Closed for business--come visit us at our new location!

Yes, I know I just moved everything over to WordPress, but when I was experimenting around recently, I realized that I could open a blog that had a much shorter name: my own. So, I'm transferring my blog (again) over to mlawrencekey.wordpress.com. See--isn't that easier to remember (and type) than furtherupandfurtherinajourneyofwritingandlife.wordpress.com?

From now on, look for my blog there. I'll be shutting down my former Blogger and WordPress blogs over the next few days and sending out messages on all my social networking sites where you can find me at the new location. As always the welcome mat is out and I hope you'll pay me a visit!

Moving to a new neighborhood

I've decided to move my blog over to WordPress and I'll be updating all my links to reflect this. I like the interface for WordPress much better (at least for now--we'll see if that changes), so for the time being, you can find me over here. 

Welcome, and keep visiting! 

Good feedback

I'm getting some great feedback from the members of Review Fuse for the passel of stories I've posted there so far. I've only put up stories that, for one reason or another, haven't been published anywhere yet. 

Some of them have never been sent anywhere, while others have been rejected a few times from various markets. In all cases, the feedback and reviews I got there have helped me a ton knowing how to edit the stories. Thanks, guys! 

Hopefully, over the next few months, I'll be able to get to them one by one, edit them, and then start submitting them to different markets. I'll post here on how that process goes. 

My problem with TV and computer games

I'm a writer. But I'm also an ESL teacher in a cultural center. I'm also a husband and the father of four--soon to be five--kids. As you can imagine, I don't just have tons of spare time. I honestly like watching TV (though not just anything--I have several favorite shows--some canceled, some not), and I like playing Wii and computer games.

But I can't do it all.  Something has to go. 

If I want to get a lot done, writing-wise, then I can't play games and watch TV, pretty much (okay, maybe just a little). 

If I want to get some time with my wife to sit down and watch one of our favorite TV shows together or play a Wii game with my son, then it means that my writing time has to go. 

Am I trying to be dogmatic? Nope. Just practical. If I'm serious about writing and being productive, then it means over the course of my lifetime, I'm going to be watching fewer TV shows and playing fewer games than I might have otherwise. 

It means I'll be less "entertained," but in the end, I'll have something to show for those hours. 

Not that I don't sometimes close the laptop and choose otherwise. But it's a conscious choice, and I know what it means, and what it costs. 

Yet, that choice is often the right one, as it means time with my wife or son. So that's good, too. 

In other words, balance. The trick is, learning how to strike it, knowing that there is an appropriate amount of time for everything, and not getting sucked into the black hole of entertainment (which is sooo easy when you're tired) and being disciplined to sit down and write. 

No words needed...

"Hawa Died Last Week" Online Now

My short story "Hawa Died Last Week" is online now at Harûah Magazine. It should be appearing in their print edition later on. You can also leave comments about the story, if you want, at the Harûah blog thread for the story.

Thanks for your support!

Kids and Writing and Life

Just in case anyone out there is wondering: yes, I have four kids, and yes, I write (though not for a full-time living). And sometimes, I have to multitask.

Case in point: this morning. While my wife was out visiting a friend, I stayed home and supervised their school work. I parked myself at the dining room table with my laptop and kept them on task (more or less) with their various school assignments. I realized a long time ago that I most likely will never be the type of writer who has a big office that he goes to during the day, shuts the door and works for hours on end.

As long as I have kids in the house (and probably after that), I'm going to be the kind of writer who seizes the moment, who does more than one thing at the same time, who learns to write with interruptions and life going on around him.

Sure, there are moments in cafés and other quiet places, especially when my wonderful wife takes all the kids somewhere else so I can have an hour or so of peace to write. But those times are the exception. The rule is that writing and life, at least for me, happen together.

I don't feel frustrated about that. It is what it is. And when I write in the middle of things, so to speak, I get to be involved in the rest of my life--the life of a father and a husband.

An Exercise in Frustration

Well, I made it back home with my replacement car license, after only an hour more at the car registration place. I left, about $30 lighter, only to get home and find that my internet had been turned off. Turns out that even though I paid it on Sunday, the bill didn't get processed for a couple of days, which meant that they turned it off today. Not only that, but they lost my credit card information (for the fourth time), which means I had to pay it in cash. And this is from the biggest internet provider in my country.

