it is still a work-in-progress, but please feel free to explore it 🙂  There is still plenty of beautiful content to peruse.

So far we have included the work of 11 amazing authors, hailing from all over the world, who’ve submitted 52 pieces of writing!  That’s just awesome!

However, if you head over to the chapter index, you will notice that some chapters are empty and awaiting submissions.

For those interested in submitting to the anthology, the deadline has been extended one final time to: 10 September 2018. This will be the final extension so if you want to be part of the anthology get your submissions in!

The number of submissions per author has been increased to ten, so if you’ve already joined in, but would like to submit some more work, please do so.  We especially require poetry or short fiction for the following Year 1 Prompts, though of course we will happily include work inspired by any of the prompts from the first year (index of Yr1 Prompts can be found here):

Click to be taken to the relevant week’s prompt

• #8 – Candour
• #10 – Mimic
• #11 – Guardian
• #12 – Indecision
• #19 – Abundance
• #21 – Day and Night
• #22 – Secret Doorways
• #23 – Taste
• #24 – Shadows
• #34 – Christmas
• #35 – End of Year
• #36 – Begin
• #40 – Afternoon Tea
• #44 – Fallen
• #45 – Spring
• #49 – Fortitude, Resolute & Epiphany

The submission guidelines can be found here.

My thanks to everyone who has joined in so far.  This is proving to be a fun and exciting project to work on, and I can’t wait for my inbox to fill up with more submissions – hint, hint 😉

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your week 🙂

Weekend Writing Prompt Anthology – the submission guidelines!

 

A random photo…

Two weeks ago I asked via this post whether anyone would be interested in celebrating a whole year of Weekend Writing Prompts by putting together an anthology.  From the response I think we can say that there is plenty of interest! Yay!  Thanks to everyone who responded.  I think this is going to be really exciting! 🙂

I think we know enough from that original post to get the submissions rolling right away, but there are some details that will need to be worked out over the coming weeks.  Here’s what we need to know now: the submission guidelines…

Weekend Writing Prompt Year 1 Anthology Submission Guidelines

• All submissions must be inspired by any of the first 52 Weekend Writing Prompts. An index with clickable links to each prompt can be found here.
• If you’ve not participated in the Weekend Writing Prompt before it doesn’t matter.  You can join in now.  Check out the Index for links to each prompt and then get writing!
• It’s your choice whether you send over your original responses to the prompt or write new ones.
• All submissions should be within the body of an email.  No attachments please!
• Please submit up to five ten of your favourite responses (either poetry, fiction, non-fiction or a combination of all three), each one inspired by a different prompt. Alongside each, please state which week it is from.  For example, WWP #5.  The maximum word count for each piece is 1000 words.
• You can submit anything you like: either responses to poetry or prose challenges or something else inspired by the prompts as long as each piece is below the maximum word limit.
• If you want a biography alongside your work, please include one in your email.  All submissions should include a link to your blog or website and the name you want your writing attributed to (real name, pseudonym, name of website, etc).
• Format is simple: easy to read font and left justified, with that which you want in italic or bold, in italic or bold.
• Unfortunately I won’t be able to pay writers for their submissions because this will be a free-to-read project and no-one will be making any money from it.
• Provisional deadline for submissions is 1^st July 2018.  Note: this is not a hard and fast deadline; late submissions will be accepted after this date.  (This might be extended; it would be great if we could have at least one piece of writing for each prompt so we might need to open a second round of submissions).  UPDATE: deadline now extended to 10 September 2018.  This will be the final extension so if you want to be part of the anthology get your submissions in!  If you have any questions, please, please, please get in touch!
• Submissions to be emailed to: deardreamingspirit@gmail.com

If you have any questions about this anthology, please feel free to ask.  Post a comment below or send me an email at the address above and I will hopefully be able to answer it.

I’ll also post these guidelines over on the Dreaming Spirit site.

With the guidelines set out, the next question, is where to publish the anthology.  As many of you who have been following my blog for a while will now, I usually use Wattpad for this type of project.  However, another idea is to create a magazine-style wordpress site.  Both are great in terms of being interactive (like / vote buttons, comment sections, adding in of media – pictures / photos / videos) etc.  So my next question to you guys is this: do you have a preference?  If you could pick only the one, which one would you chose for the anthology: Wattpad or WordPress?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Another random photo…

Weekend Writing Prompt – Year 1 Celebration and What’s New for Year 2

Just a random photo…

So, if you caught yesterday’s post or the most recent Weekend Writing Prompt, you will have seen that this little writing challenge has now been going for a full year!  Yay!  Before I get to explaining how Year 2 of the prompts are going to differ from Year 1, I wanted to spend a few minutes celebrating all the amazing responses to the first 52 word and picture prompts…

