S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 175

Yearly Ten

Ten Things to Help You Schedule 2012

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

Calendar Magic is "an easy-to-use program that is entertaining, informative, educational and of equal applicability in the home and in the office" (OS: Designer notes "Calendar Magic has been tested on Windows 95, 98, Me, XP, Vista (32-bit) and Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), and has also been reported to run without problems on other versions of Windows")

Calme is "made for creating and printing beautifully looking monthly planners, yearly planners and picture calendars in minutes. Creating individual calendars by choosing your own colors, picture themes, fonts, borders and your own personal photos is very easy. You can download holidays right out of the application and display them in your calendars. It is also possible to change your calendar language. Many languages from all over the world are available" (OS: Win 9x/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7)

Desktop Calendar is a "small calendar and event reminder that unobtrusively sits on your desktop and is ready to use any time. No taskbar button or system tray icon. The calendar is transparent so it's not an eyesore and consumes very little memory. Enter as many daily or regular reminders as you like. Float your mouse over a day to see all reminders for the day. Shows a short list of upcoming reminders below the calendar. Fonts, colours and tooltips are customisable so it blends in with your desktop colour and font schemes" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7)

Easy Diary allows you to "write your memories or appointments with ease. Easy Diary saves your data only in your own computer and helps you keep them private. Features: multi-user supported; every single user unlocks his/her data by using his/her password; you can search your data; interface is customizable; backup import & export is provided" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

My Diary is "reliable for storing everyday blogs or journals. Your diary is password protected, and blogs are encrypted using a simple yet powerful encryption algorithm to ensure that your journals are secured. myDiary automatically saves as you type so you don´t have to worry about saving. It´s very simple and easy to use - enter your password, pick a date, start typing. It´s that easy!" (OS: Win 98/NT/XP/Vista/Windows 7, Linux, designer notes it also requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.)

The free Lite version of Rainlendar is "a customizable calendar that displays the current month, events, and reminders. It is a very lightweight application that doesn´t use much system resources or take much space on your desktop" (OS: Windows XP/2003/Vista/7)

SSuite Office My Calendar Diary Portable is a portable calendar and diary for people on the go (OS: all Windows and USB devices)

There's an interesting concept behind Stay Focused freeware: "If you would like to concentrate on your daily stuff, Stayfocused is your choice. The idea of Stayfocused is based on The Pomodoro Technique®. The root of the idea is that you work for 25 minutes straight and then break for 5 minutes" (OS: Windows XP/Vista/7)

UK's Kalendar is "a MS Windows program intended to remind you of upcoming events and todos. There are several views for your dates that are organized similar to a calendar sheet. Dates and appointments can be entered into the calendar via an input form. You can enter a forewarn time, so as long as "UK´s Kalender" is running in the background you´ll be reminded of your dates as soon as the forewarn time is reached. Independent from the calendar function there is also a todo list where you can enter tasks with a deadline and a forewarn time. If the forewarn time is reached, "UK´s Kalender" will inform you of the due tasks with symbols and colors" (OS: Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7)

The free Lite version of VueMinder Calendar is a "calendar and reminder program for Windows. It supports multiple calendars displayed simultaneously in layers. These can be viewed and printed by day, week, or month. They can also be visually distinguished using unlimited combinations of fonts, background colors, and gradient styles. It also integrates a semitransparent calendar into your Windows desktop, so you´ll always be able to see your upcoming events" (OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7)

While I prefer my paper calendars I'm still using some scheduling freeware: RedNotebook for writing schedules, deadlines, editing task lists and so forth, and Chaos Manager for personal & family scheduling. I recommend both as useful, practical electronic schedule keepers.

Wishing You

Best of PBW

2011 altered my life in a lot of ways, so it was definitely a year of change. I said good-bye to my dad, which broke my heart, and saw the end of his many years of suffering, which helped me let him go. So did the many kindnesses shown to me by my family, friends and colleagues during those terrible weeks at the end of his life.

Professionally I gained a new editor who has been a dream to work with; I published my first YA novel, started writing a new series and ended another one. There have been some unexpected negative moments as well, mostly behind the scenes, and nothing I particular care to dwell on. I definitely bid farewell to the last illusions I had about the biz, but I also learned some valuable lessons, and I'm glad I did. I needed them.

