Category Archives: Writing

Suite 101, Writing

A New Submittal

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As I wrote in a post some time ago, we are in the fall submittal season for literary magazines connected with universities. I have not yet done the research needed to know what submittals to make, but I think I will have time to do this over the weekend. I’ll hopefully submit my short story to three or four more magazines, and I’d like to submit poems to close to a dozen mags.

If I can do that, I will be up to 32 or so submittals for the year. I’m sitting at 17 right now, having made my 18th this morning. The results of those submittals so far are:

18 submittals
4 acceptances
7 rejections
7 not yet heard
0 withdrawn

I may have to come back and adjust those numbers. My submittal log is at home and I’m writing this from work, going from memory. Edited on 8 October, to put in the correct numbers.

This includes a couple of contest entries as well as a couple of engineering articles that were submitted and accepted or assigned and published. That’s not a lot of submittals for someone who fancies himself a writer, but it’s what I’ve been able to do this year. I suppose I could pad the numbers by saying each of my Suite101.com articles is a separate submission. Then I’d add 52 submittals and 52 acceptances to those numbers. Since each article is reviewed by an editor and could be disabled and eventually deleted if not up to snuff, it might be legitimate to includethem. But I’m counting Suite 101 as a single submission, my initial application.

Actually, my submission this morning was to Suite 101, suggesting a new category of article topics, and proposing that they promote me to Feature Writer over that category. I did some research into how many worldwide Google searches there are in a month for a number of keywords and keyword phrases associated with that category, and what is the typical rate for an ad associated with those keywords. I’m hopeful that the research will pay-off, as will the faithfulness I have shown at writing for Suite. I’m past the threshold number of articles you must have before you can be considered for a feature writer position.

Being a feature writer means: you must write a minimum of one article per week in your category; and you receive a 20 percent bonus on your revenue immediately and another 10 percent bonus when you hit 100 articles. I’m not bringing in much revenue right now, so the bonuses won’t add up to much. But every little bit helps; and the promotion would look good on a writing resume.

Stay tuned.

American Colonial History, Engineering, Suite 101, Writing

A Little Progress

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This was a strange weekend. First off, I ate too much, almost all on Sunday. We went out to eat after church with good friends, and had way too many chips and salsa. I actually ate a smaller entree than I normally do at this place, but the chips were too much. Then we had an evening gathering at church last night, a soup dinner. The event was our Alabaster offering, a twice a year offering for missions building projects. The soup was good (both bowls), the dessert was good, and the fellowship was good.

By the time I got home I felt bloated. I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. We were having Internet connection troubles, and I re-booted the modem and router twice. While doing that, I started a virus scan on my computer. It’s an ancient computer, and it wasn’t done scanning an hour later. I took the time, after playing some mindless computer games, to file papers. I tend to let this go then file a bunch in a flurry of activity. I filed a few, then was down to those that defy being put in a preset category. By evening’s end I had a bunch of those done.

But the big thing to report is that I got back to writing for Suite101.com. I posted two articles: one examining Robert Frost’s poem “The Mountain”; and one talking about British loyalists in the period before the American Revolution. These two articles actually did fairly well with page views over the last three days. I had intended to write the second article about “The Mountain” on Sunday, but after eating so much wasn’t up to it.

So, what’s on for today? In the office I’ll be archiving projects and copying time sheets. At noon I’ll head out to the Crystal Bridges Museum construction site, where I’ll be giving two talks this afternoon, to the Arkansas Floodplain Managers Association, about the floodplain issues we faced in designing the museum. Then tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll attend the convention. I’ll miss this morning’s activities at the convention, but I have to get ready for my presentation.

Engineering, flood studies, writer's platform, Writing

I’m Still Not Writing—but I’m Making Progress

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Well, last night once again I didn’t feel like writing. I spent a little more time in Father Daughter Day, finding most of the tweaks I had wanted to make and maybe an extra one or two. I read a couple of writing blogs I follow. But otherwise I just read and did crosswords and wasted time.

Today, on my to do list was writing that article for Suite101.com on preparing to give a deposition. I started it, but have mostly the outline and first paragraph or two done. I reserved the noon hour for that, but do you think I got it done? No, I read writing blogs and critiqued a poem at the Absolute Write Water Cooler. And, I found one more place to tweak in FDD. And I got all the edits made to my FDD master file.

In a way, I suppose that’s progress. At least some of my time is still spent in writing activities. Along with what I said above, I shared a strategy for publication of FDD with an agent whose blog I read and comment on. He agreed with what I’m thinking of doing. No I just have to do it and see if it will work.

