Life Changes

I am not going to college at Columbia. I am not staying in Illinois.

My family is moving again, and I have to admit I am very excited about it. We are traveling to Alabama, with the move expected to be completed sometime in July.



I will work for the first semester, and attend college the second. Which one? I have no idea. :)

In related news.... Friday, May 25th was my 18th birthday.

Imagine this... I began writing my first eventually-would-be-completed novel when I was fourteen, in ninth grade. I finished the last one as a 17-year-old senior in high school.

My contact at CBS says he has scheduled a June meeting with his agent to discuss that first novel. If you haven't read it already, you can do so by clicking here.

Today, I also graduate from high school. At 3:30 PM on May 27th I will no longer associate myself with the high school age group.



The way I have described it earlier is that I and my fellow graduates have, our whole lives, been climbing on boxes to get to a hole in the ceiling. Now we're teetering at the top, about to pull ourselves all the way up and out, and it's a time for nostalgia and excitement.

We will never be in that room again. It's time for a new one.

In any case, I plan to post the remaining chapters of Insurrection soon; it's just that I haven't been writing much lately and so haven't had on my upstairs computer so I haven't transferred those last chapters to the downstairs computer, this one.

Wish me luck in life, and congrats to all you graduating seniors out there!

-Savannah

Confessions 5 - I hate Christopher Paolini

I hate Christopher Paolini.

While not recognizing the photo, you may recognize the name. Mr. Paolini is a New York Times Best-Selling author for the Inheritance Trilogy, the most famous of which is Eragon.



You may remember a few years ago when this book came out and it was apparently a big deal. I read it. It was not.

I was introduced to Mr. Paolini through Oprah. She was doing a segment on teen authors, and I was watching it from my home television, seething with jealousy.

I am now going to make a generalization. You are free to agree or disagree: ...Fantasy sucks. The vast majority of fantasy and science fiction novels are badly written and cliched and follow the same plot over and over and over again.

(Ironically, another teen authoress featured on that Oprah Show did a successful series on vampires. Vampire stories also suck. Even Interview With A Vampire, when it comes down to it, sucks.)

This is my personal vendetta against fantasy and science fiction writing. I don't expect to be hassled about it. I know there are exceptions to the hideous rule, such as the well-known and quickly-declining-in-integrity Harry Potter books, or the Dealing with Dragons series, which was comedic and heart-warming. And lets not forget the classics (Tolkien, Pratchett, Adams, etc.), but even they have their moments.



But this is not about my hatred of those genres. This is about my hatred for Christopher Paolini.



Hate is a strong word. Mine is composed of anger and envy. While previews for the movie Eragon were showing, I took to changing the channel every time one came on. I forbade my family to see or support that movie in any way (alas, as I am a dependent teenager they have done little to respect my wishes, and in fact tonight I shall commit the treasonous act of purchasing that blasted film for the enjoyment and corruption of my little sister).

Why, you may ask? I'll tell you.

REASONS WHY I HATE CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI

1) First and foremost, he's a cheater. He did not submit his book to literary agents or publishing houses, he did not wait in agony for MONTHS for a rejection letter before sending his manuscript out again. He did not go to literary conventions and attempt to make contacts who would be interested in reading the boring and terribly-written novel of his.

NO, I say! He did none of these things. He is nothing like the rest of us.

His family owns a publishing company. Without having to earn the right in any way, he published his book and began distributing it.

Aha, but you may say... if he is so terrible, why then the success of his novel?

Oprah. Plain and simple. Oprah did a segment on teen writers, and as he was one, he got to go on. This led to his popularity with the general public, who is known for having bad taste.

2) As mentioned before, his books are terrible.

Anyone who has read Eragon, or attempted to read Eldest (I say attempted because I myself, a staunch believer in not abandoning books once you have started to read them, had to put it down due to sheer passionate annoyance) can back me up on this one.

Paolini took the low road. He created a /very/ cliched character: a special, talented, attractive boy with a mysterious past who is mistreated by his family and then made fabulous through magic.

