R.L. Stine's Trick-or-Tweet Contest!

Halloween is fast approaching. (Do you have your costume picked out already? Or are you the type that wraps a sheet around yourself like a toga and calls that a costume?) I’ve got nothing spooky going on at the moment. Lucky for you, the master of “Goosebumps” has a nice Trick-or-Treat contest. Or should I say, Trick-or-Tweet?

R.L. Stine is hosting a contest through his Twitter account for one of ten signed copies of his new book, “It's the First Day of School… FOREVER.” Check out the book trailer for it here:



Pretty sweet, huh? So you can see how to enter the contest here or just look below for instructions. Good luck!

R.L. Stine’s HALLOWEEN TRICK-OR-TWEET CONTEST
THE RULES

To enter the contest, follow these step-by-step instructions.
STEP 1:

To enter, you must be following @RL_Stine on Twitter.
If you are already a Follower, go to Step 2.
To become a Follower, go to http://twitter.com/RL_Stine and click ‘FOLLOW’.

STEP 2:

You must Tweet the exact text below to enter the contest:

Enter @RL_Stine ‘s Halloween Trick-or-Tweet Contest to win an autographed book! Please RT. Info at: http://bit.ly/mYmlxb

You only need to tweet this ONE time. Tweeting multiple times will not help your chances of winning.

STEP 3:

Complete the scary story below in one tweet. Tweet your story ending with the hashtag #RLSTINE by October 28. Please make sure to put #RLSTINE at the end of your tweet so we can find your submission.

Submit as many story endings as you like. But each entry must be a single tweet.
R.L. Stine will select 10 winning entries-- his favorite story endings.

The winners will be announced on Halloween Day. Winners will receive a Direct Message on Twitter from R.L. Stine notifying them that they won.

Each winner will receive an autographed copy of the book It's the First Day of School… Forever by R.L. Stine. The winning story endings will also be featured on rlstine.com.

CAN YOU FINISH THIS STORY?

It wasn’t my idea to run through the old graveyard on Halloween night. My friends Becky and Ian are a lot braver than me. It has always creeped me out to have a graveyard at the end of my street.

But here we were in our Halloween costumes. The moon was hidden behind a blanket of clouds. A gusting wind sent dead leaves dancing over the ground as if they were alive. And Becky said, "Come on, David. Let's go running through the graveyard, howling like wolves."

"Yeah. Maybe we'll wake up the dead," Ian said.

"I… don’t want to wake up the dead," I stammered. But I had no choice. I had to run with them. And so we went running through the old gravestones, our costumes fluttering in the wind. Running and howling at the top of our lungs.

It was actually fun—until I tripped over an open grave marker and fell to my knees in the dirt. And when I looked up, I couldn't see my friends. They'd vanished into the darkness.

I climbed to my feet, brushing off dead leaves. I called to Becky and Ian. No answer.
And then I gasped as I felt icy hard fingers grab the back of my neck. Icy fingers wrapped around my skin. With a scream of horror, I spun around—and…

Finish the story in one tweet—and tweet it with the hashtag #RLSTINE by October 28. Good luck!

~VK

PS: You can see my story entries by following @vincentkale and looking for the hashtag #RLSTINE.

Win a Signed Copy of Jonathan Maberry's "Dead of Night"

Here's a quick post for you dead-heads out there. Are you a fan of Jonathan Maberry? Of course you are. (And if you're not, click here to read up on him.) As for "Dead of Night," here's the brief book jacket description:

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang…but a bite.

If you want to win a signed hardcover edition of Maberry's "Dead of Night," just click here and fill out a simple form! Just make sure to read the disclaimer. If you agree without reading it, Maberry has every right to try out experimental viruses on you...fair warning!

~VK

Play Mad Libs with Vincent Kale!

You may have heard the news that earlier this month that Leonard Stern, co-creator of Mad Libs, had passed away. In honor of his memory (and all the great times I had as a young writerlet filling out pages of Mad Libs), I thought we'd play a version of the game today.

