New Magazine Seeks Fiction and Nonfiction
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Dragondreamz Publications is currently looking for fiction and non-fiction for inclusion in their first periodical, Full Armor Magazine, which is set to debut in June 2010. It will be published quarterly and includes fantasy, slipstream, and mystery stories with a strong Christian-Judean message; or Christian-Judean symbolism at the core of the story. Think in terms of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Oscar Wilde…etc. They are also considering: Spiritual Poetry (any style; up to 20 lines) and Non-fiction pieces (testimonials, book/film/music reviews and short essays). A token payment is offered: $0.01 per word for stories up to 3,000 words for both fiction and non-fiction. $1.00 per line for poetry. View website for details.

http://www.dragondreamzpublications.info/submissions.html

Writers Wanted to Write Tutorials
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Tuts+ welcomes written tutorials on a range of creative niches including Photoshop and Graphics, Vectors and Illustration, Web Development and Design, Motion Graphics, Flash and ActionScript, Computer Graphics, Photography and Audio Production. If you have the skill to write an excellent tutorial for one Tuts+ then they’d like to hear from you. They pay $150 for each tutorial that is accepted, and you’ll have the honor of being published on the best tutorial blog network around! View website: http://tutsplus.com/about/write-a-tutorial/

The Oldie Seeks Submissions
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UK based The Oldie is an antidote to youth culture but, more importantly, a magazine with emphasis on good writing, humour and quality illustration. Well-written articles on any subject are always welcome at The Oldie and they are particularly interested in pieces for our ‘I Once Met’, and ‘rant’ slots. View website for details.

http://www.theoldie.co.uk/detail.php?item_id=162&page_id=30

Personal Experience Essays Wanted
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Underwired publishes personal essays (800-1200 words) every month and is always looking for new contributors. Essays should somehow relate to the chosen theme for the month and be on topics of interest to women. Underwired buys one-time rights, and payment is $100. http://www.underwiredmagazine.com/submission-guidelines-mainmenu-39.html

Call for Short Stories and Poems – Australian Authors Only
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We are a media agency and have just launched our new project “The Story Bag”.

“The Story Bag” will create a new and innovative channel for authors in Australia to reach the public. We produce different kinds of bags and cups that have a piece of literature – a short story, a poem or a short saying – on one side of the bag and a content rich, engaging advertisement on the other.

The bags are distributed by cafés, wine stores and retail outlets.

All published work of authors will be paid.

http://www.storybag.com.au

I am busy! I currently have a full time job, a part-time job (my passion of writing), and am setting up a business to allow me to write and train others in writing full time (when I leave my job at the end of the month). Meanwhile, I am desperately trying to find time to write for my current customers who will be the mainstay of my business when I go full-time as a freelancer in March. I am also trying to spend some time with my husband who is usually going to bed alone, muttering “I’m a computer widow”, while I continue to tap away on the keyboard.

Yep, life is extremely busy for me at the moment and that got me thinking about how I manage my time as a freelancer. I can’t just assume all the work is just going to happen (no, I don’t own a magic wand that I can wave and just have the work done in an instant, nor does my godmother have fairy powers, and no matter how often I rub that lamp, no genie has yet appeared), so I have to figure out ways to manage my time and make time for the important things.

I’ve figured out a few tricks that might help you if you have time management issues too.

Make and keep a list of your current tasks. Prioritise each task according to its importance. How you figure out what is important is whole other blog, but it’s up to you. Figure out your priorities. Include things on the list like spending time with the important people in your life (socialising activities), time out for yourself (and exercise), and the work and other (housecleaning) tasks you have to do on a regular basis. Then prioritise your list – for me, housecleaning ALWAYS comes last!

 Don’t plan every minute of the day, but allocate tasks to each day in a kind of daily to do list. Don’t think you can work every single minute – it just won’t happen, so allocate a reasonable amount of work you can achieve in the time you have available that day. If you know you are going out for a lunch (that will take up most of the afternoon as you chat), don’t plan 10 hours of writing on that day. You may find it helpful to allocate tasks at the start of the week for the whole week and then update daily.

Figure out your own body clock and when you are most productive. Plan to get most of your work done at those times. Plan tasks that are less important or less urgent in the times you are less active. For me, I work best in the afternoons (or at least after 10am when my brain has really had time to wake up), so I try to write then. That’s when my creative juices are really flowing. I usually check my emails early in the morning and plan my day, so I can get my brain thinking about the writing I have to do, as a running commentary in the back of my head, while I do the more mundane tasks of administration. Then I work actively from 10am until about 10pm* with a few breaks for lunch, dinner and relaxation. (*at the moment, but hopefully it will be more like 7pm in the near future).

Working when my brain is most active means that I can achieve a lot more writing in the time. When I try to write when I am too tired, I find the words don’t make much sense and I can spend an hour trying to find the right phrase for a sentence. When I am full of energy, the words just flow from my brain to my fingers and onto the page. And yes, I wrote this blog after 10am!

Hope this helps you find time to enter submissions for all those lovely jobs Dawn keeps posting!

