You are here (Photo credit: mag3737)

Since the first of the year, I’ve been striving to spend more time in my craft area. For some reason, in the hustle and bustle of this life that sometimes has more control of me than I of it, I forget I LOVE to craft. My little basement studio is rapidly becoming my happy place. It’s a place I can retreat when the words, sleep, or ideas won’t come. A place where the only expectation I have is that nothing is expected of me. It has become a combination refuge and launchpad.

This weekend, write about your happy place. Where do you retreat when it’s time to take a break from everyday stresses? What do you do there? How does it help you connect with yourself?

Related articles

• Weekend Assignment: New Beginnings
• Weekend Assignment: You in Six Words
• Weekend Assignment: Dream a Little Dream

Sentence 1: Write a sentence about the inciting incident. What sets the story in motion?

Sentence 2:  Explore the main character’s reaction to the inciting incident. What’s at stake?

Sentence 3: Write a sentence about the “point of no return.” This is the part of the story where the main character loses the option of turning back.

Sentence 4: This sentence should focus on a series of complications that will block the character from achieving  his or her goal. She attempts to ___, but x, y, and z get in the way.

Sentence 5:  The biggest, baddest, strongest, fastest, most bionic problem your character must overcome to achieve his goal.  All appears lost when ____.

Sentence 6: Tell how the story ends. Does the protagonist succeed or fail?

Do you have a simple plotting strategy to share? Tell me about it in the comments!

It’s time to roll up the sleeves and dig into another round of market links. I hope you find something you can use for your own work.

Disclaimer: Bear in mind that I am sharing these links not endorsing them. While I’ve checked out these sites, always read the complete guidelines before submitting anything AND always do your homework.

The Sun  prefers writing of a personal nature, and also accepts fiction, interviews and poetry. They aren’t interested in seeing journalistic pieces, opinions, or academic work. Selected excerpts from the magazine appear online each month.

Crafts ‘n Things is always on the lookout for crafty projects geared toward intermediate and advanced crafters. Types of crafts likely to find a home in their pages include sewing and needlework projects, paper crafts, beading, painting and clay. Example projects may be viewed on the website HERE.

With a core audience of girls 11-15, Girls’ Life covers the gamut of tween interests. Fashion, friendship, self-help, quizzes and crafts are mainstays. If you’re interested in writing for them, be sure to check this article which offers some inside information on how to pitch: http://www.girlslife.com/docs/Mediabistro.pdf

Coffee House Press  This literary publisher looks for full-length novels, collections of short stories, and some essay collections/memoirs.  You can see examples of titles they’ve published HERE.

U.S. Kids Magazines (part of the Better Health Institute) includes three titles for different age groups, Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, and Jack & Jill. They look for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and activities.

Related articles

• Submit, Submit, Submit: Writing Markets November 2011
• Submit, Submit, Submit: Writing Markets October 2011
• Submit, Submit, Submit: Writing Markets September 2011

Your assignment this weekend is to harvest those seeds of inspiration from your dreams. Start by placing a notebook or journal beside your bed. Record the details of your dreams upon waking each day. Don’t sweat it if you don’t have anything to record every day. Write down they happen. Think of it as creating a secret idea stash.

Save your journal for those days when the ideas refuse to come and your muse is off chasing butterflies or hunting zombies, or whatever it is they do when they call in sick to work. On those days, you can flip through the pages and choose something from your stockpile of ideas.

Read inside and outside your comfort zone. When you find a sentence that resonates with you, read between the lines to see how the author made it work. Check out blogs that analyze the nuts and bolts of style like In Search of the Perfect Sentence. Read, read, read.

2. Write.

Think of writing like playing a musical instrument. Daily practice keeps the muscle memory sharp, and makes you better. Keep a journal and freewrite every morning. Start a blog. Use daily writing prompts like the ones I post on twitter to give you a spark each day or find others online like these.

3. Tighten up: Write big; rewrite small.

For the first draft, write as much as you like. Capture every detail — write BIG. In round two, rewrite SMALL. Give yourself a maximum number of words and edit your piece to fit. If you do this often enough, you will automatically begin to write tighter as you go.

4. Be fearless.

Share your work with other writers to get feedback. Bashful writers never get published because their work sits in drawers unseen and unread. Join a writers’ group, or form one with people you trust.

5. Take a flight of fancy.

Feed your imagination a little down time each day. Turn off all the screens; silence all the beeping, buzzing gizmos. Take a deep breath and let your mind wander. You might be surprised where it takes you.

Running your own business consumes time and energy, but it doesn’t have to consume the whole quesadilla of your existence. Try these ideas to mix a little real-life into your days and weeks.

1. Join a gym. Sure, you can exercise at home, but the goal here is to get OUT OF THE HOUSE. A gym membership gets you away from your desk and allows you to see (and sometimes speak!) to other living, breathing humans.

2. Break for lunch. Do not eat at your desk. It’s tempting to try and accomplish just one more task during your lunch break. But then it’s not much of a break, is it? If you have to, set an alarm and when it goes off, step away from the desk, leave the room and have lunch elsewhere.