BORING!

A basic plot summary: The Cliched main character, whose name is Eragon, discovers a dragon stone, watches the dragon hatched, and is now its caretaker. He fights off bakers or something of the sort, and takes an old man and the dragon with him on a journey to stop some dark force spreading across the land. There is a race against time, some more bad guys, some fire, a little blood, and then a magical and beautiful elven princess who is heroically rescued from prison as she is the leader of a rebellion camp (go figure).

The plot continues in that vein but I can't continue because it's too painful.

Anyway, I don't like his writing. He also sounds like he swallowed a thesaurus, and then puked it all over his 'script.

In conclusion, don't take any of this too seriously, as someday I shall probably have to eat my words.

Am I envious? Of course. I'm envious of any writer who has success, particularly those who do not /deserve/ it.

Does Christopher Paolini deserve my envy? Of course not. He has done nothing remarkable and his work will not be remembered past this generation.

...At least... that's what I tell myself.

Confessions - 4

The most harrowing thing about being a writer in your teenage years is The College Question. Do you settle for something 'practical' (i.e. cheap, in-state, close to home) with a practical major (read: business), or do you study what you /really/ want to... English, English Lit, or Creative Writing.

Well folks, this is my confession:

I have been accepted to college. I will study Creative Writing at the largest private liberal arts school in the country, Columbia College Chicago of Chicago, Illinois.

That's my personal college triumph. What's yours?

The Cost of Shipping

Yesterday I finished printing off my manuscript (as I ran out of ink SEVEN PAGES before being done), and ran it down to the local post office.

I took $40 dollars with me, but it turns out that shipping for 2-3 days with special handling was only $7.50, and only an extra 50 cents to get one of those scanner sticker things that will then alert you to the fact that your package has arrived.

Just a little detail, in case you were wondering.

Also, for all you young and inexperienced writers out there, here real quickly is how to properly address a manila envelope, because -confession- I still forget sometimes.


Taken from Nursing Advocacy

The above picture demonstrates how to properly address the manila envelope. Your name and address goes in the upper left hand corner, and the sendee's address goes in the center. Do not put stamps or anything else on it, as they will do this at the post office.

Now, there's one more important detail (this is the one I'm always forgetting): The main opening (you know, the one with the lickable sealers and that strange metal contraption) MUST BE on your right hand side and facing the table as you address the envelope. like this:



Hope that was helpful!

Meredith Maran

Because, in paranoid-Savannah-world, every April 17th is my death day, I have stayed home to avoid school shootings and bus accidents, yet still may be done in by choking, electrocution, and serial killers.

If you can get a hold of the April 2007 edition of More magazine, flip to page 209 and read the story of Meredith Maran.



Or, just visit her website.

She is an inspiring lady with an amazing story, which includes her first book being published at age 18, and raising goats at the age of 17 in Taos.

Confessions -3 The Gloating Stage Part II

The letter below came at the exact perfect time. I was very upset that day, and had just woken up from a nap designed to let my brain process several troubling issues of the moment, and then I went downstairs to where the computer was and...

There it was. The letter I had been waiting for four two months.

I had just been complaining in my head because, as the author of the book, I intimately know its details, and have been with it so long and seen so many bad drafts of it that my general opinion of the thing is, though I love it to death, that it sucks.

Which made the arrival of this email all the more sweet.

And now we shall briefly discuss what to do when you get good writing news, part deux:

As is true for most young writers, winning some form of acceptance is not only a good thing for the mood and ego, but a chance go totally push it in the face of those who thought you couldn't do it, or in general don't like you.

Unless this can be done with the utmost tact, I highly recommend against it.

Once this kind of news gets leaked to a few people, say... your favorite teacher, word gets around. You can even stage it so you tell said teacher in the beginning of class when other students are around. This makes it look like you only wanted to tell the teacher, but other students overheard, and then you get to talk to them about it.

