S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 246

The Times Pool Winner

I should really name this post The Surreality of a New York Times Bestseller because of the rather spooky results from the
Times Pool contest. For those of you who missed it, I had a contest post and asked people to guess whether or not Shadowlight would make the Times bestseller list, and if they thought it would to also pick what position on the list it would debut.

I was surprised to see so many "yes" entries, and such optimistic and flattering predictions as to the spot it would take on ...

PBW-1, H1N1-0

An update for those of you who are worrying: Kat is out of the woods, and after a week and a half of pretty much constant/heavy exposure, I tested negative for H1N1 (I got all my shots, but I've also had so many types of flu over the years that I'm probably naturally immune.) We'd toss confetti and pop open a few Pepsis, but we're too tired to do anything but whimper a little gratitude to the Almighty for watching over our little girl.

According to our pediatrician this bug is spreading like...

Cookie Ten

Ten Chinese Cookie Fortunes, and What They Really Mean for Writers

Don't ask, don't say. Everything lies in silence.

Just shut up and take it. Everyone loved Helen Keller, right?

Failure is the chance to do better next time.

Burn the book of your heart and write something else, or we're going to hurt you.

It is better to deal with problems before they arise.

The first time your internal editor thinks you should go back and rewrite chapter one instead of writing chapter two, tell her to piss off.

Pl...

Isis & iPod

It's official, Kat has H1N1, which of course was not the news we wanted to hear, but we'll cope. She didn't have a great morning today, but she rallied this afternoon and kept down some solid food. I'm cautiously optimistic that she's over the worst of this bug. Thanks to everyone for all the e-mails and thoughts and prayers.

On a happier note, author Douglas Clegg has a new book out, Isis, which was the inspiration for the very cool Isis online difference game we've all been playing (it'...

Off to Deal

My daughter became suddenly very ill earlier in the week, and while she's improving now she has tested positive for the flu. We're waiting on results from an additional test to tell us if it's the garden-variety or the H1N1 virus (she was exposed to the latter at school.) I've had my shots, and we've put her brother on Tamiflu as a preventive measure, but as you can imagine it's a little scary. My blogging here will likely be sporadic for the next couple of days as I take care of my kid. ...

WotC on Scribd

My how-to writing guide, Way of the Cheetah, is now available for purchase at Scribd.com's store. Since I'm doing this mainly as an experiment to see how this process and Scribd's service works, I've discounted the e-book to sell for $1.00 U.S.

People have asked me when I'm going to start selling my fiction work this way, and the truth is that I have mixed feelings about authors who are using online services like Scribd's store to sell their work directly to readers. While this can help supp...

NaNoWriMo Ten

Ten Things for the NaNoWriMoer's

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

New Nano Badges!









(I've uploaded .jpgs of all eight badges over on my Photobucket account if any of you want to use the codes.)

Get character names in an instant online with Kleimo's , which uses data from the US Census to generate up to 30 male and female names at once; you preset the obscurity factor from 1...

Shadowlight Arrives

Shadowlight, my first Kyndred novel, officially lands on the shelves today. An excerpt from my upcoming June '10 release, Dreamveil, is included in the back pages.

I'll spare you guys the usual "Buy my book" post; by now most of you have heard it a couple dozen times. I've had a lot of help getting the word out on this one (your fault) and really, what more can a writer ask? All right, if everyone wants to support PBW and/or insure my future employment, I suppose you can go out this week an...

E-xperiment Ten

Ten Things About the Shadowlight E-xperiment

Amelie Markirk's Blog/Amelie (off topic note -- Amelie's review of Rob Thurman's Trick of the Light proves I'm not the only one who was floored by this book.)

New B&N.com reviews ~ Npaules ~ 4kidsmom ~ Debra_ Saturday

BlogCritics/Robin Kavanagh

Book Crazy Scrapbook Mama/Pamk

Dreaming in Rhyme/Joely Sue Burkhart (Joely wrote a very cool poem about the story.)

From This Day/Rhienelleth

It's My Blog -- It's My Opinion/MarnieColette, also on Facebook and MyS...

Counter Widget Fun

For those of you who are planning to join in NaNoWriMo and want a countdown widget for your web site or blog, you can get one online for free that allows you to select the size, colors and countdown style: OnePlusYou's Countdown Timer Generator.

Here are a couple I made with it to give you an idea of how they look: