When TV Visits Your City

On CBS's TV program, Criminal Minds, Wednesday's episode featured Nashville. This is the first time I remember ever seeing my city featured. In Criminal Minds, the location is almost a sub character of the program. Although, I usually only pay attention enough to understand the plot.
My husband and I watched fascinated as they displayed GPS maps and showcased vignettes of famous locations in Nashville. The opening scene indicating they had flown into Nashville was Riverfront Park. My husband saw the Ryman Auditorium. We have visited Cheekwood Botanical Gardens. Mention was made of the Green Hills Mall where my husband had his last pair of glasses made. It added a new dimension to the story.
Because Criminal Minds deals with seriously demented individuals, it was a little creepy. But it's not reality. Of course as a writer, I am very familiar with the disclosure of fictional works. "This is a work of fiction. etc..."
Bottom Line - It was neat to see them get it right. A reminder to us writers to take the time to do our research. It's important to our readers. It was to this TV viewer.
Leann Holland

Tragedy Within My Community

Suicide has touched my community again. Last year, an older prominent businessman and pastor committed suicide after he was caught cheating. This year a young business man committed suicide. For me, this one is harder to understand. His reasons seem more vague. I like how a local poet expressed it.
Here’s the link to her poem:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HSstorymomma

Story ideas do not always come out of the nicest events. I like to get the bare bones for my stories from reality then form the details in my imagination, letting all the what if’s drift through my consciousness. As the story develops, I enjoy the creative process.


Blessings,

Leann Holland

Great Thanksgiving Weekend

We live a long way away from our extended family. I haven’t been “home” for Thanksgiving since my pregnancy with my first child that was thirteen years ago. My children get really upset when I refer to my childhood home as home. They are all native Tennesseans.

Friends invited us over for a great meal and fellowship. The kids had a great time playing with friends. I ate too much as usual, but I don’t think I was anywhere near the average American. According to the national news, they broadcasted a statistic a few days before Thanksgiving. The average American eats 4500 calories on Thanksgiving day. WOW! I hope I didn’t eat that much.

Black Friday - I didn’t feel real good, too much sugar, I suspect. I got a late start. I just don’t understand the fun of joining hundreds maybe thousands of others shoving and waiting for a few dollars off. Now, that said, I did hit the tail end of the sale time (arrival time 10:30am) hoping to pick up some deals. I found some and was very happy. I was amazed at how much was still available at the cut off time and later at several stores I attended. I will confess that I didn’t make it into the mall. I drove around it for ten or fifteen minutes fighting traffic and gave up. I was good, no budget busters in my cart this year. Finish my planned Christmas shopping about two then began my grocery shopping and was home before dark. Yah!!!

Saturday was a planned day of rest. But it turned out so gorgeous, we just had to go to the park to play. The picture at the top of this entry is my children at Percy Warner Park in Nashville, TN. Words do not do the day justice. Arrived home contented.

Awoke Sunday morning to a bright sunshiny day, I made plans to work in my garden. Before I could make it outside, the clouds and drizzle arrived. I didn’t let it hamper my desire so I raked up pine needles for the pathways between my raised garden beds. It made me feel like I had accomplished something. Tomorrow, however, I am not sure I am going to be able to move.

Hope you had a great holiday weekend.

Blessings,


Leann Holland

I'm back

At first life's general rush got in the way. It was fun activities like my youngest child playing flag football, our anniversary, my in laws visiting from out of state, then my out of state family came for a visit.

Then the writing got in the way of updating the blog. I have submitted to Woman's World again, October. Then this week saw my first submission to True Romance. I have a submission about 95% ready for Country Woman, just need to do final edit. (yes, I thought you needed the attention first.) There are two first drafts of stories for True story and one Woman's World sitting on my desk. Of course, my young adult novel is screaming for another round of writing. I have written twenty five hundred words on it in the past month.

I have finally found my ability to write longer short stories. For the first time, I'm not doubting myself on writing the novel length stories floating around in my head.

Thank you Trues for challenging me.

Leann Holland

Received A Self Address Stamped Envelope Today

Good news or bad from Woman's World magazine? Take a guess.

It's hard to get mad when the rejection comes with phrases like "This is cute." This last rejection started with "This is a sweet story." The next word sums up the problem "but." She liked this last rejected story so much that she wrote, "but you might successfully submit this elsewhere." But where? I asked myself. I searched for a couple of hours, not finding other publishers of such short stories.

Back to the drawing board(or more accurately the keyboard.) Think I am going to focus on my contest writing for a while.

Leann Holland

Busy Week

School started for everyone around here. Since we homeschool year around, it is nothing new for us. But meetings for mom, program for the kids started this week.

My favorite this week was my writers group. It is totally selfish. And probably only thing I do strictly for me all month.

A fellow writer had gone to the Killer Nashville, a mystery writers conference, I understand. She brought back info on several ebook small presses. Most did seem to cater to the romance genres, which isn't a problem for me. About half of want I want to write is romance.

The one I liked the best was Wild Rose and their Christian counter part White Rose Publishing. White Rose is currently holding a contest.
http://www.whiterosepublishing.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/175-hearts-crossing-short-story-contest.html

I have decided to be crazy and try to write something. I need to write about 700 words a day to still have some time to edit. But I am already at least a 1000 words behind. I keep finding things that "need" to be done.

Blessings,

Leann Holland

Woman World's Magazine

I have been writing short stories and submitting them to Woman's World Magazine. The stories are upbeat 800 words romances. I have received three rejections in the forty five days. I hesitate to share this information. But to be honest I am in good company. WW publishes only 52 stories a year. I belong to a WW yahoo group. We have 172 members, many are book authors, teachers of writing, editors. You get the picture very talented writers. If each of us only submitted one a year that still leaves 12o of us out in the cold, assuming that everyone who submits is part of our group. I have heard the statistic 1 in 12. Most authors write twelve stories to get one accepted.

6 rejections: 2 outstanding.

Little over half way. Tough odds. But I am going to stick to it. It took one writer three years. I'll keep you posted.

Leann Holland

Welcome!

Welcome to the first entry of my blog. This is my second blog. This is under my pen name where I am hoping to be to share my adventures, especially in the writing arena.

I have wanted to write since I was fourteen years old. I wanted to write about life in a way that I hadn't experienced yet. So, I went out lived my life. Now, here in that dreaded age period, known as middle age, I feel ready to share my experiences through my writing. Using a pen name to protect the innocents in my life. I like to start with half truths as the jumping off point and then write what ifs.

Thank you for joining me.

Leann Holland