S.L. Viehl's Blog, page 25

Sub Op

Lillicat Publishers has an open call for their upcomingVisions V: Milky Way antho: "Humankind has forded the immense stream of space between stars and reached our neighbors. The Milky Way Galaxy lies waiting to be explored. What will we discover on hospitable planets circling new stars? Will we find almost familiar moons, asteroids, planetary rings, and, possibly, never before seen astronomical formations? The sky is no longer the limit for soaring imaginations.

Visions V stories take place somewhere…anywhere…in the Milky Way Galaxy. Anything to do with planets, stars, and aliens is fair game. No limitations, as long as the subject and action take place outside our Solar System and within the Milky Way.

Originality is paramount. If you are using an old Star Trek-like concept, it better have a new twist or something that makes it stand out. We get lots of similar stories with a standard theme, so if yours is like one we already have, we will think twice before accepting yours. Impress us."

Length: 3-8K; Payment: $25.00; reprints okay, electronic submissions only. Deadline: May 15th, 2016.

Just Write

Today I'm off to write something new and post it online before midnight. Everyone inclined to do the same is invited to join me.

My link: More on Twenty-One (click on the title to go to the .pdf), with new material beginning on page 80.

For more details on Just Write, click here to go to the original post.

Image credit: My kid. :)

Color Me Inspired

Now that I've gotten into the adult coloring book trend, I thought I'd try to make my finished pages into something pretty and/or useful. Inspiration came along with an order of water filters for the house, which the company packed with five and a half feet of this lovely, thick, pale orange paper:



I ironed the paper flat and cut it up into pages, and took one of my colored pages and the guide page from the Barcelona coloring book to use for the cover:



I made my cover by sewing together my colored page to the color guide page I'd printed out (backsides together on the inside):



After I sewed a signature of three pages to the cover I'd made, I had a nifty little notebook:



To make a larger version you can sew the pages between to colored and guide pages, like I did here:



I got three new notebooks out of the packing paper and my Barcelona colored pages:



Or, if you'd rather not get into any sewing or book-making, you can use your colored pages as view-binder cover inserts:



I purchased this gorgeous spider/write page from Kawanish, and used it as the cover for my writing schedule binder. What's cool about buying individual pages from Etsy artists is that they come as a download, and you can usually print out as many copies as you like for personal use.

Kindness

This film is beautiful and sad and full of hope and wonder (background music, narration, and you will probably tear up):

The Gnomist: A Great Big Beautiful Act Of Kindness from Great Big Story on Vimeo.

Artistic

I spotted this way cool cover art while visiting author Anne Frasier's blog:



I really like this cover, and as picky as I am, that's pretty unusual. This particular book is coming out in June, exclusively through Amazon, if anyone wants to pre-order (I did.)

On the online fraud front, I've had some folks e-mail me about the charity scam, and here's the latest: The host site e-mailed me back and claimed that it was all a big mistake (without releasing any real details, but then, I'm just the victim.) I've searched the site and the fraudster's account has disappeared, so at least I can be reasonably be sure they shut it down. In the meantime, please do be careful with your donations online. Check out the details, and make sure you're giving to a legitimate cause. And again, I promise you, I won't ever be one of them.

What books are you all pre-ordering for the months ahead? Let us know in comments.

Stealing PBW

This week someone evidently used my name and business e-mail address to start a charity crowd-sourced campaign. I have no idea why someone would be that idiotic, or why the campaign information was not verified, but I notified the host site in question as soon as I started receiving suspicious e-mails. The site is now investigating those involved in this fraud. I hope they will put a stop to it immediately, but due to privacy policies protecting their users they will not notify me of what they find, who is doing this, or what action they take against the identity thief.

Since I can't do anything more about the identity thief right now, let me state this for the record here:

I do not belong to any charity sites.

I do not hold fund-raisers of any kind on the internet.

I do not allow any fund-raisers to use my identity for any reason whatsoever. This includes fans who want to raise money for me for whatever reason.

I do not expect my readers to fund any of my writing other than buying a finished book for sale through an online retailer.

If you ever are contacted by someone claiming to be me, or representing me, and asking you for money, I can guarantee you it's not me, or I didn't authorize it. This person is trying to swindle you.

Please understand that I'm not anti-charity. Over the years I have donated many signed books, gift baskets and quilts for various charity auctions and drives. When I can afford to, I also make private donations or buy charity auction items to help worthy causes. But that is the sum total of my involvement with online charities and fund-raisers. If I'm ever in financial trouble, I would go to my family for help -- not my readers and friends on the internet.

