Website is live and Calls for Writings!

My new website is live! We are up and running and it looks so nice! I just know you guys are going to love it.

The home page is www.PenTheDream.com but I’m here with you today to share with you my latest blog post there.

Submission Call Saturday is a feature I’ve been running for a few weeks there under my “Writer’s Resources” Blog. Well, it’s Saturday, so here’s the latest post!

http://penthedream.com/index.php/writer-resources/entry/submission-call-saturday-2-14-15

Two new calls every week from publishers looking for submissions. That’s the idea here. One publisher will be a romance niche. The other will be in any other genre. Since most of the other genre publishers usually accept everything except romance, this ends up working out nicely. From horror, Sci/fi, Speculative, SteamPunk, Fantasy and combinations, I probably have something you can use.

I am also trying to vary lengths of works for calls from 250 word flash up to novel sized writings. There’s a publisher out there. Hopefully I can help you find them!

Until next time…

~Keep Writing!

Submission Call Saturday 1/24/15

Evening everyone!

A little late in the day for me to get this up finally, but you know what they say about life, right? Anyways, here’s a couple FREE listings that I’ve found today. The normal “check into the fine details” speech applies. Good luck everyone and here ya go!

Romance:

Totally Bound Publishing has a call for a new anthology call out! BDSM – Spanking 10-15k required word count. M/F

Submission Calls

Dom/sub

relationships. Due Date: March 1st. Paying Royalties. For further information click right here!

Other Genre:

Flash Fiction Online is an online website that is devoted almost solely to the publication of flash fiction. For those of you that have short story writing in the bag, you may want to have a look at this awesome site. Accepting Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Literary Fiction flash fiction at 500-1000 words. Pay is $60 per story and turn around time is 2-10 weeks. For more info, including a list of hard sales and other goodies they’ve out together for writers looking to submit, click here!

Good Luck everyone! Until next time…

~Keep Writing!

Submission call Saturday 1/17/15

Morning everyone!

Here are your two freebie listings for new publishers or calls for submission. Again, I have not worked with most of these companies. I am not recommending these companies. I simply find their calls and pass them on. If you choose to respond to the call, I suggest you do your own research to see if the publishing house will work for you.

Submission Calls

Romance:

Hot Ink Press has THREE listings for calls on their submission webpage! Writings from 2k-25k for specific themed anthologies, and due dates sitting at March 31st, May 31st, and July 1st. For more information and to go straight to their submissions page, click here.

Other Genre:

T. Gene Davis Speculative Blog has been publishing 1 story a week on their blog for over a year, has almost 18,000 followers and is looking for horror, sci-fi, or fantasy. A payment rate of $75 for stories 250 words to 6k through Paypal and decisions within 60 days. For more information click here.

Good Luck everyone! And until next time…

~Keep Writing!

It’s Freelance Friday! 1/16/15

Welcome everyone to another addition of Freelance Friday!

I decided to post today’s work “research” early because I know I get caught up in it, and I believe last week it wasn’t until LATE when I finally posted something.

This is Morrigan. Isn’t she sexy! I love how the artists have represented her. Snarky little thing, too! And a powerful Mage!

For those of you unfamiliar with PC games and such, this is a game called Dragon Age: Origins, produced by BioWare and EA games.

My Freelance Project has us studying a multitude of characters to create a new book to go along with the Dragon Age role-playing tabletop game. This book will be put together by Green Ronin Publishing and will help tabletop players add some of the more notable NPC’s of the PC version into their game.

I am so honored to be working on this assignment and I can’t wait to see the whole book in its entirety.

Keep up with me on deadlines, game play, and whatever else will be involved with me here and eventually on http://www.penthedream.com when the site goes live!

Until next time…

~Keep Writing!

Website changes – progress update

Morning everyone!

Just a quick update on the status of http://www.penthedream.com.

It’s been an interesting two weeks and the site is finally becoming what I wanted it to be all along! I’m super excited that I have the chance to work with a totally fabulous lady from the UK, Jodee Peevor, on the redesign. I’ve learned so much with her help and can’t wait to show off all our hard work to all of you!

There’s only a few more things that will need to be added. I’m hoping that by this time next week, the new site will be LIVE. Right now, following the link will still take you to the old site, but I promise new things are a coming! The design is crisp, clean, and well… sexy, if I do say so myself.

