Announcing the Winners of the Mid-Winter Contest!

Second place prizes - PDFs of Tearing the Wings and Eden Fell ARC

Tearing the Wings PDF goes to:

Ruby
Heidi
Melodie
Stacy
Pacita

Both the Eden Fell ARC and Tearing of the Wings goes to:

Rodney
John
Melanie (Marquis)
Jan
Shellie
Naomi
Sabrina

At the last minute, I decided I could be a bit more generous and award a First Place winner to two people. I assigned a number to each entrant and used an online random number picker. So this is totally and completely random.

First Place Winners, Autographed copies of Eden Fell and Ethereal Tales:

Katherine Ross and Trevor Davison.

Congratulations to all!

All winners will be contacted shortly about their prizes. Thank you everyone for participating in the Mid-Winter Contest! Check back to this blog for future contests. Have a wonderful and safe holiday!

Creatively yours,
Lily

Last day of Mid-Winter Contest!

The contest officially ends at midnight central time. An email has been sent to everyone who has entered so far. If you are a recipient, please reply to that email, thanks. So... last and final chance for all the last minute people ;)

Winners will be announced on December 21st, only 6 days from now. I don't know about you, but I'm excited. :D

And now for the excellent news! I decided to take a bit of a sabattical from any online stuff (blog, Facebook, etc) so I could concentrate on my current novel. I just wrapped up chapter 17 and I'm now 2/3 finished the story. I roughly estimate about 10 more chapters until the end. It won't be long now!

The Unpredicatable Nature of the Craft

I have good news! After being completely burned out from trying to participate in NaNo and unable to write for weeks, I've fully recovered! Chapter 12 is now finished.

I absolutely love this chapter. If I could hug and snuggle this chapter, I would. Which is kinda funny if your humor is as black as mine. It happens to be the most violent chapter I've written thus far. Funny in an ironic way, I suppose.

So here's a hypothesis. 5 day writing marathon (NaNo) results in 3 weeks of recovery time. That makes sense to me, though I didn't expect that at all and never would have predicted a 3 week recovery time. I swear, I will never do a writing marathon like that again...

Now moving on the chapter 13!

P.S. Don't forget to enter the Mid-Winter contest and tell all your friends. New sharing links on the right *points to the right under profile picture).

Explaining the Mid-Winter Contest

I've been getting a few messages with similar questions, so I decided to post a Mid-Winter Contest Q&A.

Mid-Winter Contest Q&A

Question: Why call it Mid-Winter? Why not call it the Christmas Contest?

Answer: On the world wide wide, there's a variety of people from different cultures and religions. On Facebook alone, I'm connected to a variety of people from all walks of life. Out of respect toward all cultures and religions, I decided to call this the Mid-Winter Contest. While the main theme of the contest is "in the spirit of giving," it's not exclusive to Christmas alone. Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Makar Sakranti, to name a few, are also respected.

Question: What do you mean everyone wins? There's only one first place prize!

Answer: A draw will be done with all entries for the first prize of autographed copies of Ethereal Tales zine and the Eden Fell paperback. Another draw will be done for the Eden Fell ARC (pdf) and the winning short story, Tearing the Wings (pdf). So, in conclusion, everyone wins :)

Question: Why PDF?

Answer: PDF, Portable Document Format, is a universal file format. No special software or devices (like the Kindle) is required to read a PDF.

Question: Why can't I see the entry form? Oh, wait, now I can...

Answer: I apologize for that. The code I used for the form, made it viewable in Internet Explorer only and I didn't realize that. I've since adjusted the codes and now the form is viewable to everyone, even iPhone users.

Okay, that's all the questions so far. If anyone has anymore questions, let me know!

Exclusive!

Exclusive information about the Mid-Winter Contest... that I won't post here! ;)

The exclusive will be in the newsletter which will be sent out either today or tomorrow. So, if you haven't subscribed yet, you'll want to do that right away. Don't miss this exclusive!

