I Wonz teh Awkward Author Photo Contest

I can finally tell my mom that I'm a winner.

Wild and crazy novelist, screenwriter, blogger, and game designer, Chuck Wendig http://terribleminds.com/ had a very serious and thoughtful contest to solicit the most awkward author photos of all time (well, of at least those readers of his blog who were silly enough to enter).

Here's where he scientifically tallied the votes (complete with snazzy info-graphic)

And here's my winning entry:

Let that sink in.

...

...

...

And here's my reaction when I found out I'd won this prestigious award:

Hagrid learns he's been accepted to Hogwarts

good times.

Acceptance and Contest Win: Dark Fuse & Vegas Valley Book Fest 2013

Well, it's been a productive past few months.

While I've been neck deep in the heavy rewrites and revisions of my current WIP (work in progress for all you not yet in the know), I've also been throwing my proverbial hat into the ring by submitting short stories all over the place.

1) My short story "The Resurrectionist" won 2nd place in the 2013 Vegas Valley Book Festival Flash Fiction contest. (I'll be reading my winning entry at the VVBF on Saturday Nov 2nd at noon in the small courtyard of the old 5th street schoolhouse in downtown Las Vegas)

2) My short story "Rainmaker" was just picked up by Dark Fuse for their Horror d'oeuvres flash fiction outlet. Fun stuff. Rainmaker was my entry in the Killercon 2013 Creative Fiction contest, judged by the peerless Ellen Datlow and Christopher Rice (a rising star to watch).

Both stories were written on the same day (within a few hours of one another) in two timed contests. The first contest allowed 90 minutes to write, edit and submit, the second only 20 minutes.

Most of you know that I have a super-duper writers group. The Illiterati.

Watch out, better hide your kids, hide your wife.

One of the best things about having a group in this solitary life of a writer is that you roll together. Any triumph for one is a triumph for all. Life is better when you travel as a pack.

In September the Illiterati as a group entered two short story contests in a row: The Killercon 2013 Creative Fiction contest and the 2013 Vegas Valley Book Festival Flash Fiction contest.

We won both.
(Congrats to Matt Czarnowski for his Illiterati-representing Killercon win!)

I credit as much to our own (growing) writing ability as I do to the sense of friendly competition of "outwriting" one another. I admire and enjoy the unique writing voice and style of each member of my group, and to go head-to-head with them is both an honor and a real challenge.

What are you waiting for? Find some like-minded writers and start yourself a writers group. You won't know what you're doing at first, but you'll learn.

Short Story Up: The Flesh Trader

Hey peoples of the interwebz.

My award winning short story "The Flesh Trader" is in this week's Las Vegas Citylife Magazine.

(Page 13, wonderfully)

You can read the e-version here: http://lasvegascitylife.com/e-edition.php?i=2012/11/01#?page=13

Booya!

Super Duper Flash Writing Contest Winning Tips

I’m pretty stoked. Last month I entered 2 flash fiction contests and won both of them. In fact, I've won 3 out of the 5 flash fiction contests I've ever entered (the KillerCon Creative Fiction Contest in 2012, and the Vegas Valley Book Fest Flash Fiction Contest in 2010 and 2012).

(self aggrandizement alert!)

If you don’t know, flash fiction is a short short story, usually under 1000 words in length, sometimes under 500. They are stories that get in, do their story magic, and get out. They even have micro fiction which is roughly around tweet size.

 

(my own example):

 

She watched the dinner guests leave. They never asked where Greg was and she of course didn’t show them the blood and mess in the kitchen.

So naturally Flash Fiction Contests are when a group of caffeine-hazed writers are given a prompt and a short amount of time (20 minutes at KillerCon, 90 minutes at Vegas Valley Book Fest). When the buzzer goes off, you stop writing, just like a test, and then you are at the mercy of the judges.

But let’s get back to me winning. (I need to start that #arrogant twitter hashtag Mercedes[[[]]] and I joke about…)

I thought to myself, “Self,” I says, “You seem to be awesome at these things. Do you have any super-duper tips for winning?”

Well, nothing super-duper. In truth, I’d say 60% of winning at flash fiction is how far you can take your imagination and writing chops. And 20% is being able to perform under deadline. Perform coherently, I might add.

Almost all of that falls under the same writing advice you can find anywhere. (No really, most other people give way more useful writing advice than me, because I don’t really know how I do it…)

But that last little 10% leaves room for a few handy tips and tricks. Nothing fancy, mind you, but this is how I do it and maybe it will work for you. (Or at least free you up to just charge blindly ahead!)

