Tag: Fiction

Psychic Surprise Parties

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Noreen Lace asked it first – How do you Throw a Psychic a Surprise Party?

And her answers (read that as stories) don’t disappoint.

The Healer’s Daughter watches her mother change before her eyes and fears for own future.

In Mirror People, a woman tries to save her sister from an obsession which may cost both of them.

The Crier, some people believe, is a miracle worker.

And how does one throw a psychic a surprise party? Find the title story within these pages and discover the answer.

How to Throw a Psychic a Surprise Party is available in print, ebook, and soon to come in audio form.

Noreen Lace is an award winning educator and author. There is a beauty in language that speaks to the soul. It can’t be replicated by AI or articulated on the screen. She live in Language, California with her poe-cat Annabelle.

Hope to see you, in one way or another, at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books!

The Loss of Real Literary Journals and Publishers

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Many of my publications have been in literary journals of one type or another. I haven’t minded the small fee, once in awhile, for submission. 

But I have noticed fees have skyrocketed while many journals have gone online.

What’s worse is the slush pile of new “literary” journals asking for enormous fees. It’s disturbing and disgusting.

Questionable people with little or no credentials offering publication ONLINE. While they don’t guarantee publication, they are asking for fees and then one place even asked for payment for the publication in advance!

Submittable does charge a fee to journals to list their calls, but their fees are not in line with what is being asked by these questionable entities. (I hesitate to call them publishers).

Humans of the World is a website that asks for $6.00 fee to submit to their blog. Authors/writers pay to have their work on this blog? A quick tour of their website offers no publisher information – who is this run by? Who reads the submissions? How are submissions chosen? It appears they’ve been in business since 2022.

Poet’s Choice, based in Mumbai, has a number of calls, one is for word poems. I spotted an error in their call. There appears to be no fee requested – until you get to their submission page. Then they have a whole array of payment selections.

So – why haven’t I published in awhile? Look around – the publishing industry that we once knew is history.

I’m struggling to find reputable places to publish – as are many authors. Amazon takes many liberties with authors and they bought Ingram/Spark. Independent publishing is in question.

Credible journals are being lost. Publishers are extremely selective – they want someone with a large following for guaranteed sales. They do little to no promotion.

I have submitted some poems to a publisher, but then someone else showed me how they submitted an AI poem to the same publisher. I’m wondering if that is what I’m competing with. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of acceptance.

I’m not sure what will happen, where we will go, or where I might land. But I’m a writer. I keep writing.

Rage Writing

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Lately, I’ve struggled to write. Distractions or, maybe, a war with writer’s block. Ideas bloom, but nothing flourishes.

I moved from my comfort zone. That lovely, warm death of a comfort zone. We should destroy them all! I started going elsewhere to write. Many of us write escape the comfort and distractions of home by fleeing to the local coffee house the house. The noise, the activity, and the lack of chores calling to us helps.

The other day, errands unending, I dropped everything – except my computer – and rushed out of the house. While driving, I considered everything I would write as soon as I arrived.

Yet, as I lucked into a good seat, grabbed a cuppa – my creative mind became dark, dank, and blank.

Frustrated, I opened another document and poured it all out. I wrote out everything that annoyed me, pissed me off, enraged me for the last while. Things I wouldn’t normally complain about.

It worked! My writing flowed!

Often, to glow in gratitude, I push off those little annoyances, small worries, not wanting to complain about things that aren’t that big of a deal or will, sooner or later, resolve themselves. But, now I wonder.

Has my lack of complaining mean I’ve been holding back?

Sitting at home this morning, I opened the story I’ve been working on and ….. notta.

I opened my other document, the one I am now going to call RAGE, and wrote. It’s a freewrite of all my worries, concerns, annoyances, little things like the broken light to larger things that aren’t working out as planned. I don’t hold back.

Ah… FREEDOM!

