The Center Will Not Hold

While writers obsess over beginnings and endings, to the point that we'll rewrite them five hundred times to perfect them, story middles rarely get such attention. On the contrary, middles are frequently regarded by writers as the Sargasso Sea of storytelling, aka a part of the work that has to be slogged through from the hook of the beginning to the big finish of the end. The problem with this attitude is that it shows in the work; I can't even count how many books I've read that started out well and ended even better, once I waded through 200+ middle pages of filler.

The middle of any story should offer more to readers than characters doing basically nothing but killing time and wordcount. If you find your crew standing around chatting in housekeeping dialogue, thinking extensively in backstory, being served obvious red herrings, or yawning their way through a series of remarkably similar sex/action/suspense scenes, you've likely got a problem. To avoid boring anyone to the point that they give up and chuck the book in the library donation box, writers need to craft the story center to hold onto the reader's attention. Here are some ideas on how to do that:

Conflict Development: Rather than regarding your main conflict as a big problem introduced in the first chapter and resolved only in the last, see it as a stream that runs through the length of your story. Plotters, you can work out a timeline of events that chronicle the development of the conflict to give yourself a map of that stream to refer to when you're writing. Pantsers, look for opportunities to do the same with your stream as you write your way through the story.

Character entrances: Just as we don't meet everyone significant in our lives on the day we're born, there is no rule that says every character in the book has to be introduced in Chapter One (and if there is, someone should put it out of its misery.) Using your story center to introduce some members of your crew adds dimension and interest, and is more logical anyway.

Mid-story twist: The big twist at the end of any book is classic and much beloved, but as a writer you don't have to be exclusive to it. Why not have two (or more) twists, with one (or more) occuring in the story center?

Multiple goals: I think one of the downsides to the Goal/Motivation/Conflict school of storytelling is it turns characters into little goalies incapable of anything but motivationally dancing around in front of that big conflict net. You have more than one goal in your life, yes? So should your characters. And while you can reserve the big goal score for the end of the story, why not give them other, shorter-term goals to work on as well? These can add great interest to your mid-story.

One final thought on writing the middle of your story: if you're not excited about it, it may come through in the quality of your writing. Giving yourself something important, exciting and satisfying to write about in the story before you get into the final chapters will help hold onto your attention, which increases your chance of doing the same with your reader's.

Dollar Store Ten

Ten Things I Found at the Dollar Store



1. 6-count 9" X 12" Brown Kraft clasp envelopes

2. 2-count 8-1/2" X 11" bubble mailing envelopes

3. 2-count 6" X 9" bubble mailing envelopes

4. 240-count Premium 2-1/8" X 1/2" Inkjet Mailing Labels

5. 10-count letter-size manila file folders

6. 154-count 9/16" X 2-3/4" file folder labels

7. School composition notebook, 100 ruled sheets

8. 10-count heavy duty binder clips

9. 12-count small/medium/large binder clips

10. Remaindered Books: Burning Tigress in mm paperback, The Recipe Club in trade paperback, and The Actor and the Housewife in hardcover

All of the above items were purchased at my local Dollar Tree store on 5/5/14.

Sub Op

Independent quarterly lit mag Bop Dead City has a contest for flash fic and poetry: "For Issue 8, the theme for the contest is the first time. It’s a pretty loose theme — first job, first house, first kiss, first break-up, and of course, the sex. Prizes: $20 to the winner of the flash fiction category, $20 to the winner of the poetry category, and publication for both. Rules: Just make sure it relates, at least to you, to the idea of the first time for someone or something. Plus, do everything that the usual submission guidelines say. Everything submitted until July 1 that follows these guidelines will be considered for the contest. And of course, even if it’s not the winner, we’ll still consider it for publication as usual." According to their submission guidelines they also accept fiction stories up to 3K -- no mention on payment, so you might query on that. No reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details.

Online Color Thesaurus

HP has an online color thesaurus which does a couple of neat things when you search the name of a color, like blue:



Aside from the helpfulness of providing those color codes, it shows you a swatch of the color, four close matches, and four that are opposing.

This color searcher could be particularly useful when you need to see the color that goes with the word, like chestnut:



Or celadon:



You can also find out if what you think the color looks like is correct; I've always assumed citron meant strong/citrusy-yellow with a slight greenish tinge, when HP tells me it's actually strong citrusy-green with a slight yellow tinge:

For Kindness and For Love

Instead of the usual Friday video I have a slideshow of a Victorian American scrapbook and poetry journal I recently acquired for pretty much a song off eBay. The poems, written by Rose Bremermann on the last handful of pages, date back to 1889, and are written in that glorious old copperplate calligraphic style.



Rose likely never imagined that her sweet verses -- written for kindness and for love, according to one of them -- would survive 125 years to give hope to another devoted journaler, but they did. Thanks, Miss Rose.

Dark Sub Op

UK E-publisher Ghostwoods Books would like to see "new and interesting dark fiction novels or cleverly interlinked short stories. Dark fantasy, gothic fiction, dark historical, creepy (but not mindless) horror. No slasher novels, no zombies, probably no YA. Let it be sinister and clever or enchanting yet creepy. Examples of books we would have taken for this call: Frankenstein, Dracula, An Interview with the Vampire, The Night Circus, The Throne of Bones. Note that historical novels must be somewhat updated in writing style to accommodate the tastes of modern readers. (No lengthy, needless exposition or purple prose.)" Length: "mostly between 70,000 and 100,000 words." Payment: 50% royalties. See submissions page for more details.

Other Than Writing

I should have mentioned last week that I finally finished my Picasso project. Here's how it came out:



I must admit, it's not perfect by any means, but when you experiment you take risks not only to try things and grow but to make mistakes and learn from them. Which this project did for me pretty much every time I worked on it, but that was part of the fun. I also said I'd give it away here on the blog if it came out well, but I have to welsh on that. Picasso's lady had her own ideas about where and to whom she wanted to go (and I never argue with my projects, especially when it turns out they were right and their timing was eerily perfect.)

I've started on another for-fun quilt project, and I've also been making an effort to shoot some birds (with the camera, of course.) I bagged all of these on the same day:









I also finally got a shot of a bunny, plus the bunny's Mom, which any shutterbug will tell you is almost impossible to do:



So what are you doing creatively that isn't about writing? Let us know in comments.

Vizit

According to their website, Visuwords™ is an "online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate. Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and click and drag individual nodes to move them around to help clarify connections."

I gave it a whirl by entering the word blue, and it immediately built a nice big web of associations:



The service is also free for use by anyone with an internet connection; no membership or other access fee involved. I also noted this on the website -- "Visuwords™ uses Princeton University’s WordNet, an opensource database built by University students and language researchers" -- so that's a fairly respectable source.

Sub Op Ten

Ten Things About Submission Opportunities

Apex Magazine wants to see dark spec fic that is "sheer, unvarnished awesomeness. We want the stories it scared you to write. We want stories full of marrow and passion, stories that are twisted, strange, and beautiful. We want science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mash-ups of all three—the dark, weird stuff down at the bottom of your little literary heart. This magazine is not a publication credit, it is a place to put your secret places and dreams on display. Just so long as they have a dark speculative fiction element—we aren’t here for the quotidian. Keep in mind that the search for awesome stories is as difficult as writing them. If you are rejected, don’t get angry—instead, become more awesome. Write something better, and better, until we have to accept you, because we have been laid low by your tale. It really is that simple" Length: up to 7.5K (firm); Payment: $.06 per word; no unsolicited reprints, electronic submission only, see guidelines for more details.

Cohesion Press has an open call for their upcoming horror antho: "Blurring the Line (working title) is seeking to blur the line between what is fiction and what is non-fiction. We want horror stories, tales that are serious and frightening, hard-hitting and imaginative. We want monsters; vampires and zombies and werewolves and the mummy and creatures from the Black Lagoon and giant killer plants and mutated ants and demons and devils and Mothmen and everything else you can think of or that hasn’t been thought of yet. But we also want your serial killers and demented and depraved humanity. We want it all. Push your imagination and take us into the far reaches of your darkness, without letting go of reality. Make us believe. BUT, we want to be scared, made to feel uneasy and uncomfortable. We do not want to be shocked for no reason; if you’re going to eviscerate someone, there needs to be a good reason for doing so. We want style over shock value. We do not want supernatural romance, or weird fiction. We’re not looking for tales about a monster hunter or a covert monster hunting team (we love these stories but they’re not what we’re looking for here)" Length: up to 5K; Payment: 8¢/word; no reprints, electronic submission preferred, see guidelines for more details. Submission period opens August 1st, 2014; Deadline: October 31st, 2014.

