Free Download and Reasons your Submissions are Rejected

This month in celebration of it's 5th year, Two-Lane Livin' is offering free downloads of their September 2012 issue. Click here to down load your free copy! I have been a columnist at Two-Lane Livin' for three years!

I am anxious to become a published children's author, but for right now I write a column for children and my words are printed on 17,000 copies every month! It reaches over 45,000 monthly readers in 17 counties.

I hope you take a minute and download this month's complimentary copy and enjoy reading it.

They are also online. Click to their site on my sidebar and take a look around. In addition to columns, they also post clicks to their columnists blog posts. There is a search button at the top of their page. Type in Fun Facts for Kids and all my past columns will come up.   If you type my name, my past columns and blog posts will come up.

In addition to everything else happening around the house this summer, I'm still working on my manuscripts. I've been making changes to some of my picture books, in addition to editing my MG manuscript that I just finished.

Here is a link to The Blood Red Pencil to an old article about 25 reasons your submissions are rejected.
Among those 25 reasons are:
Opened with rhetorical question(s)
Took too long for anything to happen (a critique, incidentally, leveled several times at a submission after only the first paragraph had been read!)
The opening contained the phrases, "My name is..." and/or "My age is..."

Reasons for them to read beyond page one:
a non-average character in a situation you wouldn't expect.
An action scene that felt like it was happening in real time
The voice is strong and easy to relate to.
"Good opening line."

I just listed a few, go to the link and read on. But then be sure to come back and leave a comment.

And who was it that said "writing is easy."

posted by Janet F. Smart on Creative Writing in the Blackberry Patch