Tag: Nicholl Fellowship

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“Luka and Iso”- Top 10% in The Nicholl Fellowship!

Hello wonderful blog readers!

I received an email from the Nicholl Fellowship today.

Every year, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences picks five writers and pay them, based on the strength of the script they submitted, to produce another feature length screenplay.

I didn’t make the cut for the Fellowship, but my script scored in the top ten percent!

7,251 entrants, and I’m in the top 10%?  Pretty awesome, but of course, disappointing not to advance.

Ah well, I’m hoping I can find someone out there as excited about the story of the first genetically engineered dragon as I am!  Perhaps this will help me along.  It will make a killer film.

Congratulations to everyone that is advancing.  I’m sure there are some amazing scripts, and how they’ll ever pick just five is completely beyond me!

In other news, I received my second ever royalty cheque!  Seems that A Quick Bite of Flesh is still selling.  Want some zombie flash fiction?  Then this book is forrr yoooouuuu!

I am waiting on an awesome agent for a new book I’d like to see in print.  Paranormal romance/urban fantasy here I come!  I’m well into the sequel already, and hitting short stories out of the park on a daily basis.

I’ll keep at it until- BWA HA HA YOU CAN’T STOP ME

Thanks for stopping by.

Oh what’s that?  This is my 100th post?

Hurrah!

Oh man, if I’ve been this into my small successes so far, when I get my first novel picked up I’m going to be happier than a kitten with a feather.  More excited than a porcupine with a banana.  You do know porcupines love bananas, right?

Anyway, thank you for stopping in and staying with me on this long, long journey to authordom.

Heidi out.

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Kells and Reasons for Rejection

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  The Book Of Kells is free on iTunes today.  I don’t know a thing about it, but I will soon enough.  Enjoy!

And today, author Michael J. Sullivan posted some interesting insights from another author, Marion Zimmer Bradley, on Why Stories Get Rejected.  A good read, and something every new author needs to internalize.

I have it down pat by now.  Though I think this can be a problem; this insidious expectation of rejection has effected me in a way I didn’t anticipate.  I have four things that I’m really excited about right now: my novel got a full request at an agency I would love to work with, my screenplay is being considered for the Nicholl Fellowship, as well as a contest to get me into Pitchfest, and also a short story of mine has been shortlisted for an anthology I’m excited for.

This is a lot of excitement.

Usually it’s just a lot of little things, various stories out for various anthologies, and the trickle of rejections come in steady and constant.  No big deal (anymore).

So when I actually have things to be excited for, I realize how oppressed this expectation of rejection was making me.


Sometimes we need to step back to see things more clearly…

The danger of getting excited is that it makes the rejection just that much worse.  I’m finding this creeping into other aspects of my life; I’ve stopped getting excited for movies (movies that I would have gotten excited for in the past!) because of past let downs (not a rejection, but the same feelings are at play).

Last week was the most difficult I’ve found meditation.  My mind kept racing forward to the future, and I’d have to pull it back.  Sit.  Stay.  Not terrible, but it got me to realize just how much I’ve been not been letting myself get excited.

So I’m excited.  Even if none of these four amazing things happen, it feels good to have so much possibility laid out before me.  And even if a single one does happen?  Well damn.  Things are pretty swell.

 

Silly kitty.  My own is hiding under my blankets, scared of the wind.

Right!  So, hope all is well with you, dear reader.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Victory Hot Chocolate: The Melting of Kings

So I made those marshmallows, and they turned out great!

Making Marshmallows.

Cut them into cubes with scissors.

Melting into the hot chocolate…

One for Aaron too.  🙂

*Gloop!*

Perfect

A great way to end the week.  It was brain intensive; I didn’t anticipate that big of an edit before my Nicholl Fellowship deadline, but, well, the script is way better for it.

And now, I’m off to Bon’s to meet a friend for breakfast, and then another friend I are are continuing down the ‘tiny-food-making’ path, and decorating *tiny* cakes.  Of course, pics to follow.