FictionMagazines.com has a whole page of mag sub ops here, including one for romance: "Reflect on Traditions; Challenge Convetions
Love, lust or heartache, we want it all! We aim to capture the diversity of romantic experience, be it modern or dated, unconventional or relatable, or something entirely new. Tell us a story; how do we connect, how do we feel love? Fiction, poetry and book reviews accepted. Pieces will be chosen by the editor with consideration of reader responses and voting processes." [PBW notes: I'd check into that mention of voting process and get more details before submitting.] Length: up to 10K; Payment: lifetime royalty of 50%, no reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details.

Ghostwoods Books is looking for dark fiction novel submissions: "Ghostwoods Books, a small fair-trade press located in London, UK, would like to see new and interesting dark fiction novels or cleverly connected short-story collections. Dark fantasy, gothic fiction, dark historical, creepy (but not mindless) horror. No slasher novels, no zombies, probably no YA. Let it be sinister and clever or enchanting yet creepy. We'll know it when we see it. Examples of books we would have taken for this call: Frankenstein, Dracula, An Interview with the Vampire, The Night Circus, The Throne of Bones. Note that historical novels must be somewhat updated in writing style to accommodate the tastes of modern readers. (No lengthy, needless exposition or purple prose.)" Pays 50% royalties; see guidelines for more details.

Ghostwoods Books is also looking for romance novel submissions: "Ghostwoods Books is planning a new romance imprint. We'd like to start with a slate of books. Books must be complete and in a finished state, meaning that the book has been revised and errors removed to the best of the writer's ability before submission. If possible, writers should enlist the aid of beta readers or an editor. Think of this like submitting to a literary agent. Impress us. Length will be between 60,000 and 90,000. We're looking for well-written books that evoke true romance. Other aspects of the work may vary. The key to a good romance is romantic tension." Pays 50% royalties; see guidelines for more details.

Simian Publishing has an open call for their upcoming Apotheosis antho: "Stories of human survival and defiance in a world subjugated by the return of the Elder Gods. Humanity struggled to grow and evolve as a species for thousands of years forever caught in the shadow of a dread threat known only to a devoted few. When the stars are right, the Old Ones will return to claim utter dominion of the world. Lovecraft Mythos stories often climax at the moment of the fateful return of the Elder Gods and the audience is left to ponder what might happen next. This anthology features stories about humanity under the reign of the Elder Gods and ancient terrors. We’re looking for stories inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and associated writers such as August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smit , Robert E. Howard , Robert Bloch , Henry Kuttner, and Frank Belknap Long. We’re also interested in writers that inspired Lovecraft such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood and Lord Dunsany. We’re interested in classic mythos gods and monsters and originals that have inspired by the mythos" Length: 2-7K; Payment: "3 cents per word (or 1 cent per word for reprints)" Reprints okay, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Submissions open November 1st, 2014. Deadline: December 31st, 2014.

Sekhmet Press has an open call for their upcoming third Wrapped antho, which appears to be witches and occult-themed, but the only mention of what they want to see on the guidelines page is this: "We are not looking for stories reflecting religious dogma." Length: 2.5-5K; Payment: $0.01 per word + contributor copy; no reprints, electronic submissions only. Submissions period open May 18th, 2014; Deadline: June 8th, 2014.

Storm Moon Press has several open calls for upcoming unusually-themed anthos, and among them is one for bisexual steampunk: "Advanced technology is essential in good cyberpunk, but what really sets it apart is the way it showcases that technological achievement while also exposing the seedy underbelly of society. Has technology polarized society, created an underground counter-culture? There is infinite potential for adventure, especially when you have a bisexual hero/heroine in the cyberpunk setting. Are they jacked into virtual reality to express themselves, or do they have some other way of blazing a trail through high society or the downtrodden? For our Surfing the Aether anthology, we want to see what makes your bisexual characters stand out from the world they inhabit. Cyberpunk protagonists are often misfits and anti-heroes, so we'd love to see where your characters fit in the hierarchy. How do they use the technology at their fingertips rather than letting the technology use them? Have the advanced tools changed the sexual climate, and if so, how does it impact your hero/heroine's identity and expression as a bisexual? We want to discover the darker consequences of the time's industrial successes through your characters' eyes" Length: 10-20K; Payment: .0075 per word [PBW notes: this is flat free; no royalties offered]; no reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details.

Whippleshield Books has an open call for their upcoming Venus-themed antho: "To put it bluntly, if you think your story is a good match for a science fiction magazine, it may not be for me. I’m looking for stories that are realistic, but that doesn’t mean they have to be science/space fiction. However, the planet Venus has to feature in there somewhere. Your story could be about the first attempt to land on Venus, or life in a habitat on the surface. It might describe a present-day group of engineers and scientists controlling a probe on the surface of Venus; or perhaps a journalist discovering evidence of a past secret mission to the planet. There are plenty of tales that can be told about Venus. Surprise me. I’m big on realism, so I’ll be looking for that. And good literary prose too." Length: up to 6K; Payment: 0.03£/word (>5¢/word); no reprints, electronic submission only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: May 31st, 2014.

World Weaver Press has three upcoming antho open calls for 2014 that have not yet opened, but include themes of dragons, corvids and scarecrows -- stay tuned to their guidelines page for more details and opening dates.

Wishing You

(Please note: I'll be out of town for a couple of days, and (probably) not able to access the internet, so comments may not be posted until I get back to moderate them.)

Floating Comma Hidden SPAM

I always reserve the right to make fun of anyone who SPAMs me, even when English is obviously not their first language:

Dear Sir ，

So this is already starting out well. What?

This is [Kindness Duct Tape] from [Kindness Duct Tape] and thanks for your time to read this email.

Eh. I needed a blog post for today.

[Kindness Duct Tape] is [yada yada yada] and we have more than 100 million users all over the world.

Counting people who read your SPAM is cheating, you know. Hey, how did you get that comma after Sir to do that?

Our main products are about [yada]， [yada]， [yada]， [yada]， and more [yada].

They just kind of float, don't they? Like little balloon commas.

Now our targets are as below :

Lo siento, pero no hablo estupido.

1. Is it available that we make advertisement on your websites and we pay for your nice working?

Alas, have no websites. Is nice working that thing we do when we say "No problem" to a client when we really mean "You're an unpleasant demanding ass who can't edit or write your way out of a paper bag, but I'd like to get paid so I don't have to sell a kidney to pay for my medical insurance premium"? If so I can nice work all day long. I should add that to my resume: Nice worker +15 years.

2. Is it available that we post on your websites and we pay for your nice working?

Okay, so that's not it. Maybe you mean networking? You should really stop using Babel Fish, you know. It's hardly ever right.

We make very high diacount of our products ，and put it in your websites or put it in your newsletter part， and we share the total sales.

I love the floating commas, but I'll be honest: I'm afraid you'll infect me with your crap spelling and your inability to hit the space bar at the correct moment.

any suggestion, kindly let me know.

Hire someone whose first language is English. You'll never regret the investment. Trust me.

Looking forward to hear you soon.

Turn your ear to the south. I should be shrieking any minute now.

Thanks Sincerely，

I want one of those commas!!!!!!!

Perspective

This whimsical video shows some of the sights of London as if in miniature, thanks to the tilt shift effect (with background music, for those of you at work):

Tiny London from Mario Muth on Vimeo.