In a few minutes, I switched over to my current story and found flow. My story is coming together. I’ve accomplished more in the last week than I have the whole three weeks prior. I feel more focused, clear, and able to make decisions about the direction of the story.

Try this, please! If you’re struggling with a story, or writing in general, just start rage writing whatever comes to mind, and then take a deep breath, and move over to your story. Let me know if it works for you!

AI Fiction – are the last vestiges of humanity disappearing?

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For the first time, I saw a call for fiction with a warning about AI submissions.

Is this what we, as writers, have to contend with now? I’m pretty confident in my fiction and the originality, the use of language, etc. Do I have to compete with AI in writing good fiction or original fiction? I’m just not certain how this will work for writers. (I suppose this is partly what the writers’ strike is about).

I was concerned enough about students using it in the classroom and we are told “not to worry, work it in with exercises.” Uhm, why? I’m trying to teach my student writers how to form sentences, create meaning, develop paragraphs and write to include their own beautiful and important opinions and ideas. Why am I going to say – hey, let’s see how well AI can write this idea? The students are concerned enough about their skills; if we show them that AI can indeed write it better, will they bother to improve?

Writing takes time and practice. I put in my 10,000 hours. (plus!) One can not develop those skills overnight.

Many seem to believe writing is a skill you’re born with. How will I convince students and writers that it’s the work, it’s the blood, sweat, and tears, that will bring about beautifully written prose and it will have all been worth it?

When you see for yourself that you can do it, when you write something that you never thought you could – then you will understand the accomplishment, feel the endorphins rush through your body, and believe the work was worth the struggle.

But, if instead, AI writes it, the student/writer never really learns the value of doing it for themselves. (let alone the hows of doing it for themselves.)

Is this the last vestige of humanity disappearing right before our eyes? The benefits and rewards of motivation, hard work, struggling and overcoming a challenge. The indescribable feeling of….. yes, I can!

I know many people are telling me not to worry, and perhaps I have fallen into troglodyte fashions of thought and creation here.

I suppose it’s only over when AI can learn to love what it does as much as writers do.

Book Review for Our Gentle Sins

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Thank you to my fellow author and friend, Ron Terranova, for his review of my upcoming release, Our Genlte Sins, June 21!

  “Lace has woven a wonderful tale with themes and characters that are universal and recognizable. Such issues as a woman’s personal sovereignty within a relationship, the oppressiveness, both subtle and overt, of patriarchy and the mixed blessings of liberation are explored. A wonderful, readable story, ideal for Summer reading. Kudos to Noreen Lace.”

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Review of Our Gentle Sins

Published on by Noreen Lace2 Comments

When a Publisher’s Weekly reviewer writes “energetic prose” one gets excited!

Yes, that is what they said about Our Gentle Sins, “energetic prose” in a preliminary book review!

as well as –

“Lace takes a familiar story… and suffuses it with intriguing family drama.”

and finally –

“this is an appealing novel with relatable, flawed characters.”

More reviews to come.

Release date: JUNE 21!

The Little Things

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Sometimes it’s the smallest things that worms into the back seals of our functioning. loosening the stopper, and causing fissures which disrupt our well-being.

Most of those worms are so small, they are unseen to the human eye. We may not even know what is bothering us, but something is. Other times, we know it’s an insignificant movement which shouldn’t bother us.

But it does.

It creeps in, the leakage begins.

There’s a sense of right and wrong, good and bad, and someone or something has crossed that ethereal line.

They probably don’t even realize they’ve done it. For each of us those lines are different, sometimes wavy and indistinguishable.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter that the neighbor has left the end of their car hanging into my driveway or that the clerk has overcharged by a portion. But things like these seems to weigh on me more than they should.

Characters need such issues, such efforts; it makes them human, makes them relatable. We are not the only ones who become distracted at the off-centered tie clip, miffed at the chipped nail polish.

In Mirror People, Jewels reacts to Marnie’s odd behavior. It’s something that builds underneath. She’s not even certain what it is, but something annoys her. In Paperwasps, a whole city block falls apart, one person is perfectly content, yet another can’t deal – but What’s bothering them, really? Is it something that has seeped into their brain some time ago?