For those poor souls out there who have never played Mad Libs, it's quite simple! I'll give you a list of parts of speech and you pick a word that matches that category. Then I'll use your words to fill in the blanks of an already scripted story. Piece of cake, right? But creativity is key, here. So if I ask for a color and you say, "Yellow," that's fine, I guess...if you want to be boring. But if you say "schoolbus yellow" or "jaundiced-liver yellow," then things will get more interesting. Ready?

1) adjective
2) color
3) noun (creature)
4) verb
5) adjective
6) verb
7) plural noun
8) noun (place)
9) adjective
10) noun (food or drink)

Leave your answers (*with corresponding numbers please!*) in the comments section below. At the end of the day (or weekend, depending on # of responses), I'll post the winner and honorable mentions! The winner gets everlasting and immortal fame on the interwebs! That do anything for ya? Eh, maybe I'll see if I can sweeten the deal a little. Have at it!

~VK

A Blog Pox!

As some of you may know, Blogger got a case of the "Friday the 13ths" and gobbled up a bunch of people's posts. So, while I wait for the original post to be restored, here's a summary of what you should have seen yesterday:

- I came across a familiar name in the daily publishing newsletter, Publishers Lunch. The line read, "Meagan Spooner's THE IRON WOOD, a "magicpunk" trilogy, to auction." The reason this is so cool is that, last fall, Ms. Spooner and I entered a pitch contest at Adventures in Children's Publishing. Her snippet of THE IRON WOOD took first place (and most deservedly so), but was so impressive to me that I sent her a congratulatory email and wished her luck with publication.

Well 3 months after that, Ms. Spooner got herself an agent. Six months after that and her trilogy is going to auction! AWESOME! It's cool enough to see debut authors get book deals, but even cooler when you share blogs/forums/comments with them! So, you should probably check out her webpage so that when THE IRON WOOD is a mega-franchise, you can say you'd been there from the beginning(ish)!

~VK

Win an Autographed Copy of Crawl!

As March is rapidly coming to a close and April Fools' Day is hours away, I wanted to get a quick blog post in lest you think me a prankster. (Honestly, the biggest joke played on all of us this year has been the promise of Spring weather...) So, without further ado, here's how you can get your hands on a free, autographed copy of "Crawl!"

First, head on over to Michelle Davidson Argyle's blog and familiarize yourself with her upcoming projects. She is an author of contemporary, literary and fantasy fiction who recently had her novel "Monarch" picked up by Rhemalda Publishing. The site is full of news, advice and contests all centered around the literary world.

"Sounds great," you say, "but how do I win a copy of your awesomazing book?"

All right, settle down. You can click here to check out her post announcing the contest as well as all the goodies you can win. Here's a peak:

* 1 query critique w/ full discussion over email, phone or Skype about your book
* 1 partial critique (first 3 chapters) w/ full discussion over email, phone or Skype about your book
* one book by Mette Ivie Harrison with some signed bookmarks, two signed books by Ren Garcia, and one signed book by Vincent Kale.

Oh hey there I am! So do yourself a favor and sign up for the newsletter! You'll not only get to keep tabs an on up and coming writer, but you'll get a chance at winning free swag!

Stay tuned to Crawlspace to see when I might just be running a contest of my own!

~VK

Let's Talk About Deadlines

It's half-way through November, which means I should be half-way through "Indigo," right? Right. And half-way means 25,000 words, right? Right.

Here's the problem...

I'm about 5,000 behind! How did that even happen? For two weeks I had been diligently keeping ahead of the 1,667 words a day pace. So what changed?

Oh, just a little thing called life. I'm way over-extended this month and have already cut back on some things I had planned just to squeeze in writing time. Unfortunately I now have to play catch up. I'm literally only writing this because I have another obligation in about 15 minutes and that simply does not give me enough time to dive back into the story. Let's hope said obligations do not take forever tonight because it's only Monday and I'm exhausted. sigh...

