Most of my entries will be friends only from now on. My day to day posts will be locked, while my public entries are written for the general public. So feel free to browse and enjoy those as you wish.

Please just let me know if you would like me to add you. therealljidol people are always welcome to add me. Anyone else, please let me know where you found me. Friends of friends are always welcome, but like I said, just let me know who you are. It's nice to get an idea of what we have in common.

I like to keep people around who comment and aren't merely collectors. I fully expect to comment and get to know my friends. If that's not your thing, it's probably best to not add me then :)

I'm running a pretty cool contest for my Indiegogo campaign! Asylum Graphics has offered to do a custom portrait for my campaign and he's super freaking good at what he does. I've shared some of his work over on my blog and you can see more (including his color portraits) at Facebook page. The colors portraits look like photographs, I'm not even kidding. He's that good.

Even just $1 donated gets you entered into the drawing. I've explained how it all works on my blog and I think it's a really cool prize.

Well, here... it couldn't hurt to share the way it works on my LJ as well. Better than making everyone go to a separate page, right?

Whoever wins this contest wins a custom portrait from Asylum Graphics. He’s offering up either a 9x12 or 11x14 pencil drawn portrait, and it can be any person or animal your little heart desires.

That means he can draw your kids, your pet, your significant other, and even you if you want him too. He can also draw your favorite characters from movies or your favorite celebrities too. If you’ve always wanted a custom drawn portrait of Carrot Top for your living room, well here’s your chance. All you have to do is send him a clear photo of whoever it is you want drawn, and he will draw it right up for you. A sample of his portraits are below.

How can you win?

Anyone who donates any amount of money, even $1, to the Fey Publishing Indiegogo campaign will automatically be entered into the drawing.

What about those who donate $5, $10, or $25? You get additional tickets PLUS the perk of their choosing. That means you can get some great books or even some custom jewelry and are automatically entered to win the custom portrait by Asylum Graphics as well.

Every perk level above Thumbelina (where you get 5 tickets automatically for $5 donated), gives you an additional ticket into the raffle. That means at the Sugar Plum level, you'd have 6 tickets. At the Tinker Bell Level, you'd have 7 tickets and at the Tooth Fairy Level, you'd have 8 tickets into the raffle.

This runs until the campaign ends on Thursday, May 11th at 11:59 PM.

After that date, I will post a video of the drawing to my Facebook author page and the Fey Publishing page and will announce the winner.

I wanted to make sure that people only donating small amounts still stood a chance at winning since every little bit helps and I know many people are struggling financially. I think it's a pretty exciting prize, one I'd love to have myself if I could (I regularly enter the contests he holds over at his Facebook page, but have yet to win).

And I really want to get some interest going for those who have donated... The guy who's behind Asylum? Isn't even someone I know that well. He's a friend of my boyfriend's and his work takes a lot of time and energy, so I truly appreciate him offering this up to me. He's basically in the same boat I am regarding his career and trying to figure out what the heck he's supposed to do with himself. He's ex-military, came back from the war and basically has struggled to make things work for him. His art is what he does to keep himself going. So of course I want to get people interested in what he does... not only for my sake, but his as well.

Plus, many others have donated some awesome things too. And they all deserve to be promoted a bit for helping me out. So check it out. Share the campaign. Look at the perks and who's offering them. Even if you can't donate $1, please consider sharing the campaign with those who might be interested in it. I will include a re-post button because it couldn't hurt, right?

Thanks again everyone.

Just stopping in for a brief second to say that my first story has gone live on Smashwords!

I've had some issues with the cover image, so that will be replaced. I know it looks awful... I had problems since I lack a proper image editing tool at the moment and was using freebies online. And well, they can be good for some things, but mostly they suck and they messed things up royally...

Have I mentioned how much I hate my computer lately? It makes these things extra difficult when I am unable to download any image editing software. I have Photoshop, but it can't go on my Mac, so it's a waste there... and I tried downloading Gimp and it won't work with my version of my operating system. Same with most other programs I've tried. Anyone have any advice on what I can use for creating cover art?

