Monday, September 19, 2011

Blog Hops/Fests and Contests Mish-Mash + Helpful Link

I've saved some interesting links for blog fests, blog hops and contests lately, but haven't been passing them on, so I thought I'd get on that and give out some info for my Monday post. I hope there's something in here for everyone!

Oooooh, before I start, though, I won a book from Dark Faerie Tales! I'm so excited! The book is The Secret of Spruce Knoll, by Heather McCorkle. It looks and sounds awesome (love the colors on the cover).

Okay, links!

Paranormal Wastelands will be running a Halloween blog hop involving scary stories and book reviews. There will be prizes!

Novel Novice has a flash fiction contest going. The story must involve the Titanic, but can be any genre you please. Must be submitted by September 30.

Tell Great Stories is hosting MonsterFest 2011. You will be posting about a monster that interests you, a field guide of sorts. Sign up has begun, and will go through Halloween.

10 Flash Quarterly gives prompts for their quarterly publications, which you use to write flash fiction. The current one will open for submissions on October 1 with a theme of "It's the End of the World as we Know it."

While we're on the subject of links, I read about these two places in a blog post and had to pass them along. Have a problem getting things done and avoiding social media? PC users can go to Cold Turkey and download a free program that allows you to block yourself from various social media and addictive sites until you reboot. Anti-Social does the same, but I'm not sure what system it works on. It also isn't free ($15 to download, though, which isn't expensive). These sites were mentioned on Michael Hyatt's blog. The rest of the post I linked to is a good read, as well.

Until tomorrow, have a great Monday! No cases of the Mondays out there, okay?

May you find your Muse.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't know about Cold Turkey. Last year during NaNo someone had used something similiar called Blackout that would keep you from looking at anything else until you reached your word goal.

I'm usually not too bad but there have been days when I've zoned out and do everything BUT what I should have done.

Beth Kemp said...

Great stuff here, thanks. Am thinking about the MonsterFest - it looks fun!

Crystal said...

Thanks for sharing! Unfortunately, I totally have a case of the Mondays - I think I need to go over to Chochkie's for some coffee! Just hope that annoying guy with the 37 pieces of flair isn't there... ;-)

MG Higgins said...

Great info. I had no idea there were so many writing fests going on, and I wasn't aware that social-media blocking software even existed. Cool!

Jennie Bennett said...

Thanks for the info! Sometimes I feel so out of the loop that I need posts like this to bring me into the here and now.

Liza Kane said...

oh, I've been intrigued to read Secret of Spruce Knoll ever since I "met" Heather on Twitter/Good Reads!

And THANK YOU so much for the links! I've been meaning to submit to more contests, to break me out of my shell, and the 10 Flash Quarterly theme sounds like a perfect place to submit!

Faith said...

Ack... but this case of the Mondays REALLY REALLY wants to hang out with me! I keep asking it nicely to go away, but the thing about Mondays is that they don't tend to be good listeners...

Julie Flanders said...

I didn't know about any of these! Thanks for the links, I need to check them out. The blogfests sound like fun, I love Halloween. :)

Thanks for sharing!

Rebecca said...

great links will definitely be checking them out

Ms Saba (aka Teacher007.5) said...

Interesting links. I will have to check out a couple of them!
BTW, The Secret of Spruce Knoll IS and awesome book :D

Samantha VĂ©rant said...

Well, I guess I know what I'm doing this afternoon...

Shannon Lawrence said...

Scribbling Pencil, I hadn't heard of Blackout before. I need to look at that one, too, so I can compare them all and see what I might want to use.

Beth, the MonsterFest is the only one I'm positive I'm doing. All of it looks fun, but time, time, time!

Crystal, if he is, grab a piece of flare for yourself! Nothing like taking out the overly cheerful guy on a Monday. ;-p

MG, this was also the first I'd heard of ways to block social media.

J.A., sometimes I'm briefly in the loop (especially if I've had a little time to actually, gasp, visit other blogs!!), and sometimes I'm way out.

Liza, I've been looking for the same, and was so glad to stumble over 10 Flash Quarterly!

Faith, yeah, they're really not good listeners. I hope your Tuesday and Wednesday put on their listening ears. ;-p

Julie, me, too! So much Halloweeny stuff to do, and so little time, but I wait for this time of year because I love it so.

Becca, I hope you find something you like/that is useful in there!

Ms. Saba, I'm really looking forward to reading it; thank you for the positive review!

Samantha, hope you find something in there you like!

Julie Jansen said...

I'm putting on a horror writer blog hop with Axel Howerton called The Coffin Hop. It'll run through 10/24/2011 - 10/31/2011 and there'll be tons of chances to win spooky books and stories! Please check it out at www.coffinhop.blogspot.com

Julie

Shannon Lawrence said...

Julie, sounds interesting! I posted about it for my Monday post.