Year 1 Celebration

Then I had an idea…(It’s even possible someone else suggested it to me, but I can’t remember…) what if we put together an e-anthology of some of the pieces of flash fiction and poetry written for the prompts.  Currently, this is only in the brainstorming stage, but I think the process would work something like this:

• I set a deadline, probably 6-8 weeks from now for submissions to be emailed over to me
• submissions would consist of no more than 5 pieces of fiction, poetry, or combination of both
• submissions would only be considered for responses to any of the 52 weekend writing prompts from the first year, and only one response per prompt per submitter
• it would be up to you whether you send over your original responses to the prompt or write new ones
• if you haven’t participated in the Weekend Writing Prompt before, it wouldn’t matter.  You could pick up to five prompts (all Weekend Writing Prompts can be found here) and write a response.
• responses written to the weekly poetry and prose challenges as well as free write responses would be suitable for submission
• I would imagine most, if not all, submitted pieces would be accepted and included in the anthology, but of course, until all the submissions were in and I could see what we had, I wouldn’t be able to guarantee it.  Not only do we want to celebrate the first year of the Weekend Writing Prompt but also make the anthology a good read.  If we end up with a dozen responses to the same prompt and nothing else, we might need to rethink this project!
• And finally…Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to offer payment for submissions as no-one would be making any money from it.

So there are my thoughts.  I thought it would be best to put the idea out there before declaring this a “thing” and then have to look on as nothing happens 😀  I know everyone is busy and many of you have just finished a very intense month of writing; I’m in the same boat.   The Weekend Writing Prompt feels like a community, and this would be a community project, so I really do need your input.  Please let me know in the comments below whether you would be interested in joining in with this e-anthology.  If we get enough interested writers and poets, I’ll then put together a set of submission guidelines etc.

Another random photo…

What’s New for Year 2

In Year 1 we had a word prompt and photo prompt, with the optional poetry and prose challenges all contained within each weekend’s prompt post.

In Year 2 there will be a single word prompt, with the optional challenge of writing a poem or piece of short fiction in an exact number words (the number will change each week).  Though the format and style of response you write will be your choice, I hope having an exact number of words to stick to will stretch your creativity and fire up your imagination.

There it is.  I hope to see you all over the weekend, checking out the first of the new style prompts.  And don’t forget to comment below if you have any thoughts / suggestions for the e-anthology idea.

Thanks for reading and take care 🙂

A Pocketful of Updates…

So, I’ve been a little absent round the blog this week, but there’s some fun coming up…here are a few updates, folded up into the tiniest snippets possible…

First, I’ve had a horrible cold this week.  This means that I haven’t been about as much on the blog as I would have liked, so I’m behind with comments and reading everyone else’s wonderful writing.  Hopefully, I’ll catch up soon.

Second, I had a day trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon.  Had a lovely time and obviously returned home super-inspired and who wouldn’t when walking in the footsteps of the bard himself. You will realise just how much when the next Weekend Writing Prompt is ready tomorrow…that’s all I’m saying!

Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, where William Shakespeare was buried.

Third, thanks to my cold, I only realised this morning that it was last September that I set myself “A Month of Mini Writing Challenges”, and I had planned on doing the same this year.  So, Day 1 might be more or less over, but I thought I would still give it a go.

Here’s the link to the month’s worth of challenges, in case anyone else wants to join in too.  Just remember, do whichever ones you want.  You don’t have to do them all – unless you want to!

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/writer-resources/writing-challenges/a-month-of-mini-writing-challenges-2017/

Finally…a bit of Dreaming Spirit Press news.

• Submissions to “Love Letters to Gaia”, an anthology of letters and poems inspired by the earth close on the 5 September 2017.   Find the full submission guidelines here.
• Submissions to Issue 2 of Whispers and Echoes, (an online journal of short writing – fiction in 100 words or less, poems in 10 lines or less) close on the 15 September 2017.  Find the full submission guidelines here.
• Submissions for “Ghosts and Ghastly Things”, a collection of spooky tales, closes 1 October 2017.  Find the full submission guidelines here.

I would give you a garden (poem publication)

My poem, I would give you a garden, has been published in Issue 2 of Umbel & Panicle.

About Umbel & Panicle

Umbel & Panicle is a new bi-monthly lit journal, inspired by plants and botanical things.  Each issue is centred on a theme, and contains a mix of poetry and photographs.

Issue 2’s theme was “Flower”, and my poem is perhaps a little different to the usual fare I post here.

You can read my poem by going to straight to its page, here, or start at the beginning of the issue, here.  The journal is a short read, but it is beautiful in its brevity, as you will see.  I’m honoured to have one of my poems included in it.

If you read the poem, please let me know! 🙂  And for those wishing to submit to them, the theme for Issue 3 is “Fruit”.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for reading!