The classes that I offer are much easier to navigate, and the set up is much like an online college class! (Very professional, but extremely easy to navigate and keep track of.) Running LIVE classes is actually possible without all the hassle of trying to do it like I was. There are two categories for classes at the moment, Basic Writing and Genre Specific. Can’t wait to get more added for you!

Finally, a quick update on writing. I finished 1st and 2nd round edits for my piece that was accepted at the beginning of January and the story looks great! I’m so excited for this anthology to be coming out in March. Hopefully, I’ll be able to work with this publisher again soon, as they were so amazing to work with!

Well, back to my freelance writing now, and possibly another submission by the 20th. Still bouncing around an idea and haven’t had a stoke of genius moment yet. Perhaps it will come before the 2 day deadline like the last one did.. lol.

Until Next Time…

~Keep Writing!

Money Monday! 1/12

With a start of a new year, it’s always important to reflect upon last year. Not only your acceptances, publications, and exposure, but the money aspect as well. Especially with TAX season rolling in.

This is my second year claiming my writing as a business, and I’m happy to announce that I’ve brought in SIX times more than I did last year. And I only spent 1 dollar more in expenses. (Not sure how I did that $1 more, but I love it!)

So what exactly does that mean…

Here’s some figures…

My first year writing, I had six books published during 2013. However, I received NO payment on two of those books that year based off of their release date. Pretty much anything published in the fourth quarter you won’t get paid for until Jan the following year.

1 was in an anthology that has a decent number of authors contributing and was based off royalties. Needless to say the more authors, the less royalties you receive.

My YA novella wasn’t marketed well upon release, and has never really been noticed. Because of minimum royalties from publishing houses before they’ll pay, I’ve yet to receive payment on that one.

Last year, I brought home an exciting $40 in royalties. (Honesty is crazy isn’t it.)

This year… I started receiving royalties on the later published books. I’ve sold three stories outright. And continued receiving royalties on 2013 books. Total royalties for 2014 $244.

This year, I already have three releases scheduled. And have just recently picked up a large Freelance project. IF I can do what i did last year, I should get a minimum of $1464. But… I get better every year! So if I account for that… My goal is a minimum of $2,000.

Still not enough to live off of, and I’ve eternally thankful for my supporting husband. But… I will get there!

Are you joining me on this ride? Until next time…

~Keep Writing!

P.s. Don’t forget… I’ll be changing blog sites by the end of the month. So, keep a watch to find the new link and keep up with me there.

Submission Call Saturday 1/10

It’s Saturday! And to get you your creative juices flowing here’s two freebie calls for you.

Romance :

Satin Romance, an imprint of Melange Books, LLC, is putting together an anthology based around the theme of Marriage proposals. http://www.satinromance.com/subs.html#

Required story Length: 15k-25k

Due: March 1st, 2015

Payment: Royalties

Other Genres:

Daily science Fiction Webzine is looking for flash fiction pieces to enhance their site. http://dailysciencefiction.com/submit/story/guidelines

Required Story Length: Under 1,500 words

Due: Ongoing submissions

Payment: .08/word

Good Luck everyone! And Until Next Time…

Keep Writing!

#Freelance Friday! 1/9

Evening everyone!

Well it’s technically late morning here for me, but I’ve been slam packed busy with research for my freelance project I’m working on!

Here’s just a snippet of the type of “research” I’ve had to do today… I Love My Job!

Yep. A freelance project that incorporates characters from a computer game requires research of those characters. I love that I get to call my gaming “Research!”

Until Next Time…

Keep Writing!

New Year, New Goals, and New Interface

Hello all my friends.

It’s been a while since I’ve last chatted with you, but I needed the break to get some clarity. And I can proudly say, I found it!

So, this is what’s coming up.

I’ve already received my first Freelance assignment and am working steadily on that, my contract should be arriving this week, and I’m so excited to start this new portion of my writing career!

Aside from that, I’ve also already had a new contract come in this month with a new publisher from Australia. It’s another anthology inclusion and the theme was musicals. Brilliant! As I’ve grown up with in a house that thrived on musicals, dinner theaters and the likes, I was jazzed about submitting, and I guess the writing showed it. It was accepted.

