Tiny Revelations and Being Bad!

The results from Carl's Tiny Stories contest are in and the stories are all amazing. I have to give a big round of applause to everyone who participated in this one. I really enjoyed reading everyone's stories and the amount of effort put into these really shows. They were all top notch. Many were very touching and all of them were quite powerful. Elaine's (Quixotic) amazing story Father took home the top award, and rightfully so. Very touching, haunting, and something I can relate to. Great job ;)

For those not in the know, the contest was to write a story that was exactly 100 words and you could not repeat the same word twice! Very challenging. If you haven't tried it already, you really should. It was quite fun. My story was titled Jaden's Nakaya. Jaden was to be the main character of my NaNoWriMo story and Nakaya was the world in which it was set, but that idea has been laid aside for now and a new one has taken it's place...but I'll revisit them later. Here's my story:

His eyes shifted to an egg shell white – pupil and iris removed. Jaden was tranced.

He re-appeared where childhood ended. That dark memory when imagination could no longer play the savior.

It had worked until then.

Couldn’t face pain…always running…

Wicked thoughts awoken Nakaya, my bright world…I’m safe here, free. There are others – some like me, winged creatures, sparkling nymphs, things of water who create mystical sounds…All stolen away.

Bang…blood…sirens…funeral…

…It’s time to grow up…

…Gotta be the big boy…

Kaya’s gone forever…innocence lost.

I have a choice in this.

Beauty reclaimed.

The End! I'll pursue his story and go much further in depth in the future. It's so hard to tell a story in 100 words. I know what I'm saying in this story, but I don't know if anyone else would! I wanted to capture the imagination as a place of escape and how we often lose that or feel that we have to lose that as we grow older...how we're sometimes forced by "real life" to lose our imaginations...but I also feel that to an extent we have a choice...we can choose to use creativity as a means of expression and a means of escape and release...

OK, so enough with the heavy stuff...on with the being bad! I spent a lot of money on books and I only bought 2 of them! Both are pre-orders. Subterranean Press had to go and announce 2 really incredible books. The first is their new edition of Neil Gaiman's Coraline with an all new cover by Dave McKean. The book will also be signed and numbered, though they haven't specified if it will be signed by Gaiman and McKean or just Gaiman. It will also include a few new illustrations by Dave McKean and will have several full color photos of Coraline puppets from an Irish Puppet production of the book! If you preorder the novel, you are entered in a drawing to win one of three Coraline dolls made by puppeteer Mary Robinette Kowal! The other 2 dolls are going to Gaiman and McKean. How frickin' cool is that!

The second book that I bought is Lye Street by Alan Campbell. This book sounds amazing. It's a prequel to a book called Scar Night that is available now that has gotten wonderful reviews and has been compared to Neil Gaiman and Charles Dickens. I'll be picking up that one soon. Lye Street won't be released until January 2008, so I have plenty time to read Scar Night first. The main reason I ordered Lye Street (aside from the fact that it sounds cool) is that Dave McKean did an incredible wrap around cover for it! I love it. That one's only $25 for a signed hardcover which really isn't bad for a Subterranean Press edition.

Alright...that's all I got!

Getting Settled Back In

Today's been a day of playing catch-up...settling back in to normal life. I think I've about caught up on everyone's blogs. If I haven't, I'm getting there, I promise. Lord, you people write too much! :)

Lets see. I've gotten most of my thank you notes done today and mailed off which feels good. I hate that feeling of things left unfinished. Vice-versa, I love the feeling of checking things off of a list, so...check!

Had to go to the post office to get some stamps and while I was there I got a sheet of the oh-so-cool Star Wars stamps. I'm in love! If you haven't bought a sheet yet, I highly recommend that you go get some while they're available. They're every geek's dream.

While at the coffee shop writing thank you notes, I also decided to start on my Tiny Story for Carl's contest. This is going to be fun, but much more challenging than I thought. I have the idea. I've got the first line and the last line written and just those two lines constitute 20 words of the 100 word story. I'm in trouble. I would love to share it with everyone when I'm done, but I realized that I can't because one of the judges is Colleen Gleason and she occasionally stops by over here. Oh well..when the contest is over!

Speaking of Colleen, just a reminder to everyone that the new book, Rises the Night, comes out on June 5th! Very soon. I'm so excited about that one and it looks like there's going to be yet another "bonus read" added to the Once Upon a Time Challenge. I really need to start plowing through A Game of Thrones. I've barely read any of it. Maybe 130 pages on the plane. I got no reading done at all during vacation. At this rate I'll never finish the challenge. I'm loving what I've read of it so far though. Favorite character so far is Jon. We'll see if he remains a favorite. I'm enjoying Martin's writing a lot more than I thought I would.

One last thing. Nattie is a blogger who is hosting the Newberry Challenge. She's such a sweet person and before I went on vacation she was complaining of feeling bad. When I got back I was catching up on her blog and saw that she was diagnosed with cancer and is now undergoing chemotherapy. Please keep her in your thoughts. She's an amazingly strong person with an awe inspiring attitude and I wish her all the best.