S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 174

Winner

We got the magic hat to do its thing, and the winner of the Mistake Me For giveaway is:

Sherry

Sherry, when you have a chance please send your full name and ship-to address to LynnViehl@aol.com so I can get your prize out to you. My thanks to everyone for joining in.

Wordle Scribing

Whenever I want to creatively juggle words and phrases I go straight to my favorite online toy, Wordle, which creates word clouds out of any text or URL you feed to it. Among other things I regularly use it to coin words, create story titles, and play with character profiles.

This time I went to Wordle with a less well-defined task on hand: pulling together some concept sketches. For me concepts often begin as simply a handful of words, images or feelings I want to stir together and see how they blend. Wordle helps with the stirring and the mixing.

I decided to tackle defining the concepts better by taking four defining/descriptive keywords, pulling a bunch of synonyms for them from the thesaurus and feeding the entire pile to Wordle to see what it made of them. If nothing else I figured I might get a few title ideas out of the exercise (and click on any of the following images to get a bigger view of the cloud.)

Concept #1: green, evening, ghost, sorrow



Several phrases overlapped and ended up being repeated, and as I read them I could see some new connections I hadn't made. Wordle's pairings of Winter demon, sunset vision and witching night also helped me further refine the concept. This cloud definitely sent me in the right direction.

Concept #2: desire, steal, time, secret



Not many phrases overlapped in this cloud, and at first glance it seemed, well, overly wordy. But once I gave it a few minutes I began focusing on individual words that seemed to jump out at me: underground, ransom, thieve, clouded, hunger and longing. Together they gave me the protagonist, who will be the hub of this concept.

Concept #3: heart, jewel, bright, fire



Again, not a lot of overlap, but probably the best results of all three attempts. Inspired by great pairings like white luster, twinkling cross, burning charm and individual words like solitaire, aglow and incandescent I found my plot and both protagonists as well as one possible setting.

If you want to try this method for your story concept, my advice is to use descriptive words that relate in some way to your story rather than stringently define it. Think mood instead of details. It also helps to employ keywords that are synonym-friendly, and do use plenty of synonyms, as the more you feed to Wordle, the more diversity you'll get in return.

Mistake Me For

For some reason I am often the victim of mistaken authorial identity. Being confused with other writers gives me the opportunity to live vicariously for a few hours, though, so it's not all bad.

Like when some strange folks decided that author Stephen Leigh and I were the same person (that one even had a hilariously idiotic web site devoted to it for a while.) I was quite flattered, because I mean who wouldn't want to be Stephen Leigh? He teaches writing at university, plays in three bands and studies Aikido. He has a great beard, too. Truth is I'd love to be a scholarly musician author professor who can genuinely kick your ass. And while I'm still not sure how anyone could build an entire conspiracy theory based solely on the fact that Stephen and I use the same first two initials (S.L.), it was a nice thrill while it lasted.

Since this is evidently going to be a regular thing with me, I think I should get to pick the next author I'm mistaken for. It's my turn, isn't it? That way I can spend an afternoon or a week or even a couple of months not being me while I'm being someone else I'm not. I could dress up, make people call me by names I've never used -- I think there are still a couple left -- and quite possibly write stories I'd never write.

With this in mind, here are some suggestions for the next time someone decides to make me a writer I've never been:

Jane Austen: I know, she's moved on to the next place, but maybe we could work a reincarnation theory or something. Of course I'd need this to go on long enough for me to write a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, bury the appropriately fake-aged manuscript somewhere in England, and leave clues so people know where to dig it up.

Jude Devereaux: With this identity I'll need a sample of her handwriting so I can sign some of her books for my mom, who adores everything she writes. She doesn't have a hard signature to fake, does she?

Thomas Harris: The beard isn't as nice as Stephen's, but we'll pretend I shaved it off. Actually I'd just like five minutes access to his brain so I can find out why he ended Hannibal the way he did.

Barry Hughart: so I could rummage through his files and see if there's a follow-up anywhere to Eight Skilled Gentlemen (the third book in his Bridge of Birds saga). Please note that I wouldn't steal it, I'd simply read it while I hid under his desk.

