National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award (NERFA)

Did you publish a Romance novel or novella in digital format in 2023?

Submit your story to the 

National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award (NERFA) contest

until the end of March 2024.

This is a contest for romance writers and is judged by romance readers.

Find all of the details at 

National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award

 

Monthly Contest - July

The random drawing for my monthly contest 

for July will be on July 31, 2014. 

To be eligible, 

all you have to do is LIKE 

my OFFICIAL FACEBOOK page.

Easy ~ Peasey

I will notify the winner the following week.

Contest Update

I bet you didn't even know I had a contest. Not your fault. We all know how up on things I always am.

So back in June (I think) I drew a name from the people who LIKED my official facebook page Vanessa V. Kilmer - Official (clever name, huh.)

Ryan won. Because he had to get off the interwebs for a while for a job, I couldn't let him know. I recently told him about his win and you can not imagine his excitement. Ryan, you may choose from one of the gifts shown in this photo.

~click on the image to make biggerer~

There's a Phillies Mr. Potato Head or a Phillies leather sports bracelet or a Vampire Butterfly mug. Or you can have a blank, hand-made greeting card.

If you want to be in on July's drawing, LIKE my official facebook page Vanessa V. Kilmer - Official. For an added chance, subscribe to my monthly newsletter, Nessa's News (another clever name, I know.) You can sign up right there in the top right corner of my blog. 

UPDATE: The drawing is at 5pm EST on July 31, 2013. And Ryan chose the leather Phillies sports bracelet. 

Flash 55 - emit yna gnippots on

~ click image to make biggerer ~

 

I know what the sign said but I couldn’t help myself;
with plaintive notes surfing on the drafts of air
surging through the city canyons,
I stood back,
wondering at our similarities of appearance and
stance, the both of us forever together:
I think he’ll remember me as
well as the notes of his
symphony.

 

Are you playing in the CONTEST - drink the wild wind ?

 

Here's a clue to help you:

 

The whole moves forward while the parts move backwards.

 

Play with the G-Man and make him smile.

 

CONTEST - drink the wild wind

 

*** see edits and updates at the end of the post as they occur ***

 

 ~ click any image to make biggerer ~

 

"Cornered" (c) vanessa v kilmer 20120120

acrylic paint on my desk

 

 

"Cornered" (c) vanessa v kilmer 20120120

 

The border around the dragon's space is made up of runic stones I created. If you are the first to EMAIL [vanessavkilmer at gmail dot com] me with the deciphered saying encrypted here, you will win the dragon egg pictured at the end of this post.

 

Each picture shows the sequence of the stones. Each picture is not neccessarily a seperate word.

The saying is in English. Each stone represents 1 letter. No more hints for now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Be the first to

EMAIL [vanessavkilmer at gmail dot com]

me with the deciphered saying

to win this dragon egg.

 

 

20130120 16:09 - BRIAN MILLER asks each is a seperate letter as well? no multiple pics for the same letter?

ANSWER ~ Each symbol is unique to a particular letter. The pictograms are a second way of writing of representing letters  for a different reason.

 

MY WEB SITE

 

MY OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE

 

 

 

 

 

Win the Chosen Ones

Quilly previewed a book called the Chosen Ones by Alistair McGrath. It is the first book in the series and it looks like fun summer reading. 


From the Zondervan Website:

The land of Aedyn has been overtaken by mysterious lords who trust only in their own reason. Two children called from our world have the power to lead the revolution, but will they find the courage to face their own destiny?




We could both win a copy of this book. Quilly's contest is going on right now. 


Leave a comment here to get points and leave a comment there to get points and  twitter like a cute little birdie for points and we could have have lots of pointedly magical fun.


Quilly has 5 copies of Chosen Ones from Zondervan to give away to 5 lucky and hard working people.

Powered By Vistaprint

Vote, Vote, Vote

Come vote on the SIX LIMERICKS and help me test the process.
(Picture a boo-boo face and begging.)

