Happy Halloween!!!

And the winners are...

Wait! I need to express my undying love for my favorite day of the year. If it were up to me, Halloween would be a stat holiday and we'd all get paid double time and a half for working on Halloween. It's only fair. Running out to the party and changing into a costume takes a lot of effort. We should be compensated! Okay, rant over.

I love Halloween =)

Now announcing the winners of the Halloween Contest!

Third Prize, Eden Fell arc, goes to Britannie for her lovely poem "Abracadabra."

"Abracadabra" --by: Brittanie Haslam


Concoctions only adumbrate
The calamity you're accruing,
In that cauldron that you covet
Where the wicked started brewing.
These frail incantations
Simply will not do--
The bewitched will soon sober
To the curse bestowed by you.

Abscond from disillusion
Take flight, perfidious broom!
Flee! Make haste in your cowardice,
To escape ignominious doom.

But before you evade the mob,
Any last spells? or sorcery to cast?
A witch's greed for power
Is vital, voracious, and vast.
Keep stirring the enchantment
Within that hot, bubbling blend
'Til the excess quickly amasses
A disaster you meant to wend.

With all your chants and charms,
To hide your hexes and hoaxes,
You cannot seem to fool me in
The contrivance of your coaxes.
Without the shroud of avarice
It's wise to retire the scheme,
'Cause abracadabra is much too worn
To hide your low self-esteem.
 
...spoOoky... and very well written...
 
Second Prize, Ethereal Tale zine, goes to Heidi for her photography of skeletons!
 

Omg it's the remains of the Loch Ness monster. Who killed Nessie? :o

First Prize, autographed copy of Eden Fell, goes to Stacy for her fantabulous Halloween art!

The sheer detail is downright frightening...

Congratulations to all and thank you for participating in the Halloween Contest!

And now, announcing some details of the next contest.

The Mid-Winter Contest! Don't freeze your buns of this winter, get warmed by my creativity. No work required, I do all the writing. Send in your ideas for a chance to win your own Ebook. Up to five winners and everyone gets a prize! The full details will be posted tomorrow.

Happy happy Halloween! Some want more Treats than Tricks, I want more Tricks than Treats! Muahahahaha...

Decennial

I freely admit the title of this post is for geeks who know a little Latin. Or, for those who do a google search ;)

I'm very happy to report I'm now working on chapter ten. Insert Kermit-style Yaaaay here. I'm quite relived to get to this point. I would say I'm past the quarter point and working toward the middle. It's a great feeling knowing I've gotten past all introductions and can let the story flow from here.

I have no idea if this is just me or not, but I can always tell where I am in the story based on what I've written so far. Granted, following a rough outline helps a lot with that. But I don't just mean the outline. I can tell based on how the story feels. Perhaps it's an intuitive thing. I've long since gotten to a point with my writing where some things I just know. Like, for example, I'm definitely past the quarter point *nods* How did I get to this point in my writing? Practice, practice, and more practice. Oh, and lots of practice.

While dedication is important, I'm also finding myself distracted. It's not easy having a vivid imagination and a background in graphic design. There's a lot to be said for having only one skill, at least your sanity is retained much better that way. My imagination is all over the place. Novel writing, screenplay, movies, graphic novel, cover design... sigh. Alas, there's only so many hats I can wear at any given time, and I can focus much better when I wear one hat only. Though truth be told, wearing a lot of hats at once can be so much fun...

Or maybe I just like play dress-up. I digress.

Even though I'm saving a lot info for the newsletter, I just wanted to post a couple of reminders.

HALLOWEEN CONTEST! DEADLINE OCT. 30TH SO GET YOUR ENTRIES IN! As I put in the last newsletter, entries started coming in at the beginning of September. So don't leave it to the last minute, the judging of entries have already started. Remind your friends and get involved!

OCTOBER NEWSLETTER! SIGN UP NOW! The design of the next newsletter is far superior to the last one. You don't want to miss this. Sign up and be the first to see this info not seen anywhere else, delivered to your inbox!

Okay, that's it. Back to chapter 10...

Where's YOUR entry?