Catching Threads

Last week I finally started on my annual Spring project of making sachets for our drawers and closets. One nifty little helpful widget I picked up at this year's county quilt show is a thread catcher, which you can see there in the photo on the left (the white and black cup-like thing.) When you sew you are forever snipping threads, and having a little bin in which to deposit them prevents them from clinging to you, your project, your hair, your pincushion, your fabric, your rug, your sewing machine, being sewn back into your project, etc. The neat thing about this widget is that when I'm finished I can empty it and collapse it into the size of a Ring Ding, which also makes it very portable. It was so cool I bought a second one for a friend.

Would that we had such handy widgets for catching our story threads. Writers use everything from index cards and Post-It notes to whiteboards and outline trees to keep our threads mapped out, organized and contained, and still we drop them, lose them, forget about them and/or wake up at 2 a.m. in a panic after we send off the last round of revisions to our editor because we forgot about that thread we left dangling unfinished in chapter seventeen (I'm still really sorry about that, Adam.)

If you're into software solutions, excellent novel organizer services like Hiveword can help you keep track of your story threads (and it's still free, and there's nothing to download; you work online with it.) But let's say you want a low-tech solution that is simple and easy to update while you're working offline on your story -- this is why I invented PBW's Story Thread Catcher:



Okay, I know, it's just a blank writing pad. But you're going to turn it into a story thread catcher -- like this:



At the top of your writing pad, write Chapter One/Scene One or however you want to divvy up the work, and write a short line on each of the threads you start in this section (if you're a plotter, you can do this before you write the chapter; if you're a pantser, do this after you write the chapter.) This is your thread catcher section. Now on the bottom half of the page, make notes about any work you need to do on the threads in the next chapter (pantsers, if you want you can just write lalalala on this part.)

Tear off the bottom section of the page and remember to review it before or after you write the next chapter so you do or have done the thread work necessary. The work you do on the threads then becomes the entries for the top catcher section of the next page. Then all you do is repeat the process for each chapter. As you progress with your story, you will build up a flippable series of tops with your thread notes, so that's the catcher part:



See how simple? If you need to look back at a particular thread and how it went, all you have to do is flip through the top part. Keeping track of the threads is as simple as lettering or numbering them in sequence (and yes, you can add more threads as you go along, just remember to keep adding them to and tracking them on your subsequent thread notes.) When you finish your story, all you have to do is make sure you wrapped up each thread, and you do that by reading through your catcher section.

You're welcome.

Eureka! (and Sub Op)

I think I've figured out how that Good Reads reviewer was able to rate my story Forget-Me-Knot: she must have borrowed it from someone on Library Thing! You can see a copy of it in the LT member's library right here:



Now I can't say how this person got a copy of a story I haven't written yet, but we're not going to rule out mind reading, psychic transference, time travel or any sort of retrieval method that wouldn't cause a literary/temporal paradox. Hold on, since I'm also a member of Library Thing, maybe I can borrow it from her! Wouldn't that be completely awesome? Then I can just copy it and save myself all that time I would waste, you know, actually writing the damn thing.

While I'm working that out, here's a sub op for all you SF erotica scribes:

House of Erotica editor Nicole Gestalt has an open call for Cosmic Encounters, an upcoming erotic SF antho, and would like to see: "Science Fiction but any sub-genre is welcome be it steamunk, BDSM, Fantasy, alternative-historical, action, comedy, crime or any other! Pairings: Any Heat: Any level from romance to burning the pages of the book!" Specifics on what she's looking for: ". . . stories with a science fiction feel. These stories do not have to be focused on the far future or even the near future, they could be alternative histories or stories from far away worlds. Be as inventive as you can but please don't forget the story line and the relationships! Since this is an erotic anthology there should be on the page sex scenes however don't forget the interaction between the characters and the relationship they have. The stories should either end with a Happy-For-Now or a Happy-Ever-After it would have to be a amazingly good story for me to select it if it didn't (but I am well prepared to have my opinion changed on that)." Also: ". . . stories that stand out so please don't just set your stories on Earth, they can be set anywhere in the solar system – or even outside of our galaxy. Don't be afraid to experiment." Length: 5-15K; Payment: "Royalties will be split 40% of the net profits with contributing authors, exact values will be given once we know how many stories will be in the final anthology." No reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: June 30th 2014

Lovely Dark

Here's a look at some new cover art for the German edition of Nightshine:



I don't think I've ever had brown cover art, which I know can be a tough color to make look appealing. Unless you're wizards like my German publishers. I have no idea how they made it this gorgeous -- I'm really thinking magic might be involved. I believe the title translates to Look in the Dark, which is pretty canny, considering.

Freely Ten

Ten Things You Can Have for Free

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

Attach! is a handy little utility that scans your outgoing e-mail for mention of an attachment, checks to see if you've attached anything, and if you haven't warns you with a little pop-up screen prompter. If you're forever forgetting to actually attach your attachments, this might be worth a test drive (OS: Microsoft Outlook add-on for 2000, 2002; Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP)

Bytescout Watermarking Freeware "protect copyrights for your images with professional looking watermarks" (OS: Windows 2000, XP, 7)

Flip Page Book Maker allows you to "build stunning flippingbook publications in minutes! 100% freeware to to create the effect of turning or flipping the pages of your digital book or document; create digital flip page book from text book in seconds; interactive experience for your readers (Ease to Use); support for iPhone/iPad and Android for mobile viewing, and many more; control your flash page flip bookmark . TOC (Table of contents); download all files and publish: Your WEB server, CD / DVD, or USB device; customize and design to your brand identity" (OS: Windows 98, Me, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, 7)

FocusWriter is a "simple, distraction-free writing environment. It utilizes a hide-away interface that you access by moving your mouse to the edges of the screen, allowing the program to have a familiar look and feel to it while still getting out of the way so that you can immerse yourself in your work" (OS: Designer notes "It's available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, and has been translated into many different languages")

The free trial version of Idea Tracker offers "an easy, customizable and effective method to organize, sort, filter, and print your ideas, thoughts and/or notes. Ready to run immediately after installing or customizable to allow the user to decide how to display their ideas. It allows the organization of ideas (with up to two levels of categorization) and offers the choice of fields in which to save data. Thanks to customizable databases, the user is free to track ideas in many different ways. Ideas can be kept in one database or broken into logical groupings, such as notes on a single project" (OS: Win 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT 4.0, or XP)

Instant Writing Resources Tool Bar provides "instant access to free writing resources and writing links. Developed by Rowdy Rhodes its primary use is to provide access to the massive writing resource site Freelance Writing Organization - Int'l. which was established in 1999. The Tool Bar Includes Thousands of Resources, Freelance Writing Jobs, Job Search, Global Sponsors, RSS Feeds, Online Text Formatter and Character Counter, Dictionary, How-To-Write Library, Encyclopedia, Chat, Software, Writing Courses, over 55 Online Games and Gadgets, a Writers Radio Station by Writers for Writers, Forums, a Writers Store with Over 50,000+ Writing Products from Four Separate Suppliers, Writers Site News Archives, Windows Tray Alerts Announcing New Resources and Jobs, POP3 Email Notifier for All Your Email Accounts and a Help Desk" (OS: Windows, and designer notes "This software works with Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Safari")

The free trial version of PDF to Word Converter allows you to "effectively convert a PDF file to Doc file in just a matter of a few seconds. Such utility provides the simplest method to carry out the tedious and time taking conversion. Using such software all that you got to do is just make a selection and right-click the source file and then carry out the conversion to get the desired Doc file" (OS: Windows 98, 2000, XP, X32,7 X64, WinServer, WinVista, WinVista X64)

TreeSheets is "the ultimate replacement for spreadsheets, mind mappers, outliners, PIMs, text editors and small databases. Suitable for any kind of data organization, such as Todo lists, calendars, project management, brainstorming, organizing ideas, planning, requirements gathering, presentation of information, etc. It's like a spreadsheet, immediately familiar, but much more suitable for complex data because it's hierarchical. It's like a mind mapper, but more organized and compact. It's like an outliner, but in more than one dimension. It's like a text editor, but with structure" (OS: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X)

The free trial version of WhizFolders allows you to "Write up your notes in pieces and outline them in a hierarchy with a powerful outlining list. See the difference it makes in any kind of note taking, research and study" (OS: Windows 8 desktop, Windows 7, Windows Vista, XP, 20XX)

WriteMonkey is a "Windows zenware* writing application with an extremely stripped down user interface, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your words. It is light, fast and free. With an array of innovative tools under the hood and full Markdown* support, it helps you write better" (OS: Windows)

Off to Deal

I'm taking the weekend off to write and deal with some work-related stuff. So that your stop here was not a complete waste of clicking, here is not one but two brilliant videos that discuss why so many geniuses are/were, in fact, complete losers -- and what that means to everyone else in the creative world:

The Long Game Part 1: Why Leonardo DaVinci was no genius from Delve on Vimeo.