Like I said, word travels. You would much rather have the person you want to impress hear it from someone else and have to ask you about it than tell them yourself and be thought of as stuck-up (forgive the colloquialism), wouldn't you?



CAREER IDEA:

Begin a mailing list of people who wished to be informed of your career progress. I've got four teachers on mine. Teachers love to stay in contact with their ex-students and see what's going on in their lives; chances are you won't be intruding.

Teh Letter

For all of my fictionpress readers out there, what my contact said about WW:

Hi, Savannah! Greetings from New York. I’m sorry it’s taken me so very long to get back to you about your fine novel. For a while, I was forced to focus intently on the completion of my new book, [Book name protected by Savannah], which is coming out in about three weeks. As you know, completing a book is so much harder than starting it. After that, the hectic pace of writing/living/traveling/crisis management at work has made it almost impossible for me to focus on anything that I might read for pleasure.

And speaking of pleasure, that is exactly the word to describe my feelings as I make my way through your lovely, magical novel. I was prepared for something well-written and rather dramatic, but not for the depth of insight, the futuristic vision, and the poetic command of language. To say that you are a prodigy is not an over-statement, but it actually doesn’t do your work justice. This would be an accomplished work of art for one of any age and experience. I am still reading it and savoring its genuine originality, but I can tell you right now that I do believe it is worthy of being circulated, read, thought about and published. If you would please send me a new, fresh copy of the work, I will send it to a few people that I know in the business here. The first is an agent who has a good feeling for young talent and is among the most aggressive people I know. His name is [Name protected by Savannah], and he works at a big agency here. He would eat his young to get a good deal. If [Name] likes it, he will be very helping in making sure the right people see it. The other person who I believe would be interested is my fiction publisher, [Name also protected by Savannah]. She is a very cool person and always interested in edgy, new things. I think she would see the value not only in your work to date, but also in all that you will do in the future as well.

Anyhow, I felt that enough time had gone by that I truly owed you a note, particularly since there are so very many good things to say. I know I don’t have to tell you to keep writing. You were born to that job. I’ll keep reading and doing whatever I can to help you on your road.

[Savannah's Contact]

Comment to be later added

Quotes from Working in the Dark

I read the book Working in the Dark by Jimmy Santiago Baca and Adan Hernandez, and here are selected quotes pulled from it:

(NOTE: Most of these are probably fragments of sentences, because I only pulled the good parts. So try to take in the imagery and ignore the context.)

While the president’s son in the Rose Garden snares a butterfly into his net and rips off its wings.

Ocean moaning in her blood vessels.

My heart is a cow’s tongue slowly licking a block of ice.

Poetry sits in God’s chair when God is absent.

I reach my bladed hands into the haunted heart of the woman made lonely by her beauty, because she is too beautiful for men to love her soul.

And when I finish a poem I measure its authenticity against their hearts’ reality and their imagination. The voice of poetry runs steadily and faithfully in the veins of all children.

My ears and arms become pollen sacks where butterflies and bees pollinate in language.

In the poem I plant my seed and lick the birth-film from each vowel.

My dove self is eaten and my wolf self growls.

The privilege of poets is that they can become all things in the act of creation, everything –and nothing.

And gently bit her lips.

I have failed many times to water the tree that grows in the heart.

I want to embrace all of life, the beautiful and the ugly, to sit with cowards and warriors and listen to them all.

Each true poem is the pear-handled pistol you point at your heart.

Let poetry be your open space that you transverse with courage.

He can sing the most hidden secrets of the heart. And these are gifts from God.

Tea Sparrows

Occasionally some rare and small blog comes along that can completely change your outlook on what writing is supposed to be.

Teasparrows on livejournal does just that. Check them out!

Example of their work:

Untitled by shipsvsplanes

Mathematics has stolen my bones and has left me having heart-to-hearts with bedroom walls. You see, we're discussing the future of humankind and taking bets on who could care less. We're tracing our memoirs on the necks of our lovers and then casting them off to sea, never to be heard from again. And we can't even make them out anymore, but we can still hear them screaming 'Breathe in, breathe out, baby' and that is all I hear but I, myself, am a stubborn one who just doesn't play fair. And, these bedroom wall friends of mine, they just don't care.