 Hayley

http://www.expandingcreations.com

Seeking Fantasy Authors
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JoRi Publications is a new traditional publishing house. Our first publication will be an anthology of fifteen to seventeen short stories in the Fantasy genre. If you would like your Fantasy tale considered for our new publication, read the following guidelines and submit your entry to us by March 1st 2010.

All submissions must be in the Fantasy genre
Stories must not have been previously published
Your story must be 5000 words or less in length
Stories cannot contain erotic content or hard core profanity
All work must be edited prior to submission.
Electronic submissions should be made in *.doc,*.wpd or *.txt format
Hard copy submissions must be typed and double spaced with 1″ margins
Each submission must have a cover page with the title of the story, the author’s name and contact information.
Subsequent pages should only have the page number and title of the story in the header
Stories that fail to meet the above criteria will not be considered for publication.

Mail Submissions to:
JoRi Publications
850 S. Boulder Hwy., Suite 436
Henderson, NV 89015-7564

or submit electronically to: JoRi@joripublications.com

JoRi Publications will pay $25.00 USD for each short story (1 story per author) selected for publication in the anthology.
Authors selected for this collection will have the opportunity to purchase the collection at $10.00* per copy prior to printing and $12.00* after printing. The retail price will range from $17.95 to $19.95 depending on the size of the book. Authors may sell pre-purchased copies at the retail price for additional compensation.
JoRi Publications will place the collection online to generate book sales. A short author-supplied bio will be requested upon acceptance for publication in order to recognize their contribution to the project. JoRi Publications will also handle coordinating distribution to other outlets. accepted

*Plus shipping and handling costs which will vary based on the number of books ordered and destination.

Content Writers Wanted for AOL Seed
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I can’t get much information on how much you’ll get paid, (they’re only hiring US writers so I don’t get to know,) but AOL are setting up their own content site and need writers to provide content for 80+ AOL channels. If you are interested in this type of writing work, and many do find it a useful sideline, then visit: http://www.seed.com/writers/

Walrus Magazine Wants Articles on Canada
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The Walrus launched in September of 2003 with a straightforward mandate: to be a national general interest magazine about Canada and its place in the world. They invite writers to submit brief query letters about prospective story ideas (fiction and non-fiction). View website for full details.

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/queries/

WOW Wants Writing Articles
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WOW! welcomes queries and submissions from its readers. Each issue focuses on Women, Writing and the monthly Theme.
Columns, Word Counts and Pay Rates:
Twenty Questions: $50
How 2 (1,500 – 2,000 Words): $75
Inspiration (1,500 – 2,000 Words): $75
Feature Interviews (up to 3,000 Words): $75
Feature Articles (up to 3,000 Words): $150
View website for details.

http://wow-womenonwriting.com/contact.php

Pink Reader – Call for Submissions
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The Pink reader is a sophisticated, highly successful female business executive or entrepreneur. The magazine endeavors to be a vital tool to help the reader find greater financial independence and success in work and more joy in life. They welcome articles. Please send a detailed query rather than a completed manuscript. Include a relevant bio and two writing samples or clips. Payment varies. View website for contact details.

http://www.pinkmagazine.com/about/writer_guidelines.html

REJECTION

I have made my desire to become a published writer public. I have even gone so far as to volunteer to blog about the things that I learn along the way to getting published. I am after all, the epitome of a Newbie Writer. An adult well into my retirement years, I finally have time and opportunity to work on my writing. I am not so old though that I cannot learn something new, and it looks like I will be learning how to write something I have never written before.

I was so excited when I finally heard from the editor of Constant Content. I had begun to look for a response a day or two after I submitted my article even though I knew that Ed would be slower to look at my unrequested article, I still looked for a response every day. I was pleasantly surprised when just four days after I submitted my first article, I received an e-mail from CC.

My excitement quickly turned to disappointment though when I read the first few lines telling me my article had been rejected. How could that be? I wondered. I knew that this was my first attempt to write an article but hadn’t I done all the right things to make sure it would be accepted?

I made a mental list of the things I had done to ensure my success. I carefully read all the writers guidelines, (or so I thought) and I bought an e-book telling me ‘how to’ write for Constant Content. I even went the extra step by sending my finished piece to an author and asking her pretty please to critique my article.

I didn’t really expect the author, (who shall remain nameless here), to look at my article let alone take her precious time to take an editing pen to my entire article, line by line. I was so impressed that she spent so much time on editing and explaining what was wrong with my article that I didn’t even feel discouraged by her criticisms. Constructive though they were, they did sting just a little but I sucked it up and felt grateful for the help. I printed out her commentary and went through my piece line by line making the corrections she suggested. I went back and checked my sources to make sure I had not inadvertently lifted a phrase or anything that could be considered plagiarism and finally I looked up some of the grammatical changes the author suggested. I didn’t just want to copy the semicolons without knowing why I was going to use them.

Still, here it is, my article was rejected. In a span of several seconds I went through a myriad of emotions. My first thought was, “You should have known better, you can’t write! Closely followed by a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I thought about the many short stories and essays just lying in a drawer. I have never even tried to publish any of them, so what was I doing trying this? I guess because it didn’t look hard to me when I read the articles on Constant Content and other sites. I found several mistakes in many of them and I thought, “I can do this,” I can write an article, it doesn’t look so hard.