The Long Game Part 2: the missing chapter from Delve on Vimeo.

See you on Monday.

No Pain No Gain

When the first shoe flew I knew how this charming and uplifting video would end. See if you can guess how, too (dialogue, background sounds and some music, for those of you at work):

ONE MAN'S LOSS from Philip Sansom on Vimeo.

Motorcycle Story Sub Op

Elektrik Milk Bath Press has an open call for their upcoming motorcycle-themed antho: "We are looking for unusual, original stories that, in some way, shape, or form involve motorcycles and/or their riders, surroundings, etc. Perhaps the entire story revolves around a particular motorcycle and/or its rider. Maybe a motorcycle is important to the setting or the background, maybe it’s just passing through... While motorcycles or their elements must figure into the piece, the actual degree of involvement in the story… well, we’ll leave that up to you. If you want an idea of what we like, check out one of our favorite motorcycle-themed stories, Julio Cortazar’s “The Night Face Up.” The above mentioned stories are just ideas. We want to see what you come up with, so show us your creative best. Stories can be dark fantasy, horror, magic realism, literary, etc. Humor is okay, too. What we want, more than anything, is a good, solid story—stores that touch us, as readers, in some way. We love stories that are written from an unusual perspective, contain unusual but believable characters, or show us something we’ve never seen before. We don’t mind sex or blood—not even a bit—but we are not huge fans of excessive gore. If it is necessary to the story, no problem at all—we get that. Gore for gore’s sake... not so much." Length: "We are accepting stories from 1000—5000 words, with the majority of stories probably falling in 2000-5000 word range. We are pretty flexible with word count as long as it’s a great story. Impress us and even if you are a little over or a little under, we will sneak you in." Payment: $30 plus contributor's copy. On reprints: "We much prefer original stories but if you have a reprint you feel is exceptional, query us. We are usually more than happy to give reprints a read, although preference is given to original pieces." Electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: May 16th, 2014.

TMT

Tip of My Tongue is one of those little online tools that is insanely helpful when you need a word but you can't remember exactly what it is. You feed it what you can remember: letters, partial fragments of the word, the meaning, what it sounds like etc., and it searches for word matches and produces a list of possibilities.

My guy and I were on a walk the other night and we passed a palm tree I thought was lovely -- but neither of us could remember the proper name of it. All we had was "sa-something." When we got home I fed the letters and meaning (palm tree) to TMT, and got this:



It was a sabal palm, as the TMT correctly guessed on the first run. When you're writing there is nothing more annoying than being unable to remember a word exactly, so this online tool can serve as a very helpful search and rescue for your brain.

Eat Your Books

Library Thing has been holding their third annual Edible Books contest (which I didn't know ends at 6pm today or I would have posted about it sooner than this) and the gallery of entries is pretty neat. If I could have sweets I'd definitely want that Dune cake for my next birthday.

When my kid was in her last years of high school she always wanted to make her annual English Lit art project in cake. The class loved edible projects because at the end of class they got to eat them, so presenting one made you instantly popular. The kid also had me in her corner as an assistant (of all the cooking I do, I'm best at making cakes.) Unfortunately the teacher always assigned the unhappiest books for the annual project, which is how I ended up helping her to craft these two wonders:

Animal Farm



The Jabberwocky



I've never thought about turning one of my novels into a cake version, but it would be fun to try. A scene from one of my Toriana books might be cool; a steampunk alt-history cake would be a real challenge to pull off. But then I'd have to find people to take it away and eat it somewhere else -- I really miss cake a lot.

Have you ever turned a book into something edible? Let us know in comments.

Free Class Ten

Ten Online Writing Classes You Can Take for Free

Alison.com's English Writing Skills

Author and Screenwriter Steven Barnes's Free Writing Class

Author Jeffrey A. Carver's Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing

The Crafty Writer's Creative Writing Course

Education Portal's video series Conventions in Writing

Writing Coach Sarah Lovett's Dream It, Write It

Online Creative Writing's Copywriting Clinic

Online Creative Writing's The Challenge (online marketing writing class)

The Open University's Start Writing Fiction

The Open University's Writing What You Know

Shop at Your Library

My reading habit is usually heavier than my wallet, so when my new book budget for the month runs out I'll hit flea markets, rummage sales and used book stores to browse for bargains. I also like to stop in public libraries and see what books they're selling (usually offered by friends of the library in some shelves upfront or a separate room), and I make a point to always go to library book sales, like this one:



Library book sales are pretty wonderful for a couple of reasons: the variety of books (awesome), the prices (even more so) and the neat sectioning and alphabetizing of the books (I think when you work at a library this becomes second nature.) There are also lots of long, lovely tables tables like these:



On my most recent trip I was primarily looking mainly for purse books, aka a book I can throw in my purse and take with me wherever I go. For this kind of purchase I like Harlequin Presents because they're short reads and the romances are over-the-top and often quite exotic. I've also been reading HPs since I was a teen, so for me they're comfort books, too. That said, brand-new HPs cost about four bucks each, so I only pay retail for titles by my favorite authors. I also like to look for old paperbacks, interesting hardcovers and pretty much anything that looks like a decent read.

And here's my haul:



I picked up two hardcovers -- an Amanda Quick for my friend Jill and a keepsake how-to by Victoria magazine -- as well as three rare old paperbacks I'd read way back in my teens and twenties. I also scored 27 HPs, most by two writers I like and a copy of a Robyn Donald favorite to serve as a lender. Retail for all these books new would have been in the neighborhood of $175.00; even at the Dollar store they would have cost me $32.00. At the library sale I paid $4.95 for the entire pile, or about fifteen cents a book. All profits from the sale go directly to support the library, too. When I'm done reading the books I bought I will pass along the best to friends and then donate the rest back to the library, perhaps to be sold again at another library book sale in the future.

Escape Your Muggles

Any J.K. Rowling fan can now (virtually) attend the famous school from the Harry Potter books, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry -- for free! -- thanks to the ultra-cool website Hogwarts is Here:

Thanks to the Wizengamot, the British and American Ministry of Magics and a handful of tech-friendly professors from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry , a Hogwarts education has now become available online to all aspiring witches and wizards.

You are now able to enroll at Hogwarts, collect your textbooks and begin taking our 9-week courses online. You can now progress through all seven years of schooling and be assigned a professor, homework assignments, quizzes and more.

Meet other students online by joining a House dormitory, chat with others in the Common Room, browse and contribute to the Hogwarts Library, collect chocolate frog cards, earn galleons & house points and so much more.

Thanks to the efforts and resources (plus a little magic) from the Wizard-Muggle Integration Movement, this online Hogwarts experience and education is entirely free. With a lot of passion from fans and with extraordinary creativity, anything is possible.

(Hogwarts link nicked from Gerard at The Presurfer)

Stay the Night

I don't often fall in love with contemporary music videos, but for Zedd's Stay the Night I'll make an exception (the fact that it shares a title with one of my novels may factor in a little, too.) It is amazing, romantic, filled with energy and the perfect showcase for the gorgeous voice of Hayley Williams (so if you haven't guessed by now, it contains wonderful singing and dance music. Also includes some flashing lights, for those of you who don't like/can't watch them):

Two Ops

Sub Op for Writers:

Timeless Tales magazine has an open call for their upcoming Pandora's Box themed issue: "We only accept fiction (no poetry or non-fiction) that are retellings of the theme that is currently open. It can be a modernization, sci-fi, a mash-up, etc. Content: While Timeless Tales is not targeted specifically at children, it is a fairly conservative magazine, especially when it comes to sexual content, so I intend to keep the stories in the PG-13 range or below. However, I have a deep appreciation for the darker side of many original fairy tales, so don’t assume I only want “happy” stories." Length: "Up to 2000 words, with under 1500 preferred"; Payment: $15.00 + one year premium subscription; reprints okay if you hold all rights, electronic submission only, see see guidelines for more details. Deadline: April 30th, 2014.