It's September 1st, are you getting your entries ready for the Halloween Contest? Remember, you only have until Oct. 30! Get your entries ready :D

I'm looking into possibly posting my screenplay online. The idea makes me VERY nervous, but I'm being brave and looking into it. What I'm thinking is posting an excerpt only, maybe keep the title hidden, or use a generic title. "Screenplay" by Lily. Something like that. I would really like some feedback, but the question for me is, at what cost? Feedback is wonderful, but theft sucks royally, and eliminating chances of having this script picked up sucks even more. I'm just not sure. Well, I'm looking into it.

In the meantime, I've gotten back to work on chapter 5. Can you believe it? I'm already on chapter 5! That's so cool. I love the fact I can write fast and I'm not the type to take years just to produce a single chapter. If I were that type, I would get so frustrated with myself. I love writing fast :)

Since I've gotten far enough with this one, I'm finding it's the same case as chapter 4. Too much for one chapter, move on to next chapter. More than likely, at this point, it would be best to just keep writing regardless of chapter number.

And here I go, diving back into the story...

(Don't forget to get your entries ready and submitted to the Halloween Contest by Oct 30).

Details, Details, Details

Heidi on Facebook just asked me if PhotoArt is accepted for the Halloween Contest. Of course it is! The whole point of this contest is to have FUN. Whatever you can come up with, I'll accept.

But just in case, I'm providing a list of things that you could do. Keep in mind if you think of something I haven't, don't hold back, submit away!

Poetry:

Sonnet
Rhyming Poetry
Non-rhyming
Limerick
Epigram (2 line rhyming poem)

Artwork:

Photographs (digital, candid, any subject)
Drawings (using any medium, pencils, paint, crayons, etc.)
Computer generated (from Photoshop to Windows Paint, any program will do)

I don't expect anyone to be a Picasso or a Shakespeare. Judging will be based on merit and whether the rules of the contest are followed. There's only one main rule: Halloween Theme.

That's it. No pressure, anything goes. Just have fun!

Now back to my current writing project. Chapter 3 is one of those chapters where I really had to stress to myself the KISS rule. Keep it simple stupid! Because I have the whole series already in my head (made tons of notes), it's easy to get distracted and want too many ideas all in at once. But, I have plenty of space to work with here, so there's no need to cram everything into only one chapter.

It'll be a series of at least 3 books. (I have 3 outlined so far). I think of this series as a giant canvas, lots of white space, plenty of room to explore.

So after giving it a lot of thought (I think too much, hence, why there's so much text in this post that's in brackets), I've decided to explore one thing only in chapter 3. Which wasn't an easy decision when I have this many ideas to play with.

As much fun as a series is, planning 3 books in advance requires a lot of juggling of ideas. I've often thought maybe I've taken too much on myself. But then I mentally slap myself and think, remember the KISS rule...

Halloween Contest! Trick or Treat?

RULES:


Submit a poem (trick) or artwork (treat). Any length, any style, anything goes! The poem can be as short as 2 lines or as long as you want it to be. The artwork can be a photograph, computer generated or even a hand drawn picture using crayons. All submissions should be original and belong to the original sender.

The only focus should be on Halloween in some way. The poem or artwork can be heavily dark, or heavily silly, poking fun at Halloween or worshiping Halloween. Do your worse!

HOW TO ENTER:

Email your poem or artwork to lily@lilyauthor.com. Put “Halloween Contest Entry” as the subject (don't want to accidentally delete an entry). Only one poem OR artwork per sender. Max file size is 20MB.

If you have any concerns about sending the file, please contact me and we'll figure out an alternative. No submission will be rejected!

JUDGING:

Judging each poem or artwork will be based on whether the above rules are followed. If I get a lot of submissions, I will be enlisting the help of two friends to help me judge.

PRIZES:

First Place – Autographed copy of Eden Fell

Second Place – Autographed copy of Ethereal Tales zine which has my short story, “Bleeding Apple”

Third Place – Copy of the Eden Fell Arc (PDF)

DEADLINE:

October 30th, 2010, Gate Night. Any submissions after that date, won't qualify.

The poems/artwork will be viewable in a special blog post on Halloween, October 31st. Get famous on my blog!

You have two and a half months. Ready... set.... go!

I can't wait to see everyone's entry. :D