In other news, Miss Snark's First Victim is running a mega-awesome contest! If you have a project that's ready for submission, check this out!

I had fully intended on entering and was genuinely excited about it. But "Blackwatch" is nowhere near ready for it and I won't take the spot away from someone else who deserves it more. Besides, one less thing on my plate right now will be a glorious thing...

15 days and counting, 20,000 words and climbing.

~VK

Rocktober!

Happy first day of October! I love everything about this month: autumn colors, piles of leaves, football, cool nights, football, hayrides, pumpkins, apple cider, jack o'lanterns, football, HALLOWEEN, and contests!

*The Oatmeal sums up the stages of Trick 'r Treating quite nicely
*Somewhat offensive language/themes, ie not for kids

But what was that I said about contests? Well I'll have more info on that (hopefully) this weekend. I'm thinking of running a very-short-story contest based off of a prompt. Mostly for fun, yes, but there will be a prize...of sorts.

My previous project, after which this blog is named, was a horror story entitled "Crawl." Some of you have read it, most of you have not, but any of you could win an autographed copy!
*"Crawl" is also pretty adult in nature with some offensive language/themes/scenes. Maybe it'll make it onto a banned booklist someday!

Like I said, more details to come...and I should probably get to revising "Crawl" and printing some copies so I actually have something to GIVE the winner!

Now, quit reading and go rake some leaves!

~VK

Community vs Contest

While I love NBC's "Community," this post is not about the show. Rather, it's about the community of writers, bloggers, agents, published and represented authors that form a supportive network across the interwebs. Interestingly enough, I've found that the most helpful, talented and altruistic people tend to shine through during a contest.

A contest!

Think about that for a second. Here we have a competition among many worthy adversaries for a coveted prize. In any other community, be it other arts, sports, business, people would be clamoring over each other for attention and trying their damnedest to out-do the next guy.

But not with writers. Writers support each other and offer their praise, criticism and unwavering encouragement. For every author gaining representation, for every book sold at auction, for every project opted for multiple sequels and movies, the writing community grows stronger. This is one case where competition really does improve the craft of everyone involved, if you're open to criticism and change.

I'm posting this today because I was lucky to be a finalist in a recent contest at the Adventures in Children's Publishing blog. While I didn't place in the top 3 winners, I wasn't disappointed. The critiques I gathered on my pitch and query from other authors and contestants were invaluable. I've already used it to strengthen my delivery and see what works and what doesn't.

And to be honest, as soon as I read the pitch for the winning entry, I knew it was special. Something about it just clicked. I'm assuming this is what agents look for in their slush piles. Meagan Spooner's "The Iron Wood" sounds absolutely amazing. Click through to read her full query, but here's a snippet:

When Lark develops abilities that doom her to life as a magical battery, she must escape her energy-starved city and fight to survive in the monster-infested wilderness beyond long enough to find others like her, and the key to her own powers.

And it was very cool to watch her pitch/query grow in strength over the weeks. Congratulations to Meagan on a well-deserved win!

~VK

Feelin' Lucky Friday!

And now..............champagne!

Nah, just contests. Here we go!

Flash fiction contest at Janet Reid's blog.
Prize: 101 Things I Learned in Film School and 101 Things I Learned in Business School
You've got until midnight tonight to submit!

More contests than you can possibly enter over at Adventures in Children's Publishing

And if you're more interested in submitting finished works, here is a list of deadlines:

For the literary types,
Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers - Deadline: 8/31

For the, erm, cowboy types (?) The Moonlight Mesa Associates Cowboy Up Contest. Deadline: 9/1, pardner.

For the environmentally inclined, The Bear Deluxe Magazine presents the 2010 Doug Fir Fiction Award. Deadline: 9/8

Bartleby Snopes is running their 2nd Annual "Dialogue Only" writing contest. Deadline: 9/12

And I wouldn't want to leave the poets out: The Greensboro Review is taking submissions for the 2011 Robert Watson Literary Prize. Deadline: 9/15

Happy hunting!
~VK