Job Op for Editors:

Kirkus Media has a job opening for Director of Kirkus Editorial in NYC, and is "currently seeking a connected, self-motivated editor with an entrepreneurial bent for the position of director of Kirkus Editorial, the company’s fast-growing book editing and promotional copywriting division. This position will oversee a large roster of freelance editors and copywriters who are available for projects from both individual authors and publishing houses. The ideal candidate will be a great multi-tasker who is comfortable with change and open to new ways of doing things. He or she will have a passion for writing and bringing out the best in others’ writing. If you want to play an important role in developing something totally unique in the industry, this could be the job for you!"

For more information about the job's responsibilities and educational/skill requirements for the position, visit Kirkus Media's career section here.

Spark My Story

Storytellers are often avid collectors; I think most of us have fairly hefty libraries so book collections are likely the most popular. Before he sold most of them author Larry McMurty had a personal library of 450,000 books. I'm trying to imagine just dusting them and I can't. My own book collection is much more modest -- it's holding steady at about 2K presently -- and I only collect certain authors, but have spent many happy years hunting down and acquiring their entire backlist.

Sometimes the things we writers collect can be a little odd, too. Watergate fascinated my grandmother the poet; in addition to buying every single book published about it she also obsessively collected magazine and newspaper articles written on the subject. Author and former D&D player China Miéville is supposed to have a pretty amazing collection of role-playing game bestiaries. Edward Gorey was a huge fan of fur coats; he owned 21 of them and not only wore them but put many of his characters in furs, too (I've never owned a fur, and since I have much love for all furry things I'd rather see them on the original owners.)

I think probably the strangest writer collection I've ever heard of belongs to author Amy Sedaris, who collects plastic meats. Yes, plastic meats, as in toy play food.

Other than books, I collect art, music, handmade quilts and Victorian American photographs and ephemera. I also have a modest collection of story sparklers; these are what I call the small, random and sometimes mysterious objects the universe throws at me as inspiration on a regular basis. For something to make it into this collection it has to fill four qualifications:

1) It must be something small (if it's larger than a ping pong ball I take a photograph of it)
2) It possesses mysterious origins and/or qualities
3) It shows up unexpectedly
4) It instantly gives me one or more story ideas.

The most recent addition to my story sparkler collection is this little sketch I found this morning on my telephone message pad. Now I do know where this came from -- my daughter the artist, who can't resist drawing a pair of eyes or a face on the pad whenever she's in the kitchen or on the phone. And while I've collected most of her formal artworks over the years, I love these little thoughtless random sketches with a passion, so I save those, too -- but I don't write stories about them.

Why did this particular sketch throw a story spark at me? I'm not sure. It could be the expression, or the flowers in her hair. Because I didn't want to know, I didn't ask my daughter, either. Whatever it means to her, the moment I first glanced at it a character whirled into life in my head and started telling me her story. A minute later I was in the office looking at the sketch while I dictated the story idea it gave me to the computer. With most story sparklers it usually happens that fast, too. So when you see a character named Ivi show up in one of my books in the future, you can blame this sketch (and my kid) for her presence.

My love of all things vintage and the fact I'm constantly shipping things is responsible for this another recent addition to my sparkler collection: this slightly rusty key. I found it after coming home with a package; when I moved it from the car into the house it dropped from the bottom of the parcel onto my kitchen table.

I called my shipper to ask if they had lost a key, which they hadn't, and then I contacted the sender, who also said no. I examined the box, and found that one edge of some packing tape on the bottom of the box had rolled over. My working theory is that when the frayed cord attached to the key came in contact with that exposed adhesive it must have stuck.

Because it's small and pretty flimsy I'm fairly sure that it's something like a diary or old suitcase key. The shape of the top, however, intrigues me. I've never before seen a key with this odd triangular shape. There are some letters stamped in the metal on both sides, but rust covers all of them except a G and maybe a Y. At the moment I'm torn between wanting to clean it so I can read all the letters and leaving the lovely rusty look intact. I adore keys of all kinds, so finding this old beauty dropping (literally) into my life prompted me to revisit a story idea I had about a mystery key. Having the physical sparkler come into my hands in such an interesting manner added to the original idea, and now I have a working plot outline for the story.

Just how powerful can such random story sparklers be? Imagine you pick up some take-out from your favorite Chinese restaurant, and when you open your cookie to read the fortune you get this:



My guy did the other night when this fortune landed in his lap. Now he's not a writer, so he didn't get it, but the moment I saw it I thought, What if Elizabeth Moon likes Chinese, and collects the fortunes . . . ?

Psychic Review #2!

L. sent me this update from Goodreads, which hosted that three-star psychic review for Forget-Me-Knot, a story I haven't yet written:



If you're out there, Fiona, thanks for the laugh -- much needed right now.

Entitled Ten

Ten Blogs with Titles I Love and Envy
(with descriptions and links so you can visit them)

100 Layer Cake: Aside from its decandent and delicious title, this blog covers all things wedding-related: "At 100 Layer Cake, we are dedicated to finding unique venues and ideas for your big day." The photos are especially spectacular, and while I've never before heard of a wedding-themed blog -- probably because I'm done with marriage for life -- I found the visuals quite inspiring.

Awkward Stock Photos: A Tumblr blog where "awkward stock photos finally have a purpose." I want to steal this idea and start one called "Awkward Novel Covers" but I'd have to feature too many of my own.

Design Love Fest: According to the About page "Bri Emery is an art director and the Los Angeles-based founder and editor of designlovefest, a lifestyle blog with an eye for design in style, DIY, food, travel, entertaining and more." I really loved the subtitle: Where type and images totally make out

Godzilla Haiku: Another Tumblr blog where SamuraiFrog celebrates Godzilla love in seventeen syllables. No, I'm not kidding. Much of the poetry is pretty awesome, too.

Inspiration Strikes. In the Kneecaps. -- Yandie describes herself as "the goddess of pickles" and "a 30-something year old divorced mother of two pre-adolescent girls. I have a dude who is around a lot who I like an awful lot, and a cat whom I tolerate. I work at {redacted} doing {redacted} for {redacted}. I have no mission for this blog... it's a little bit of everything. Humour, creative writing, ranting, parenting, pop culture, feminism and various ephemera." This one is thoughtful and very well-written.

Product Junkies Rehab: written by two 30ish New Yorkers on a mission: "The mission is simple: we love our products but we hate the junk. Starting this year, 2010, we’ll be purging our beauty routine of harmful toxins. We’re going to attempt to use only organic and natural skincare, haircare, makeup, and, yes–even deodorant!" Since I hardly ever wear makeup because nearly all of it makes me break out in rashes, I might be a frequent visitor.

Sho & Tell: Brooklyn blogger Shoko is an "Explorer first, writer a close second, show-er and tell-er always." Great photos with the posts.

Smitten Kitchen: A very neat cooking blog written from Deb Perelman's tiny but fearless NYC kitchen; reminds me so much of how my Dad was about food, too: "What you’ll see here is: A lot of comfort foods stepped up a bit, things like bread and birthday cakes made entirely from scratch and tutorials on everything from how to poach an egg to how to make tart doughs that don’t shrink up on you, but also a favorite side dish (zucchini and almonds) that takes less than five minutes to make."

Spray Beast: A graffiti art blog that "was created in july 2010 with the simple idea of showing the best graffiti in the world, on a daily basis. We have been involved with the graffiti scene for over a decade, both painting and documenting it’s evolution." I love, love, love this blog title. I don't condone vandalism of any kind, btw, but I'm a reluctant fan of Banksy, so this blog helps feeds my internal conflict.