Jan Karon: Have you ever see her office? It's like Oprah's, only better. Plus she's believably blonde and makes helmet hair look elegant.

Stephen King: idle curiosity for the most part; I'd like to know how it feels to be the only living writer who is actually less photogenic than I am.

Shiloh Walker: because she can run and I can't, she does way better on her diet than I do, and I secretly suspect she's tireless.

I have a signed ARC of Nightborn to give away today, so if you're interested in a chance of winning it, in comments to this post name an author you'd like to be mistaken for, and why (or if you'd rather keep your own identity, just toss your name in the hat) by midnight EST on Wednesday, January 11, 2012. I'll choose one name at random from everyone who participates and send the winner a signed ARC of Nightborn, my upcoming March release and the first novel in my new Lords of the Darkyn trilogy. This giveaway is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won someone here at PBW in the past.

Sub Ops Ten

Carina Press Senior Editor Angela James issued an open call for novel submissions last month, and is looking for ". . . an author who has a contemporary romance trilogy or series planned. Any heat level considered! I'm specifically looking for contemporary romance novels (over 70k) but will consider a novella series (for novellas, even better if they're erotic, but not necessary)." Also: "A new paranormal romance (or urban fantasy w/romantic elements) series. The good news for you is that I'll consider all manner of paranormal, including vampires, shifters, etc. I'm not wore out on paranormal, so hit me with your A-game, even if it's a vampire series! Again, any heat level considered." Also: "A very, very hot erotic romance series. Smokin' hot. Any subgenre, any length. Can be BDSM or m/m. Just looking for smokin' hot erotic romance (not erotica, please)." She also notes: "So the trend here is that I'm looking for an author/authors I can build within a series in these particular genres. I'm not looking for standalone novels or novellas for this particular submissions call for myself (though Carina Press is always willing to and does acquire standalones)." No deadline mentioned, but as she mentions acquiring for Fall 2012 I wouldn't wait forever to submit. Carina pays royalties with no advance; I don't have the latest figures but they're decent. See blog post for more details.

SF author David Conyers has an open call for his Extreme Planets Antho, and is looking for "short stories set on or about alien worlds that push the limits of what we believe is possible in a planetary environment. These could be planets with gravities many times that of the Earth or orbiting neutron stars so their oceans are elongated into egg shapes. Carbon worlds or diamond worlds, iron worlds, or planets with extremely elliptical orbits. Worlds made of exotic elements or with bizarre atmospheres. Planets were time and space behaves strangely or against the laws of physics. Even artificially created worlds can find a home in this anthology, either transformed by bizarre technology or the creation of alien civilisations. Mostly, we hope you dazzle us with worlds we haven't even thought about." Length: 4-10K (established authors, up to 20K; query first), Payment: "US 3 cents a word and 3 contributor copies" No reprints (may make exception for pro/established authors; again query first), electronic submission only, see guidelines for more details. Deadline: June 30, 2012.

Fantastique Unfettered quarterly print & e-zine will be accepting submissions for their fifth issue during February & March 2012, and is looking for most sub-genre speculative fiction. Length: Ralan notes: ¾k-9k (prefers 4k-5k; >6k=masterpiece); Payment: fic=1¢/word; poem=3¢/word ($5min/$10max); +PDF copy. Query on reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. See a sample of the e-zine online here.

Flash Fiction Online e-zine is open to submissions, and is looking for: "science fiction and fantasy, but we also like literary fiction; and in any case, great flash stories aren't always easily classified. If you wrote it, and you love it, then submit it. Second-person point of view has a hard time running our gauntlet. Some of us like it, some don't. You can submit it, but the odds of publication are lower than first- or third-person. We want our publication to be accessible to a variety of ages, so please, no erotica, porn, or graphic sex or violence. Think Law and Order: Special Victims Unit or Criminal Minds on TV: they handle horrific situations, but always obliquely enough to be shown on TV — and for the most part, you never notice that the graphic elements aren't shown. But sex is also a part of life: if your story addresses sexual issues or contains non-graphic sexual content for a purpose, nobody on the editorial staff will be offended if you send it in. The worst we can do is say "no", right? In the same way, we won't publish profanity. However, you don't need to remove profanity to submit to us; just be prepared to modify it if we accept the story. There are things that we'll consider, but that are a hard sell for us. These include: Second-person point-of-view (does the story really need that perspective?), queer fiction (in particular, stories which would be obvious or trite if the characters had been straight), polemical fiction (we prefer stories with messages in them over messages told as stories). That said, we won't rule out any of these, so the worst case is that we say "no". Length: .5 to 1k; Payment $50.00, no reprints, electronic submission only, see guidelines for more details.