Tip #1: Write the most compelling first line you can think of, right off the top of your head. Then come up with the story behind it.

Don’t construct an elaborate plot. Don’t try to focus on the theme, because by simply hearing it and stewing on it while waiting for someone to shout “Go” the theme is already part of your consciousness.

Make that first line sing. Don't worry about where the story will go. Just write something that can't be ignored.

Mine was "The hardest part was not killing the kids, but cutting them up to fit in the furnace."

Where it came from, I don't know, but it had to be answered. I had to find out what happened next, thus I had to write it.

Tip #2: Don’t cheat and show up at the contest with a full plot or story you already wrote in your head, or worse, already wrote which you will try to recreate.

Don't do this.

It not only smells like cheating but it can backfire on you. Particularly with themes and/or key words or phrases you must use in the story. The elaborate western romance you cooked up will get hosed when the key phrase they give you is "The spaceship docked on the dark side of the moon." Hosed!

(Unless you’re Joss Whedon, in which case, carry on.)

Speaking of key words and phrases, "How do you deal with any key words, or phrases they make you put into the story?" (you ask) “How do you place a word like ‘zither’ and ‘mongoose’ in a space-cowboy drama?” (you ask so many questions)

Tip #3: Love words.

 

Love words,  love how words sound, love language so deeply that you don’t just cram in obtrusive words like ‘chartreuse’ with a wink at the audience. Actually use them.

I read the dictionary for fun. I have this giant unabridged one that I like to turn to random pages (it also makes a great kid booster seat!) Words are your fundamental tools, even the awkward words.

What if you don’t know the meaning of the word? Ask. You might feel like a goober asking what a zither is, but you'll feel like a Hefty-bag of shame when you write it into your steamy romance mistakenly thinking it means a clothes fastening device.

Tip #4 Economy of words.

The opposite of this blog post.

 

I am very grateful to the estimable judges of the Vegas Valley Book Festival, and the KillerCon Creative Fiction Contest: Jack Ketchum and Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty, Don D'Auria from Samhain Publishing, and Roy Robbins from Bad Moon Books.

I won... booze?

Mercedes Yardley BEAUTIFUL SORROWS Blog Tour

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing (once again) my dear friend and member of my crazy writer's group: Mercedes M. Yardley.

Knives and other weapons not shown

First of all, let me say a hearty congratulations to you! Your first collection, Beautiful Sorrows, just came out from Shock Totem Publications and I have to say that the title describes the contents perfectly.

Which leads me to my first question...


Mercedes, you’ve really perfected the art of beautiful sorrow, or as you once put it to me “whimsical horror”. How did you develop your unique “ethereal, yet horrific” voice?

It was a lot of trial and error. You’ve read some of my old pieces, and you can see tiny slivers of this voice emerging, but it really wasn’t until I wrote the novel my agent is currently shopping that I felt it come out in full force.  My writing was always a touch dark, but also fairly pretty.  That’s how I’d explain it.  Prettily horrific.

And you’ve always written?
Always.

When did you first have the inkling that other people might want to read your work?
I wrote a lot as a kid, and my third grade teacher asked me to read some of my stories aloud to the class.  It was scary, but cool, and it just seemed like the thing to do, you know?  Write something and share it. Then I was in a couple of great magazines and anthologies, and I figured that people were buying them because of the other authors in there. I was just along for the ride, and loving every minute of it.  But now that Beautiful Sorrows has come out, I’m just floored that people are buying it. I mean, it’s my book, a book of just me, and people are still choosing to spend their money on it.  It’s extremely humbling, but so delightful! I’m so excited.

What was the tipping point for you to stop just “dabbling” as a writer and start submitting things for publication?

I was quite literally going mad. We had just moved to Las Vegas, my husband was gone all of the time with a new job, and I had a baby boy at home.  It was too hot to go outside and we were trapped inside of the apartment. I thought, “This isn’t the life that I want for myself!”  I was so lonely and so desperate for a creative outlet.  I joined up with the local NaNoWriMo group, wrote my first novel, and loved it. It was daunting to start submitting short stories and poems to magazines, but that was my next step.  I always wanted to be a writer, but I lacked the motivation and confidence.  I was intimidated.  But I grit my teeth and started forward.

You’re in a writers’ group with me. Admit it.

The Illiterati. We are a very serious writers group.

No comment, lest I incriminate myself.

Our writer’s group is pretty hardcore, but I can’t tell you how much I’ve grown as a writer because of being in a group with you, Mercedes. I think we’re awesome! Have all of your writers’ group experiences been as awesome?