If you’re looking for a short story to read, I suggest “All Quiet on the Temporal Front” by Bennett R. Coles.  His Sci-Fi fu is fantastic.  Now that I’m not in the thick of editing, I’m going back to read his “Virtues of War“, which is incredible so far.

Cheers guys.

Heidi out.

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Deadline in mere hours? Time to learn how to make marshmallows!

But seriously, the script is almost completely done.  I just have a few things to check, using the intertubes.  I’ve spent three days reading it over and making final adjustments, minor tweaks, and even a few major ones.  I’ve shaved pages off of it to try and get it down to a more acceptable length (145 pages currently).

So, in a few hours, I will be submitting it to The Academy.  I will hear back from them in October, I think.  In the mean time, I’ll be shopping it around.  And writing, always writing!  I’ll keep you guys posted.  In a few days I’ll have another story in print.

But yeah, I’m totally making marshmallows.  They’re setting in a pan right now.  And then I will have the most glorious Victory Hot Chocolate you’ve ever seen.  🙂

{Behold, my standard hot chocolate}

Later crocodiles.

Heidi out.

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Nicholl Fellowship Deadline Looms! …and food is delicious.

I am going to be doing the last of the final edit tomorrow, then sending in the screenplay adaptation to the Academy’s Nicholl Fellowship.  (See my previous post here!)  I’m way excited!

My husband and I have been going to the gym every other day.  Some health problems have rendered me pretty inactive for several months, but they have largely been controlled.  …hurry up, orthodics, I apparently DO need you to walk now :<  Feels better to be getting fitter again.  Rowing machine to strengthen up my back.  Elliptical to burn calories.  …so I can eat delicious things.

I do love food.  I have a rather unhealthy relationship with it, but I’m working on that too.  Counting calories is great; I still eat whatever I want, just, less.  🙂  PS MELONA BARS ARE AMAZING

OK!  So I wanted to share some pictures.  Pictures of food.  Oh wait, am I one of *those*? Hah, apparently yes, yes I am.  But the crux of it is that I cook for my friends a lot, and I love it, and sometimes I take pictures!

So here are some.  🙂

D’OH!

Pomello Seeds look like Teeth!

Mediterranean Pizza is Great

And so is Hawaiian with Mushrooms!

I do not think this pizza is big enough…

Because anything less than a four-layer cake would have been… illogical.

Let’s BEE friends!

Heh.  Thanks for letting me share.  That’s all for now with the random food.

Up next, much more specific food!   …Including, tiny, miniature, candy sushi.

Cheers.

Heidi out.

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The Nicholl Fellowship, Google Glass

I was really pleased to see sci-fi becoming a reality, as it tends to do.  In my latest novel and screenplay, I take Google Glass to limits, exploring such a devices purposes and practical uses.  Today they showed off the preliminary interface.  I’ll be interested to see, as the years tick on, if I got it right in my work.

Also, one of my test readers got back to me (with some very good feedback, useful edits, and much welcomed praise) about my screenplay.  He suggested I submit it to the Academy Awards Nicholl Fellowship.  Apparently they actually *pay* five writers for a year to write a screenplay!  This would be a dream.  Getting paid to write, and exposure for my work?  Maybe it would get “Luka and Iso” picked up for production.

If you’re interested, you can check out the Nicholl Fellowship here.

I am ensconced in the Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer.  As ever, he strings me along at a good clip, with wonderful characters and a great hook.  Sentient dinosaurs advancing their culture from the bronze age onwards?  What’s not to love!  I can hardly put it down.

Also recently, my friend Brie and I have teamed up; she asked me to write something for a comic she was making, and I did.  I’m excited to see the inks next week.  Hopefully we can have further collaborations in the future; her art is mega, mega cool, and being on a writer-artist team with her would just kick so much butt.

That’s all for now, folks!  I’ll keep on tightening up my script, and let you know how the process goes with applying for the Nicholl Fellowship.

…And if you know of anyone looking for a sci-fi screenplay/novel combo about the first genetically engineered dragon, would you point me in their direction?

Cheers.

Heidi out.