I don't really like choosing the best book of the year anymore because I have so many great authors that I read, and I don't want to pick. I will say the most surprising novel I read this year was Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughhart, recommended here on PBW by Cloth Dragon. It was a completely delightful read from cover to cover. Which only goes to confirm my belief that we should all listen to our visitors and read what they're reading because so often they do recommend gems like this one.

Despite all the troubles I've dealt with over the last twelve month, I am looking forward to 2012. I see it as a chance for a personal renaissance, a time to set aside the old and get moving in new and different directions. I hope it's going to be a very creative year for all of us.

I've sifted through the archives and put together a list of what I think were this year's best posts on PBW:

January: Got ISSN?, Know Thy Hub, The Book Wubbie, 28th of Snowfall, Year of the Vulture.

February: Bad News, Worry and Death, Just. Not. Ready., Ten Signs That You May Be Writing a Literary McNovel, Writers Hospital.

March: Writer Math, If Manuscripts Were Lovers, You Know You're an Older Writer When . . ., Character Trading Cards.

April: Self-Publishing 911, Color Idea Cards, The Third and Seventh, Productive Task Listing

May: Writer Excuses for the Digital Self-Publishing Age, Promo No-No Ten, Apocalypse Not Now, Taking Shelter

June:
July: Ten Things I Hate About Your World-Building, Reinventing the Bookmark Idea #3, Hunting Metaphors, Characters R Us

August: Green Journal, Character Keywords

September: Peace, Symbols and Words

October: You Are My Fire, Color Reference Notebook, NaNoWriMo Prep I: The Mountain, NaNoWriPrep II: Stand-Out Characters

November: SPAMcam, Ten Things Women Do Only in Novels, NaNoWriMo: Writing Your Dragons, Google Street View Weirdness

December: Ten Things I Would Like for Christmas, The Holiday TBR, Baggage

Adieu, 2011. Hiya, 2012.

Outside the Lines

For me the year of change is almost over, and I've been waiting for a new nudge from the universe to give me some creative direction for 2012. After I sold the steampunk novel I thought it might be the Year of New Ventures, but that didn't feel right (probably because I still have two books under contract from this year and last year to write.)

On Christmas night we decided to take a ride to see the lights, and then stopped for hot chocolate and a walk around town. It was one of those odd, completely spontaneous family outings that was filled with laughter and memories in the making; the kind of thing I cherish most. It was while we were out walking that I spotted a decorative sign with a saying that I've probably seen a million times: Color Outside the Lines.

First it made me reminisce. When I was a kid, I rarely colored inside the lines. I drew extra stuff on my coloring book characters: superhero capes, braids, jewelry, background scenes, and anything else I could think of to fill up the void of the empty page. I also wrote captions, made dialogue balloons and signed everything (because that's what real artists do.)

I've always enjoyed thinking outside the box, too, because there's enough room there to be different and experiment and discover new ideas. I think I've gotten away from it recently because I've been more focused on productivity and organization, which are just as valuable but shouldn't hog all your brain power.

For example, one of the most exciting things I did in 2011 was to try and reinvent the bookmark. That one little project was such a simple thing, and lots of fun. At the same, it was very challenging to some up with something that hadn't already been done. What I learned from that I've carried over into a dozen other creative projects, including my writing. I don't do enough of that anymore, and I want to. I want to move past what's expected and accepted and what everyone else does.

I'm not afraid to work in the void; I like having the space to do what I want. I'm also not afraid to mess up; every success has a foundation of dozens of mistakes. The universe knows this, which is probably why I got this particular nudge. It's time for me to climb out of the box, step over the lines and see what I can do.

When I saw the sign in the shop window, I was wondering just how I was going to tackle this, and got another nudge when I read this other sign sitting next to it. I think I already have the Be Obnoxious part down, but I can definitely use the rest as additional inspiration.

So my New Year's resolution is to make 2012 the year I color outside the lines. It's a bit scary, and I have no idea what will happen, but I trust the universe as a creative navigator. Truth is, I can't wait to get started.

What are your plans for 2012? What do you hope to accomplish? Let us know in comments.