Things Organized Neatly: This one is also a Tumblr blog, and if you're like me and slightly OCD about the art of organization, you'll want to have a look.

Wishing You

Logging Off, Editing with Ernest

I'm taking the weekend off to celebrate the holiday and be with my family and not be on the internet as much as possible. Selfish of me, I know, but I can get that way sometimes. Comments moderation will likely be slow and/or backed up as a result. So that your stop here was not entirely wasted, let me share some info on an online editing tool:

You can get immediate editing help for anything you write online via the desktop version of HemingwayApp, which allows you to type in (or cut-n-paste) text and then have the app edit it (first you have to highlight and delete the instructions, btw.) Here's a screenshot to explain more details:



And the text version of the same:

Hemingway App makes your writing bold and clear.

Hemingway highlights long, complex sentences and common errors; if you see a yellow highlight, shorten the sentence or split it. If you see a red highlight, your sentence is so dense and complicated that your readers will get lost trying to follow its meandering, splitting logic — try editing this sentence to remove the red.

Adverbs are helpfully shown in blue. Get rid of them and pick verbs with force instead.

You can utilize a shorter word in place of a purple one. Mouse over it for hints.

Phrases in green have been marked to show passive voice.

Paste in something you're working on and edit away. Or, click the Write button to compose something new.

I tested it with a random passage from one of my novels, and here is a screenshot of the results. It flagged me on the only two adverbs I used -- I don't loathe adverbs like some writers, so having them in the text okay with me -- and gave me a green light on everything else. I should write worse.

You can use this online tool to edit fiction, blog posts, e-mails, or basically anything you write, and it may see something you don't, so check it out when you have a chance.

Beautiful

Seeing how other artists express beauty forever fascinates me, and this incredibly detailed video does so with spectacular, unearthly visuals (includes background music, for those of you at work):

The Moment of Beauty from Takayuki Sato on Vimeo.

Face Me Out, Please

If you were a book, where would you be shelved in the library? Take this Dewey Decimal quiz and find out.

My results:



Yep, that makes all kinds of sense (when I visit the library I spend a lot of time browsing the 900's as it's my favorite nonfic section, so I'd be happy there as a book.) On what shelf did you end up? Post your results in comments.

(Test link nicked from Gerard at The Presurfer)

Reject Sub Op

Harren Press has a very interesting open call for an upcoming antho: "We, at Harren Press, are hosting a REJECTED anthology! Any short story that you have written, submitted, and been rejected with; we are interested in seeing it and the rejection letter. We are accepting any genre, so feel free to submit anything you have. What we ARE looking for: Stories that have been polished by the writer, but for one reason or another were not accepted by the intended publisher. What we are NOT looking for: Stories that have obvious reasons for rejection. We do not want stories that are filled with several grammatical and spelling errors. We do not want stories that have no ending, have no plot, and have no character building. Your story should be a complete short story. Within this anthology, there will be a forward that discusses the various reasons that stories, even perfectly written stories, can sometimes hit the rejection pile at different presses, small and large." [PBW notes: How cool is this? I'm putting a reminder on my calendar so I can buy the finished product in December.] Length: 2.5-5.5K Payment: $5.00. No reprints (obviously), electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: June 30th, 2014 or when filled.

Very Good Reading!

There was another very strange thing I saw on the internet last week, but this deserves a post of its own, as I think it will interest one of my friends and indeed every author out there who actively agonizes over the reviews and ratings of their work on Goodreads.com.

I took this screenshot of a page at Goodreads showing a sampling of the ratings given to three of my works:



What I'd like you to note is the rating for Forget-Me-Knot, the listing indicated by the pink arrow. I scheduled this story to release last October as a freebie novella to promote my new series. To tell you the truth, I was unhappy with how it turned out. Evidently this reviewer was, too, when she read it on March 24th, 2014.

Now I know that authors aren't supposed to make a fuss over this kind of thing, but stay with me on this. I don't have a problem with what the reviewer thought of the story. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Nor do I care that I got a three-star rating for it. I don't count or care about stars. The only problem I have with this three-star rating, in fact, is that I didn't release Forget-Me-Knot in October as planned.

What I actually did with it was delete it after writing the first draft. I know, that's pretty radical, but I want my free stories to be as good as my published works. Sometimes things don't work out, and often I've found it's better to trash a bad draft and start over versus patching and fixing. I did want to think about it a bit, too, and because I've been so busy with the launch of the back-to-back series print editions I haven't yet got back to the project.

Still don't get it?

To date I have not released the story because there is no story yet. There is no Forget-Me-Knot.

So how can someone give a story that doesn't exist three stars? I have no idea. Perhaps this lady did find a way to read the first draft before I trashed it. She could have surreptitiously dug through my garbage cans, for example, to retrieve the original manuscript. Oh, wait, I didn't actually print out that story, so it existed only as a file on my laptop. That laptop is never hooked up to the internet, so she couldn't have hacked into it, either.

Hmmmm, that makes the three-star rating a bit tougher to explain. Before I deleted the only copy of the file, she might have broken into the house to read the story on my laptop in the middle of the night while we were sleeping, I suppose. If she could bypass Casa PBW's security system, sneak past the dogs without waking them and then figure out my password, that could be the answer. Seems like an awful lot of effort to read a free story I never published . . .

Hey. Could she be psychic and have read the story by directly tapping into my thoughts? Is that how she did it?

What? It's possible.

This is getting kind of exciting -- I mean, I may have proof here of a genuine psychic reviewer! How cool would that be? I wonder what she thinks of the next novel I'm planning to write. I should e-mail her and ask. This kind of reviewing could really save me a lot of grief. I may never again waste my time producing a bad story; all I have to do is check Goodreads to see what everyone thinks of it before I actually write it.

How can I agonize over such an amazing discovery? Right, this is supposed to be depressing. Tell you what, I will try to work up the proper amount of devastation to merit a meltdown or something. Check back with me next week, okay?

Huh Ten

Ten Amazing/Strange/Inspiring Things I Saw on the Internet Last Week

#1: A man who spent $158K on plastic surgery in order to resemble a human Ken doll insults a woman who wears makeup and hair extensions in order to look like a human Barbie doll.

Already I need an aspirin.

#2: Bruce and Melanie's Steampunk Victorian House

Bruce and Melanie, adopt me, please. Or let me be your housekeeper.

#3: "Don't break anyone's heart
They only have one
Break their bones
they have 206"

My next hobby: evil cross-stitch.

#4: Google adds the temples of Angkor, Cambodia to StreetView

This is one of the places in the world that I've always wanted to visit but likely won't, so I'm totally in love.

#5: Sakura, Sakura ~ the cherry blossoms of Tokyo

Sigh. If I ever visit Japan, it will have to be during March or April.

#6: The 25 Stages from Courtship to Marriage (in hand-tinted stereograph)

My count is 24 -- apparently one of the cards is missing -- but still, quite charming. Also a good reminder of how lucky we contemporary women are for not having to wear those long skirts and all the corsets, crinolines and petticoats that went with them.

#7: What happens when you and your family stop eating sugar for a year.

I lost forty pounds my first year. Still sugar-free, too.

#8: The Ten Types of Writer's Block and How to Overcome Them

Number 11: You spend your creative time reading articles about writer's block instead of writing.

#9: Woman throws shoe at Hillary Clinton during speech.

Everyone thought this was funny but me. Probably because I'm thinking how it could have easily been a grenade instead of a shoe.

And #10:



Sony's version of Sakura, I guess. If more commercials were this inventive I might start watching television again.

(Some of the above links were found over at The Presurfer.)

Kit & Crew on LT

I'm cross posting this from the series blog as I know some of you out there are Library Thing members:



To spread the love among my fellow book lovers I'm giving away ten signed print copies of Disenchanted & Co. to members of Library Thing, and it doesn't matter where you live -- residents of all countries are welcome to put in a request (you can find the official listing here, about halfway down the page.)

My only request of the winners is that they post a review of the book somewhere online (I'm not picky.) The folks at Library Thing will choose the ten recipients on April 23rd, so you've got two weeks to put in your request.

