S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 245

TiltShift Art

I'm always finding new online toys to play with over at The Generator Blog, and one that Gerard recently posted might be fun for those of you out there who like to make your own cover art.

The TiltShift generator takes a normal photograph of a location or object and manipulates it so it resembles the photograph of a miniature scale model. But I didn't use it for that purpose; I just uploaded a shot of some art and one of my roses to see what I could do with it.

Here's the original image I u...

Sub Ops Ten

Ten Things About Submission Opportunities for Writers

Ars Medica international literary magazine is looking for fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir and artworkd related to exploring illness, the body, healing and the culture of medicine. Payment in contributor copies, electronic submissions preferred, see guidelines for more details.

The BackWaters Press has an open call for submissions for their anthology Letters From Grass Country: Essays on the Contemporary Poets and Poetry of the Great...

Freebies & Contest

Suvudu, Random House's free online library, has two new e-books now available for download in various formats: Starfist: First to Fight by David Sherman and Dan Cragg, and The Demon Awakens by R.A. Salvatore.

Suvudu is also running a Halloween costume photo contest with a prize of books and a $25.00 Visa gift card for those of you who like to dress up your kids and pets (the contest runs from now until November 9, 2009.)

If you're looking to change your desktop background to something more se...

NaNoList

We've got a week left before NaNoWriMo begins, and barring acts of the Almighty I'm (unofficially) joining in this year. While I know most NaNo'ers are pretty spontaneous about it, you guys know me -- I have to be organized or my head will explode. So I'm going to use the next seven days to cross off all the things on my NaNoToDo List:

Blog/Writing Schedule: I plan to write at least 2K per day as well as put up some NaNoposts on PBW, so I'll add quotas and reminders to my work calendar (bec...

Catching Up Q&A

Plugging back in last night, I realized a couple of things: It's almost November, which means October must have vanished into a time/space rift, because it was just September, wasn't it? I can't keep up; I need a perpetual calendar brain implant. I owe just about everyone e-mail now, too, including a couple of editors and my long-suffering agent. It would be so much easier if we were just telepathic. If there's ever a thought-transfer implant on the market, I want one of those, too.

One ...

The Ten Year Thunk

I apologize for playing hooky, but I really had to finish something. And I know you'll understand when I tell you what:

Dream Called Time, StarDoc book ten, done.

StarDoc series, 2000-2009, done.

Now I can get hit by a bus tomorrow and you'll still find out how the series ends.

*thunk*

NaNo Ten

Stop by, hang out, cheer on and commiserate: AbsoluteWrite.com's NaNoWriMo and Beyond forum.

Come Write In: public libraries can apply to borrow for their patrons some of the 60 AlphaSmart Neos that will be loaned out this year by Renaissance Learning; check out the details here.

A forum to watch: Helpful Orgs and Sites.

Some NaNo'ers are making Mock Book Trailers for fun.

Details on the third annual Night of Writing Dangerously, NaNoWriMo's 2009 six hour write-a-thon fundraiser, to take place...

A Dog's Story

Yesterday as I was taking our pup for a stroll around the yard (he needs to check every blade of grass for intruders at least three times a day) Cole's fur stood on end and he began growling. All kidding aside, as Cole has matured he's become a pretty intense, protective guard dog. He's also so good at spotting possum, skunks and other troublesome critters that I pay close attention when he behaves as if something isn't right.

This time trouble was big: a dark cream-colored Labrador mix about ...

Gen Ten

I love online generators, especially the wonderful collection over at Seventh Sanctum. Lately I've been checking out some of SS's linkage, and found another terrific site that offered a wide variety of inventive and intensely descriptive generators. To show you some examples, here are:

Ten Things Generated over at Kusani's SerpentScribe.net

"This exo-skeletal biped has a reptilian head, with light, steel grey, stalk-mounted eyes, which seem to stare straight into your soul. It has a short muz...

Free Your Hands

I appreciate little low- or no-tech reading gadgets, especially the ones that are so simple I wish I'd thought of them and/or that last a long time. For a couple of years now I've happily used Gimbles, a clever little invention from the UK that allows you to hold a book open to read without using your hands.

I think I bought my original pair during one of the LB&LI workshops, maybe in 2007 or 2008. They're still in perfect shape and haven't cracked, split or warped. They are especially wo...