Blogging: The Future Of This Blog As I See It

Posted on April 11, 2012 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette

The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette averages well over 300 hits every day.  But the Old Soldier dreams of the day when it averages over 1,000, 2,000 and even 3,000 hits every day.

I dream of the day when I can pay local women, who have never posed nude for anything in their lives, a nice fee to pose nude for the PFFG.  I dream of the day when the local movers and shakers in the city want to be interviewed by the PFFG.  I dream of the day when I can pay a respectable fee to poets, non-fiction and fiction writers for their work to be published by the PFFG.

Love Doctor

I dream of the day when I can pay the Love Doctor a generous fee for her work and to give her an expense account so that she can not only investigate a story but can also bring back photos.

Oh, well, everybody should have a dream.

Keep reading and keep writing that flash fiction.

*****

Read.  Study.  Write.  Submit.

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Do You Know Why Most Fiction Writers Fail?

Posted on March 4, 2011 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette
Kim Kardashian at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festiv...

Image via Wikipedia

They give up.  I don’t mean give up on a story.  They give up on being writers.  They don’t want to put in the years that it takes to learn to control the language.  They don’t want to read hundreds of good books by really good writers.  They don’t want to learn the grammar, and the spelling and the punctuation.  They don’t want to spend years getting rejection notices and little or no money.

If I had given up on becoming a writer in my 20s or 30s or 40s, I would have never written an Ebook, won a K. LeRoy Irvis Fellowship and graduated with an MFA in fiction writing.

I would not be a full-time blogger.

If you are a writer, understand that you are a writer for life.  You will probably have to make a living doing a lot of other things besides writing; but keep writing.  That’s what writers do.

*****

Kim Kardashian is more than just a pretty face.  She’s a smart businesswoman.

PS: There are a lot of mainstream, literary and erotic stories on this blog but only one flash fiction porn story is available.  It is A Porn Star Is Born at the top of the page.

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Blogging: A New Feature Has Been Added

Posted on March 3, 2011 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette
New York Times

Image via Wikipedia

The Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette is here to inform and entertain bloggers and fiction writers and readers.

Welcome to my humble blog.  This blog is getting over 600 hits a day every day, and the Old Soldier wants to thank you. 

I’ve added a new feature.  At the top of the page you will find the Featured Link tab.  This tab came about because there were only so many more links that I could add to the dozens of links in the sidebar on the right.  On the right are links to flash fiction stories and articles that cover writing short stories and blogging.  But as you can see, I’m running out of room.

So, I thought, why not have a Featured Link at the top of the page that I change every Sunday?  That way, with the running daily commentary that is part of the blog’s makeup, I could continue to update the blog with a weekly link that does not show up anywhere else on the blog.  It comes down to a matter of space.

For a while there I was putting the new links on individual post.  But those posts eventually disappeared into the archives.  Adding a Featured Link tab seemed like a good idea.  And all the links that make it as a Featured Link will stay on that page.

So, check out the new Featured Link tab along with all the other tabs at the top of the page.

This is the Old Soldier blogging near the University of Pittsburgh.

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All Fiction Writers Can Benefit From These Tips

Posted on January 19, 2011 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette
The Unautorized Autobiography of my Unborn Twin.

Image by 顔なし via Flickr

This is a blog about flash fiction and the writing of flash fiction.  But the Old Soldier can assure you, that no matter what kind of fiction you write, whether it’s the very short story, micro-fiction, flash fiction, the regular-length short story and yes even the novel, you will find in this magazine articles with useful tips that can help you become a better writer.

After all, good dialogue is good dialogue and good characterization is good characterization and good description is good description no matter what your genre is.  The Old Soldier has written more than just flash fiction.  My Ebook contains a 14,000-word novella.

You will find plenty of how-to articles about writing fiction in the sidebar on the right.

The link of the day is Online Marketing: My Experience with Twitter

This is the Old Soldier reporting from North Oakland.

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Use Your Own Life For Your Fiction

Posted on August 7, 2010 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette

I’m a big advocate of “write what you know.”  And what do all of us know?  Our own lives.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I have great respect for fiction writers who research a subject and then write about it.  More power to them.  I prefer to read the work of writers who don’t do research because they live what they write about.  Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John O’Hara, Raymond Carver and Anton Chekhov all wrote about the life they lived.  That’s one reason why they are my favorite authors.  Their example is why I write the kind of flash fiction that I write.

So, my brother and sister bloggers, writers and Flash Fiction Fanatics, when you’re thinking of submitting a short story to the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette, the most dynamic flash fiction magazine on the Internet, “write about what you know.”

The submissions tab is at the top of the page.  Be sure to follow the guidelines.

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Give your writing a shot in the arm.  Download my Ebook of “show don’t tell” fiction.  The Ebook tab is at the top of the page.

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