All posts by NewEngland_Muse

I'm a traditionally and self published author. I write in the genre of children and YA at the moment but working my way up to adults. I'm a sports loving, photo taking gal who loves to sing/dance to my own enjoyment. I love to laugh even at myself. I am also owned by 8 birds and 2 hamsters, and yes they know it. :)
Birds, Family, Therapy Warriors

My Therapy Warriors

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Due to a recent surgery it is hard for me to sit up for long periods of time. So today I will be sharing some of my little therapy warriors with you all instead of a long post.

This is my sole finch Cosmos. Finches live anywhere between the ages of 5-8 years old or at least that is what I have been told. But when he lost his mate last year I was sure he would be gone within a few months if I did not replace her. Yet he is still among us and living at the ripe old age of 13.

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These are my keets, Cory and Snowball. I rescued them in May of 2011 when they were a year old.

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These are my tiels who have been my true therapy warriors over the years.

Twopiece is my first bird ever and he adopted me in 1998. I am not sure how old he was when I got him but he has been with us for close to 15 years old. He is my buddy.

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This is BJ and my sweetie pie. We got him when he was four months old in April of 1999.

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This is Angel, my feisty little man. He was also adopted when he was four months old a year after BJ came home.

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Nye is the son of Twopiece and Maxie. She came home with Twopiece in 1998 but we lost her a few years back. Nye is the perfect combination of his parents. He looks like his dad but has the girth of his mama.

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Most people know about my youngest child Jasper who was five when he came home with us in Oct of 1999

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Children's Market 2013, Publishers, Submitting

Submission Wolves

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2013-02-12 09.28.41

The process of submitting to traditional publishers is long and tedious. More so if you are a writer without an agent. This is the route I am approaching at the moment.  Last year I preordered the Writer’s Market for 2013 and recently added the Children’s Market 2013 to it. I started making a list of where I can submit my children’s book. The entries in this book has what each company is looking for and in some cases what they are not looking for.

I tend to check out each publisher online to give it a look over to double-check what they are saying in the book. Things change and perhaps what was written in the book is no longer accurate.  However I came across something that literally blew my mind

Just a note to all who are actively submitting. Please read the fine print.  I came across this:

By agreeing to review a submission, we do not assume any obligation to refrain from publishing a book based on a similar idea, concept, or story.

My first thought was what the hell are you kidding me? Mind you my grammar can use some work but it seems a company can turn down a writer’s MS but yet use that idea to make one of their own. Writing on my FB page I wrote what I had discovered. Like myself similar authors were blown away that this was listed.  As much work as it takes to get a book written, edited, polished, beta tested and submitted someone can swoop down and take our ideas? How is this fair? I tell you it is not fair at least to me it isn’t.

Needless to say I won’t be submitting my books to this company I can’t take the chance. But it is a good lesson for all of us to read every thing before sending off your baby, aka MS, to the wolves for them to decide if they want it or not. If you need to copyrrite your work then do so. But please please please do your homework and if something seems fishy walk away.

ebooks, Short Stories, Writings

Short Stories

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2013-02-04 08.49.23

I am a sucker for short stories, love reading and writing them. Most of my stories come from writing prompts. Two of which have been published in an anthology of short stories. That made me puff my chest out a little. But after that I did not think much of what else I had written.

It was not until I reviewed quite a number of ebooks that were collections of short stories that I thought hmm why not? I knew over the years I’ve written a number of them. There was bound to be enough to make a collection that I could self publish.

Gathering my stories together I made a chart. The sheet showed me if the stories were finished, typed, edited and the word count. Then my notebooks came out and the stories found inside were placed on the sheet. The list started to grow until I had to go to page two and make my way down. Whether they were completed made no different. I needed to know what I had written and what state they were currently in. After completely exhausting all my journals I counted and saw I had well over 50 in number. I was floored. Completely.

I sent 17 to my editor to do her magic while I thought of a plan. From the books I had reviewed most of them did not have a major theme that flowed between the stories. The length varied some had just a page while others had up to four in length. I decided to place them with a theme related. This is just me.  But the questions have begun to pile up. How many do I put per book? How long should each one be? What kind of cover should I get for each one? How much can I charge for these?

I am afraid if I think on it much longer more questions will pop up. This is all new territory for me. Each anthology is different and has no specific check off list to follow from what I have seen. It is probably author’s preference how it is done.

Even with the work that is involved in going forward I am rather excited to try this new aspect of getting my writings out there. I have scold myself already for adding more work to my plate. The projects that are already there are tugging at my brain yelling, “We were here first darn it work on us.”  Their right. But yet here I am looking at the other short stories I have to finish, type and get edited. This just gets me going mentally. It would be nice to have them all done and ready to go out into the world. Whether that be for self publication or for a contest it does not matter at least to me.

My written words keep interrupting my thoughts they must not be denied.