Upmarket fiction contest

Finally! It only took me an hour to get back on this blog and who knows how long it will last since it wants to change my name. One of the others in my group and I came up with a number of new topics to reinvigorate this blog. First, though, I wanted to share a contest that is going on until May 14. Even if you aren't eligible to enter this contest, or you are seeing this notice too late to enter, this is a very good and helpful site to know about. As I am not at all sure if the link above worked since I didn't see it in the preview version of this entry, I'm entering it again so that you can cut and paste: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/ninth-free-dear-lucky-agent-contest?et_mid=553181&rid=3196144 If that doesn't work, please google Guide to Literary Agents Chuck Sambuchino. This is a series of contests, and this specific one is for "upmarket" fiction. If I can actually get back on this site, we'll be updating it--for awhile at least!

The Everything, or at least our group, Named

We've come up with a name! Saytchyn proposed we each suggest a letter. When five of the six of us were assembled, we did just that and came up with T U R D Z, which no one liked for obvious reasons, so we switched a W for the T and WURDZ was born. The idea then, is for each of us to come up with our own personal meaning for this acronym.

Assignment: each of us to give our meaning as a comment to this blog.

After this, we can get down to the serious business of developing this blog and topics that people may be interested in reading.

Naming the Everything

One of the group members of my current writers' group suggested I try this blog space to see what I thought. Little did I know that in order to fool around with its layout, I needed a name for the blog itself. Our group can't come up with a name for the group and I have to find a name for the blog?

I'm editing a manuscript I wrote awhile ago, and everyone hated my past title, Wyvern, saying it sounded like fantasy. Others just thought it didn't fit. So I was looking for a title for this book as well, and the name that I favored was Man in the Middle.

Really, when I had to pick a title for this blog, I wasn't thinking of my recent title choice. My first choice was Middle Writer, due to the fact that we live more or less in the middle of the country, some people might consider us of middle age, a few of us write YA, and most of us write in the middle between literary/mainstream/genre. And at this point we might be considered middling successful. Also, as I volunteered to be the primary blogger since I have the most free time, I felt like I'd be in the middle, too. Hence, the off-the-cuff choice of the word middle. I suppose Middle Writer also riffed on "Paperback Writer," but when that wasn't available, Writer in the Middle seemed like the likely next choice.

How convenient that it could reflect my next query project.

And now I'm in the middle of a new beginning, blogging. Hope you will enjoy some of the topics we've brainstormed and will read along with us.

All we need to get started is a group name.