Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Contests
Hey! Look! A contest!
You can win a signed, hard cover edition of Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway
(see my review here) by helping me promote either my free ebook at Smashwords
or my Kindle book,
Here are the rules:
1. Multiple “entries” possible. Each entry will function as a lottery ticket, and I will decide the winner based on a drawing of such tickets. I have only one copy of Sara’s book, so there will be only one winner.
2. Each of the below will count as one entry:
a) Shout out this contest on twitter, facebook, or your blog. Your shout must include the URL for this blog post. If you do so on twitter, facebook, and your blog, that will count as three entries.
b) If you’ve read Gator & Shark, leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. (If you do both, that will count as two entries.)
c) If you’ve read Nothing But Light, leave a review on Smashwords or Goodreads. (Ditto.)
3. Contest will end when interest dies down — probably next Monday evening.
4. Important: to get credit, you must indicate in the comments below what you have done.
Any questions?
D.
Flash fiction contest
Artist Kenney Mencher is hosting a flash fiction writing contest: a 1000-word story based on one of his oils could win you one of his drawings. Details here.
Should be fun.
D.
And the winner of the music contest is . . .
DEAN!
And no, he didn’t get fifty million entries, even though he posted fifty million times. Just the max, two.
Wish you could all win but hey, rulez is rulez.
Dean, email me your new address and I will arrange for your teh awesome prize to be sent to you. malmerkin at gmail dot com.
HEY! I just had a great idea for a new drink: absinthe and a slug of espresso, a nice big fat octopus tentacle added in as a stirrer. I’ll call it the Cthulhu Cthooler*.
D.
*Who says I can’t still write.
A music contest!
Driving home from the gym today, it struck me, I love this CD so much I wish everyone could listen to it. That CD? Jonathan Coulton’s Best. Concert. Ever.
No, really. It is.
And then it occurred to me that I bet you all have stuff you wish the rest of us could listen to.
Hence the contest.
Here’s the idea: think of a performer or band you dearly love, preferably someone a little bit off the beaten track. Post a link in the comments*. If I haven’t heard of the performer or the band or that particular song, then you have just submitted a valid contest entry. How about we limit two entries per person. At the end of some as-yet-to-be-specified time period, I’ll have a drawing of names (entered twice if you gave me two valid entries), and to the winner I’ll send a copy of Best. Concert. Ever. Because I know you’re going to love it.
If you already own Best. Concert. Ever, I’ll send you something else that’s off the beaten track that I think is awesome.
If you put in an entry I’ve heard before, say, something off Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, then I’ll let you know in the comments that it’s not a valid entry, probably by sneering at you with a nasty, “What part of off the beaten track didn’t you understand?” But you’ll still be able to submit more entries until you reach your two.
And in the process of holding this contest, we’ll all (hopefully) get to hear a bunch of stuff we haven’t heard before — and maybe we’ll find something new and different and wonderful to listen to.
Questions? If not, let the contest begin.
D.
*The link must be to something with audio content — a YouTube video, or something with an audio sample from the song, for example; one particular song, please, not just a general link to the whole CD. Ideally, post a link to the song you really love by that performer, from that album, etc.
Cookies ‘n contests
Kate has a contest, too. And just like Kris’s contest, which I hawked yesterday, she’s trying to bribe us with candy. Kate’s throwing in her new book and a $25 Barnes and Noble gift certificate, too. When I get pubbed, I’m going to send cookies.
Molasses cookies.
I’m grateful to Vons and Albertson’s that they no longer carry molasses cookies. Store-bought molasses cookies never were the shiznit, you know? Dry, chewy without being crispy, lean on flavor. A molasses cookie should be bold, full-bodied, complex. Spicy as a ginger snap, only edible.
So when my son got a yen for molasses cookies, I did what any real man would do. I googled “molasses cookies recipe” and picked the first one that sounded reasonable.
This recipe from About.com’s Southern Food section isn’t quite the shiznit, but it comes close; and if you read to the end, you’ll hear how we improved on an already good thing.
Roll call, with contest
I may be sending out a mass emailing soon, so I wanted to make sure I had all my li’l pals in my address book. In the comments below, stand up, wave your hands, make a scene. And I’ll sweeten the deal, too: I’ll choose one of you at random to receive Paul Meloy’s short story collection, Islington Crocodiles, which is just plain WOW. (My more literate review should appear soon at The Fix.)
Note that it’s especially important to respond if you haven’t commented lately. I have lots of folks on that blogroll who rarely if ever comment. I don’t know if you’re still reading me or not!
Thanks for the comments to yesterday’s post, by the way. I thought it was a little over the top, but maybe I’m selling myself short. I do know that Karen and Jake dislike it when I get literary. If I ever did get “serious,” I think I’d have to find different beta readers 🙂
As an aside: writing this stuff sure is different than writing humorous genre fiction. It’s a whole different mindset — almost a poetic or dreamlike space I need to get into. It hasn’t been intentional. Each time, I was in that space to begin with, and that’s the stuff I wrote. Is this making any sense? And now that I’ve found that space, perhaps I could re-imagine it in order to write more.
In one of the many self-help-for-writers books I read five or six years ago, one author said that when he writes, he imagines himself to be a much better writer than what he truly is. When he does so, he creates material that is far better than his usual fare.
Some pretty weird mystical shit, eh?
D.
Froschmausekrieg
And Microsoar wins it with his first entry!
Knowing how he used his women and his bloodthirsty history, she devised a tale of mystery, romance and intrigue. In her fable, magic carpets crossed the skies. Fearless heroes slew fabulous beasts, overcame seemingly insurmountable odds and ravished beautiful and willing women. She planned a climactic finish that was not quite an ending, instead offering suspenseful temptation and a promise of even greater wonders.
Unfortunately, no-one had told her that the the Sultan was deaf.
Microsoar’s second entry took second place, making Microsoar Teh RoxXor 75er. Tell me where you want your gift certificate, boss, and I’ll make the arrangements.
Thanks to everyone for playing!
D.
P.S. The title? Just a cool German noun I discovered over at Boing Boing.
Jesus vs. Buddha
Below the fold is my son’s 75er with no input or editing from his old man. This one’s for your amusement, folks, and won’t be considered for the formal contest.
Warning: if irreverence towards Jesus or Buddha ain’t your cuppa, don’t bother going below the fold.
Time to vote for your favorite 75er!
Entries are here.
Folks who are eligible to vote: microsoar, tambo, Pat J, Graham Powell, Chris, Dean, and Shaina.
Email me your vote: azureus at harborside dot com.
Indicate your choice for first, second, and third place. Vote for the story, not for the author — thus, there will be a tambo1, a tambo2, and a tambo3.
Once all votes are in, I’ll tally the score and announce the winner.
Questions?
D.
PS: oh, and I’ll try to send off emails prompting y’all to vote. Later.
Last call for your freedom of speech
Bonus points to the first person who recognizes the title of this post . . . no fair googling.
This is the last call for the 75er Contest. Needless to say, I’ve been lazy and I haven’t checked to see if each and every story is 75 words. You’re all on the honor system.
This time tomorrow, I’ll close the contest and begin soliciting votes. Hope y’all have had as much fun with it as I have!
***
We voted today. Check your counties, folks, because many of ’em offer early voting, and this year the lines will be tremendous. You think turnout was crazy in ’06? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
D.