Flashquake e-zine is seeking "complete works, stories, essays and poems that demonstrate a mastery of the English language, contain original thoughts, demonstrate imagination, and weave their magic with power. We don't appreciate romance stories, nor work with excessive gore or violence, "goth" vampire tales, hard-core science fiction, rhyming poetry, or works of a religious nature. FQ has a long tradition of publishing: Flash Fiction (up to 1,000 words); Flash Nonfiction—Essays, Memoir, Stories, Etc (up to 1,000 words) Poetry (up to 35 lines); Prose Poetry (up to 300 words) FQ also seeks to publish (From the Editor's Desk section): 10 Minute Plays; Haibun (up to 1,000 words); Other forms which could be considered flash (up to 1,000 words); Book Reviews, esp. as they pertain to the flash reader and/or flash writer, including poetry (up to 1,000 words); Author Interviews, especially as they pertain to the flash reader and/or flash writer, including poetry (up to 1,000 words). In addition, FQ has a special affinity for: Translations, esp. those in which audio and/or video can be obtained from both the original language and the English version." Payment: .pdf and exposure. No reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Current reading period: January 1 - February 20, 2012.

Innsmouth Free Press has an open call for their Fungi antho, and are looking for "dark speculative fiction (horror, fantasy, science fiction, and any other variant, such as steampunk) focused solely on the fungal. No happy mushrooms from Mario Bros. A fungus of some type must be a key element in the story, not just a throwaway element. A character can attempt to poison someone with a mushroom, mushroom cultivation may be of importance to the story, the dark patch of mould on the ceiling may begin to terrify an unhappy tenant, a group of people may consume hallucinogenic mushrooms, etc. We are looking for a variety of settings and protagonists. Mushrooms sprout around the world, after all." [And just when I stopped writing about the Lok-Teel, too. Rats.] Length: up to 5K, Payment: "1 cent per word for original stories; Reprints paid at a flat rate of $35. Canadian dollars, eh. One complimentary print copy and one e-book copy provided." Reprints okay, electronic submission only, see guidelines for more details. Reading period opens January 15, 2012; Deadline February 15, 2012.

Heads up for Canadian publishers and published authors: Imaginarium, the best Canadian speculative writing has a call for submissions: "Publishers are invited to submit their anthologies or short story collections to editors Halli Villegas and Sandra Kasturi in hard copy or by PDF. If the work is from a collection or anthology, it must have appeared there for the first time. Reprints published within the last year are not eligible. Individual authors, if they wish, are also invited to submit work that may have appeared in a low print run or other obscure place if it was published in the preceding year (Jan 1 - Dec 31) and compensation was received for it. We will also accept submissions from Canadian authors writing in another language, but they must have a publishable English translation along with the original." No Length limit, Payment: CA1¢/word. Reprints only, electronic and snail mail submission, see announcement for more details. Deadline: January 31, 2012.

Journalstone is holding a horror novel contest: "Our first one turned out so well we decided to do it again, and again, and again. . . If you are interested please submit your 75,000 words or more manuscript/novel to joel@journalstone.com on or before April 1, 2012, and you will be entered. The winner will receive a $2,000 advance against future royalties and have his/her novel published by JournalStone. Grammar counts, have it edited before you submit your entry." See guidelines for more details.