E- to Print

I came across this interesting bit of promo on an endcap when I was out shopping at the brick-and-mortar B&N:



I wondered why the flyer was made of cardstock-weight paper, and then saw the preforation line. The end of the flyer can be torn off to use as a bookmark (with helpful bullet reminders of the release dates for each installment.) To tempt buyers who have already read the e-book versions, which I assume were the self-published works that made the author a sensation, there's also the promise of "all-new bonus stories" in each volume.

This is one of those odd marketing experiments in Publishing that I like to observe. I think in certain ways the publisher and the author are thinking outside the box, and it should be interesting to see what happens on the shelf. This could even turn out to be a unique alternative to the traditional submissions process: self-pub first, start earning income, and once you've racked up enough numbers to prove you're marketable use them to negotiate a print contract.

Also, for those of you with a BAM in your area, this week calendars and planners are 50% off; and I think they'll be even cheaper after the new year. I went ahead and got my 2012 fix:

Winner

I'm glad I didn't have to judge the On the Eve ornament-naming contest; too many great entries for this one. My daughter also had a very tough time choosing one, but in the end went with this because she thought it was funny and fitting:

Sock of Christmas Past

That means clairecherven, you're the winner! When you have a chance please send your full name and ship-to info to LynnViehl@aol.com so I can get your prize out to you. My thanks to everyone for joining in.

On the Road

I'm back on the road again today, but while I'm gone, here's a stunning video on skiers and snowboarders by Dendrite Studios (for those of you back to work, also contains some cool background music):

Parallels - A Short Film from Dendrite Studios on Vimeo.

Holiday Ten

Ten Things I Did on Christmas Day

Asked everyone to go out with me to see the lights around town, and everyone shocked me by saying yes. This then went from a casual drive to a hot chocolate pit stop to a delightful walk around town.

Ate two very small pieces of butter fudge and then successfully resisted sweets for the rest of the day. Considering how many cookies and how much chocolate is in this house right now, I deserve a medal for this.

Discovered what will be my motto for next year. More on that later this week.

Got lovely BAM giftcard joy from the love of my life.

Held a vote earlier this week and decided to go with an utterly non-traditional backyard barbecue Christmas dinner. We loved every bite of it.

Played with the camera and photographed everyone and everything, including my new Christmas red-and-green cyclamen.

Read four of my random pick books; found one new-to-me author to add to my keeper shelves.

Received a pretty but wholly enigmatic gift from my mom and now must find a tactful way to ask her what the heck it is.

Tried Canadian maple syrup for the first time, and added another reason to my list of why I adore Canadians.

Went into raptures using my brand-new standing mixer; the other gift from the love of my life. Before anyone snipes about getting an appliance as a gift, I've wanted one of these just about forever but made do with cheap hand mixers because I felt guilty coveting something so serious and expensive. Not anymore, though. It's fabulous. Like a jet outboard motor for your cooking. Whips egg whites in under a minute, kneads bread dough, can make pasta, juice things, grind things . . . I may never willingly leaving the kitchen again.

So how were the holidays at your home? Get any surprises? Let us know in comments.

Wishing You

On the Eve

About an hour ago I finished revisions for one of my editors, which was the last writing job I had to do this year.  My reward for hitting the final finish line is a movie (Cowboys and Aliens), a week of writing whatever I want (probably just posts for PBW) and as much rest and relaxation as I can manage during the holidays.

It's always a strange feeling to finish out the writing year.  In 2011 I published three novels, sold four and wrote five.  There have been years when I've done twice that much work, so it doesn't feel like a lot, but I've never worked through so many challenges and changes as I have during the last twelve months.  I'm tired, and I definitely need a week off, but I'm also satisfied that I did my best even in the worst of times.  And while I am my own harshest critic, that actually feels pretty good.

Now I am going to unplug for a few hours, get my kids and take them out to lunch.  In the meantime, I have a contest challenge for you guys that involves this:



Meet the Sock Ornament of Doom, which my daughter made when she was in preschool.  This stuffie has been hanging on our tree ever since she brought it home, and we love it so much that I think it's high time it got a new name.

If you have any ideas, in comments to this post, suggest a name (male, female or other is okay; just please keep it G-rated) for our ornament by midnight EST on Monday, December 26, 2011.  My daughter will choose the name she likes best from all the entries, and I will send the winner a signed ARC of Nightborn, the first novel in my new Lords of the Darkyn trilogy.  This contest is open to everyone on the planet, even if you've won something from PBW in the past.