Get Feedback, Help a Pup

Author P.N. Elrod is holding a virtual garage sale to raise funds to pay for her pup Fuzzy's vet bills, and among the treasures are donation critiques:

Limit is 2500 words. If it goes longer to finish out a paragraph, that's okay, but don't send more than that. Most editors and agents make a decision based on the first couple pages. 2.5K words = 10 manuscript pages. Send the start of the story or novel, no prologues, no middle of the story with your "best" stuff.

The author asks for a donation (minimum $10.00) in return for the critique, which is quite reasonable. I also have it on good authority that a very cool bag of convention swag will be added to the Garage Sale page in the near future, so check back for updates.

Birds & Art

Before we get to the Friday video, some of you know how my home is a magnet for nesting birds. I don't know why, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I feed them all year long. If you're going to have babies, might as well be near the best take-out place in the neighborhood.

For the last several years I have found birds nesting in the oddest places: on top of my birdhouses, in my potted plants and my hanging plants, but the absolute strangest spot of all time was in our backyard grill:



I thought I was the only author who attracted these ditzy birds, but it turns out they're after Shiloh Walker, too:



All I can say is lift the lid and check your grill before you turn it on, writers.

I do have a delightful video for you this week that features Lila, sort of an artist version of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie. It is long, but worth every second (and features music and background sounds, for those of you at work):

"LILA" from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

Three Wishes

Spring arrived and brought time to dream
as the world woke up
and turned to green

To celebrate winter's finish
She's granting you three wishes


I wish for wonderful things to see and learn and do



I wish for peace for all of you



and I wish everyone has time to make their dreams come true.

Will Write for Kittens

While cruising around some links I came across Written? Kitten, aka the most adorable writing prompter on the internet. It's very simple, in that you type your words in the box provided. For every hundred words you write there, you get a (virtual) kitten, as you can see from my first try here:



I forgot to do a screen capture when I reached 100 words, so my screenshot actually shows my second kitten. This little online tool is oddly delightful, and while obviously all in good fun, might even help you bust through a writing block (unless you hate cats; then you might want to try a heartless unfeeling wretch prompter.) I think it would also be great for kids who are learning how to type or journal, or who might be slogging through written homework.

Off & Sub Op

I am taking off today to deal with some family business. So that your stop here was not wasted, here's an interesting new sub op I found among the marvelous market listings over at Ralan.com:

According to their web site, Spacesuits and Sixguns is a "magazine of contemporary pulp fiction – simple, straightforward storytelling with an emphasis on action. We’re not looking for Lovecraft or Howard pastiches, or stories set in the 1930’s. Read a dozen pulp fiction stories, soak it all up, then ask yourself: what if this happened in my hometown today? Write close to home, write about what you love, and follow Elmore Leonard’s maxim: leave out the parts people skip. All genres accepted — detective, horror, mystery, adventure, SF, sword and sorcery. We love them all." Length: "Give us about 4000 words. Shorter is fine. We’re flexible. If it’s longer and it’s good, no problem. Rule number one – be fun!" Payment: "Pays 4 cents/word on publication." Query on reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details.

Not a Penny Ten

Ten Things You Can Have for Free

Freeware caution: always scan free downloads of anything for bugs and other threats before dumping the programs into your hard drive.

CintaNotes is a "Windows application that will let you easily collect and manage thousands of text-based information pieces. The application sits in the Windows system tray and springs into action on a hotkey. Ergonomic, fast and inobtrusive: you’ll feel it is part of the OS. And all this together with excellent searching and organizing abilites — CintaNotes makes collecting, organizing and finding information a breeze. A must-have for all knowledge workers: a no-nonsense, simple and pleasant way to maximum productivity" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7/8)

Desktop Journal is a "basic and straightforward journal software, meant to store your entries safely, without all the confusing and frivolous bells and whistles. All entries are encrypted and access to the interior of your journal can only be accessed by you (front-cover passcode). Entries can be searched by date, you can simply flip through your entries by page (forward and back), or you can set the trackbar thumb to jump to a desired location within your journal pages. The interior of the journal also contains a user friendly, searchable and integrated contact book which can store names, numbers and email or street addresses of family or friends. Complete help-files are also included" (OS: Designer notes "There are no special system requirements. Windows platform (compatibility): XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8RT [RT is the ´light´ version installed on most small tablets])

DoPDF is a "free PDF creator that does what the name suggests, creates PDF files. Once installed it will allow you to convert any type of printable documents to PDF files. doPDF installs itself as a virtual PDF printer driver so after a successful installation will appear in your Printers and Faxes list and also in the list of All Programs" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7)

DreamPlan Home Design is a home and landscape planning and design software that allows you to "Visualize and plan your dream home with a realistic 3D home model; create the floor plan of your house, condo or apartment; custom set colors, textures, furniture, decorations and more and plan out exterior landscaping and garden spaces" [PBW notes: if you want a freeware to help you design a particular setting, this one could be quite useful] (OS: Windows 7, XP, Vista and 8 64-bit)

Efficient Calendar is an "elegant and easy-to-use scheduler, planner and reminder. Multiple calendar views, such as Day and Month views as well as list view are available so you can better arrange and track your events. All appointments, meetings, events and tasks can be reminded in time as configured, and you will never miss any important event" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 [32-Bit/64-Bit])

Interactive Calendar is a "fusion of a multi-functional desktop calendar with impressive customization capabilities and a convenient task manager, capable of bringing some order to your business and personal life. This unique software displays a calendar and its cells right on your desktop wallpaper, making it an integral part of your Windows theme. Interactive Calendar renders cells 400%-1000% faster than its closest competitors, which makes it the fastest calendar software of this type on the market. No delays and update lags, no jerky refreshes – the user interface is both smooth and natural looking. Planning your time with Interactive Calendar is a breeze. Its greatest advantage is the degree of visual customization it supports. You can customize everything from the position of the calendar on the screen to its size, color, transparency, font, shadows, cell spacing and much more, to make sure it stays in line with your desktop color scheme. As a bonus, Interactive Calendar includes a built-in wallpaper changer" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8 [32-Bit/64-Bit])

Money Manager is a "free, open-source, cross-platform, easy-to-use personal finance software. It primarily helps organize one's finances and keeps track of where, when and how the money goes. It is also a great tool to get a bird's eye view of your financial worth. Money Manager includes all the basic features that 90% of users would want to see in a personal finance application. The design goals are to concentrate on simplicity and user-friendliness - something one can use everyday" (OS: Windows, Linux and Mac OSX)

Task List Guru is a "free task list organizer ideal for personal task management and small project management. You can organize not just tasks, but also task lists, notes and reminders. Task List Guru has a hierarchical task list tree with icons that allows you to organize all your todo lists and notes in a structure with icons. You can choose from 48 different colorful icons for your to-do lists - this makes using this organizer fun" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8)

TodoPlus is a task management program that allows you to "Break down your goals into small and achievable steps; reduce time spend on unimportant tasks; focus on your most important tasks first; stay focused on one task at a time; always know what to do next; achieve more in less time by being more productive and reduce stress caused by having too many tasks in your head, and the fear of forgetting something important" (OS: Windows, Mac OS X)

WowBase is a program that allows you to "create your own database quickly and easily. The main feature of the program — records are not in the form of rows, and in the form of cards. This method of editing the records you have not tried! There is quite a different attitude to the records: now this is not one thin strip of thousands, and a separate independent object that can be manipulated. You can even copy a few records and send them via instant message or e-mail to a colleague that he added them to his table. Very simple interface and minimal facilities needed for editing tables" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7/8 [32-Bit/64-Bit])

IngramSpark for Indies

I've had more than a few folks ask me about free publishing services for indie authors, in hopes that I had something tucked away in the No-Cost file. Unfortunately:

1. I am not an indie author, unless you count self-publishing e-books for the last thirteen years. Since they're all free I think that makes me crazy, not indie.

2. From my limited POV (and when I say limited I mean it in the comfortably-fits-in-my-favorite-thimble sense because I don't do it myself) unless you handle everything -- formatting, cover art, promotions, web site, Twitter, Facebook etc. -- indie publishing is never 100% free.