If you happen to spot anyone online soliciting for a charity or fund-raiser, and who is claiming to be me, or to be acting on my behalf, please contact me at LynnViehl@aol.com with a link or the pertinent information. Thanks for your help.

Incoming

I just got a heads up from Library Thing that I've won a copy of Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent from the Early Reviewers March batch, which was one I was really hoping to get. Here's the copy:

"When Isabel meets Edward, both are at a crossroads: he wants to follow his late wife to the grave, and she is ready to give up on love. Thinking she is merely helping Edward’s daughter--who lives far away and asked her to check in on her nonagenarian dad in New York--Isabel has no idea that the man in the kitchen baking the sublime roast chicken and light-as-air apricot soufflé will end up changing her life.

As Edward and Isabel meet weekly for the glorious dinners that Edward prepares, he shares so much more than his recipes for apple galette or the perfect martini, or even his tips for deboning poultry. Edward is teaching Isabel the luxury of slowing down and taking the time to think through everything she does, to deconstruct her own life, cutting it back to the bone and examining the guts, no matter how messy that proves to be.

Dinner with Edward is a book about sorrow and joy, love and nourishment, and about how dinner with a friend can, in the words of M. F. K. Fisher, 'sustain us against the hungers of the world.'”

I used to read a lot of books about food or with food themes, mainly nonfiction and memoir, then somehow I got away from it. Ruth Reichl's excellent novel Delicious was the last really good food-themed fiction book I read, so I'm looking forward to this one.

PBW's Book of the Month

My pick for book of the month for March is Margaret Peot's Alternative Art Journals , which is an excellent how-to on making journals in a variety of book and non-book forms.

Ms. Peot really works outside (and inside) the box with the projects she teaches in this book; she shows you how to make journals in very different ways. There are projects for journal makers at every level, too, from shoe box journals to a fun faux family photo album. I liked that the different journals could work for artists as well as writers, and that not every project was deadly serious (I think my favorite is the tiny tin journal made of painted eyeballs.)

Galleries of finished projects in every chapter offer a look at not just one but multiple examples of each technique. The box journal chapter is especially interesting, as it shows you ways to preserve any assemblages or collections you might have made or keep. I have a habit of saving all my Chinese take-out fortune cookie slips, as I think they're funny, and it would be neat to come up with a box journal to not only store but showcase my little collection.

You scrapbookers will probably love the chapter on tag and charm journals; that one features some interesting bundled and bound journals to try. I've never made my own scroll journal, but I think I might give that project a go. I felt an immediate, strong connection to the images in that chapter, and I think it's because to me scrolls were the first evolution of writer materials (I know clay tablets are older, but they're not paper.) It would also be interesting to see how I could tell a story with a scroll journal.

The project instructions are clear, easy to follow, and come with lots of photo examples and work-along examples. Some of the projects are also easy enough that supervised kids could make them. I think if you love to make your own books and journals, this is a great source of inspiration and direction to test-drive.

Just Write

Today I'm off to write something new and post it online before midnight. Everyone inclined to do the same is invited to join me.

My link: More on Twenty-One (click on the title to go to the .pdf), with new material beginning on page 76.

For more details on Just Write, click here to go to the original post.

Image credit: My kid. :)

Sub Op

Here's an open call from World Weaver Press for a Krampus-themed antho that is not yet open for submissions but I thought I'd post it to give a heads up to anyone wanting to submit (which also gives you lots of time to write your story): Krampus, Santa's dark companion, is in the spotlight these days. Thousands of people across the globe celebrate Krampusnacht on December 5th of each year. And the movie, Krampus, was a hit during the 2015 holiday season. Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus, which I anthologized and World Weaver Press published, was a hit as well. So, World Weaver Press and Enchanted Conversation are publishing another volume. For now, it's just called Krampusnacht Two.

Remember, Krampus is the "corrective" to Saint Nick or Santa's indulgence and generosity. He carries a switch and chains, and sometimes throws very rotten children in a basket he carries on his back. He has horns, hooves, and a creepy, long tongue. He's horrible and fascinating at the same time. You can learn a lot about him from this site , and you should read Krampusnacht: Twelve Nights of Krampus as well, to see what we like. But we are interested in new, fresh stories, not retreads of what we have already published. We’re looking for short stories that explore every possible Krampus angle. He’s a nasty old dude, and we hope your imaginations will get the better of you."

Length: 1-10K; Payment: "$10 from Enchanted Conversation and paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press." No reprints, electronic submissions only, see guidelines for more details. Submissions period opens May 15th, 2016 (again, do NOT submit before this date.) Deadline: August 15th, 2016.