Subscribe here: http://lilyauthor.com/mailing_list/?p=subscribe&id=4

Also be sure to subscribe to this blog for any exclusive announcements made in the future!

Contest details here: http://lilyauthor.blogspot.com/2010/11/mid-winter-contest.html

On a side note, we had a snowstorm here. There was no snow, then all of sudden it dumped about 2 feet of snow. It's like Santa Claus shit all over the city...

5 Day Writing Marathon

As I said at the beginning of this month as well as in the October newsletter, I was going to post a daily word count in honor of National November Writing Month (NaNo). For those who are unaware, the goal is to write and finish a book by the end of November with a word count of at least 50, 000.
I got started. I was writing like a madwoman. Then I got on a roll and couldn't stop. I finished a book. I wrote over 65, 000 words in 5 days.

And this is why I will never, ever directly participate in NaNo. I think I lost a couple of author friends as a result of posting word counts and my 5 day writing marathon. Although, I must say, I did receive a lot of support and love once I was finished the book. And that made me feel good.

For the past week, I've been brain dead. I even had to get a friend to help me with restocking my groceries, which was a tad embarrassing. I couldn't think clearly, never mind do any creative writing. It's a good thing I planned the Mid-Winter Contest well in advance. Still, I couldn't figure out what the problem was for the life of me. And then tonight I remembered.

5 day writing marathon...

And this is suppose to inspire people to write more? How? By killing all brain cells??? Geez. NaNo should come with a Surgeon General's warning.

WARNING: Participating in NaNo, in any way, may induce zombie-like behavior, severely lowered IQ, and an unhealthy consumption of iced cappuccino. You have been warned.

I have learned some lessons from all of this.

1) NaNo has been proven to be bad for my health.
2) If I'm going to do a major writing marathon, plan it well in advance and stock up on all needed supplies beforehand.
3) I write all the time as it is, doing a writing marathon is pointless and frankly, stupid. See lesson #1.

I suppose if circumstances were different, I'd recommend participating in NaNo as long as the above lessons are kept in mind. But, for me, I can't participate in something like that. It's long since been proven I need to work at my own pace, no matter how fast or how slow that may be.

And for that, I won't apologize. But kind warm thanks to everyone who showed their support.

For everyone else still working on their NaNo projects, I wish you all the best luck!

Now.... grab your friends and enter the Mid-Winter Contest! Everyone is a winner! :D

http://www.lilyauthor.com/contest.html

Contest details: http://lilyauthor.blogspot.com/2010/11/mid-winter-contest.html

If there's any problems viewing the form, try a different browser or email: admin@lilyauthor.com.

This is Lily, author of Dark Fiction, signing out and going back to regenerating...

Mid-Winter Contest!

In the spirit of giving, I've designed this contest so that everyone is a winner! Enter a draw for the chance to win many different prizes! No work required, just entre your name and email for the draw!

MID-WINTER CONTEST

RULES:

To enter just fill out the form here:

http://www.lilyauthor.com/contest.html

DEADLINE:

December 17th, 2010

PRIZES:

First prize is a big one! Autographed copies of Eden Fell and Ethereal Tales #9 which has my winning story “Tearing the Wings.” First prize winner gets BOTH mailed out them, gift wrapped and everything. (I won't put on a pink bow, don't push your luck). First prize will be mailed out by January 1st, 2011. Happy New Year's!

Second prize is either a PDF of Tearing the Wings or the Eden Fell ARC. You choose! Whatever you want!

About Tearing the Wings: This is a short story I submitted for the Ethereal Tales Christmas Competition and can be seen in Issue #9. Tearing of the Wings won first place! You can read an exerpt on the Shorty Stories page. http://www.lilyauthor.com/shortstories.html

These could be yours! Enter today!

***Winners will be chosen randomly. The sooner you enter, the greater chance of winning a prize. The first prize winner will be contacted about their mailing address, no need to submit a mailing address beforehand.