Coffin Hop Winner and Other Small Matters of Concern in November

The Coffin Hop is over! Booooo! The only thing I can say is that I wish it had gone on for a little longer, so I could have visited more sites while the cool giveaways were still happening. The best thing about the hop, though (besides the terrific badges) is that we can still visit the amazing writers who participated and get to know them that much better. Second best thing: there's going to be another one next year.

(Third best thing: I befuddled many people this past week by using the phrase "I've been coffin hopping" out of context.)

I absolutely loved the answers everyone gave to the question of what you'd like to be buried with. You guys made my Halloween with your awesome, Klingon-funeral wanting, bury-me-with-books needing ways. I love you all equally, but (dum dum dum!):

The winner of the One Buck Horror e-zine collection and the tiny copy of The Ancient Mariner is: Deborah Walker, aka Kelda Crich. Congratulations! I'll be in touch.

As a side note, the response that won my foul little heart was Anthony J Rapino's:

I'd like to be buried naked on a bed of red leaf lettuce. I should shimmer with a sweet glaze of honey (raw and unprocessed please). At my side I'd like a quart of barbeque sauce and some celery sticks.

Bon appetit.

You are sick, sir. And I salute you.

In other news, I won a skill-based ("skill-based") Coffin Hop contest over at Macromere Press, publisher of David Ewald's He Who Shall Remain Shameless. The book consists of fictional conversations with real-life dead people. The contest required you to name a deceased real-life person who you would like to see in the book, and give some reason why. I gave the creepiest answer I could muster, and I won some Amazon dollars for my troubles. I picked up a copy of He Who Shall Remain Shameless with it, because it looks smart and concerns some profound themes and I want to read it and you should too.

Finally, it is that time of year when we lose our heads and decide to write a novel. It's okay, though, because everybody's doing it. And yes, I would jump off a bridge if everyone else was. Hey, swimming together is fun! Posting in November will probably concern NaNoWriMo exclusively, so if you're not into it, you might want to duck and cover because it is going to get obnoxious in here.

Coffin Hop Contest: You Could Take It With You

Source

It's the week before Halloween, and the beginning of the Coffin Hop Horror Web Tour. Hooray! Last time I checked the website, there were 99 fabulous writers participating - which means that there will be tons of wonderful contests to enter and win. So get hopping, visit some new writers, and enter their contests!

What am I giving away, pray tell? I've got a two-part prize for you. Part one is electronic: you get issues 1-3 of One Buck Horror as a gift from me from Amazon.com, plus a copy of One Buck Zombies. Issue one of One Buck Horror contains my story "The Last Nephew." (Hooray!) Overall, this is one of the most exciting horror magazines out there. I guarantee you'll enjoy reading it.

I don't think a giveaway is any fun unless you get something in the mail, though, so I'm including something old and super cool as part of this prize: a teeny tiny leather bound copy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. If you've read this creepy late 18th-century poem, you'll know it's one of the weirdest and spookiest pieces in English literature. If you've never read it, you're in for a treat. Impress and win the person of your affections by carrying this around in your pocket:

Looks impressive, right? But look how teeny:

That is a regular bic pen, my friends. The edition also has some awesome line drawings:

And it contains a copy of the poem Christabel, pretty much the earliest example of the vampiros lesbos genre that I'm aware of. I will mail this to you, plus Halloween stickers!

What do you have to do? Leave a comment on this post, and tell me the one thing you have or might someday have or fantasize about having that you'd like to be buried with when you kick it. In your ideal world, what would be with you in your coffin? Are you hoping for the perfect little black dress (or awesome black suit) or do you wish you could go with the full Mesopotamian funeral and take your slaves, your pets, and your numerous spouses with you? On November 1st, I'll pick a winner at random out of a hat or similar vessel and contact you to get your info.

This is a global contest. If you are on the earth planet, I will mail your prize to you.

Make sure you leave an email address or other means of contacting you. If you're worried about spammers, you can always format it this way: yourname at mailservice dot com.

100 Words for $100 Blogfest Entry

Elena Solodow Means Business

Elena Solodow of You're Write. Except when You're Rong is running a month-long blogfest right now in celebration of her 100th post. The challenge is to write a 100-word sentence. One semi-colon is allowed; I hope she's cool with quotation marks.

This is my entry, inspired by the third story here, via the ever tasty Mysterious Universe. It's 100 words long, if you consider hyphenated words to be one word. Otherwise, it's 101 words long.

Gossip
by Elizabeth Twist

At first, Sadie didn’t connect the quavering voice on the other end of the phone line with the spectral, black-robed figure who appeared under the apple tree in her backyard each night at dusk, but the more she listened to the stranger speak her antique words of warning, that Sadie’s lover Paul “knows yer money’s under the floor in the spare room, dearie, and he’s got a wife and child down old county road in Upsala, a girlie girl besides up by the lake,” Sadie remembered the spectre’s raised finger, shaking a warning, each time Paul was about to visit.