But anyway, the web version is being a little twit with formatting and from what I've read, there's nothing I can do about it. The PDF version looks fine and I don't have the ability to check the other ones, so please tell me if formatting is a-okay there too.

It's pay what you will, and you can download it for free (I won't mind). It's a short story and more to practice posting things on Smashwords so I can post longer works soon. I'm not expecting to make money off this, but of course if you're inclined to give a buck, I wouldn't complain either. But seriously, no pressure. It's more for practice and to get some of my writing out there.

So here goes nothing I guess... If there are ways to review stories, please fel free to give me a review. I'd love to get people reading my stuff! More to come soon!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/298571


(Thanks to java_fiend and comedychick for their help with proofreading and everything else!)

Just a quick entry to say I created a page on FB. I know, stupid me. I wasn't going to do it, but on a whim decided to take everyone's advice and do it (after all, I made Kevin create one and made him update it regularly until he took control of it himself, so I guess I should be willing to do it too).

Here's the link. I'd appreciate any "likes" I can get. I won't spam people with junk, I promise. I will bring fun discussions and writing talk, specifically sharing links to writing competitions, calls for submissions, and stuff like that. I will try to keep it interesting and fun at the same time without going overboard on posting.

So please consider liking my page? And spreading the word if you know of any writer types that might be interested!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kristen-Duvall-Writer/264709993664008

Just a quick post to say that I finally got another blog post up, with photos, of my baking adventures with Bake All The Things. Most of the photos are from chapstickqueen, but this is something many people requested.

So here ya go... photos of the baking frenzy!

http://www.kristenduvall.com/1/post/2013/03/a-week-in-the-life-of-a-small-bakery-owner.html

Just a quick fly-by to let you all know, my first ever book review is up on my website! Please check it out! I've never written a book review for the public like this before, so hopefully it's good!

http://www.kristenduvall.com/book-and-movie-reviews.html

As most of you know, I have participated in therealljidol for three years. The biggest complaint most people have against it is that it takes time.... Usually 9 months to a year. Which is a long time....

However, now there's a solution to that. A shortened season with less players. You're looking at about a month in a half. It's a great place to improve your writing, meet deadlines and get ideas (the prompts have been amazing for me).

Please read the FAQ's to get more info (especially about donations and whatnot. Plus the part about potentially being included in an ebook at the end of it).

http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/609673.html

And sign-ups are here:

http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/609906.html

It's a good way for a new person to play without getting lost in the crowd, I think. With a maximum of 75 players (opposed to the 300 or so normally) it makes it easier to stand out and perhaps build a readership. It also lets you dip your feet in the water without an almost year long commitment.

I know the moderator and I know he puts his all into the group. It is like a second job to him with how much time he devotes to it. That's why I'm fully okay with him asking for donations. He had the option to either put Idol on hold and get a second job that paid or ask for some help. He created this concept and it's a great one that requires a lot of time, so the very small donation ($5) doesn't seem like a lot at all. Just my two cents.

I'm going through and trimming my friends list. I'm posting this only to ask that if you think I deleted you in error, please let me know. Don't comment with "Don't delete me" because chances are, I'm not going to. It's dead journals and people that were added who have I've had no interaction whatsoever since the day I added them months and months ago. And I should add, writing journals for Idol or people who had other journals and since abandoned the old ones, I'm deleting the old ones and any writing journals I may have added for Idol. 

And trust me, even then I'm willing to have you back so just comment if you're deleted and don't think you should be. If you're happy here, I'm happy to have you. I'm just trying to trim it down so my friends list doesn't look much larger than it is due to hundreds of dead journals I was always too afraid to delete just in case they came back, but now my OCD is getting the best of me.

So again, unless you're cut... no need to comment here. I'm not making this a "comment to be kept" post. It's a "comment if you were cut and didn't want to be" thing. If I run out of time tonight, it will continue into next week, so this remains true even then and probably for any and all friends cuts.