The Illiterati is unique because we like each other, in and outside of the group as well.  We’re all creative, we have a great work ethic, and especially in the case of you and I, we spur each other on with friendly but gritty competition.

That reminds me. Congratulations on beating my measly 4th place in the Las Vegas Valley Flash Fiction contest! I owe you a video extolling your virtues.

That’s right, I won 1st place! I’m looking forward to that video. Bwahaha! And thank you for spurring me to write with excellence. I ascribe my win to our Illiterati power. But what works for us might not work for everyone. Would you recommend finding a writers’ group to others, and do you have any tips for finding the right one?

I think everybody needs some type of group. Even if it’s a loose collection of betas who only read your stuff once.  In our case, we’re an uber-intensive, three hours a week writer’s group where we tear each other’s work to shreds. But that’s because we respect each other and we’ve earned that respect.

I’d say that if you don’t jive with a person, you’re not going to respect what they have to say about your work. And if you don’t value their opinion, they shouldn’t be looking at your work anyway.  It’s just a waste of everybody’s time.  And time is such a precious commodity.

Ok, random question: I hear you had something to do with the sinking of the Titanic.

Let’s just say that [James Cameron’s TITANIC] movie portrayal of [First Officer] William McMaster Murdoch as a money-grubbing murderer has been contested by friends and family.  Apparently somebody involved with the movie ending up paying the family for defamation of character, or whatnot.

Let me also add that Murdock Luck is a real thing.  You definitely don’t want to stand next to me in a lightning storm.

What energizes you as a writer?

Goals.  Making strides. The success of another writer that I enjoy. Illiterati meetings.  I love the rush of moving forward, even when it’s difficult. But then, it seems that it’s always difficult.  One or another of us is always slogging through the literary mud.  It helps to hold hands and run together.

What would you like to see more or less of in fiction?

I’m done with zombies. Totally done. I’d like to see more ghost stories, but that’s because I love them so much.  Ooh, and more voodoo stories!  You can’t have enough ghost and voodoo stories.

Thank you Mercedes for stopping by my little corner of the universe. Any parting shots?

You may have won this contest round, but I’ll get you next time, Gadget! Can’t wait to see you on Tuesday to shoot the literary breeze.  I’m sure we’ll go head to head on something, as usual.

Sounds like a challenge! Accepted. :)

Make sure you pick up a copy of BEAUTIFUL SORROWS from Shock Totem or Amazon.com

KillerCon 2012 Debriefed

So this year I got to be the official Volunteer Wrangler at KillerCon 4 (2012) writer's convention held here in Las Vegas, NV.

First, the good stuff: I won the 2012 KillerCon Creative Fiction Contest. Yowzah. I was up against some stiff competition, and the judges were all world class authors and editors (including Mr. Jack Ketchum and Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty).

And it was very great to hang out with so many talented and incredibly delightful writers, many of whom I’ve met several times over the past few years of convention going as a professional writer. Seriously, everyone thinks that horror writers must be maladroit and grim all the time, but I find them to be the most wonderfully-odd-in-the-right-way sorts. We’re all a little weird around here. But delightfully so.

Speaking of weird, it was really awesome to meet the whole crew of Shock Totem. Those cats get A++ in raditude.

My writers' group, the Illiterati, and our baby

And certainly not the least of the awesome of KillerCon weekend was the release of my dear friend Mercedes M. Yardley’s first book, BEAUTIFUL SORROWS. You need to buy it now, because the first run already sold out. Yes it’s that good. Possibly one of my favorite stories ever is in it (“Luna e Volk”).

Now for some of the bad: That darn Stratosphere really made life difficult. The hospitality suite was as far from the convention across the hotel as humanly possible. And you’d think they’d populate the rooms surrounding the “party room” with KillerCon attendees, right? No, they booked them with normal guests who actually wanted to sleep at 2am in Las Vegas. The audacity.

And then there was the outright odd. I had no room. That would not normally be a problem because my house is about 15 minutes away. But I kept forgetting I didn’t have the car. So I couch surfed the whole time. No, I am only telling half the truth. I had to share a bed with my new friend (very close friends now, thank you very much) Matt C. He was a gentleman and didn’t inadvertently snuggle me. I don’t think.

But, what I am thinking would make next year’s KillerCon level up is 1) a better venue. 2) Having more interesting panels and running them two at a time with one Keynote panel in a large room towards end of day. Oh, and 3) having a designated "dinner break" hour. People are sheep, we like being told "go eat now, you have an hour".

Those are my suggestions. Oh, and 4) showgirls.