The Ghost….

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My short story, The Ghost in Her Room, has been published by Dreamers Writing.

The editors were very sweet. Kat mentioned in an email how much the story touched her.

Working with Dreamers Creative Writing has been an extremely pleasant experience.

Thank you!

I like ’em short

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I’ve been reading and writing novel length works lately. I belong to a few online book groups and people are always posting great reviews of this book or that. Sometimes I pick them up, sometimes I like them. It’s hard for me to find that book that hits the sweet spot – the perfect mix of good writing and a good story.

I love the exceptional use of language. That’s a talent.

In my literature and writing classes, I use Best American Short Stories. I chanced upon an old copy the other day. I read half of the first story and felt engaged, awakened!

Picking up the book of short stories immediately energized me with ideas for short fiction.

The joy of reading a short story happens because they’re tight, no nonsense needed, straight to the point, well written and excellently executed niblets of fiction.

The joy of writing a short story is the challenge. The point, the characters, the setting all expertly set up in concise wording in a small period of time. The use of language is easier to control, the beauty and rhythm easier to accomplish.

I once belonged to a short story group. It was so gratifying to read the short fiction. If you didn’t like what someone chose, you could still read the ten or twenty pages and talk about it. It’s not 300 pages of silently cursing your book group.

So… I’m going to recommend some books of short fiction. Of course, I recommend the Best American Short Story Series. Wonderful writing by newbies and scholars alike!

And mine: But also – I’m a huge fan of Jo Rousseau and Ron Terranova.

Noreen Lace Jo Rousseau Ron Terranova

Jo Rousseau and Ron Terranova also have websites/blog. Stop by and check them out!

Death and Karma

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Some years ago, a lovely new writer appeared one Saturday at the wooden kitchen table of our host’s home where we met regularly for critique group. A woman with long, blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes, who shared that she’d almost drowned.

Being washed into the Pacific undercurrent and sinking down, down, down, in this near death experience, she began to relive certain events in her life, but not from her point of view. She became her mother dealing with a rebellious teenage daughter; she landed in her lover torn to shreds and heartbroken.

She relived the emotions of those whom she had caused pain.

What a gift! Or, maybe, a curse.

This inspired me to wonder if we die the way we live. Death and karma. Was that lovely woman a selfish, thoughtless human, and her experience was to feel that pain she’d caused others?

If you’re a horrible human being, do you die a slow painful death? If you allowed kittens to suffocate, do you die gasping for breath?

I know someone who caused a lot of pain to others and he developed a disorder, later in life, in which every little bump would bruise and swell in painful edemas. A callous could glow into an infection. He spent the last years of his life in more pain that he might of caused.

However, I know plenty of lovely humans who have died in unfavorable circumstances. Certainly, that wasn’t karma.

I choose to move through this life causing as little pain and unhappiness as possible.

But it’s not because of the fear of death. It’s not even the fear of karma. There is so much pain and vexation in this world already – I don’t need to add any more to anyone’s life. I’d rather add laughter, happiness, joy. Not that I always succeed. This still is life.

I remember that woman from our critique group, her story, her presence because she yelled at me. Upon reading my story, the group began to respond. She became outraged and began gesticulating wildly. “You can’t write this. This will hurt people. You will pay for this. You can’t write this.”

I reflected on this and asked the group – after she was removed by our host – does my story lack empathy?

I attempt to create characters and stories that express the range of human emotions, the best of which teeter on the axis of sympathy and empathy. My writing partners and my readers believe I’ve achieved that.

I believe in karma in some sense. I believe what we put out there, we receive back in one way or another. Maybe death is random. Maybe not.

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The Crier is about a world where empathy is questionable. It appears a single Kindle Story and it appears in How to Throw a Psychic a Surprise Party.

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Thank you for reading. Be well.