Meanwhile, my 47 articles at Suite 101 had 1559 page views in the last seven days (ending yesterday). That’s over a rate of 81,000 page views a year. That may not be enough platform to convince an editor or agent to take a chance on my books, but it feels pretty good. I’m sure some of those page views, with come mostly from people searching for some topic using a search engine, may be nothing more than a quick look at the opening paragraph and going on to something else, but it still feels good.

Today, in my working hours, I completed two major tasks, and set about archiving my files for the period when I served as Centerton’s city engineer (by contract with CEI). About four projects are unfinished and I can’t archive them yet. Another six I have to keep here until I extract information from them for the second Centerton flood study, which I began work on this week. They they will go off to archive with their brethren. All these files consume about 25 feet of shelf space. When I’m finished archiving them, which will be late next week or the week after, I should be down to no more than 8 shelf-feet of files. That will feel good, and I’ll be able to do without two book cased in my new, smaller office when we move in late October.

Time to prepare for the weekend. On Monday I give a presentation on the Crystal Bridges Museum flood plain work, to the Arkansas Floodplain Managers Association annual convention. It’s being held locally, and the presentation is at the overlook of the construction site. Then Tuesday-Wednesday I’ll attend the convention in nearby Springdale. Another chopped-up week.

poetry, Robert Frost, writer's platform, Writing

I Should Be Writing

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Back from the funeral, no major household projects going on, reasonable workload at the office, no upcoming trip to prepare for, the checkbook mostly up to date, household finances needing only 30 minutes to bring them up to date. I should be writing. But I’m not.

Yesterday I posted one of my older poems for critique at the Absolute Write poetry forum. Three crits later it’s sinking and will hit the oblivion of page 2 today. That caused me to pull out Father Daughter Day yesterday and go through it last night and mark edits that had either accumulated in my mind or that I saw as I read. That’s done, and I’ll type those edits today sometime. And I did a very minor critique of another person’s poem yesterday.

More than a week ago I began a new article for Suite101.com, about preparing for a deposition. Since I had just done that, I thought it would make for a good article, quickly written. Then the funeral trip interrupted me, and I haven’t felt like getting back to it. I even did some key word research using some Google tools, and it looks as if it will be a profitable article. Yet, I just don’t feel like writing it.

I suppose I’ll snap out of it soon. Maybe if I get those few entries made in my financial spreadsheet I’ll feel freed-up to write again. I think what’s holding me back is the utter futility of it all. And the realization I’m trying to build a platform that may or may not grow to the size I need. My articles on Suite 101 are getting page views at a current rate of 80,000 per year. That’s good! Eighty-thousand people a year are reading my stuff. But almost none of those people are looking for my writing. They are looking for information on something, and happen to find mine by a search engine. So will an editor see all those hits and all those people reading my writing as evidence of a platform and quality writing, or as an accident?

Still, I’ve nothing else to do but plunge back in and get some more articles up. Three more and I begin earning a ten percent bonus. I could have three articles up in three days. I’ll do it. I’ll probably get that one article finished and post it tonight, and shoot for having two more up by Sunday. During our weekend trip I worked on the analysis of another Robert Frost poem. That will give me at least three articles.

I still need to articulate steps two and three of my platform-building plan. Maybe I’ll make that my next post.

Suite 101, Writing

Happy New Year!

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The month of September has always been considered the start of the “program year” for many organizations. This was probably tied to the beginning of the school year, which happens between the third week in August and just after Labor Day depending on where you are in the country. The calendar year may begin January 1, with all its celebrations and resolutions, but the true new year is just after Labor Day.

So, do I have any new program year resolutions?

I wish I did. At the moment my writing is rather dull. Adding articles to Suite 101 is not really adding much to the bank account, though the veterans there say to be patient, the revenue per article builds with time. I hope they are right. As I feared, this has taken up almost all the creative writing time I have available. I made my August goals and September goals, hoping to somehow keep my mind and hands working on other things, but have struggled with that.

So, I really have no new program year resolutions, except to keep on keeping on. I’ll try to get to 100 articles on Suite 101 by sometime in early 2010, and see how things stand. If by then I’ve learned to divide my time, keeping a portion hoarded for other writing endeavors, then I’ll continue at Suite 101. If I haven’t learned that, then I’ll assess my options at that point.

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, poetry, Writing

‘Tis the Season – for Submittals

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I had good intentions of blogging over the weekend. The wife is away, I’ve kept the house neat, and had no major yard work to do. But a summer cold hit, and I found myself with no gumption to write much of anything. By Sunday evening I felt much better (thought my scratchy voice belied that), and I finished a difficult article at Suite101.com and came close to finishing a second. Today I’m much better, at work, and have energy for writing.