On a good note, I'm getting some great feedback on some of my stories from the new writer's critique site I joined recently, Review Fuse. I sent them a bunch of my older stories that haven't yet been published, and with the reviews I've gotten, I'll be able to edit them more knowledgeably and submit (or in the case of a few of them, re-submit) them for publication somewhere.

Of course, that will happen once I get a little more free time--most likely after I'm done with the current book project. Anyway, I'm halfway through with that, which is good.

Plugging along

I just finished chapters 5 and 12 of the book I'm working on and sent them off to the editor for feedback. Both of them were pretty difficult, with lots of research (which I shouldn't have had to do in the first place) involved. No rest for the weary, though. I'm jumping right into chapter 6 this week and hope to get it finished over the next few days. I'll admit some base motivation for getting it done quickly: I want to be done with this project before I'm 60, and I want to get paid.

Okay, I do like what I'm writing and I believe in this project. I'm creating a book that will benefit expatriates in Jordan for years to come, hopefully. But it has been a bit of a pain at times, as my part of the project has morphed into something with a bit of a larger scope than I originally intended. But isn't that the way it always is? If it isn't, please don't tell me.

Anyway, as far as the rest of life goes, I've got to get dressed, grab something to eat, and head out to the car registration office to get a replacement for my car registration license card that went missing a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, it fell out of my wallet and one of my kids absconded with it. Who knows where it is now--we searched the whole house to no avail.

So last week, I endured the bureaucracy for two hours over at the car registration office to get a little slip of paper that said "come back in 3 or 4 days." Today, I'm going back, hopefully to success.

A shout out for Review Fuse

I've been a member of a few writers' groups in my time, and the results have generally been somewhat disappointing. Most of the time, the whole thing turned into a big social club (which is great and has a place, certainly) or having my work reviewed or reviewing the work of others was an exercise in frustration because the site tools were clunky or nonexistent.

Not so with Review Fuse, a new site I stumbled across recently while searching for online writers' groups. They're still in beta, but already they're looking really good. The site itself is well-designed, aesthetically and practically speaking. The graphic design is simple, but pleasing to the eye, but it's the functional design that really stands out. They make it easy to review others' work, with an inline comment system that lets you click on a paragraph and add comments to a text box which automatically appears below. Highlighted text in a paragraph results in quoted text in your inline comments, allowing a reviewer to easily pinpoint problems in text. Reviewers can give a piece up to 10 stars in specific categories such as character development, plot, and dialog, allowing writers who are strong or weak in certain areas to recognize where they need to improve and to receive encouragement for what they're doing well.

Of course, your own work can get reviewed as well. You can upload your own work from your computer desktop from a Word doc or .rtf (Rich Text) file into their interface--it even keeps all of your formatting intact when you do it this way. Once you've done that, then your piece is available for review by other site users. The site automatically keeps your work private from outside viewers, helping preserve your first time publication status if you want to submit your piece for publication elsewhere. When you submit a piece for review, you are automatically assigned to review three other pieces of writing before other site users will be able to see your work, assuring that the reviewing keeps flowing and everyone's work gets read. Its a well-thought through system, and kudos to the site designers for coming up with it.

Even though Review Fuse is still in beta, it is solid and the site designers are responsive and friendly to any potential problems. Overall, I highly recommend this site for anyone who writes (especially those who write a lot) and wants to get quality, constructive feedback on their work.

An umm...pre-Thanksgiving Resolution

I don't blog enough, and I need to do it more.

There. I said it. 

After talking with my wife tonight, I realized that I should be blogging more, as well as expanding the scope of my blog somewhat. It's good writing practice for me, and it allows who I am and what my life is like (writing and otherwise) to be "out there" a little more, for others to read about, and hopefully to glean something from (or at the very least to serve as a warning to others). 

In any case, expect to see more blog posts from me in the future. Maybe even (gasp!) one a day or so. 

That's my pre-Thanksgiving resolution. Here's hoping I'll be able to stick to it.