The poems are posted in a randomly selected order (by a random number generator) and they are listed anonymously so you can choose based on the work and not the author. One vote per person and you may vote even if you did not write a poem. I am abstaining from the vote since I know the authors. Voting is open for two days, today and tomorrow. Comments are open, too. Suggestions are welcome.

Life has me a bit behind right now. I will catch up with everyone by the end of the weekend.

      

Join the Fray

There's still time to join. Help me test my new poetry blog contest. Send in your limerick in celebration of Poetry Month at 

Poetry Playing. We has six so far.

Write a limerick using the following as the first line: There was an Old Man of Limerick

Email me your contest submission by Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Deadline 11 PM eastern standard time. Do not post it on your blog. Submissions are anonymous.

Email address: poetryplaying at gmail dot com

Voting will take place on Friday and Saturday, April 9 and 10, 2010. Deadline 11 PM eastern standard time on the 10th. You don't have to play to vote. The winner will be announced Sunday, April 11, 2010.

And there’s no entry fee. 

There’s Still Time

Help me test my new poetry blog contest. Send in your limerick in celebration of Poetry Month at Poetry Playing.

Write a limerick using the following as the first line: There was an Old Man of Limerick

Email me your contest submission by Wednesday, April 7, 2010. Deadline 11 PM eastern standard time. Do not post it on your blog. Submissions are anonymous.

Email address: poetryplaying at gmail dot com

Voting will take place on Friday and Saturday, April 9 and 10, 2010. Deadline 11 PM eastern standard time on the 10th. You don't have to play to vote. The winner will be announced Sunday, April 11, 2010.

And there’s no entry fee.

Wanna Play with Poetry?

To find out what it’s all about, come visit:

Poetry Playing: Prompt, Play, Poll, Pay Dirt

I didn’t feel like doing laundry.

Dream

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story. This is the last part of the story.

The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Dream


Sunrise. The light shines through the sheer green curtains into the bedroom, waking her. She stretches on Egyptian cotton sheets, yawns and throws back the blankets. She rises and breathes in the smell of fresh brewed coffee. She slips into black fuzzy slippers and pads out to the kitchen. After pouring a cup of coffee, black, she goes upstairs to her office.


She checks her email. She laughs at the amusing comments left by the wonderful readers of her blogs. After drinking several cups of coffee and checking the activity of the internets, she takes her grandson and the dog for an hour long walk. During their stroll through the neighborhood, she takes hundreds of photographs while the puppy marks every bush as his own and the baby coos at life. She waves to the old men in their yards and the children riding tricycles. They take their time. No need to rush.


Once back home, she brunches on an egg and tomato sandwich while listening to the messages from her agent about the latest of her books accepted for publication. The dog barks and bounces on the sofa to let her know the mailman has deposited post in her mailbox. She retrieves her royalty checks. The bills she tosses in the basket for her assistant to pay.


At eleven o’clock, she goes back upstairs to her office, lights a stick of spicy incense, puts flame to a cinnamon candle, presses play on the Gregorian chant CD, setting it to repeat and turns on the DVD player to run Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Collin Firth (six hours of old friends.)


She has eight uninterrupted hours of writing, planning, drawing, researching and writing. She plays with her dragons and crystal ball. She chooses a different flavor of incense. She makes up character names. She plans maps of new worlds with mountains and glacial streams. She paints a flower on the wall. She meditates or stares out the window at the red hawk in the tree across the street. She sips water and pops sunflower seeds. She writes.


At seven, she comes downstairs to a dinner scallops wrapped in bacon and grilled asparagus in the back garden with her husband. They dine while the birds sing and the breeze rustles the bamboo and billows the leaves of the sycamore trees. She sips a gin and tonic while he lights a bonfire in the pit and the moon and stars climb the velvet sky.


When comfortably relaxed, they retire at the end of a perfect day.

  Don’t Wine About Snow @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Delight

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.

The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Delight

Her Father loves her.


He has given her abundant chances and choices to find her way in the world. Even though she stumbles through life without a clue most of the time, she has ample opportunities to keep trying, again and again. 


