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SECRETS of a WRITING VOICE

Published on January 30, 2025January 25, 2025 by wyn001100Leave a comment

by ROBERT FLEMING, Founding member of OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

So confused. Isn’t a voice linked to speaking, singing, and screaming? What does a voice have to do with writing? What the fu** Robert?

A “writing voice” refers to the unique style and personality a writer expresses through their writing, which is a combination of their vocabulary, tone, sentence structure, and perspective, essentially how their individual personality comes across on the page.

what is a writing voice – Google Search

For poetry, yours truly, defines a voice profile:

Style: traditional, experimental, vs in between
Themes (e.g. love, war)
Forms (e.g., free verse, iambic pentameter)
Devices (e.g. enjambment: 1 line continues onto next), metaphor, simile, rhyme)

CREATE A VOICE to INCREASE PUBLICATION SUCCESS

Most poetry magazine acceptance rates are about 2.4%. In order to increase your chance of publication acceptance success, create a writing voice and then target publications that have published work with your voice within the last two-years.

A writing acceptance rate is like a baseball player’s batting average (BA). Josh Gibson’s 1946 BA of 37.2% is the highest career Major League Baseball BA.

Josh Gibson

My poetry voice profile:

Style: experimental
Themes: masculinity, sexual orientation, sin/virtue, dystopia
Forms: visual poetry, free-verse, Japanese Haiku/Mondo, sonnet, and pantoum
Devices: sound (rhyme, alliteration, assonance), duality, homonyms, multiple-word-reversals, and end-titles

CREATING a WRITING VOICE

Oh NO Mr. Robert, an assignment is coming. Sir and madam, it is, I cannot lie.

A sleepless night, 3/14/1996, yours truly obsessed compulsed, to translate four of his favorite poets to a gay style: Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, John Berryman, and Dorothy Parker.

What I did for each poet:

Select a favorite poem
Analyze and document what the poem is (theme, form, devices) and why you like it
Read the poem out loud
Make an audio recording of your reading
Handwrite the poem
Type the poem
Translate the poem to your style
Place the original poem and translation side by side

What was the outcome impact of yours truly doing this exercise:

In 1997, a follow-up creation of a visual poem that translates Dorothy Parker was included in art show in the District of Columbia

Self-discovery that my style is experimental and an integration of one of the poets studied: Robert Frost and another poet: Dr. Seuss

More Voice Discovery guidelines: make diverse selections

Select work written in different time eras: 50% 1,800 or earlier, 50% 1,900 and later
Gender: 50% men, 50% woman
Style (traditional vs experimental): at least 1 experimental

Discover your writing voice and use it!

Yours Truly is:

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press

OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir

white noir: Fleming, Robert: 9781957224183: Amazon.com: Books

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

About – INSTANT NOODLES

Secrets to a Publisher Relationship

Published on December 30, 2024December 31, 2024 by wyn001100Leave a comment

by Robert Fleming

You’ve published three works. You have the acceptance rate of +-3%. Fed up with the time and submission costs of rejections? Resubmit to a magazine editor who published your work before. This may lead to a relationship with a magazine publisher/editor. Why would you want that? Aren’t editors grinches handing out rejection coal? Some editors are coal distributors, but other offer something you may want:

They publish books in your genre and may publish your book.
They repeat the same writers: either multiple works in the same or different issue. How can you figure this out? If your published work is digital (online), find an author you like, who was published in the magazine you were published in; type their name in “search.” Does the search results list only their current work or multiple works? If only one, try again with at least two different authors you like.
Nominates writers for awards (magazine award, Best of the Net, Pushcart)

How do you know if the editor is interested in a relationship with you?

They accept your work in three days or less from submission.
They locate your work in the first three pages of the issue.
They publish more than one of your works.
In the issue forward, they mention your name.
They ask you to publish previously submitted rejected work from their slush (reject) pile.
Nominate you for an award

The benefits of having +-10 magazines with repeat publications are

Create 120 works a year = 10 magazines * 4 submissions a year * 3 works per submission
Create enough work for a full-length book of +-70 pages
Be selected as a featured reader: Robert is a repeat writer for Oddball magazine, I want him to feature for me.
Be invited to be an associate first line editor of a magazine

Show appreciation for the editor/publisher:

Once your work is published, put a posting on your social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), that announces your publication with links to the publisher’s magazine.
When you read work, say it was published by “editor name” in “magazine name” and announce the magazine’s next publication with their links.

Once you are a repeat writer for a magazine, submit quarterly.

Even yours truly, with over seven hundred publications, only has a +-33% acceptance rate with a new magazine. One of my publication strategies was to create and now maintain a relationship with +-10 magazine editors.

Yours Truly is:

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press

OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir

white noir: Fleming, Robert: 9781957224183: Amazon.com: Books

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

About – INSTANT NOODLES

Secrets to Publishing Your First Creative Work

Published on November 27, 2024December 4, 2024 by wyn001100Leave a comment

Founding member Robert Fleming share his insights on How to be successful at publishing your first creative writing work

You’ve put it on your bucket list to be a published author. Well done. Who are you doing this for: yourself, others, or both?

Yours truly, without even knowing, wanted to be published. In 1973, at age ten, I published text on the bathroom brick wall of Roslyn Elementary School in Westmount, Montreal, Quebec. My work looked like the work following but also had curse words and genitalia graffiti.

Bathroom Wall Poem

This talented toilet author made choices: what topic to write about (poo poo), what language to use (English), where to publish (on the bathroom on brick), who the publisher is (self), what genre (poetry), what poetry devices to use (rhyme, humor, 5-lines), and to not disclose the author name (anonymous).

Where you target your publication is guided by your confidence (courageous or timidity) about having other human see and judge your work. If you are feeling timid like the Cowardly Lion, publish your writing in your personal diary. Be sure to select a diary with a lock and attach the key to your necklace that you wear even when you shower.

Cowardly Lion from movie Wizard of Oz

If you get a little courage, self-publish your work on social media (Facebook), like I did in the following work.
On Facebook, other humans will see your work, but you will not experience the review/selection of a judge who accepts or rejects your work.

https://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.com/2024/09/40-poets-being-published-in-doors-of.html

If you find the courage of Joan of Arc, send your work to a publication where work is selected by an editor.

Joan of Arc

Tips for setting yourself up for your best chance of publication acceptance
• For your first publication, select a publication that has a fifty-percent or greater acceptance rate like vanity press where you will have to buy a book that could cost $50, an organization newsletter like a religious one you are a member of or a school you are an alumni of.
• Read the target publication and only submit to them if they publish work similar to yours (genre: poetry, theme: love)
• Read the submission directions and follow them: sometimes there is a theme like love. When there is a theme only submit work that is the theme requested.

Ready? Take a bid breath in, hold three seconds, exhale. What is your publication confidence: timid or courageous. Go forth.

Yours Truly is:

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press.

Who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir.

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

and the creator of an upcoming magazine cover for Tell-Tale Inklings #7, to be released Autumn, 2024. Visit Tell-Tale Chapbooks on Facebook.