Untitled by paintonthewall

I thought that if I threw my phone into the television,
it would make a nice sound. A satisfying crack,
glass raining onto the carpet. I really just want to wake you
up. Shake your bones and kiss your ears. Someone says,
"Words are a dangerous currency," and baby,
I'm flat broke, these are dust pockets, bad checks,
overdrawn thoracic cavities. Oh, how you hate it
when I use unfamiliar words, how small you say you become!
You get small and I get to sit around and feel my organs
disintegrate. Boo hoo, how sad we both are! How typical!
That's right, I'm hiding behind emphatic punctuation.
The next steps are: invitations to strangers, tasting
new bodies, leaving traces of rum on the doorknobs,
burning the furniture. This is, this is, this is.
We never had the definitions right.

The New Look of 'Confessions'

I finally had the time to get good and annoyed at the current layout, so I have updated, based off of a magazine picture I have hanging in my room.

Don't like it? Think it's sloppy? Then you do it. ;)

The last one took me five hours, and I've given this about three, so there. Be happy.

Artsy Blogs

Fabulous new blogs for you to check out. These are not of a writing theme; more of an artsy rebel kind, but we are all kissing cousins here in Art World.

A World of Birds


Little People Project



Wooster Streer Street Art Blog

Young Blood

A recent community spotlight on liverjournal, called add_a_writer, has given our kind (haha, don't you love that? Our kind) the blatant opportunity to find each other.

Which has led me to some very interesting contacts, among them a very amateur (but eager and grammatically correct and multiple-clause-forming) writer, not even a writer yet, more of a fledgeling.

Did I set out to corrupt him and bring him to our ways? Of course! Being a writer is the best thing in the world! Aside from being, you know, like... some.... really... really cool guy... or something.... Myself, I think being a Magic 8 Ball would be pretty freakin awesome.



But this encounter with the Youth of Writing America (of which we all are, fellow teenagers), led me to recall some very painful writing beginnings.

Where were /you/ when you were 14 and had no clue what was going on and were just beginning to seriously write and think you might want to do that for the rest of your life? Writing was first like a crush, then a serious crush, then your blushing girlfriend, then your serious girlfriend, then your fiance, and then suddenly you wake up and find out you're married -and either will skip about the room fantastically ecstatic or have one of those violent and passionate careers with writing as both your lover and mistress, angel and devil, and a bunch of other contrasting terms. For more on this topic, see 'Lorca' and 'duende'.

(Insert creative and realistic picture of the duende here, since all of the google image searches produce nothing useful)

I did not think to target this blog at the younger population, mainly because it's suck a sticky and awkward phase, and I only know how I went through it, and couldn't possibly be of any real help, but now my feet are in it and I've lost my shoes, so I might as well stay.

That said...

WARNINGS TO YOUNG WRITERS!!!!!!!

1) Under no circumstances should you have ANYTHING to do with poetry.com . It is a scam. A big one. It will cost you your heart and dreams and leave you embarassed and upset, and probably out 60 bucks. Don't believe me? Type in 'poetry.com, scam' in google and read.

2) Under no circumstances should you have anything to do with the Pink Palace of Poetitude, or any other poetry or fiction sites, such as fanstory.com. The sites that cost you money are BAD.

3) You should, howerver, have things to do with Fanfiction.net and FictionPress.com as these are genuine sites which cost you nothing and will provide guaranteed feedback, provided you don't suck. And indeed, there are many careery opportunities for sucky writers. Look at Nora Roberts. (Don't anyone say anything about Stephen King because that man is both cheap and genius. Read his autobiography; it's not only wonderfully informative, it's a great insight into the mind of a real writer.)

4) Write short stories. As someone very wise once said, whose name I am too lazy to look up, the money is in novels, but short stories and personal narratives keep your writing lean and mean. And it's true.

