Malice Domestic grants, Riptide publishing, short story markets and more

Posted on by

Sci-fi Romance Quarterly call for submissions (along with a few others)! I’m tempted to try to come up with something for The First Line as well.

Cindi Myers Market News's Blog

“If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~Toni Morrison

*****************************

Writers of traditional myteries may be eligible for the  William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program forUnpublished Writers, awarded by Malice Domestic each year. Two grants will be awarded. Each grant consists of $1,500, to be used to offset the cost of attending a writers conference or workshop in the coming year. The winners will also receive conference registration and two nights lodging for the Malice Domestic convention. Unpublished writers must submit the first three chapters and a brief synopsis of a mystery manuscript, along with an application, a resume and a letter of reference. There is no cost to enter. The original deadline for entries (and the date still listed on the Malice Domestic site) is November 15, but the deadline has been extended…

View original post 516 more words

Chromatik’s new iOS app just made sheet music cool again

Posted on by

Oh, Wow! Now all I need is a piano….!

Gigaom

Sheet music may not exactly be what comes to mind when you think of technology changing the music world — but Los Angeles-based music startup Chromatik thinks that its app can be as disruptive to the hobby musicians as Spotify has been to the music fans of the world.

Chromatik relaunched its self-titled iOS and web apps Thursday, which now offer access to sheet music titles for thousands of popular songs, including titles like John Legend’s All Of Me, Beyonce’s Single Ladies and Adele’s Rolling In The Deep. And the best thing? All of those songs are free, thanks to a sponsorship model that let companies like Apogee foot the bill.

Chromatik offers users arrangements for the most popular instruments (and yes, your singing voice is one of them), and instantly transcribes titles when necessary. The app also includes videos for most titles to give users a way to…

View original post 317 more words

‘Doctor Who’ special: Check out Matt Smith, David Tennant, and John Hurt in new trailer

Posted on by

I hope other Doctors have cameos as well. Would love to see Christopher Ecclestone. the most under-appreciated Doctors of the new millennium he deserves a spot in Who-story if for no other reason than regenerating the entire series. Not to take anything away from David Tenant (whom I adore) or Matt Smith, but without the ninth Doctor we would never have been treated to the wonderful performances of the more popular Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. It was good to see Rose, too. Great Trailer! Can’t wait to see the full show!

Digital Comic: The Vampire Diaries: Vervain 1/3

Posted on by

Intriguing. Maybe it’s something about vampires that just don’t translate into comic book art. Or maybe it’s that comic books have largely been the purview of nerdy males who (as Kevin Smith points out) unwisely sneer at the fandoms that bring more females into the worlds of comic cons, video games and yes, comic books. But whatever the reason, comic books are not flattering to fandoms like True Blood or, it seems, The Vampire Diaries. Sad, really.

True Blood comics were incredibly lucky to have a writer in Michael McMillian who was a fan, a member of the show’s cast, had obviously read the Sookie Stackhouse novels and was a veteran of the comic book industry. It would be nice if he were the trend for show based comic book. Unfortunately, he’s probably the exception rather than the rule.

The muddying of canon waters does demonstrate that comic book publishers need to look beyond their usual stables of writers or maybe just ask different questions. There have to be TVD fans who write comic books. They should be the ones writing the series, given the scrutiny the details and mythology are likely to undergo at the hands of fans. Consider the hew and cry that would arise if the writer of the Doctor Who or Star Trek comics were unfamiliar with the entire history of those series. TVD comics deserves the same respect.

Digital Comic: The Vampire Diaries: Vervain 1/3.

Good Deed Of The Day: Knit Sweaters For Penguins

Posted on by

Knitting for a great cause. Unfortunately, it’s likely that the tuxedo-ed masses will be cleaned up before sweaters from American or European knitters could arrive (at least, let’s hope they are!) but given the poor environmental history of most oil companies knitters could probably make up a few sweaters to have on hand for the next spill (you know there will be one).

Too Many Ideas…. #amwriting

Posted on by

Happens to me all the time. Someone needs to write a writing book about how to cull ideas and focus on a few to get them done in a timely manner. Too many writers do too much multitasking too much of the time.

ghostnapped

I should be howling for joy….

IMG_1703

I have sooooooooo many ideas at the moment. Ideas for chapter books, project books, whole novels, improving my webpage and more anthology pieces. So many ideas that yesterday I finished the first draft of my Keepsakes story only to start it again, from scratch with a completely different idea. I’m not getting rid of the first one, but will do this and see which one I like the best. It’s crazy as soon as I start one thing another idea pops into my head and I just have to do it! So why am I not howling with excitement??? There are only so many hours in a day. I have to run the kids everywhere, work, organise Christmas (for work and home), cook, clean (well that one doesn’t always happen) and get to the gym. There is so much to do, yet I could…

View original post 155 more words