Writing, Editing and a call for submissions…

As you will have noticed (if you’re inclined to notice this sort of thing, that is), I have only barely been keeping this blog ticking over for weeks.  Why?  For what felt like an age, I had the flu.  Then I turned my focus towards non-blog writing, which, when you haven’t got much done this year, seems like a sensible move.

I have been working on the final editing stage of my novel – it’s almost there, which is both really exciting and terribly nerve-racking at the same time, the reason being I will soon have to let others have a read of it and let me know what they think.  Gulp!  And after that…the long, hard journey of trying to get it published…

But that’s not all that’s been going on…here are a few highlights:

Whispers and Echoes – Issue 1

The deadline for submissions for the first issue of Whispers and Echoes has been extended to 24 March 2017.  A few days ago I published a post full of writing prompts (when I say “full of writing prompts” read “ten writing prompts” – I do have a tendency to exaggerate 😉 ).  Half are word prompts, the rest are photo prompts.  So if you are currently short on inspiration, why not head over to this post and while you’re there take a look around 🙂

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Read an Ebook Week

Ending today is “Read an Ebook Week”, so why not head over to Smashwords to find discounted reads, many of which are marked as free for this week only.  Clicking the cool crow poster on the left will take you to the special “Read an Ebook Week” catalogue.

 

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Dreaming in Purple

Last week I mentioned that the first Andromache Jones Mini Mystery can be found on Wattpad.  Here’s the blurb:

It’s the day of the Bramblesgrove Village Fair and Andromache Jones is giving away free tarot readings. However, she woke that morning recalling she had dreamt in purple. And that can only mean one thing…something quite extraordinary is going to happen.

To read the story, follow this link:

https://www.wattpad.com/story/101609267-dreaming-in-purple-an-andromache-jones-mini

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And there we have it.  Thanks for reading.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend 🙂

A Few Little Updates…

I thought I would write a follow-up post for a fun little project that went live at the beginning of December.  Yes, I’m talking about the anthology, Winter Magic.

As of this morning, the winter-theme poetry and prose collection has had 592 views, 27 votes and some beautiful comments.  If you have yet to have a read of the anthology, you can do so by following the link to Wattpad here, where you can read it for free.  Don’t want to read it on Wattpad or are a reviewer?  Check this out.

And so, because I had such fun working with everyone involved, and I rather enjoyed collating the bits and pieces together, I have posted another couple of calls for submissions for anthologies to be released this year.  Two are again seasonal anthologies, Summer Spells and Winter Wishes, and the third is for something a little different; Whispers and Echoes, an online journal of short writing.  That is, short poetry (in 10 lines or less) and flash fiction (in 100 words or less).

If any of these projects interest you, you can check out the submission guidelines by following the links below:

Whispers and Echoes

Summer Spells

Winter Wishes

Writing, Editing, NaNoWriMo and a Call for Submissions…

Things have been getting busy over at Sammi Scribbles HQ…but to be honest, I have been loving the opportunity to be so completely immersed in my scribbling.

This week I have been rewriting and editing an old short story, editing another short story, editing what was a novel down into a novella, whilst wondering if anything would come of the anthology idea I shared with you last weekend, titled “Winter Magic”.

The response to that post, both here and on Sammi Loves Books, was beyond anything I could have imagined. I did wonder if the post would just sink without a trace, but no, it did seem to generate some interest.  And so, with that in mind, I have decided that the anthology WILL go ahead.  Yay!  (And oh my!  Still nervous!)  That meant that there was quite bit to do for that if I was going to allow for a decent enough submissions window and still hope to get it out before Christmas.

I managed to cobble together the call for submissions and get it published last night, over at the new blog that will be dedicated to (hopefully) all these anthology ideas that are filling up my head.  For those that are interested, that blog can be found here, the submissions call can be found here and a post taking a look at how many different ways you can run with the theme can be found here.  If you do go and check it out, please let me know what your thoughts or if you think I’ve missed out anything important! 🙂

With nine days left of October, it can only mean that NaNoWriMo is round the corner.  I am still wondering if I will take part this year.  I have done it for the last four years and it would be a shame not to make it five in a row, so I probably will do it.  The only question is, what am I going to write?  I have a trillion novel ideas at various stages of planning, but I also have a number that require completing.  Then again, I could do what I did last year: 50,000 words of flash fiction and short stories…Logic dictates that I try and finish an old project before starting a new one, but it’s been a long time since I used anything resembling logic.  I tend to just go wherever my muse takes me.  It’s easier in the long run, and it keeps her happy.  Everyone knows that unhappy muses are impossible to live with…

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo?  Is all your planning in order or are you going to wing it?  If you want to be writing buddy’s, my username is Sammi Cox.

Have a great weekend all!