3. Keep regular work hours. How many times have you said something like, “I’d love to go to that movie, restaurant, gathering… but, I’ve got a deadline, assignment, etc.”? If this is your standard line, you need to reevaluate your work routine. I remember when I had a “real world” job (meaning somebody paid me to show up and sit at a desk) about 20 minutes before it was time to go home each night, I began clearing my desk and watching the clock. It was quitting time and I knew it. When you work for yourself, you need to have quitting time too. Pick the time to knock off for the day and stick to it. Walk away and join the real world.

4. Schedule face to face time with your friends. Repeat after me: “I do not want to be a hermit.” You don’t right? The best way to stay connected is, get this, TO CONNECT.  I have standing coffee and lunch dates sprinkled throughout each month where I meet with friends, shoot the breeze and blow off steam.

5. Make family time sacred. If you have game night on Saturdays, show up and play. Call your mother. Go to your daughter’s soccer game. The work will still be there when you get home.

6. Keep (or start) a hobby you love. This falls into the category of carving out “me time.” Salsa dancing, photography, model trains– whatever it is that helps you find your happy place, make time to do it.

7. Take a day off between projects. I once described freelance writing as a career where you’re always looking for a job. Job hunting can become obsessive behavior if you let it, and jumping from one project to the next is a quick path to burnout.

8. Along the same lines — Allow yourself to have sick days and vacation time. Time off is not a cardinal sin. Ignore the phone and the email. Let the computer sit idle. Rest. Recharge. It will all still be there when you get back.

Many of the commercials just didn’t do it for me this year. They were okay, I guess, but the ones that really resonated, the ones my husband and I chuckled over or talked about the most all had one thing in common. They told a story. Granted, they were very SHORT stories, but all told a tale.

Your mission this week is to take a product (or make one up) and write an ad telling a very short story (think 100 words or less) to promote it. If you missed the Super Bowl commercials, or just need a refresher of how these ads pull off a tale in a limited amount of time, you can view them here on hulu.com

The Show and Tell Challenge

Step right up and take the B&B Show and Tell Challenge! Here’s how: simply write your response to this assignment, post it on your blog, then come back and leave a link to your post in the comments. It’s that simple!

Need more inspiration? Click here.

Never miss an update. Scroll down and click “Sign me up!” to subscribe.

Related articles

• Weekend Assignment: A Secret Door
• Weekend Assignment: Mission Impossible Things
• Weekend Assignment: You in Six Words

1. Is the contest reputable?

Scam contests haunt the Internet, waiting to snatch up entry fees and run. If you aren’t familiar with the organization hosting the contest, do a little background snooping before you enter. Google them and add keywords like “complaint” or “scam” to the search.

2. Is the payout worth the buy-in?

In other words, does the reading fee (and yes, many reputable contests charge them as a way to offset costs) match up with the prizes offered? An extreme example: paying a $10 reading fee for the opportunity to win a $50 prize is not worth the time.

3. Will I feel like I’ve wasted my time and money if I don’t win?

That’s not to say that you must get something tangible from every contest you enter. Writing under a deadline, and within a theme and length, offers the opportunity for you to hone valuable skills, even if you don’t win. And those may be enough for you. If so, great. If not, will you receive a critique or other feedback from the judges? Are there other suitable markets for the piece, or will it be filed away as a homeless waif when the contest ends?

Use these questions to help determine which contests are best for you. Happy writing and good luck!

Image by MikeBlogs via Flickr

I love it when I stumble across helpful information I can pass along to readers.

Today’s discovery comes from Writer’s Fun Zone in a guest post by Kelley Way (who is a writer and lawyer specializing in literary law).

Her post breaks down (in simple, clear language) what exactly copyright is. Definitely worth a read. You can find the complete post here.

In other words, I’m in that place where I want to spend all day playing games on facebook and avoid eye contact with anything that looks like work.

You’ve probably been there.  This week’s assignment is to make a list five of things you can do to get the gears moving again and get back to work. My list:

1. Turn off the Internet. Facebook withdrawal notwithstanding, this is one of the most beneficial things I can do, because it forces gives me the opportunity to take a step back and actually think about what project I want to do next.

2. Take a walk, or play with my dogs. Good for clearing the head.

3. Research something interesting, just for the fun of it. This is also a good way for me to spark ideas.

4. Make lists of ways to reslant articles I’ve already written, and come up with new markets for them.

5. Clean something. Currently, I’m cleaning out the office closet, a task that may take me until March to complete. But, in the process, my mind wanders, my muse wakes up, and I find all sorts of ideas to work on.

What’s on your list? Take the show and tell challenge and share it!

The Show and Tell Challenge

Step right up and take the B&B Show and Tell Challenge! Here’s how: simply write your response to this assignment, post it on your blog, then come back and leave a link to your post in the comments. It’s that simple!

Need more inspiration? Click here.

Never miss an update. Scroll down and click “Sign me up!” to subscribe.

Related articles

• Weekend Assignment: You in Six Words
• Weekend Assignment: What a Character!
• Weekend Assignment: New Beginnings