At the Absolute Write forums I responded to a post titled “when you fell in love with poetry…”. I explained my hatred for poetry for many years, brought on by a series of English teachers who insisted on interpretation of poems I didn’t see–but I don’t really want to get into that today. I got over my hatred of poetry, rather late in life I’m afraid, but not too late to embrace it for appreciation and try it for a writing outlet. As I wrote that post at AW, and as I thought about when it was I began enjoying and then writing poetry, it suddenly dawned on me that it was August 31, 2001 that I began writing my first serious adult poem. Eight years ago today. I remember it well, sitting out in the grassy area near the pines on the north side of our former house. But I prate.

The other important thing about this date is actually tomorrow, September 1. That is the day that many, many literary magazines open up again to submissions. Most of these are associated with universities and colleges, and close down during summer. September through May submission periods are quite common. Last spring I sent out six submissions for my short story, “Mom’s Letter”. I think I missed the submission window by a couple of days on one of them. Heard back on three or four–rejections.

With the new submissions season, I need to decide what to do about the short story and about submitting some poems. I didn’t submit any poems anywhere in 2008. I think I need to make some submissions this year. So over the next couple of weeks I’ll be reviewing my inventory, seeing which ones seem most promising to me. Then I’ll have to get back to work researching markets and see which ones look most promising to me. Then I’ll have to marry the two.

This isn’t the type of work I enjoy about writing, but it’s necessary, so I will do it. Now, back to engineering for a couple of hours.

Suite 101, Writing

Back in the Writers Group?

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I went to the writers guild tonight. I went last Tuesday, but nobody showed up. Since I’m not a regular, they wouldn’t have thought to call me when they decided to cancel for a week. I was the first one there, and waited ten minutes, till about 7:05 PM until someone showed up. Three retired ladies who rode together came in, then one more. We started out by reading one of theirs, then had just started on another when another lady came in. That made six of us, a good number.

This is the writers guild I went to for about five years when we first moved to Bella Vista. Most of the time I was the only person in the group who wasn’t retired, though from time to time another working stiff wandered in. I left the group because no one besides me was writing with the goal of seeking publication through a royalty publisher. I say that not to demean their writing goals, but rather to say we were not like-minded and so approached things differently. At the Spavinaw Writers, which I attended for about six months until dropping it earlier this year, they were all seeking royalty publishing, but we were not like-minded in other ways (politically, that is).

I suppose finding a writers group close enough to attend regularly where everyone is reasonably like-minded will be next to impossible. So I think I will go back to this one. Part of the night we discussed promoting the group, including what to call it and how large we would want to get. I’m not sure we were all like-minded in that. Four of us read something. I read the latest article I’d written for Suite101.com, the third in the series on George Washington’s presidency. You can see the link in the box widget at the right hand side of the page. One lady read four pages from her latest novel-in-progress. Another read a short poem and then a brief selection from her journal; she doesn’t intend to publish either. Then a lady read from her novel, but she didn’t have copies for anyone.

It was good to be with this group again. Three of the others were attenders before I left the group; two were new to me (well, one was there when I attended a month ago). It was nice to be in fellowship with other writers again, in real life and not merely on-line.

freelance writing, Suite 101, Writing

Someone is reading my stuff

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As I feared, my work writing articles for Suite101.com has consumed most of my creative writing time. It’s even consumed most of my pleasure reading time. It’s even consumed my recreational time. Last weekend, for example, Lynda and I made a quick visit to Hobbs State Park in eastern Benton County. We went through the newly opened Visitors Center and walked the Van Winkle Hollow historical trail (just a half mile). After we got home, I realized I could write two articles on our visit for Suite 101, which would allow me to count the mileage as a tax deduction. Of course, I didn’t think to bring our camera to obtain pictures to illustrate the article.

As another example, take the book I reviewed recently on this blog, The Presidency of George Washington. As I was reading it–which I intended strictly for pleasure, ideas for five articles on the history of this period came to mind and found their way to a sheet of paper that served as an idea capture medium. I’ve written and posted two of those articles at Suite. The other three are rolling around in my mind, waiting for their chance to get out.

Or, take the Harmony of the Gospels I recently finished. I’ve pulled two articles out of that, and could easily pull out a hundred or two.

All of which makes me wonder: Will I ever be normal again, doing things just for enjoyment and not to serve as freelance fodder? Will I ever get back to that point in the yellow wood, where the two roads diverged, and get back to the type of writing I want to do, rather than writing I’m doing for platform building and a little bit of money?

I’ve only been down this path for two months. I’ve written 38 articles at Suite, probably about 27,000 words. I haven’t yet earned $10, the threshold at which they pay-out your earnings, though I’m getting closer. I don’t know that I’ll reach the threshold before the end of the month cut-off, so my first Suite paycheck might not be until October.

