Lots in Play for the Rebels

All Rebs had updates at the October (held 11/1) meeting.

Mel is participating in the national Novel in Month challenge, to produce a short novel/novella of up to 50k words in the month of November.  She has also completed a short story and submitted it to the Bucks County Community College short fiction contest.  She has also been recognized as a writer to watch in a literary magazine.

Chris has submitted his crime-scene-cleaning thriller to a publisher, and is trying to promote sales of his novel Jane’s Baby.

Dave is working on a novel about the opioid epidemic, set in Western Pa.  He has also completed a short story and submitted it to the Bucks County Community College short fiction contest.  The group reviewed and critiqued the story, Mr. Argawal Is Not A Lonely Man.  Rebs offered a number of suggestions but gave the story thumbs-up.

John is significantly revising his murder mystery set in the 1980s in the Lambertville area.

Russ has responded to his entrée with Wild Rose Press to revise and resubmit his thriller Queen of the Bay.  He also has a full request from Champagne Books to submit his upmarket novel The Piedmont Harlots Club.  In addition, he has an invitation to edit and submit his Victorian literary novel Paper Wings to Green Writers Press.  He submitted the manuscript of his historic novel Soldiers of the Soil to the group for critique at the end-of-November meeting.

Other topics discussed:

• On platforms such as Bookbub, Robin Reads, BookGorilla authors can promote a published book for a fee but must also provide the books at a marked-down cost.
• Outlining can be a critically important first step for the novelist. Some take advantage of it and some don’t, and there many ways to outline or other ways to sketch out structure of a novel.
• Authors must exercise sensitivity in using characters from marginalized groups. This can be tricky.