She does appreciate the rarity of it.


She is always looking beyond or behind where she is now. Never grounded in the moment. She is using those words again. The ones that leave no wiggle room. Never. Always. They should be stricken from her vocabulary.


She has a vision of the way her life should be.


She walks outside. The air is crisp and sweet and fresh. The sky is large and deep as only a clean sky can be. She feels the particles of life as part of her. She is the air. She is the sunshine. She is the sky. And they are she. She wants to cry from the pure joy of it. She does cry. Fat happy tears that wash her soul clean so she can keep going for another eon. She hungers for the feeling morning, noon and night.


She searches for that perfect moment.


It's in the smile of a baby while she waits in line at Walmart. It's in the glint of light reflecting from the melting snow. It's in the sound of a melody from a song she's heard a million times but today it sounds different. It's in the taste of a ripe strawberry as she chases the juice that runs down her chin so that she can have it all. It's in the smell of leather and spice on a man who walks by and glances at her with perfect green eyes. 


She clings to the memory of perfection.


It's in the writing. When she has despaired of ever writing a coherent sentence again. When she deletes hundreds of words because they are not worthy of being flushed down a toilet. When she just knows - she just knows - her words are not even good enough to be called horrid because they lack any sort of emotion. That is when she no longer hears the sounds of the cars driving by. Her vision turns inward. Her heart bursts with the bright ecstasy of being the words. It no longer matters what the words are because she is the words and the words are she and she feels one with the All and her Father loves her because once again she's felt the gift.


By Jove, her Father loves her.

Six Words @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Detour

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.

The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Detour


When she was three, she spent hours writing in the sand. Bees buzzed around her head as she sat under the tall, thin pines. She swirled her stick in the white grains, creating dark furrows of meaningful patterns.


< DETOUR AHEAD >


When she was four, she made mud pies. Wet dirt squished between her fingers and toes. She smoothed the surface of the brown liquid earth. She sat the confections on rocks to dry in the warm sun.


At nineteen, she learned how to make pottery. She threw clay onto a spinning wheel, fingers and hands molding and shaping to produce a balance, graceful container. She used wires, sponges, ribs and boxwood tools to finish and decorate each piece. She painted each piece with mysterious glazes that added depth and shine once they were cooked in the kiln.


When she was six, she learned to dance the hula. Her hands spoke as she swayed her grass skirted hips. She danced with other girls in a snaking line on a spotlighted stage.


At twenty-four, she managed a gentlemen’s club. She hired dancers, listened to their Pretty Woman stories and watched as the reality of their lives melted the celluloid dreams they chased.


When she was nine, she took apart her brother’s toy cars. She removed the wheels from the axles, slid the doors from their pins and took out the back seats.


At twenty-five, she rebuilt carburetors on a 1963 corvette redesigned for drag racing. She beaded brushed aluminum for interior panels. She rolled extra wide tires onto racks built into the trailer used to haul the car to the track.


When she was twelve, she drove the family car around the mall parking lot. She cruised wide open spaces on Sunday afternoons when the stores were closed. She negotiated the vehicle between two shopping carts.


At twenty-seven, she drove a tractor and trailer across the country. She spoke on the CB Radio, good buddy, and was serenaded by big rig cowboys singing Sinatra. She froze in Wichita and brazened a hurricane in New York City.


When she was fifteen, she took in a stray cat. She brought the cat into her home and begged it to stay. She tolerated the scratches and bites of the semi-feral feline. She accepted the gifted dead mice left under her bed.


At twenty-nine, she had a child. She gestated a planned surprise. She created her greatest joy and her anchor in life. She birthed her salvation.


When she was sixteen, she took her first job. She went to work because that's what you did.  She joined the paycheck chasers. She became one more cog in the machine.


At thirty, she settled down to one career. She joined a firm and stayed and stayed and stayed. She stayed through the different and she stayed through the same. She stayed through the mind sucking boredom. She stayed until she knew she could stay no longer and live.