So those are the disclaimers, and I defer anything I write in this post in advance to any dissenting indie author with more experience than me, which is basically every indie author.

That said, I did a little homework and found that if you're interested in going the indie author route IngramSpark may offer the most pub for your buck as an all-in-one low-cost pub/concierge POD service:

Ingram Content Group has introduced IngramSpark, a new Publish-on-Demand platform that enables the delivery of content worldwide to readers in print and electronic formats. Powered by Lightning Source and CoreSource, Ingram’s ebook distribution platform, IngramSpark is specifically tailored to the needs of the small and independent publisher.

IngramSpark streamlines sales, account set up, content management and customer support activities into an easy-to-use, self-service platform. All you need to get started is an email address, print-ready PDFs for print titles, EPUB and JPEG for ebooks, an ISBN, and a credit card.

Here's a look at their pricing (my comments are in italics):

Account Set-Up: Free (excellent)

Title Set-Up ~ Loading, storing, and managing book, ebook files, and metadata per title.

Book and ebook -- $49.00 (submitted at the same time)
Book -- $49.00
E-book -- $25.00

(Admittedly not cheap but I think in the range of reasonable for most wallets.)

Titles are eligible for automatic free set-up with an initial order of 50+ copies. When a print order is placed for 50 copies within 60 days of title set-up, the customer will receive a $49 refund. (I would first figure out how much 50+ print copies are going to cost you before signing on for this. As in spending $1000.00 to save $49.00 is a bit silly.)

Print On Demand (Print & Ship): Printing and shipping costs will depend on your book type, volume, and shipping location.
You can print as many copies as you need (one or thousands). We have volume discounts available for large print orders. (They have a Print and Ship Calculator to help you estimate costs, too, which can be helpful.)

Global Market Access (Book & Ebook Distribution) ~ Your title(s) are automatically available for purchase to over 39,000 global retailers, and their consumers. (I would want to know upfront if Amazon, B&N and BAM are among these 39K retailers, but that's me.)

Book and Ebook Market Access -- $12.00 per title, per year (if submitted at the same time)
Book Market Access -- $12.00 per title, per year
Ebook Market Access -- $12.00 per title, per year

(Not so thrilled about this charge, as access has already been granted via the set-up charges, but a dollar a month is also reasonable for most wallets.)

Publisher Compensation:

When your books are sold through our distribution network, you are paid:
Printed (POD) Title -- Dependent upon your wholesale discount, you are paid 45% or 60% of List Price minus print costs
Ebook Title -- 40% of List and Agency Price

(And this would be when? Something you might also want to find out in advance.)

Upside: This is quite a bit cheaper than the indie publishing platform my literary agent recommended to me some time back, so I hope that means indie author services are becoming more competitive.

Downside: It's all self-service, so if you mess up something along the way you might end up with a clunker or having to repeat the entire process. I also suspect that if anything goes wrong it may take some doing to correct, so you might want to find an author who has used the service and ask them about their experience with it.

Speaking of that, does anyone out there use IngramSpark's services, and if so can you share any intel on how they perform? Or do you use another POD publisher that provides more services for less $$$? Please let us know in comments.

Spec Fic Contest

The Twentieth Annual Garden State Speculative Fiction Writers Short Story Contest is now open for entries, and this year's theme is "Harping on Conspiracies": "1970s paranoia is back in fashion, but with a 21st century technological edge. Does the NSA listen in on every little tweet? Will drones watch over the backyards of America? And what exactly is HAARP (the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program), with its high-power radio frequency transmitter facility located deep in the Alaskan wilderness? Is the Air Force really studying the ionopshere, or is electronically tickling the Northern Lights a cute cover for more sinister experiments in weather manipulation, satellite disruption and mind control? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to impress us with the wildest conspiracy you can imagine, whether inspired by current events like those above or drawn completely from your worst hypothetical fears. All genres will be considered, and the subject matter need not be limited to modern, scientific skullduggery. Freemasonry, ancient cabals, cults, secret societies and good, old-fashioned assassination plots are just as welcome." Length: up to 4K (firm); prizes: "All authors will receive written critiques from each of three first round judges. The top three stories will move on to the second round, judged by Hildy Silverman, editor-in-chief of Space and Time Magazine. The 1st Place story will be published in a future issue of S&T, as per editor’s timeline and discretion, and the author will receive the Graversen Award ($75), in honor of the GSSW’s founder, Patricia Graversen. The 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive $40 and $25, respectively." No entry fee, no reprints, electronic submissions only, see contest page for more details. Deadline: July 31st, 2014.

Crazy Real

This computer animated video looks so real it may actually make you queasy (some sound effects, for those of you at work):

Crazy Furniture from immortal-arts on Vimeo.

Quilting Picasso Update

Thanks to a couple of quiet nights I've been able to make significant progress on my Picasso project, which presently is in this stage:



The glaringly white ribbon flower is now a lovely tangerine hibiscus color, thanks to some careful application of not-too-wet watercolor paint:



I chose this particular shade to compliment Picasso's colors and to match the hedge that bloomed outside the back door of my childhood home. I think it's important to weave a little personal history into any creative project, even when it has special meaning only to you; that is what makes it uniquely your work.

The lady now has some pretty lace and bead cuffs for her dress, too:



I'm not sure if the cuffs are too fussy for the piece, but her sleeves looked a bit naked without them, and they pick up some of the colors of the midsection beading I did. I've also decided on the fabric I'm going to use for the other half of the project:



I believe I'm done with embellishing Picasso's lady, and now I'll move on to finishing up the piece (I do have to set it aside for at least a week while I take care of some work-related business stuff, too.) I'm still sticking to a mantra of keep it bold and simple, which so far has worked out very well. For all of you who are interested, when it's done if I'm happy with it I will be giving away the finished project here at the blog, so if I don't mess it up in the very near future (end of April, beginning of May or thereabouts) it could be yours.

Ink Saver

As a science fair project, 14-year-old middle school student Suvir Mirchandani discovered that switching to Garamond as the typeface font for printed documents could save thousands in the cost of ink -- and on a larger scale, millions:

"Ink is two times more expensive than French perfume by volume," Suvir says with a chuckle. He's right: Chanel No. 5 perfume costs $38 per ounce, while the equivalent amount of Hewlett-Packard printer ink can cost up to $75.

The young teen theorized that his school district could save as much as $21,000.00 by switching to the thinner Garamond, which uses less ink, and went to do the same math for the federal goverment:

Using the General Services Administration's estimated annual cost of ink -- $467 million -- Suvir concluded that if the federal government used Garamond exclusively it could save nearly 30% -- or $136 million per year. An additional $234 million could be saved annually if state governments also jumped on board, he reported.

So will everyone switch over to Garamond to save all that expensive ink? Probably not -- but I can tell you from now on I'll be using it instead of Times New Roman or Arial for what I print out.

Related links: Make your own fonts for free with Fonstruct

New Cover Art

I'm very pleased to announce that we have a new horror cover for my next novel, and it's absolutely a career landmine landmark:



I would love to hear your opinions of it, but before you comment I'd like to point out some of the ways in which it's going to ruin my life help create buzz for the new series. While I have considered killing myself over haven't always fared so well with pink covers in the past, I think this one is worse has so much more potential to create buzz. You won't find this particular shade of pink on anyone's just anyone's novel, you know. In fact I think it's destined to become my personal cover art curse career trademark color.

The authentic Victorian-era model used to depict my protagonist is also tragic a thoughtful and provocative choice, especially considering her physical and mental disabilities striking appearance. Very few ladies can pull off looking like a loon wearing a top hat. I applaud the art department for reaching out to the local mental institution modeling community to find such a special lunatic lady.

I'm also utterly appalled enraptured by the new title chosen for my story; I think it will completely mislead reassure readers as to the compulsory sex scenes romantic content of the story. Romance readers, you no longer have to fear the appropriate troubling genre label of urban fantasy or steampunk on my books; as the title screams suggests it's all about the love.

And if any doubts about the new cover linger in your mind, you might want to check the date. Yep, gotcha!

Original image credit: Izismile.com