Well the mark of an expert is that they always make “it” whatever the “it” is, look easier to do than it really is. Such is the case here I am sure. I have decided that I would like to write some articles for the web and now I must suck it up and realize that “This article requires revision”, is not so much a rejection as a direction to try again. So try again I will and like the suggestions from the author I will go through my article again and try to make the editors happy. If I can do that, I think I will be well on my way to learning to write just about anything. It’s all a learning process after all isn’t it, and I can always stand to learn something new, so I will try and try again.

Call for Articles on Fairy Tales
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Enchanted Conversation is an online magazine, in Blogger format, that celebrates the art, history, analysis, charm, beauty, horror about fairy tales. Payment is 4 cents a word for articles (fiction or non-fiction), poems at a flat rate of $10. View website for submission guidelines. http://tinyurl.com/yc6hbhe

Reading Today Call for Submissions
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Readers are invited to submit articles on a broad variety of topics relating to reading and reading education. Since Reading Today is mailed to all members of the International Reading Association, the newspaper tries to address the needs and interests of an audience involved in education at all levels from pre-K through adult education in 100 countries throughout the world. Therefore, interests are fairly wide-ranging. General-interest articles appearing in Reading Today range from interviews with children’s book authors to descriptions of innovative reading programs to coverage of important reading-related conferences. Anything that might help or interest reading professionals is a potential story. View website for contact details.

http://tinyurl.com/y8f8o2k

Science Articles Wanted
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Greater Good magazine’s articles mix science reporting with storytelling, often highlighting groundbreaking academic research, but in a manner that’s engaging and accessible to a popular audience. Payment for feature articles is $.25/word. View website for details. http://tinyurl.com/y9ahw63

One of the biggest problems writers face is writer’s block. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have stared at a blank page on the screen and thought “Now what do I write?”. You know what it is like: you plan to write, you allocate a couple of hours to write, and sit down ready to write. Then it hits you: the big fat nothing. Nothing happens and you end up staring blankly at your blank page hoping something will just materialise or you end up playing games on your computer while you wait for inspiration. Neither technique actually helps you to get writing again!

 When you need inspiration, Newbies Writers offers a daily prompt to get your creative juices flowing again in the Need a Prompt section. Even if you write in a totally different genre, such as a novel, or factual articles, it can be very helpful to warm up with a quick writing exercise from the prompting section. Give yourself 10 minutes and write whatever comes into your head after reading the daily prompt. It might surprise you how easy it is to get back to your other writing afterwards.

Just about any creative writing exercise will help you to get over writer’s block and get writing again. One of my favourites is to look at a picture and describe a story from the picture. Look at the people in the picture and imagine a character for each person. Where does the man in the brown suit live? What relationship does he have with the woman in the yellow hat? What are the people thinking when the picture was taken?

Another good exercise is to cut up headlines into separate words from a newspaper and mix the words in an envelope. Take out five or six words, make a new headline and write a fake news article about your new headline. This is a great exercise to get you in the mood for writing again.

 Allison’s recent blog on outlining also offers some great ideas on how to avoid writer’s block. Outline your novel, article, short story, or poem, so that you have something to refer to when you get stuck. If you are staring at a blank screen and have a definite project in mind, start an outline and you will soon find it easy to write again.

 If you write fiction, try interviewing one of your characters about the other characters when you get writer’s block. You may not use the interview itself in your work, but you will definitely get some great ideas and inspiration to keep you writing.

Whatever you do, don’t just sit there or play games on the computer. Start writing anything and you will find you will be able to concentrate on whatever you need to write sooner. Free write or give yourself a short story break rather than give up on your writing altogether. You will find inspiration will strike again soon!

HayleyWriter

Visit my website: http://www.expandingcreations.com for free articles about writing.

Women’s magazine seeks submissions

Sasee welcomes editorial submissions from freelance writers. They are looking for new, unpublished, first-person, non-fiction material that is for or about women. Essays, humor, satire, personal experience, and features on topics relating to women are of primary editorial focus. Diversity of subjects that reflect all age groups and variety of writing styles are invited. Payment for articles varies. View website for contact details.

http://sasee.com/submissions/

History Articles Wanted

History-on-the-web is an online publishing site that publishes all things historical. Whatever the topic, whatever the period, they want to publish your work. Their requirements are simple:

*It must be referenced.
*It must be original.
*You must submit a profile.

Writers receive 50% Royalties and bonus.

View website for details.

http://www.history-on-the-web.com

Origin Magazine Calls For Submissions

UK based Origin Publishing Ltd are always looking for dependable, quality freelance writers to work on their magazines. View website for contact details.

http://www.originpublishing.com/vacancylist.asp

Articles on Computing Wanted

Worldstart.com are looking for tips for their e-mail newsletter, Computer Tips & Techniques. They are also seeking feature articles for the website covering any and all aspects of computing. Check out the guidelines on their website.

http://www.worldstart.com/writers-guidelines