Three Good Things for the New Year

Sometime over the past few weeks, we hit the one-year mark here on the blog - woo hoo! It has been an awesome, awesome year - many thanks to all of you who, in one way or another (readers, commenters, sharers, writers, guest posters and interviewees) have helped to make it so fun, and so very rewarding. Hard to imagine life without it now (though I like to think I'd be doing more - er, make that, any - yoga, or have become fluent in another language, or something healthy like that instead).

One of my 2012 resolutions (and perhaps it was one of yours, as well) was to keep working on my non-blogging writing. At the rate I'm going, I might have a publishable short story, in oh... say... a decade or two. But it's fun, when I get to it, and it definitely gives me far greater insight and appreciation for all you writers and authors out there. So with the art and practice of writing in mind, I'd like to share a few good things to encourage and inspire writers in the New Year:

• The online journal Necessary Fiction not only publishes wonderful short fiction, reviews and more, but also offers two series that more deeply explore the writing process itself. The first, Origin Stories, invites authors and writers to look back at and share some of their earlier work, and to discuss inspirations, influences, and their own development (the post from Matt Bell about his story "Blanket" is an excellent place to start). The second, Research Notes invites writers to consider the information-gathering process (defined as broadly as they want) that went into their first books - for example, Ryan Bradley writes about pumping gas and other life experiences as research for his upcoming book Code for Failure.)

• Back by popular request: the LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge (formerly the BDCWB Flash Fiction Challenge). This is a fun and very friendly way to get the creative juices flowing - LitStack posts a photo prompt, you write up to 500 words, post it on your blog or tumblr or what-have-you, and leave a link in LitStack's comments. It is wonderful to see how the same picture leads to such different stories. Everyone is welcome, so please join in! Check out our first prompt here, and come back this Wednesday for a new round.

• And finally, something to reframe the way you think about the potential power of fiction: Safety Pin Review. Safety Pin Review publishes micro fiction on a black square of cloth and pins it to the back of a brave volunteer, who goes out into the world wearing a story for a week, and photo-documenting his/her experience. Thank you to Berit Ellingsen for sharing her story and bringing attention to this very cool project - check out Berit's story "Hostage Situation," and also the post considering the perspective of the "operative," or story's wearer.

Happy reading... and writing!


-Jennifer

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