Fay Risner's Blog (132)

Why am I interested? I write Amish fiction, and I’m on the list. After I self published I’ve always been on the lookout for free websites to promote my books. It was my worry that I’d write a book that doesn’t sell after I hired a firm to promote for me. What works for me might not be the way most authors publish and sell their book. I’ve put my books in different author sites and blog posts, thinking that might take longer than paid advertising, but I wouldn’t lose money. Besides, I can…

If you have a subscription to Good Old Days magazine watch for a story with my by line in the May/June issue. Last summer, I submitted a story which was a take off of a blog post about what my family did on Memorial Days in the 1950’s. You might be able to find the post in my blog so I won’t rerun it here. This is the 6th story the magazine has bought from me.

I’ve heard the old saying that we become our parents. I happen to be a combination of mine. My father was a delightful…

When I entered the November Novel writing site this week, I found a list of free contests. If you missed the November contest and would like to try writing a 50,000 word book in a different month, the contest will be held in June and September as well as November of next year. You can google search for the links.

The Amazon Break Through Novel contest is going to be open for submissions in mid January. I've entered that with no expectation of winning, but to be a contestant…

I’m back after missing a few Tuesday posts. My competitive side came out while I tried to prove to myself I could succeed at this contest. On Sunday, I pasted into the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) site what is to be my next book. I modestly put 51,900 words in my word estimate updater. The validater totaled 52,028 words. That puts me well over the 50,000 I needed. According to the site that makes me a winner along with most of the 36,000 plus other contestants.

Last year,…

I’ve been without an internet or phone for two days. As I’m writing this blog post, I have a connection but it keeps coming and going. Seems the wind gusting up to 50 miles an hour is interfering so I’m making this short.

I’ve always liked to read westerns and watch cowboy shows. Maybe because I was raised that way. In the fifties my parents took us to western movies in a vacant lot during the summer. We sat on hard benches on Saturday evenings and enjoyed every minute. Since westerns…

The results are in for a short story I entered this summer in White County Creative Writers Contests at Searcy, Arkansas. I was awarded sixth place for a version of the story I received second place for in an earlier contest. This time the story could only be 1500 words. That meant I had to do some drastic cutting and at the same time keep the basic story in tact. I managed to do just that, but I like the longer version better so that is my post for today. This story takes place during the…

I’m interviewing my mother-in-law about her early years. Why you might ask? Well, she’s going to turn 90 years old in a couple weeks. There is so much about her life that should be interesting to her grandchildren and great grandchilden since life today is so different from when she was born. We’re thankful that this woman is one sharp minded cookie and able to be a main stay in our lives as long as we can keep her with us. She has been dubbed Little Grandma because she’s an agile, healthy…

The winners up to sixth place are now out and online for the Arkansas Writers’ Conference contests at Little Rock, Arkansas.

I placed second in contest 25. Look What The Cat Dragged In. Title of my short story was The Unexpected Visitor. Guidelines for this entry - a short story and no word limit which is great for me. I know 2500 words is about the top limit for an entry, but I like it when I don’t have to watch the count close.

I’ve been entering this set of…