Science Fiction Trails magazine features "stories with science fiction content that are set in the Wild West era. Stories must take place on earth during the time period 1850-1900 AD. All stories should have a strong connection to the western region of the United States [this can include western Canada or northern Mexico]." and are looking for "... character driven adventure. Take the time to develop interesting characters. We want science, but we want characters, too. A few things we like are The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr and the short-lived Legend TV shows, Aaron Larson's Haakon Jones stories or our editor's Miles O'Malley stories. Not all of these shows or stories had SF content, but many did. The point is, they were fun to watch or read with interesting characters. It would be worth your time to ask your library to get some of them for you. A few things that don't really work are aliens in some mine or cave for some inexplicable reason or some clod goes back in time and doesn't really belong there. Time travel is discouraged because it's an easy crutch for the writer to use and it rarely leads to an entertaining story.
Things we'd really like to see: an alchemy tale; something with flying machines. Please do not submit stories about copyrighted characters you did not create. We liked Jim West and Artamus Gordon, but they are someone else's creation and we won't use them." Length: 1-7k; Payment: $20.00 + contributor's copy, query on reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details.

Stonetelling e-zine is looking for "literary speculative poems with a strong emotional core. We focus on fantasy, science fiction, surrealism, and slipstream, but would consider outstanding science poetry and non-speculative poetry that fits the flavor of the magazine. Please note that we are not a mainstream literary poetry market, and non-speculative poetry will be an extremely hard sell. While we are open to all speculative poetry, we are especially interested in seeing work that is multi-cultural and boundary-crossing, work that deals with othering and Others, work that considers race, gender, sexuality, identity, and disability issues in nontrivial and evocative ways. We'd love to see multilingual poetry, though that can sometimes be tricky. Try us! There are no style limitations, but rhymed poetry will be a hard sell. Please try us with visual poetry, prose poetry, and other genre-bending forms. We will consider experimental poetry, but please remember that not all experimental poems are easy to represent in an e-zine format." Length: no limits; Payment: $5.00; query on reprints, electronic submission only, see guidelines for more details. Open to submission through February 20, 2012.

Changed by Books

Author Kris Reisz is looking for some opinions on a project he's contemplating -- and I'll quote here -- "I want to start a website where people can send in anecdotes about books, stories, poems, etc. that helped them somehow, whether they gave them the courage to ask the pretty girl out or maybe served as an escape during a rough patch in their lives."

Since this is the kind of thing you guys tell me in comments during giveaways here at PBW, I thought I'd ask if you'd head over to his LJ to read the post and (if you're inclined) offer him some thoughts on the subject.

I've never found a site devoted to this kind of content, so I think the idea is very cool. I imagine keeping out the marketing people, trolls and self-promo sluts would be something of a challenge, and it would probably have to be closely moderated to boot out the trolls looking to pick fights, but even so, I think it's a lovely concept.

Story Prompt Cards

I never run short of story ideas, but for writing prompts I usually depend on music, poetry, art or anything random to strike me and start the gears turning. My habit is to wait for it to come to me, and I've always viewed this as a necessary evil, as my interest needs to be seriously engaged by concept before I dive in to investing my writing in it.

To change my habits and step outside my comfort zone, I decide to challenge myself to write some short stories based on a preset collection of prompts. I still wanted a random element involved (mainly to prevent myself from deliberately or subconsciously picking out easy or story-sympathetic prompts), so for that I went to my jar of fortune cookie fortunes -- yes, I save every one I get -- and pulled out twenty slips at random.

To prevent misplacing or losing my 2011 theme fortune, I made it into an artist trading card, something I'm using as my annual art project for this year (more on that at the photoblog here.) I decided to do the same thing with these fortunes and make them into an ATC series. I've named the cards my story prompt deck, and my goal is to pick at least one card at random every month and use it to inspire a short piece of fiction.

It's good writing practice; it's definitely different for me and I'm hoping to get at least one novel idea out of the exercise. The real creative room is in the interpretation of the prompt while (hopefully) remaining faithful to it. I'm not giving myself any limits on length, genre or time period -- during my busy months, I may only be able to write a couple hundred words -- but I do want to tell a complete story for each prompt.