< DETOUR OVER >


At forty-seven, she started a blog and wrote.

Flash 55 @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

 

Doodle

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.



The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle (to deceive, or a foolish or silly person)
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" - Dream

Doodle


Dressed in somber black from head to toe, her white bread face fooled them all. She became a master at hiding all of the good stuff.


People hovered around her light like night time bugs to an open flame. Trouble was that while the attraction was there, most tried to dampen the light with buckets of water or cover it with a rusted old tin can.


They wanted to be around the her. They waited to hear what she said. They watched to see what she would come up with next. They usually had quite a wait because she concealed herself from them, playing hide and seek with them. Their nerves on edge, their curiosity aroused, they kept after her until she gifted them with odd behavior that made them feel secure in their normalness.


She had decided to be with them but never became of them. They belonged to her and despite never quite fitting in, she couldn't and wouldn't leave them. She kept her life with them in a box, wrapped in a calm blue hue that never offended except for those times when they needed a distraction. This box never touched her other boxes and they did not know of the existence of her other boxes. She hid her special boxes in a closet, buried under coats and scarves and shoes, camouflaged from their eyes by the ordinary, by her self-imposed, anti-social mask.


When no one looked, she hauled out her secret containers and tossed the contents into the air like gossamer scarves blown in the wind. She tripped out on her own to other worlds to visit musicians that jumped and gyrated on smoke filled stages, costumed actors cavorting with pierced and leashed spectators, juried painters covered in oil and rainbow colors and beatnik poets reciting in parks for change. She watched the sun rise on the Winter Solstice, collecting ocean water in green glass bottles. She collected handmade knives, danced with Colombian Indians and sipped wine with bikers.


"How was your weekend?"


"Fine."


"What did you do?"


"Nothing much."

3WT and T13 @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Desires

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.


The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle (to deceive, or a foolish or silly person)
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" - Dream

 Desires


Combing the fingers of her left hand into her hair, she grabbed a handful and pulled. The slight tingling of her scalp woke her up, making her more alert. Eleven forty-seven. Thirteen minutes to midnight. A slight unease over the total irresponsibility of her choice to stay up so late floated across her mind, quickly banished in favor of continuing on a impassioned project. She wrote late in to the night refusing to listen to the voice that reminded her that five am came quickly the longer she put off sleep. Tomorrow would be soon enough for the regret of lost rest.


She would be quiet and moody at work. She would mechanically process the tasks she needed to do to get through to the end of the work day. In between the various jobs she did with half a mind because of years of repetition, she thought of characters in a world existing in her mind like the dusty world of the Who.


Rivers of cold deep mountain waters flowed into villages surrounded by tall evergreen trees. Green iridescent dragons played hide and seek with pink and blue butterflies. Mothers sang lullabies to children eating wispy cotton candy. A man in a black cape with a hood pulled over his beard stubbled face snuck through the alley ways looking for a soul he could steal so his magic became stronger. The heroine with long curly, auburn hair waved to friends while picking apples, unaware that her life would soon be changed forever.


She jotted notes on scraps of paper, surreptitiously stuffing the bits into her briefcase to remind her later of that great animal she just invented with eyes the color of dull mud and feet the  shape and size of divers’ flippers.


A wizard spoke in her ear during a meeting about implementing a policy that had been in place for twelve years. The bald man, smelling of witch hazel and cloves whispered of more important, more urgent matters. Her voice spoke all of the correct phrases while her imagination listened closely for the spells conjured by the old alchemist, willing him to change her into gold, molten, hot, flowing and priceless.


She would burn. She would run wild and naked through sun drenched fields of wild flowers. She would gnaw on the raw meat of her desires and take in the vital energy to sustain her beyond a mundane world that threatened to crush out the breath of enthusiasm. She would drop from the highest cliff and free fall into a swirling whirlpool of her unknown future.