I’ve also already wrote, edited, and submitted another short anthology “essay”. This was a non-fiction piece, my first ever subbed. I felt really well while I wrote it, and hopefully I should know back from them soon as well. The final day for submissions is Jan. 15th, and I’ve already heard back from the company saying they received it but won’t be reading any stories until after the deadline. (Completely understandable. I’m just utterly shocked that I turned it in twelve days before the deadline. That’s a first as well.) They do however expect to have their decisions made by the beginning of February.

I’ve also resubmitted a flash fiction romance piece to a magazine that I subbed to back in May of last year. As per their guidelines, if we hadn’t heard anything in six months, we could resubmit. I waited seven, then decided I couldn’t wait any more. If I get accepted by this magazine for my flash fiction piece… well let’s just say that it’s a magazine that EVERYONE in the US sees at checkout stands everyday! Needless to say it would boost my writing confidence immensely.

Beyond actual writing, something coming up that will affect you here is that I’ve decided to simplify my online presence. In just a couple of weeks, I will have an entirely NEW website. Blog posts that are normally posted here, will be posted on that site. I will post them in both places for a month with a reminder and link to the new site. By March 2015, this blog will go silent.

So much more is being added on my other site. Dedicated days such as #ManicMondays (a day in the life of writing), #TimeonTaskTuesdays – 30 min updates to get the flow going and how you can improve your time management. There will also be a #FreelanceFriday session where there may be screenshots of my current projects and a #7lineSunday where I will share seven lines from a new writing or work in progress.

But that’s just the beginning and my own personal writing life. Under “Writing Resources” there will also be dedicated days of things just for authors. #SubmissionCallSaturday I feel will probably be my biggest hit and one that I am most eager to present, but there will also be other posts on contracts, self-pubbing, and most importantly THE MONEY!

So, I hope we can stay connected and I’ll let you know when it’s all up and running. Until then, I’ll be back to post more soon.

Keep Writing!

Lisa A. Adams

Breaking down the BIG goals…

A couple of days ago, I asked you guys to think ahead. What so you want to accomplish five years from now? What are you BIG goals? I’m going to say these are my long-term goals. I understand that five years may not sound like a long time for some. But, for me, I know what’s coming in the next five years in my life (to some degree) and it will cause massive changes. For instance, in five years, I will have two of my five children out the house and the other three will all be in high school. That is going to change my life drastically, so some of my goals will change as well.

One of my long-term goals was I want to be able to make $100,000 a year by being a writer. Yep, BIG goal. HUGE, actually but you have to understand that this is my goal. And I WILL get there. (It’s the Determination part of me. I want to bring my husband home from his stressful job and I WILL.)

Next I have to look at what all that entails. How can I MEASURE that to make sure that will meet that goal?

If we choose monetarily… we could easily calculate backwards and say that in four years I’ll be making $80k, In three $60k, in two $40k and so on. So, now I have my goals set up as monetary stepping stone to check myself by at the end of each year.

But that doesn’t help me with the “HOW am I going to make this money?” Now comes the fun part…

Take out a sheet of paper and smack dab n the middle of it all put the word “AUTHOR.” Now, we are going to brainstorm. Just remember, that although an author’s MAIN job is to write and create amazing new stories, there are other things that writers can do as well.

Actually Teaching Writing. Boom! More income streams.

How about getting booked to speak at other writing groups about your journey? Yep.. totally doable.

Then there’s the writing itself: academic journals, blogging, magazines, anthologies, novels, poetry, online magazines and websites, freelancing, self-publishing, scripts (YES, HOLLYWOOD!), music, and gaming industries, just to name a few.

And those are just the kinds of writing, we won’t even go into genres here. Don’t let yourself get pinned down into one thing… grow your writing wings by exploring many genres and publishing options.

So, create your BRAINSTORM! Figure out all the different ways YOU would be willing to TRY to bring in that money. Teaching totally works for me, as I am a certified teacher. It doesn’t bother me to get up in front of people and talk. (Though it did when I started. Overcome that fear. You CAN do it!)

START NOW! Break down your Big dream into medium milestone markers. Next time we’ll cut it down even further into short-term goals. These will be done in daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly goals so that you hit those medium term goals and can gauge that you are on your way to completing that LONG term, BIG goal.

Until Next time ~ Keep Dreaming!

~Lisa A. Adams