I was asked to write a post on the topic: How do I know when a story is ready for submission? My fine writing friends over at the 5Writers blog posted my response. You can read it here. #guestpost #5writers #blog #submission #story #fiction

Yes, I intentionally provided you with a provocative headline in order to get you to read. Haha! Really though, we are almost half-way through July and I’ve yet to offer a single blog post? Yeesh! I just wrapped up teaching two six-week writing classes: Legacy Writing and Fiction Writing Basics. I had a blast. I met some great fledgling writers. I really enjoyed teaching the subject matter. But, man, did it zap me, as far as having energy for my own writing. That changes, rig

<img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-893" class="size-medium wp-image-893 lazyload" title="396749_308593349181782_1300271794_n" src="https://ericswyatt.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/396749_308593349181782_1300271794_n.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="235" /> Belinda Nicoll (center) is a Queen's University of Charlotte, MFA graduate. She is writing a serialized account of her MFA experience and sharing it on her blog. Here, Belinda is pictured with our friend and fello

<img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-885" class="size-full wp-image-885 lazyload" title="Human-Directionals3" src="https://ericswyatt.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/human-directionals3.jpg" alt="" width="252" height="216" /> Human directionals, or, sign spinners, can cause you to notice a new business or alert you to a change in an established business...when they aren't texting, talking on the phone, or using the advertising sign as a sun bonnet. Sign spinners make me laug

Yes, it’s been a while since I created a new installment of my video blog series, The Three Minute Writer, but if you’ve been thinking to yourself, I really wish I could find all of those video blogs that Eric did in ONE PLACE (besides, you know, YOUTUBE) have I got good news for you: My Thumbtack profile (where I advertise one-on-one and small group writing instruction in the Bradenton/Sarasota/Tampa area) features links to all the Three Minute Writer videos. If you’ve misse

Sometime during the day, yesterday, my blog had it’s 20,000 visit… Yes, there are blogs that receive that many visits every week. Some every day. The Really Big Boys probably pull in 20,000 hits in an hour sometimes. I get it. I’m still small potatoes. But, for me, this was a big milestone. It took me 20 months to get my first 10,000 visits logged. (Yes. I’m a writer, but I’m also pretty good with math. I DO KNOW what that WORKS OUT TO.) It only took about four and a half mon

Things have been quiet. I know it. I am at my graduating residency and I’ve not had a chance to blog, or respond to emails, or post comments. We will return to regular programming soon. I am reading from my short story collection in less than an hour. I must be off!!! Happy Writing! #blog #graduation #mfa #queens

Oh, the “top of the year” lists abound, so why not add one to it. So here, for your reading pleasure, the top blog posts for Stories I Read, Stories I Tell for 2011! The absolute, number one, all-time greatest hits blog post of my blogging career goes to: To MFA or NOT?. This little thought exercise about the value of pursuing an MFA has been linked to and re-blogged and sparked all sorts of conversation, both in the comments box and via email exchanges. It’s the sort of post

This one of those, “I hate to say it” posts. But, I will. I am taking a blogging break. If you are a subscriber to this blog (and if you are, THANK YOU) you know that the last two weeks have been sort of bare bones around here, and this week, the silence has lingered. The truth is, I have two major deadlines looming, and I’ve been negligent in getting ahead of the game. I drafted a schedule that would put me across the finish line with plenty of time to spare, but the reality

A couple of big THANK YOUS going out today. First, to those of you who read this blog, and especially those of you who have clicked on the “subscribe” link on the right hand side, there. What an incredible month you helped me have in October. My monthly blog traffic for October was THREE TIMES greater than my highest previous month. The number of comments and emails I received last month was also through the roof, and my “subscribed” users have more than tripled. Thank you, t

The last few weeks I’ve seen a really encouraging growth of blog traffic. That’s really nice. Along with higher traffic comes more frequent “spam” comments. So far, the WordPress built-in spam catcher has done a nice job of keeping the comments out of the public eye. (I have it set so that any first-time commenter has to be approved by me.) The comments that are identified as “likely spam” end up in a spam folder, and I check them from time to time, just to be sure some legit

Regular readers know, one of my goals the last year or so has been to be more consistent with adding content to this blog. My goal has been three to five new posts each week, with a mixture of topics for fiction writers (craft/process/social media/review/etc.) In order to keep up a steady pace, a blog writer has to (in my opinion) write about that things that they are passionate about. In order to have a growing reader base, a blog writer has to (this is NOT opinion, it’s a u

As of this week, I’ve recorded and shared FIVE installments of my video blog series, The Three Minute Writer. I’ve listed the five episodes below, in case you are interested. Editor vs. Writer Writing Process Writing Prompts, What Are They Good For Social Networking and the Writer Don’t Idealize Yourself Out of the Writing Life Thanks for reading! #process #writingprompts #writers #blog #video #editing #fiction

My friend and Social Media guru, Ken Mueller, posted a light and humorous look at the “behind the scenes” reality of his blog’s traffic yesterday. As bloggers look at the statistics of our blogs, we can see the search terms (from Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc) that people used to find our little sliver of the internet pie. Most search terms are fairly obvious, but sometimes, folks find a blog while looking for some strange things. Now, my blog is certainly not as popular as the In

[su_youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98sWW0tMdTQ”] Here’s the latest installment of The Three Minute Writer – Social Networking for Writers. Enjoy, and Happy Writing! #networking #writers #blog #socialmedia #video

So, here’s what I see when I look at my all-time blog stats: <img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-382" class="size-full wp-image-382 lazyload" title="Screen Shot 2011-08-16 at 5.10.48 PM" src="https://ericswyatt.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/screen-shot-2011-08-16-at-5-10-48-pm.png" alt="Blog data screen shot" width="500" height="241" /> This is a screen shot of the WordPress stats for my blog. Dorothy Parker and James Thurber are cleaning up... I’m closing in on 10,000 pa

It all started with Ken Mueller of Inkling Media. (If you know Ken, you can imagine several ways that sentence makes sense…) Ken wrote an interesting post on his blog about having one of his blog posts stolen, word for word, and reprinted, without attribution (or, obviously, permission). Ken does a nice job of laying out some strategies for keeping this from happening (you should read his blog), but the bottom line is this: The things we write are more and more available to b

So, it’s Friday. (Friday. Gotta get down on Friday.) Twitter has a Follow Friday “tradition” where you list the people you follow who have the most interesting, useful, funny, or otherwise engaging Tweets, so your friends can follow that person, too. It is a sort of mini-endorsement, if you will, and it is an interesting way to help others broaden their networks and spheres of influence. In the spirit of Follow Friday, I thought I might highlight some online friends and folks

January has tied the highest traffic month for this blog. It is amazing how many more readers you get when you actually POST something. 🙂 Of course, my most-read posts continue to be the posts on Flannery O’Connor, James Thurber, and Dorothy Parker, but you take the traffic you are given. Happy February everyone… #readers #stats #thurber #posting #OConnor #blog #dorothyparker #blogtraffic #increase