S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 219

Creativity Negativity

There's an interesting article about creativity in America in the July 19th issue of Newsweek magazine. You do have to plow through a lot of political garbage to get to it (the piece begins on pg. 44), but the topic was interesting enough to tempt me to buy the issue and wade on through.

According to Newsweek, things are pretty dismal in the creativity department. Evidently for the first time in decades creativity among American adults and children is in decline. Since this observation is ba...

Sub Op Ten

Ten Things About Submission Opportunities

Someone (you know who you are) asked about the UK SF audio mag I'd put up as a sub op a few months back; here's the listing: Cossmass Infinities is a Science Fiction and Fantasy audio magazine looking for "short stories, ideally, between 4000 -- 8000 words. Stories should be either Science Fiction or Fantasy, or even a blend of both. Try to avoid mediaeval-fantasy though." Gotcha. Payment: "We pay £20 a story [note: via PayPal], upon acceptance, f...

The Unexpected Blonde

Marilyn Monroe and I met on my birthday. I got her as a gift, and although she was half-dead I was very pleased. After I introduced myself, I set up a nice place for her and made her as comfortable as possible. Since then I've been spending a little time with her every day, talking to her and nursing her back to health. I know the trauma of being uprooted and sent to a strange place can be too much for some beauties, but she looked pretty tough.

After a week of TLC I discovered I was rig...

52% Chick

Perverse and surly wretch that I am, I decided to hunt around and see if I could find some online writing analyzers to play with that would not attract with pitchfork and torch crowd. There are a few of them out there that are fun, and a couple that are actually useful for editing purposes.

For a example, I fed a chapter from my current WIP into Christopher Park's Manuscript Analyzer and discovered that out of 3,757 total words I had 1,107 distinct words, 32 possible adverbs, 139 frequent off...

Odds/Ends

Those of you who live in the affected areas should keep an eye on the latest updates from the National Hurricane Center on Tropical Storm Bonnie. It would hit during the only week each year that my guy and the kids decide to go fishing in the Keys, but fortunately we have a lot of family down there, and they're also in a good spot to wait out the storm today.

A few people have e-mailed to ask what I will be doing during RWA Nat'l Conference next week. Obviously, I'm not going to it. I also ...

Sneak Peek

Here's an early look at the cover art for Frostfire , Kyndred book three:



Barring any unforeseen acts of the Publishing Gods, this one will be hitting the shelves on January 4th.

Patchwork Generator

Today's incredibly cool link* is for the quilters out there, or anyone who would like to convert an image into patchwork:



With Victoria & Albert Museum's online patchwork pattern generator, you upload an image, select the number of colors and complexity of of the patchwork, and generate your own custom-designed pattern.

If you wanted to use cover art to generate a quilt pattern, I'd recommend using only covers with very simple imagery because the pattern maker does have its limits. Here's an e...

Cloud Profiles

I've been experimenting with Wordle again, this time for characterization purposes. Initially I wanted to create a profile cloud, or a word cluster that illustrated different aspects of one protagonist. I put together a list of keywords I felt described him, and fed them to Wordle, with the following result (click on any cloud to see a larger version:



Seeing all the profile keywords put together like this helped, and I think it's because I don't read a word cloud the same way I read a line or...

Contest Ten

Ten Things About Writing Grants and Contests

The Marie Alexander Poetry Series offers "A prize of $500 and publication by Marie Alexander Poetry Series, an imprint of White Pine Press, will be given for a collection of prose poems by a U.S. poet. Submit a manuscript of at least 48 pages during the month of July." No entry fee, see web site for more details. Deadline: July 31, 2010.

The Delaware Division of the Arts offers "individual artist fellowships and opportunity grants to individual artis...

Goodbye

I've taken down the post that was up earlier today because of innumberable anonymous attempts to post links to discussions about it. This is not any sort of commentary on the content of said post, said links, said discussions, or the anonymous visitors involved. For personal reasons I'd simply like to have a peaceful day.

I do apologize for any inconvenience this causes.