5) Do NOT get a 'beta'. Have good friends who like your writing; do /not/ be dependent on them to edit or read your stuff. Edit your own writing. This is most vital. You can be a crappy writer as long as you rewrite brilliantly. Someone smart also said that.


Note: This is a beta fish, not a writing beta. Real beta's are your normal, wannabe-editor friends, like this:


ALSO NOTE!: There is a distinction between being a writer and being an editor. Some people are born editors. It is good to have relationships with these people, but only RARELY let them edit your stuff. Editors cannot be trusted, and they have wicked pens.

6) When you get your first praising reviews, do NOT get overexcited. This admonition is basically pointless, since you will anyway. Do NOT become dependent on the approval. If you are dependent on public support, you will lose the respect of your fellow writing community. As someone ELSE very wise once said, 'It is better to write for the self and have no public than to write for the public and have no self'.

7) Consult my list of 'Things Every Teenage Author Needs'. It's very useful.

8) Become infatuated with yourself. Seriously. Every writer has a large ego anyway; might as well get yours early. This will lead to all sorts of exciting self-discovery and love of your profession, and then you can grow up to be exclusionary and snobby like me. ^^

9) It's best not to pester older writers with your crap writing, but when you have to, you have to. Try not to be annoying.



Did I forget anything?

Visual AHHHHHHHHHHHHHness

As a writer, you are also a reader. Let's not get into lecturing on how great readers make great writers; that is for another post, or perhaps even unnecessary.

As a writer, you are also an observer.

And sometimes, observing takes a great toll on the mind... like observing four hours of television every day... or observing the hell out of your cereal box.

Sometimes the materialism and commercialism gets to be too much.

So, take the idea of author and artist Keri Smith, and cover up the labels with something creative!



Read this post for ideas.

Make Your Local Bookstore Work For You

Confession: It has long been my dream to work in a bookstore, and, if you're a writer, probably yours too.

Confession: This remains a dream, as I have taken virtually no steps to actually get hired, aside from sheepishly asking if the bookstore I am currently buying in large abundance from is hiring at the moment.

And so... how to make your local bookstore work for you, and not just about hiring either!

Hiring
The mainstream stores (Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc.) will most likely ask you to fill out an application which they will keep on hand should one of their workers leave. The odds of getting hired: Not very good.

But something I learned recently is that they will most likely take you much sooner if not immediately depending on your availability. Which does not equate good news for students like us.

Getting Published
You are no doubt aware of the 'self-help' section, and probably also aware that information on getting published, editors, and literary agents is scant. THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU GIVE UP. This means that you find the book you want online, go down to the store and request it with the service desk. They will have it shipped to the store and you can go and pick it up.

Literary Magazines
You've heard my spiel about Lit Mags before, but you maybe did not know this (or perhaps you did and I'm just very slow, because this only occurred to me recently): You know those stacks and racks of magazines the bookstore keeps in the corner, that, as a respectable reader you would never think of approaching?

Well.... they happen to have a section devoted to writers and literary magazines. What does this mean for you? Research! This means that more than likely they will carry a 'local' literary magazine, which you can then pick up, study, and submit to.

When You're Published... Increasing Your Circulation and Profits
This next bit may count as cheating, but it's a writer eat writer world out there, you know?

When you actually do get published, as in books, use this little hint to fool the statistics and increase your chances of being bought and read:

Call your local bookstore and say that you represent a book club interested in reading the book that you just had published! (But don't tell them it's you, the author; that would be silly). Ask that they order, say, 15 books to be delivered, give yourself a fake name, and then never go and pick them up. The bookstore is now forced to sell your books (tee hee).

You can also manually go into the store, pick up your books, and move them to a front display. It helps if they have 'discount' stickers on them (but, please, don't hope they do, because how demeaning is that?)


Any other helpful hints/tips?

Happy Singles Awareness Day!

Just a friendly reminder to all single -and taken!- people out there...


Just because it is Valentine's day gives you /no/ excuse to write corny, cliched poetry, whether they be of a sappy or emo-depressed theme.