I don't typically delete people for lack of commenting, especially in the short term, so no worries. I am contemplating a few people that I don't feel connected to, but if I'm wrong and you like it here... just say so. You're back. Easy peasy, right?

ETA: Also, I might make a mistake especially with so many people changing names and whatnot. Or I might accidentally click on someone I didn't mean to (my biggest fear), so honestly... I could make real mistakes here. I'm ditzy like that.

More ETA: I am done for tonight. I am afraid my tired eyes made mistakes, and I kept a lot more semi-dead journals than I probably should have. I still have a list of 266 friends, but I'd say less than half even post semi-regularly. But they're people I like and hope to see return one day. I kept some other people I don't feel like I know as well as I should for how long they've been here and they were on the line. But I decided they posted interesting stuff when I checked them out again, and thought I'd like to get to know them if possible. So they were kept :)

This comes from my friend <lj user="rhondaparrish"> and she wanted us to spread the word. It sounds like it could be an interesting anthology, and some proceeds go to charity, so even better. When the post says "me", it references <lj user="rhondaparrish"> since I copied her post directly.

Check out the details below:

Call for Submissions

Cancer scares us. It scares us and it intrigues us. There is so much we don’t know about it, but it’s out there, waiting to strike when we least expect it. Cancer is not all-powerful and many people beat it, but to those who don’t cancer is cruel. It doesn’t show them the kindness of a quick death but draws things out, taking their life away in slices.

(ANTHOLOGY TITLE)* will be a fantasy/sci-fi anthology all about cancer. The stories and poetry included could feature a character with cancer, be written from the point of view of cancer, or even be by someone with cancer. That being said, those which go a step further and dig deeper will be even better.

What if cancer isn’t a disease but an attack on the human race by aliens/demons/monsters/terrorists?

What if it’s sentient?

What if people wanted to get cancer?

What if…?

Cancer is the body turning on itself. It’s uncontrolled growth. It is invisible and indiscriminate. Submissions to this anthology are encouraged to explore metaphorical approaches to this theme as well as literal ones.

Due to the nature of cancer this collection will tend toward the darker side of the speculative fiction spectrum but we don’t want the entire anthology to be gloomy and depressing so the absolute best submissions will find a way to end on a high note, find something to be optimistic about, or evoke an emotion other than (or in addition to) sadness or dread.

A portion of the proceeds from this anthology will be donated to the American Cancer Society.**

The editor for this anthology is Rhonda Parrish.

How to Submit:

I are looking for stories up to 7,500 words long and poems up to 40 lines long.

Please follow standard manuscript formatting when submitting (http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html) and send your submission to editor@wolfsingerpubs.com as an .rtf file.

Put ‘Cancer Submission – “the title of your submission” – your last name’ as the subject of your email.

No simultaneous submissions, please.

You may send up to five poems and one story.

No reprints.

Payment is $10.00 advance with an equal share of 25% of royalties.

Deadline: June 30, 2013

*The publisher and I haven’t settled on a title for this anthology yet, but if you have a super great idea we’d love to hear it. Wolfsinger Publications is holding a contest on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/WolfSingerPubs) to name this book. Best of all, if we choose your title you’ll receive a free copy of the book when it’s finished.

**If you’re like me you’re always a little suspicious of vague phrasing like ‘some portion of the proceeds’ when it comes to charity donations. The reason I can’t say specifically yet what percentage of royalties are going to charity is because each contributor will be given the option of donating their percentage of their royalties or not as they’d prefer. The royalty breakdown looks like this:
25% – American Cancer Society
25% – Editor (<lj user="rhondaparrish">)
25% – Publisher
25% – Shared between contributors

and I am donating my royalties as well. So that means at least 50% of the proceeds from this project will be going to the American Cancer Society.

Please help spread the word about this anthology and, if you’re a writer, consider submitting something too.