Some of the fortunes are a bit odd, and I don't agree with a couple of them, so I've also given myself permission to flip, twist, and otherwise put my own spin on them. Such as the Fearless courage is the foundation of victory card; I don't buy that at all. The truly fearless don't need courage; they operate on self-assurance, certainty, narcissism or whatever drives their confidence. In my experience the courageous are generally terrified souls, but somehow endure it, plow through it and persist in spite of it. Courage doesn't even exist until you acknowledge that the odds are against you and no matter what you do you're probably going to fail. Fearless people are by their nature incapable of feeling anything like that. When I pull this card I have no doubt I'll write a story that turns it on its head.

If you'd like to create a deck of your own story prompt cards, you don't have to eat Chinese take-out from now until March. Try clipping interesting words and phrases from magazines, newspapers or other printed materials, or gathering some interesting images (faces, objects, landscapes or any other story element would work well.) Write or print out some lyrics to your favorite poems or songs and snip some lines from them, or feed them to Wordle and see what pops up in the cloud. If you'd like less obvious prompting, collect some paint chip cards from your local home improvement store, pick a color at random and use the color name or the color itself in some way in your story.




Related links:

Big Huge Lab's photo trading card generator can help you design and print out some very cool-looking cards.

Creative Writing Prompts.com has 346 story prompts here to help spark ideas; hover your cursor over each number to read them.

Seventh Sanctum has an entire page of writing generators here that range from silly to seriously neat.

A Year in a Life

goodbye 2011 from dunkwun on Vimeo.

Bound for Adventure

One of the gifts I received over the holidays was a copy of Adventures in Bookbinding by Jeannine Stein, published by Quarry Books. The author, a veteran book artist, offers ten mixed-media projects (each with two variations) that push the boundaries of bookbinding by combining traditional techniques with handcrafting that is generally not used to make books.

The projects are clearly explained and are accompanied by several helpful reference photos; all of them are in color. The back of the book contains templates, patterns and resources, and it looks like all the stitching involved is clearly illustrated. Beautiful photos of the completed projects are also included in each section to give the finished look. Quarry obviously does not skimp on production, and the end result is a lovely edition.

The extreme coolness of this artisan's book is in the diversity of the materials and projects. Ms. Stein doesn't confine herself to journals and paper. There are projects in here that include needle felting, weaving, doll making, clay sculpting, jewelry, metal work, painting quilting, crochet, lino-printing and decoupage, and go into creating sketchbooks, mini books, idea books, notebooks and work books. When I want to go on a creative adventure, this is the kind of variety I want.

That said, this is not a book for the total beginner or the casual hobbyist who wants to slap it together in less than an hour; most of the projects require a certain amount of time, materials and handcraft skills to accomplish. A basic bookbinding tool kit is a necessity (and the author explains this in the getting started section), but it's not difficult to put together an inexpensive one. Anyone with basic sewing skill could attempt the quilted workbook project, but the jewelry and metal pocket sketchbook would probably be pretty difficult for someone who has never before made jewelry. I was glad to see the author used a lot of recycled and on-hand materials throughout the book, and showed shortcut variations of each project that produce a similar look with less time and expense involved.

If you're seriously into book making, and want to extend your range or take your binding to the next level, this is a book you'll want to add to your instructional collection. Art journalers who are interested in creating unique mixed-media bindings should also check it out.

Reconstruction

I'm in the process of testing a few template changes here and at PBWindow; if things turn a bit wonky it's probably because I clicked on the wrong option, and will correct it as soon as possible. I did switch the photoblog to one of Blogger's new template designs, and in the process lost my sidebar (or maybe I just haven't found it yet; not sure.)

Although I thought it would be good to try out some of the new looks, I'm still not inclined to extensively change PBW. I like it plain with plenty of room to write, and so far none of the new Blogger templates seem to offer that. I am having problems focusing on the text on PBW, so for the time being I've switched it to a font that is easier for me to read. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

While I'm tinkering on it, are there any changes to the blog's format that you'd like to see? Let me know in comments.

New Cover Art

My German publisher continues to give me amazing artwork. Judging by the listing for the book I'm sure this edition is a translation of Twilight Fall, book six from the original series.