Have a nice day!

Confessions - 2

And so my book is sent off to my contact, and now I wait.

Confession: It is perfectly fine to have maternal or paternal feelings towards your packaged book. Of course, if you are female I would, of course, recomment maternal feelings, and paternal for males, but if you wanted to break the mould and be a woman with paternal feelings, have at it and tell me about it.

So there I am, hugging my manila envelope stuffed tight with my work and injecting a good aura into and around it, which shall probably be dissipated as it travels among disgruntled mail workers.

But that is my confession.

Confessions -1

My school is having a film festival, and since I've dabbled in the art myself, I figured to give it a go. It helps that the alpha female of my social group, who seems to have a high opinion of me, is going to college to be a producer. I have the experience and the script-writing skills, she has the filming technique down, I have the editing equipment and dedication, so we're set, right?

Wrong.

We needed actors.

With a script already written and possible actors/actresses picked out, one of the people we were counting on flatly refused to do it.

We had to find someone else.

The person we chose I shall call Mark. He is an orbital of the inner social group, and nice enough. We asked him. I emailed him the script.

He approached me the next day and said (I nearly quote): "Yeah, yeah, I really liked it, but... would you like me to clean your script up for you?"



I stared at him for a second, then turned and called over my alpha female in a high, wavering, panic voice.

/Clean up/ my script?!

He apparently had a brief brush with film over the summer (shooting a very poorly-executed fight scene starring, ironically, the guy we originally cast for this part but who refused), and as such thought he could lend a vast ammount of expertise to the project.

We were offended, hid it, and told him no thank you.

In subsequent emails, it came out that he was a "self-titled 'good' writer" -which should send warning signals shooting through your head.

Writerly Rules of Ettiquette Number One: /NEVER/ call yourself 'good' unless you can do it honestly and with no self-consciousness and unless it has been proven that you /are/ good. No, your friends and family saying they liked it does not count.

If someone bluntly asks if you are good, always sidestep the question. It is incredibly rude and very amateurish to label yourself as anything praiseworthy. Let the readers decide for themselves if you are good or not.

To get back to my story, within the flurry of emails, he asked about my writing credits.

Here I sort of committed the cardinal sin I just described. I have been published. I have been highly praised by members of the elite writing world. I have attracted the interest and love of readers on several online sites. I am recognized in all my writing and english classes as a 'good' writer. Does this actually make me 'good'? Can any writer ever finally assume themselves 'good'?

Taking a chance, and assuming by his 'self-titling' that he was a mediocre to bad writer, I figured that there was a very good chance I was better than him (O! such mean and poor terms, O! such ego!) and explained in no uncertain terms the extent of my experience.

I do not take writing lightly, and I will not tolerate assaults on my authority. This is a personality/character flaw of mine, and I do not recommend you develop it, unless you eventually plan to be a Supreme Bitch On Wheels, as I later turned into.

And thus, this is my confession. Sometimes... you just have to call yourself good and believe in it, and completely crush the opposition. Sometimes you have to ridicule other wannabe writers in private while secretly sweating, terrified that you are one of them as well.

And you? What horrid ego-centered, writer-related things have you done, said, encountered?

25 Reasons to Keep Writing

Taken from Maya

25 Reasons to Keep Writing

1. Because sometimes metaphors work better than just words
2. Angst makes me feel alive
3. Impossible yearning is the most powerful feeling of all
4. Drugs are expensive
5. I like infinity, and combinations of letters are endless
6. Because I am a gateway to the Land of Unwritten Ideas
7. I like feeling important
8. I like laughing at typos
9. I want to remember everything
10. Because sometimes you just have to escape
11. Because sometimes no one can tell the story better
12. Characters are counting on me
13. Friends are counting on me
14. The what-ifs are more entertaining
15. Absolute omnipotence and power
16. There is nothing else
17. I’m bored
18. Keyboards make funny sounds
19. Dreams are more realistic anyway
20. To educate the world on the importance of cats over men
21. Everything sounds better in poetic format
22. Because being brainless is overrated
23. Cause people fear you easier
24. It helps with the loneliness
25. The electric possibility of getting it right, and the smaller, quiet beauty of almost.

