by Jason Joyner | Dec 29, 2009 | Blog, CSFF, Digital Dragon Magazine, links
Do you have a hankering for hearty tales? Do you fear a lack of family values in your fantasy fiction? Well, look no further.
The CSFF (Christian Sci-fi and Fantasy) tour is having as our last feature for 2009 The Digital Dragon Magazine. The tour is a little discombobulated this month, as our fearless leader, Becky Miller, has a busted computer, so we don’t have our typical list of participants. However, that doesn’t take away from a quality feature.
Digital Dragon Magazine has a specific mission:
To seek out quality, family-friendly speculative and fantasy fiction, to find new talent in these genres and present that talent to a new, growing audience.
It started in June of 2009, with monthly issues featuring short stories, reviews, author interviews, and discussions about speculative fiction. The Vault page shows the quality art submissions they have had for their covers. Pretty impressive visuals for a brand new project.
I’d like to specifically highlight some stories from my comrades in the CSFF Tour.
Angel Wings by Fred Warren was developed from a flash fiction story he wrote. It is a poignant look at the future and some things, like teenagers, that won’t change much in the future.
The Seeker by Brandon Barr is an imaginative tale of an intergalactic creature that is picked up in camouflage form by a young school girl. Her empathy brings provides the way to healing for our mysterious seeker.
Second Site by Grace Bridges uses a little word play and an unexpected twist when a problem student visits his professor.
I haven’t read all that Digital Dragon has to offer, but many of the features that are easy reads that provoke some thought into life. The stories have little weaknesses, but overall they are entertaining enough, and perhaps important in the Digital Age, short enough to capture our short attention spans. The site specializes in stories less than 1500 words, so it is more of a fiction morsel to snack on rather than a full meal deal.
Usually I end with a list of participants. Like I said, I don’t have an official list, but I’m posting the “usual subjects” where you have a fair chance of finding more on Digital Dragon Magazine. Since it is during the holidays there might not be as much as usual, but I know that Fred Warren has a couple of posts on it.
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by Jason Joyner | Dec 29, 2009 | Blog, CSFF, Digital Dragon Magazine, links
Do you have a hankering for hearty tales? Do you fear a lack of family values in your fantasy fiction? Well, look no further.
The CSFF (Christian Sci-fi and Fantasy) tour is having as our last feature for 2009 The Digital Dragon Magazine. The tour is a little discombobulated this month, as our fearless leader, Becky Miller, has a busted computer, so we don’t have our typical list of participants. However, that doesn’t take away from a quality feature.
Digital Dragon Magazine has a specific mission:
To seek out quality, family-friendly speculative and fantasy fiction, to find new talent in these genres and present that talent to a new, growing audience.
It started in June of 2009, with monthly issues featuring short stories, reviews, author interviews, and discussions about speculative fiction. The Vault page shows the quality art submissions they have had for their covers. Pretty impressive visuals for a brand new project.
I’d like to specifically highlight some stories from my comrades in the CSFF Tour.
Angel Wings by Fred Warren was developed from a flash fiction story he wrote. It is a poignant look at the future and some things, like teenagers, that won’t change much in the future.
The Seeker by Brandon Barr is an imaginative tale of an intergalactic creature that is picked up in camouflage form by a young school girl. Her empathy brings provides the way to healing for our mysterious seeker.
Second Site by Grace Bridges uses a little word play and an unexpected twist when a problem student visits his professor.
I haven’t read all that Digital Dragon has to offer, but many of the features that are easy reads that provoke some thought into life. The stories have little weaknesses, but overall they are entertaining enough, and perhaps important in the Digital Age, short enough to capture our short attention spans. The site specializes in stories less than 1500 words, so it is more of a fiction morsel to snack on rather than a full meal deal.
Usually I end with a list of participants. Like I said, I don’t have an official list, but I’m posting the “usual subjects” where you have a fair chance of finding more on Digital Dragon Magazine. Since it is during the holidays there might not be as much as usual, but I know that Fred Warren has a couple of posts on it.
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by Jason Joyner | Dec 25, 2009 | Blog, Christmas
O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O’er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
by Jason Joyner | Dec 25, 2009 | Blog, Christmas
O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O’er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
by Jason Joyner | Dec 16, 2009 | Blog, Randy Ingermanson, software, writing craft
I’ve had a few suggestions for writing software in the past. When we did the tour for Curse of the Spider King, the authors Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper recommended Scrivener, but apparently that is only available for the Mac.
Back to the drawing board for me.
Now Randy Ingermanson has release a software version of his famous “Snowflake” method of writing a book, titled aptly enough, “Snowflake Pro” . He ran a promotion for it on his Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine (the ezine is free if you want to check it out), and I couldn’t resist.
If you click on the Snowflake Pro link, you can see how it looks. The basic method is starting with a simple overview statement of your novel idea, and slowly expanding it, like a snowflake fractal. It helps you expand the summary statement into a summary paragraph, and further on until you supposedly have a great outline ready to be filled in.
I have Randy’s Fiction 101 lecture and have read his Snowflake method before. It seemed logical, but I had trouble sitting down and doing it. So far the Snowflake Pro is making it easy to do so. It includes audio clips from Randy as well as text notes. It has helped me get some dull coals fired back up again, and I’m hopeful it will help me plot out further so I can really attack the story this winter. The software is simple to download and install, and with the help features, it is pretty intuitive so far.
Does anyone else know about writing software and have recommendations? I will post more about Snowflake Pro as I use it more, but for now it seems quite helpful. I’m sure there’s a ton of products out there, so if anyone has experience with them, I’d love to hear about them.
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