Things, they are a'changin'
By Trish MilburnMore than three years ago, the members of the Wet Noodle Posse, the majority of whom were unpublished at the time, decided to start an e-zine for women. It was the brainchild of Noodler Colleen Gleason, and she came to me since I have a background in journalism. We added a couple more people to the brainstorming, then took the idea to the entire group, who responded with enthusiasm. It was part author promotion -- for those who'd already sold their books and those who hoped to build name recognition prior to selling -- and part supportive and interesting content for women of all backgrounds, writers or not. We've had articles on everything from travel destinations to recipes to ways to improve your daily living. We've enjoyed bringing readers the e-zine each month, so it's with a bit of sadness that we announce that our December 2007 issue will be our last. As you might expect, it takes a lot of time and effort to put out a quality e-zine with several articles each month. And since that launch day in 2004, many more of our members have sold books and now have pressing deadlines. In fact, from this group of writers who were all unpublished in 2003 when we all finaled in RWA's Golden Heart contest, there are now 138 books published or contracted. That's amazing! That group of contracted writers includes myself, editor of the e-zine since its inception, and Esri Rose, the co-editor and newsletter blurb writer extraordinaire. We no longer have the time to devote to creating the quality product we insist on putting out there.
But never fear! The Web site isn't going anywhere -- www.wetnoodleposse.com will remain online with its extensive article archives. So if you've missed some of the issues over the past few years, now is a great opportunity to catch up. Plus, we'll occasionally be rerunning content from past e-zine issues on our blog, which will still be active. In fact, our blog is now going to be our main focus. We're redirecting the focus to writers since we had such wonderful success with our Golden Heart preparation themed month in October and early November. Beginning in December, we're going to have a theme each month. To kick off, we're going to have Call Stories next month -- stories of how published Noodlers found out they'd sold their first books or accounts of the day when they got the call that they were a Golden Heart finalist. Let me tell you, both are very exciting to a hard-working writer. And Call stories are always inspirational to those in the trenches, whether they've sold already or not.
Here's a sneak peak at what we have planned for 2008:
January -- Getting Started (goals, choosing your story idea, focusing, etc.)
February -- Character Development
March -- Plotting
April -- Conflict
May -- Research
June -- The Business Side of Writing
July -- Prepping for Conference (information on preparing to attend the RWA National Conference plus some info on preparing for smaller, local and regional conferences)
August -- Inspiration (for your stories and for yourself)
September -- Writer Health
October -- Preparing to Enter the Golden Heart (after all, the GH is what brought the Noodlers together)
November -- Writing Challenges (National Novel Writing Month, book-in-a-week, Club 100, turning off the internal editor, etc.)
December -- Editing/Revisions
As you can see, we've got a lot of great information coming in the new year. So be sure to bookmark our blog at http://wetnoodleposse.blogspot.com and come back each day to see what nuggets of writerly wisdom the Noodlers have to share. And be sure to bring your friends!
Labels: e-zine, Noodler Blog Schedule
posted by Trish Milburn @ 9:17 AM
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