Friday, October 14, 2011

Pay It Forward Blogfest


This post is slightly different than my previous ones. Today’s “blogfest” is a one-day festival interconnecting the blogs of aspiring writers across the Internet, introducing readers to other like-minded bloggers.

I learned about this “blogfest” at a blog called The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment, written by Matthew MacNish from Cumming, Georgia. As Matthew writes in his introduction, he runs his blog “in an attempt to help other novice writers avoid the mistakes I made in the beginning of my road to publication.” That is the reason many new writers turn to the blogs of others: to get advice and encouragement and to learn from the experience others gained as they wrote their way to publication.

The idea of today’s Pay It Forward Blogfest is “to introduce everyone to everyone else” and this is done by listing and linking to three blogs that one enjoys reading, but which may fly under the radar of other bloggers. And so, without further ado, here are three blogs of aspiring writers that I’ve come across in recent weeks.

Nancy S. Thompson = Nancy has written a thriller called The Mistaken and it is her dream to have it published one day. The tagline for her manuscript is “Vengeance tastes sweet the day Skylar Karras pledges his wife's killer to sex traffickers in the Russian Mafia, but when he mistakenly targets the wrong woman, deal or no, he finds himself protecting her from the very enemy he's unleashed.” I have been following Nancy’s blog and reading her interesting posts such as Blogging vs. Writing vs. Life. I hope to see Nancy’s thriller in print soon!

August McLaughlin = August is currently working on revisions of her novel called In Her Shadow, which is the story of Minnesotan psychologist Claire Fiksen, who, near the anniversary of her mother’s unexpected death, “develops bizarre symptoms that threaten her career, her relationships and her life. Claire’s pursuit for healing becomes a desperate search for answers as she’s lured into the mystery of her family’s sordid past. The nearer she draws to the truth, the worse her condition becomes. And Claire’s isn’t the only life at stake. Meanwhile, someone is watching…” August is a journalist/health writer with a certificate in nutrition, so for certain her novel will be truly credible and exciting. I have enjoyed following August’s blog for some time, where she writes on subjects such as Writers’ Deadly Vices.

Stephen King = We all know of the very successful American author who writes contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction, but what about the other Stephen King, the aspiring writer? The other Stephen King introduces himself by saying, “I'm Stephen King. Really, that's my name. No, no, really. And I write, though I'm a rank amateur. I'm probably as good at writing as the Stephen King who lives in Maine and writes for a living would be at running a college.” Stephen is an unpublished author living in Richmond, Virginia whose day job is being the dean of a small private college. I’ve been following The Other Stephen King on Writing blog as he details his experiences querying, attending writers conferences and working out How to Get Published.

I have visited many other interesting and informative blogs of aspiring writers and hopefully in the weeks to come I will be able to post about them as well.

10 comments:

  1. Hi Ellis. I'm here as the co-host from the Pay It Forward blogfest (obviously). Thanks so much for signing up.

    And I wasn't following your blog until just now, so the fest is working!

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  2. Hey Ellis! Aw, shucks, that's so kind of you to mention me in your Pat It Forward post. I am profoundly humbled, really and truly! Thank you so very, very much.

    I hope you get some traffic and new followers from this bloghop. Make sure to hop around to the other blogs listed, follow and leave a comment. That's the best way to build up your army of followers! Good luck, all the best, and thanks again!

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  3. Wow, my first co-appearance with Stephen King! ;)

    Thanks so much for including me here, Ellis. I always enjoy your blog and insight. Cheers!

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  4. I don't follow either Stephen Kings, but I will now!

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  5. Great picks will give them a look, how can I refuse Stephen King..haha

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  6. Wasn't a participant of this blog fest but found you on ALex Cavanaugh's site. And I'm so happy. An agent (real estate) of mine actually moved from Dallas a couple of years to Israel and I get infrequent updates from her.

    I lived in Bulgaria a couple of years myself. 61 Bukston Blvd. Sofia.

    Happy to have found you.

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  7. I am still jumping around trying to meet new bloggers from PIF. I didn't get a chance to visit as many blogs as I wanted to on Friday.

    Count me in as a new follower

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  8. Thanks for visiting this blog and for taking the time to comment! I will be visiting your blogs as well.

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  9. i missed the pay it forward hop, so stopping by fashionably late! nice to meet u ellis :)

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  10. Thanks for the mention! You have a very interesting blog, yourself. -TOSK

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