Microfiction Monday @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Meditation Monday @ Esoteric Uncovered

Design

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.
The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle (to deceive, or a foolish or silly person)
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Design


Fighting The Voices in your head is a battle of epic proportions. The Voices come from one source but they mutate into individuals with Herculean powers that mere mortals have trouble conquering. They must be taken out one by one, head on, without sympathy for their death struggles. Compassion must never be felt, no quarter can be given. The Voices do not fight fair. They know every dirty trick in the book and never fail to use them to maintain the status quo.


The key to killing The Voices is strategy. Become a general in the greatest war of your life.
Begin by spying on The Voices and describe as many of the key players as possible. Become aware of the layout in your head and how The Voices navigate through their habitat.


Once you know some of the individual personalities that make up The Voices, it is time to divide and conquer. Give them names. This makes them more real, less frightening and creates an anchor word to help demolish them.


Choose one. Start watching for him in your everyday life and activities. Depict how he looks and talks and what he says. Make notes about him in your journal, dissecting every aspect of his being. Watch for the situations when he shows up. Identify his favorite haunts.


Keep in mind that he is a lie, a false impression, an error of belief that was shoved into your thinking and being by an outsider. He became entrenched because you didn't know better at the time. He was introduced by someone you trusted. Acknowledge the good intentions involved. But all things must be kept in perspective. What may have been valid once upon a time or in a specific situation, became obsolete and useless once you grew and learned and reached maturity. Make your own decisions and choices. Let go. Comfortable leads to stagnation.


Replace the dangerous voice with a new, more appropriate one. Choose one to refute the old one. Choose an opposite thought. Choose one that leads you in the direction you want to go. Concentrate on eradicating one aspect. When he rears his ugly head, attack with aggression and without mercy.


Wipe out what is no longer useful to you. You are in control. Design the terrain in your brain to shape a world that you want to inhabit, wiping out the slums of useless and harmful thoughts that keep you stuck in misery and poverty. 

Purdie Pyrate @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

New Moon Ritual @ Esoteric Uncovered

Dam

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.


The first muse was “A Random Memory.” Here’s my 1st, called Dark.
The second muse was “A Fear of Writing.” Here’s my 2nd, called Dismal.
What follows is for the 3rd muse, "An Ambiance of Technology."
Dam



The whole point is to be wrong. Get a timer that you use for cooking and set it for fifteen minutes. Get out your keyboard and begin typing. There is no stopping for spell checker or to look up the name of that really cool guy who could be the character you know id just perfect for the part of the story where the girl and the boy have a misunderstanding and they begin to hate eachpther. If necessary, we break out the program that has an timer built in and if you stop typing a loud noise sounds in the room and the screen begind to turn pink and then red and if you wait too long it blocks you out so that you have to begin again and be very careful because if you don’t do it right it won’t save what you’ve written.


Shut up that stupid voice in your head that tells you you can not post something for people to see that has tuypos and incoherent thoughts and rambling run on sentences with poor or no punctuation and you ignore your mother who says you make no sense and you will e,mbarrass yourself so you don’t take any chances and you fret over what other people will think and you believe the world will end and you’ll die and never recover and everything is carved in stoone.


But there’s this keyboard that allows you to keep typing and you don’t look at the screen and you know that later if you want you can cut and paste and re-type or delete or you can post it and change it later or maybe you could just keep typing and see what happens and then put it out there for the whole world to see and it doesn’t. You will live and it doesn’t change the value of you as a person and the whole thing is crap but its your crap and so you hold it close while letting it go and you don’t change anything even though you have spell checker to counter act your inability to spell worth a damn and you have dictionary.com to help you find the perfect word when your brain refuses to retrieve it from the locker inside your skull.


But you know once you start using all of the cool tools available they are really ways to block the thoughts and ideas. It is best to spit them out. Let them spew from your mind and directly to the paper with no fence or wall in between. Burst the dam that keeps creativity at bay and say “fuck you” to that voice that makes you miserable and stifled and incomplete.

Wordless Wednesday @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Is There Help? @ Esoteric Uncovered