S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 224

Rowan Arrives

Today is the official release day for my novel Dreamveil, the second book in my Kyndred dark fantasy series, which means I am obliged to write a buy my freakin' book post.

We should have some fun with this chore, yes? Let's see, I've already done the ten reasons you should buy or request it list. I know:

Ten Things You Will Not Find in Dreamveil by Lynn Viehl

Angels or Demons. There is a restaurant in the setting that has an angelic name but no connection to the divine or the profane. I hear the...

Sub Ops Ten

Ten Things About Submission Opportunities

Asimov's Science Fiction print magazine is now accepted submissions via an "online submission system"; seeks science fiction "character oriented stories, those in which the characters, rather than the science, provide the main focus for the reader's interest. Serious, thoughtful, yet accessible fiction will constitute the majority of our purchases, but there's always room for the humorous as well. Borderline fantasy is fine, but no Sword & Sorcery, ple...

Dream Retreats

Summer is just around the corner. In a couple of weeks the kids will be out of school, the days will stretch out long and lazy and I'll be shamelessly wallowing in picnics, beach days and cookouts -- which I need after this past seemingly endless winter.

For all those reasons summer is my favorite time of year, but especially because it's my season to read. No school = more spare time for me = extra hours to read. I can go to the bookstore or the library and not rush to make my selections. ...

Hate, Write, Love

While we were at the mall last night, I went to visit my new book, which is out on the shelves a week early. Half the copies the store ordered were already gone; something I consider a good omen. Love seeing my latest book in the stores for the first time; it's always a thrill.

This week I'm finishing up Kyndred #4, Nightshine, in between running here and there for graduation stuff. I just realized this will be the fourth book I've written this year and I think my batteries need a serious rech...

Sneak Peek

Cover art for the German language editions of Private Demon (to be released in July '10)and Dark Need (to be released in February '11) -- click to see larger version:



They're carrying on the theme they began with the If Angels Burn/Versuchung des Zwielichts, which is gorgeous. I couldn't be happier.

Eureka!

I know, you're probably tired of hearing about my latest bird drama, but this is kind of cool.

First, some backstory: my guy watches television when he can't sleep, but when he falls asleep before shutting off the TV I usually wake up to the sound of infomercials at 3 am. Which annoys me to no end, but it's one of those compromise things you do in a relationship (in return, he never makes a peep about me leaving books I'm reading on virtually every flat surface in the house.)

Tonight I wa...

Sweet

I like surrounding myself with beautiful things. For me the top five on that list are family, quilts, art, books, and plants. Every spring I make extra time for gardening so I can insure I'll have lots of flowers and green thing to inspire and calm me for the rest of the year. It also adds a little joy to every day (whoever said you can't be unhappy in a garden was right on the money.)

We can't keep plants in the house because the pets won't leave them alone, but the back porch is fully s...

Scene On-Call List

I've been trying a couple different things with writing the Kyndred books, and one of them is creating an on-call list of characters for each scene. This is like a crib sheet that breaks down every chapter by scene and POV, along with a list of the characters who should make an appearance (this doesn't always work out; while I'm writing I may add or subtract characters as needed.)

My on-call list looks something like this (note: POV characters' names are underlined):

Intro A: Palace War Room...

Gen Ten

Ten Generators I Love From Chaotic Shiny.com

One thing you can learn while playing with The Civilization Generator is how to put together a synopsis of a fictional civilization and work from that as your foundation; this gen gives you a brief but very effective outline every time.

The Crowd Generator helps you generate 1-15 interesting individuals as characters.

Input text, choose a letter replacement option (or create your own custom alphabet switch) and get a new language from The Language...

Strange Gardens

Author Charlene Teglia wrote a very neat post here about her adventures in gardening as they relate to writing, and I can't resist nicking her topic for some observations on what's growing in my little corner of Paradise.

This year among other things I'm growing grapes, raspberries, and stevia in containers on the porch (this is the trellis I rigged for the grapes.) Two of the plants were my daughter's idea; she wants to make homemade raspberry iced tea (our favorite flavor) and she's fascinat...