But in the process, my articles at Suite have had 2,630 page views during that time. For the seven day period ending today, for the first time I will cross the 500 mark for page views in the period. I don’t think that counts mine, which the software strips out. I don’t have many page views from family, because none of them check it much if at all. So this for the most part represents page views resulting from search engine searches. People searching for “FEMA flood maps”, and my article URL ranks high in Google, and I get a read. Or any of the 37 other articles. That compares to about 545 page views on this blog, which includes my own page views. So at least at Suite I’m getting some readers. Maybe not followers, but at least readers.

I’ll continue writing at a good pace at Suite 101 for a while yet, for sure till I reach 50 articles, and maybe till I get to 100, then I’ll evaluate whether the time has been well spent, and whether I should continue at a good pace, possibly try to accelerate, or back off some. I can still see the fork in the road, over my shoulder, whereas I don’t see the roads converging up ahead. Not yet at least.

reading, Writing

New Book Accumulations

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I almost wrote book “acquisitions” in the title, but that would be misleading. The term acquisition regarding books in the publishing industry normally refers to a publisher acquiring a new book from an author, i.e. making an offer for publishing a book and having that author accepted.

Nothing like that going on in this writers life. But I continue to accumulate books to go on already filled bookshelves in our house. I quite buying used books for a while, or bought them at a very slow pace. For a while I didn’t even go to places where used books were being sold, as my powers of resistance are fairly low were book buying is concerned.

Over the last month I picked up the following books.

  • The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 1
  • A Manual For Writers
  • Jews, God, and History
  • Handbook of the Pentateuch
  • The Adams Chronicles
  • the search for JFK
  • War Letters (from American wars)
  • Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain
  • Mart Twain: Letters From The Earth
  • Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
  • Great Voices of the Reformation
  • Assumed Identity, by David Morrell
  • The Haldeman Diaries

I’m not quite sure yet how I will work these into my reading pile. I’m not quite half-way through the reading pile I established last August, and will probably go a book or two into the second half before I make any changes. I bought the two Mark Twain books because I enjoyed his Letters from Hawaii so much, and in truth I’ve read little by Twain except his major books for children (Tom, and Huck). I have enjoyed the two David Morrell novels I’ve read, so couldn’t resist buying a third.

A Manual For Writers is more of a reference book, sort of a poor man’s Chicago Manual of Style. I’ve already used it for reference a couple of times. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha book is probably nothing more than an academic affectation for me. I read about 25 pages in it over the weekend and found it enjoyable, but I’m not sure I got much out of it. I’m not going to read any more at this time. Well, maybe I’ll just finish the introductory material of 1 Enoch. But then I’d have to read at least five or ten chapters of 1 Enoch. But I can’t do that and write articles for Suite101.com and track freelance queries and research and send out more and start reading Steinbeck.

What’s a writer to do?

Examiner, Writing

Debate Almost Over: Probably No to Examiner.com

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I didn’t get much time during the weeked to consider my inner debate from last week about whether to apply to Examiner.com to be the Christianity Examiner for Northwest Arkansas. The time wasn’t there. I don’t much remember what I did Friday evening, but I wasn’t on the computer much. I think I was close to brain dead after an intensive week at work, and just read for the evening. On Saturday I did the usual yard work in the morning, got tuckered out doing it, and did things in the house at diminished capacity. With Lynda laid up with a cold (or possibly flue), I was chief cook and bottle-washer for a few days. I worked on my latest Suite101.com article, but didn’t post it. I also prepared to teach life group on Sunday.

Sunday morning, of course, was tied up with church and life group. Sunday afternoon I rested some, then tweaked and posted my article at Suite. I spent some time trying to figure out Facebook, but gave that up as a young person’s game. I read, searching for my next article to post at Suite, but did not find it. I think my brain needed its Sabbath rest yesterday, and so I did little to enhance my writing career.

The evening included watching Shooter on A&E. This must have been in theatres some years ago, but I never heard of it before. I multi-tasked as I watched, having a new idea for a freelance article for a print genealogy magazine. Okay, it wasn’t actually a new idea, but this is the first time I put it on paper. I didn’t finish it (multi-tasking doesn’t work well for me when the television is one of the tasks), but at least I got started.

All of which lead me to conclude by 12:30 AM Sunday (actually Monday) when I went to bed that there’s no way I could adequately do what I’d want to with Examiner. Everything I’ve investigated tells me it would be an excellent platform-building pursuit, but I’ve neither sufficient hours in the day or brain power to do that at present.

I’ll futz around with this debate a couple of days longer, but almost certainly I won’t be adding Examiner to my too-full schedule. I’ll revisit that decision every couple of months as I see where my writing career is heading, but probably it will be no for a while.