So you wanna be a writer?

All right. It's time to buckle down and get on it.

Introduction to Publishing:

1) Write a good piece. Don't roll your eyes at me; this is a vital step. So far all we've talked about is the writing process. You should have that down by now. So don't forget this step.

2) Research. You want to start submitting your pieces. Okay. Where do you submit them? You should submit them to a literary magazine.

What literary magazine? How do I find out about literary magazines? You're in luck. I have a website for you: Click here!

the above is a comprehensive list of literary magazines that welcome submissions. Now we have to get into the tricky stuff.

Why research? you say. You should be able to find the 'submissions' page pretty easily on any literary magazine site. VERY CAREFULLY read their requirements. If you do not conform to what the magazine wants you to do, they will dismiss you as an idiot and you don't get published.

3) What is an SASE? An SASE is a Self-Adressed Stamped Envelope. You should include this in your literary package so if you are rejected they can send you a rejection letter. Also, if you want your manuscript back, you should include an SASE big enough to send it back in.

4) What is a cover letter? A cover letter is the very short and brief business letter that you put as the first page of your work. You can find out a lot about cover letters on the Internet, but to save you the trouble of searching through the flak, here are the ones I found helpful:

Cover letters in general:
Making Light
Sample Cover Letters

Poetry:
Poetry Submissions

Novels:
Novel Submisions

5) How do I format my work? I'm glad you asked. The correct way to do it is, first of all, put everything in font sized twelve, and a basic font. Times New Roman is preferrable. Next, center your title and put it in all capitals. Then push it all the way down to the middle of the page (this, apparently, leaves room for editor comments or something).



At the top of all of your pages should be a header. On the first page, make the header say your name, in the next two lines your address, then your phone number, and then your email address. This should all be left-aligned.



Still on the first page, right aligned -the amount of words your work is.



Next we move on to the other pages. The first problem you're going to encounter, if you're using Microsoft Word (This is the only kind of thing I'm an expert in, so if you have problems in other kinds of documents, you're on your own), is that the headers do not want to be different on different pages. You can easily fix this by double-clicking in the header, and a menu bar will pop up. Click on the icon that looks like an open book (it should be blue and white).



Then, when the new menu pops up, click on 'Different First Page'.



You may now go and edit the headers on the rest of your pages.

The headers on the rest of your pages should be right-aligned, with your name, then the page number, and on the next line the title of your story, in capitals.



You can make the header put in the pages automatically for you by, in the header menu, pressing the white page with the # sign on it.

Font in the headers should be the same as in the document, and the size should be 10, if you're using a 12 font.


Now for the finale -the ending.

There are multiple ways to signal that you are done with your piece. You can do this:







I don't know why these are acceptable signals for 'the end', but they are. Make sure they're centered.

Also, one final tip....

If you are including multiple pieces, you only need one cover letter, but you should put a blank piece of paper between submissions.

Also, if you are submitting poetry, there is no need to doublespace.

Hope this was helpful!

Published!

I return to you triumphant, for I have been published for the first time.

In May, I sent a personal narrative to this large, paper magazine my school got, called TeenInk. Usually I shy away from 'teen-focused' things, because they tend to be cory and silly, and who wants to be associated with that?

But I was desperate, and so sent off my article. Nothing happened. I figured it hadn't been accepted, so no big deal.

Then today, just after submitting professional articles to The Paris Review, I get a package in the mail, from TeenInk. I figure it's the free copy I requested that they /finally/ got around to sending, but there's also this letter in it, and the first line says 'Dear Published Contributor'....

After a lot of screaming and jumping around and feeling silly, I was able to calm down and realize that this is the first time I have been professionally published anywhere.

So this post is all about celebration.

You can read the article Here for the month of November.

Thank you, and goodnight.