Yes, I'm big beardin it. Take a closer look, go on... touch it, I dare you.

 

Contest: Win a Flippin' Kindle, Dude

No it's not my contest. I don't have the money to buy you a Kindle. But if you are a writer of sci-fi/fantasy/horror/awesome, Ken Kiser over at theKreggorian.com is giving away a Kindle 'cause he's crazy like that.

It's first-come-first-serve and caps out at 100 entries, so get off your duff and sign up!

7 Easy Steps to a Fulfilled Life:

This is probably what you'd get
if I were running the contest

1)    go here: http://thekreggorian.com/writer-workshop

2)    Read rules (they are short but manage to be slightly confusing anyways, whee!)
3)    Go to http://thekreggorian.com/fwforum/ and create a login for the forum.
4)    Post a “hi my name is _____” in the WELCOME forum section. Say hi to a few people, make friends.
5)    Post the first 300 words of one of your novels/novellas/written voodoo spells in CONTESTS! > The Great Openings Contest
6)    Tell other writers!
7)    Wait to see if you win the Kindle.

Contest of Cthulhu Proportions!

Some of you know that I have a short story in the upcoming Innsmouth Free Press anthology "Historical Lovecraft"

("Hooray!" says little Cthulhu.)

Well why don't you just go ahead and get it for free?

Check out the contest on Goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/9376-historical-lovecraft

BAM, that just happened.

:)

The Immortal Art of the Deal - the short story!

It's up.

My award winning short story (I can say that, ha!) "The Immortal Art of the Deal" has been published in Las Vegas Citylife.

In case you forgot, Mercedes M. Yardley also won (read more about that here)
We will both be doing a public reading on November 6th. I plan on bringing some backup dancers and pyrotechnics. (Let's see you follow that, Mercedes!)

Read it here:

http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2010/10/28/news/local_news/iq_39226630.txt

I Won! Mercedes Won! We Won!

As some of you know I entered a writing contest put on by the City of Las Vegas for the 2010 Vegas Valley Book Festival being held downtown on Nov 3-7.

In fact, almost our whole writers group, The Illiterati, signed up to dominate the competition. And dominate we did.

The indomitable Mercedes M. Yardley and I tied for the $250 2nd place prize. (1st place winner was a guy we had all hit it off with before the contest, Kurt Rice so it feels like we kept the winneryness in the family.)

The judges were Andrew Kiraly of KNPR’s Desert Companion, Scott Dickensheets of the Las Vegas Sun, UNLV writing instructor and Schaeffer Fellow Alissa Nutting, and CityLife’s Mike Prevatt. Prizes were provided by the Vegas Valley Book Festival (thank you!) and my story “The Immortal Art of the Deal” will be published in Las Vegas CityLife magazine. (W00t!)

In addition I’ll be doing a reading of my story at the Vegas Valley Book Festival on Nov 6th at around 10:30am in the courtyard. I know you want to be there. I’m going to wear a cape. And add a few Bollywood dance scenes. It’ll be awesome.

But don’t forget, my fellow Illiterati critique partner, Mercedes M. Yardley also won. I decided to interview her, because every time I tried to interview myself I kept getting into fistfights and suing myself.

In order to get an interview with Mercedes I disguised myself as an intrepid journalist and caught her as she was walking into the Las Vegas Machine Gun store.

##

Intrepid Journalist: “Excuse me, Mercedes M. Yardley?”

Mercedes: “How did you find me? Where's my Mace? Security!”

*After the Mace has run its course and the interviewer’s eyes have stopped burning.*

Intrepid Journalist: “Ok, so Mercedes, I wanted to ask you a few questions about your surprise win at the Flash Fiction contest—and your surprise near defeat at the hands of Mason.”

Mercedes: “Well, it wasn’t near defeat. We tied. Which is awesome.”

Intrepid Mason: “Well, right. Ok. Let’s talk about you. This was a FLASH FICTION contest, limited to 500 words. I understand you have loads of experience with writing flash fiction. About how many pieces have you published?

Mercedes: “About 50 pieces. Fiction. Poetry. Nonfiction.”

Insipid Journalist: “Poetry. Like haikus?”

Mercedes *with a sharp look that threatens more Mace*: “No.” *A brief uncomfortable pause. Somewhere a dog barks, or something.* “Mason, seriously, what are you doing in that ridiculous outfit—?”

Incisor Jumblist: “Never mind that. What did you feel when we walked into the 5th street school auditorium where they were holding the contest? I felt, I mean… Mason reported that he felt like he was there to take the SAT’s all over again. Were you scared that Mason would lay the smackdown?”

Mercedes: “I was excited. Nothing gets my blood pumping like a challenge, and I was totally digging on the competitive vibe. And as for Mason? Have you seen his spindly arms? Sure, that guy can shred the guitar better than anybody I've seen, but you don't want that pantywaist to move your furniture. I wasn't afraid.”

Invader Jugglist, *looking down at his pants.* “So that’s why these underwear are so uncomfortable.”

Mercedes: “Oh, but you mean writing-wise? Maybe a little.”

*A brief interlude as Mason, I mean, interviewer does a little victory dance that involves the Pee-Wee Herman move repeated far too many times.*

Investigative Jabba-the-Huttist: “So, how much preparation did you undergo for the tie-breaker dance battle in the parkinglot?

Mercedes: “Well, I was pretty warmed up from jumping around the room and screaming, "Yeah! Finished! Booya!" after the writing contest was done. Besides that, I'd been singing "Eye of the Tiger" in my head during the entire competition, so I was pretty stoked. And who can beat this?”

*awesome dance move*

*Mason, I mean, journalist stares with wonder at the power and fractal nature of Mercedes’ dance moves.*

Implacable Burbleist: “It’s a wonder we didn’t open a time-warp nexus with our awesome dance skills. Well, back to the interview: What are some of the challenges and advantages of writing flash fic?”

Mercedes: “The challenges are that it's difficult to condense your story down to its very essence. It takes discipline to make every word count. Also, a lot of people don't take it seriously as an art form.

“But the advantages rock. Flash is great because you get to explore an idea quickly. It's satisfying to write something start-to-finish without it taking months or even years, like a novel. And it's great from a magazine's perspective because sometimes we need something short and sweet to take up a little space in the mag, and flash fits the bill. It's very versatile."

Insensitive Chupacabralist: “Wow, well there you have it. I want to thank you for taking the time to—“

Mercedes: “Hey, is that a giant wombat behind you?”

*Mason turns to look. Mercedes runs away*

[[end transmission]]


A HUGE thank you to Brian Rouff at Imagine Marketing for hosting the contest and providing a wealth of information for this blog post.

The Vegas Valley Book Festival - the largest literary event in Las Vegas - will take place Nov. 3-7. More than 100 authors participate in festival events, which include literary and art panel discussions, readings, book signings, workshops, poetry readings, spoken word performances, exhibitions and other special programs. Most events are free and open to the public.

The Vegas Valley Book Festival is produced by the City of Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute, Las Vegas Review-Journal, the local chapter of AIGA, the professional association for design; and Nevada Humanities, a festival founder.

For more information about the Vegas Valley Book Festival, call 702-229-5431 or visit www.vegasvalleybookfestival.org.

Dance Battles and Short Story Contests

Or, Is That a Flash Drive In Your Pocket, or Are You Just Happy To See Me?


This weekend I got a chance to compete in a flash fiction contest put on by the City of Las Vegas for the Vegas Valley Book Festival.

To make it more awesome, billie the girl and Mercedes M. Yardley from my super-awesome critique group, The Illiterati, joined in and we strolled into the place like the three amigos.


It was fun to meet other writers, see some familiar faces from the local writer’s group meetup (Las Vegas Writers Group), and try to write a winning 500 word short story off a prompt for the chance at $500. (Dude, that’s a buck a word.)

But the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. When the 90 minutes of write time was up we had to turn in our pieces to be judged. There are many possible ways this could have been accomplished, but the way chosen was to load your story onto your own personal flash drive, turn it into the contest coordinator to keep for several weeks while they figure out the winners.

Someone offered to let everyone use their flash drive and put all the stories onto one. I suspected a sabotage attempt. Mercedes aptly dubbed it the Syphilis Drive. That made me think of someone holding out their used Kleenex and saying “Hey, anyone else need to blow? I don’t want this to go to waste.”

Flash drives. Yeah, I can picture the logistics planning meeting:

“How’re we gonna collect the contest entries?”

“Oh, I know. They can just turn in the Word files on their personal flash drives with no distinguishing personal features. I’ll give them back at some indeterminate time.”

“But… it seems that things could go a little wrong there. They might get lost; computer viruses are transmitted by flash drives; or people might have personal files or data on them…”

“Relax, we’re the government. What could go wrong?”

At least after the contest Mercedes and I had an epic Dance Battle in the parking lot. Video evidence was confiscated and destroyed in the interest of national security.

But it looked something like this:



Oh yeah, we won't know if we won for another few weeks, so stay tuned (all three of you)