Warm wishes and happy writing,

Laurel Anne Hill  (http://www.laurelannehill.com) 

Script to Novel: Double Your Odds of a Sale

At a Glance Live webinar on adapting your screenplay into a publishable novel. Learn methodology for identifying critical scenes, and how to create a more compelling story, engaging characters, and evocative setting for the novel. Learn how to leverage your story’s potential in both film and literary markets to effectively double your odds of a sale.

Register today for this live webinar!
Session Date: Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Session Start Time: 1:00PM PST/ 4:00 PM EST
Duration: 90 Minutes

Each registration comes with access to the archived version of the program and the materials for one year. You do not have to attend the live event to get a recording of the presentation. In all webinars, no question goes unanswered. Attendees have the ability to chat with the instructor during the live event and ask questions. You will receive a copy of the webinar presentation in an e-mail that goes out one week after the live event. The answers to questions not covered in the live presentation will be included in this e-mail as well.

About the Critique

All registrants are invited to submit up to 5 pages of their script, or up to 500 words of their synopsis or treatment. All submissions are guaranteed a written critique.

For more information go to: https://www.writersstore.com/script-to-novel-double-your-odds-of-a-sale.

 

Adapting your screenplay into a novel? I just heard about a great Writers Store webinar. is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

Carry the Light! 2012 San Mateo County Fair Writing Contest and Planned Anthology is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

http://laurelannehill.libsyn.com/webpage/landmine-clearance-technology-rolls-along 

In this thirteen-minute podcast, I share my experiences as I sought information about the “Mine Kafon,” a wind-powered device for potential use in clearing hidden, unexploded land mines.  The Mine Kafon, created by Massoud Hassani, recently won a London Design Museum Award nomination.  Final winners will be announced in April 2012.  Hassani was born in Afghanistan, which currently has over ten million hidden, unexploded land mines.

For more information about the Mine Kafon, visit Hassani’s blog site, http://minekafon.blogspot.com .  For additional information about other land mine clearance technologies in recent years, go to the links posted on http://www.mindsclearinglandmines.org .

Warm wishes,

Laurel Anne Hill  (Author of “Heroes Arise”)
http://www.laurelannehill.com

Land Mine Clearance Technology Rolls Along is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

Laurel Anne Hill (Most Wicked 2011)

Podcast/Writing Contest for Women Who Write Horror or Aspire to Write Horror is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

Listen to my ten-minute podcast to learn the details.  Go to:  

Ask Doctor Fortune mp3

Warm wishes,

Laurel Anne Hill  (Author of “Heroes Arise”)
http://www.laurelannehill.com 

Ask Doctor Fortune (One author’s answer to navigating the uncertain world of writing and publishing) is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

Testing the red mahogany stain

Okay, I did it.  Totally went over the top as 2011 drew to a close.  I ordered an amazing piece of functional art I couldn’t afford.  Oh, but I’m so glad I did.  In this era of iPhones and iPads — neither of which I own — the time had arrived to assert my passion for yesteryear’s technology.  Thus, I contacted artist Richard “Doc” Nagy of Datamancer and put in my request for a steampunk laptop computer: a state-of-the-art electronic marvel in a masterpiece case of wood, brass and clockwork.  Doesn’t everyone want a laptop that turns on by using the equivalent of an old-fashioned skate key?

So now, my “steampunk baby” has entered gestational stage one — the prototype.  I just received photos of Nagy’s red mahogany stain test on a prototype frame.  Check out the Datamancer website (http://www.datamancer.net) to view a picture of the steampunk laptop he created several years ago.  Cool!

Happy New Year!

Laurel Anne Hill  (Author of Heroes Arise)
http://www.laurelannehill.com  

Steampunk Laptop Computer (Gestational Stage One: The Prototype) is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

Christmas lights twinkled, sleigh bells jingled and tufts of dog fluff drifted like snowflakes across our kitchen floor.  I didn’t want to bake fuzzy sugar cookies.  Time for the family werewolf to receive a serious brushing.  Did our home always have to look as if dog hair was the basic particle of the universe?

Then I watched a program about string theory, and not the sort showing newbie cooks how to hog-tie a twenty-four pound holiday turkey with twine and stuff the thing into an eighteen-pound-capacity roasting pan.  This program dealt with that yet unproven idea about the identity of our universe’s real basic building block.  And what might that theoretical construction material be?  No, not dog hair.  Strings.  To be precise, ultra-miniscule vibrating strands of energy called strings.

I visualized a gigantic ball of string, or maybe one of red-and-green ribbon, dangling somewhere in space and sloughing off an endless supply of sub-atomic particles, all of them doing the shimmy to 1950′s doo-wop rock.  Supposedly, those building-block strings vibrated in a multitude of ways and the vibrating behavior of each had important consequences related to the character of matter.  Well, that gave the old expression, “good vibes,” a new meaning.  You are what you dance.

But all of this had no practical connection to me, or to Christmas, or to ridding my house of dog hair, did it?  The panel of scientists shown on my computer screen ignored my question, even when I raised my hand.  Still, I listened to what those learned men and women had to say.

Essentially, for many years, Einstein had unsuccessfully sought a grand and beautiful overlying principle to link gravity (the force which increases the probability a fragile glass ornament will break if you drop it over a tile floor) with electromagnetism (the force which increases the probability you will hear “Frosty the Snowman” during the month of December).  Modern physicists continued to ask Santa for such a unifying theory, one that also incorporated those forces gluing together the internal anatomy of atoms.  So far, Santa had put lumps of carbon in all those inquiring scientist’s stockings.

But back to the ball of string.  When my daughter, Alicia, had attended preschool, I’d read her a children’s book, “A Big Ball of String.”  Many years before Alicia’s birth, her brothers had enjoyed the same story.  “I can do anything with a big ball of string,” the book’s main character claimed.  If string theory was correct — and no way to experimentally prove or disprove the idea had yet been discovered — might our universe have started with a dense collection of inky-dinky threads?  Had the Big Bang been a cosmic version of the Christmas Cracker or party popper?

And if, early on, God had initiated the creation process using a huge number of super-small strings, were my own vibrations still in tune?  Perhaps, I should stop fretting about dog hair and contemplate my true music this holiday season and beyond.

Happy Holidays,

Laurel Anne Hill  (http://www.laurelannehill.com)

Strings for Thought (Holiday Musings by Laurel Anne Hill) is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

“A Fair Trade” is a true story about Christmas and life.  I wrote “A Fair Trade” to celebrate the experiences I have shared with my older sister, Kathleen.  The Contra Costa Times published “A Fair Trade” in 2007.

To listen to my story in mp3 format, please go to my podcast (Welcome to my Bedroom Closet) using the following link:

A Fair Trade

My reading is approximately 9-1/2 minutes in length.

Have a wonderful holiday,

Laurel Anne Hill 
(http://www.laurelannehill.com; http://www.laurelannehill.libsyn.com/)

A Fair Trade (A True Story of Christmas and Life) is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

I scrolled down the computer screen to view the overall format of the autosomal DNA report from DNA Consultants.  (Autosomes are the chromosomes that are not sex-linked, that is, not the “X” or “Y.”)  Anyway, DNA Consultants had divided my report into two sections.  My “DNA fingerprint” report comprised the first part of the file.  The second section provided the results of an 18-Marker Ethnic Panel.

For those unfamiliar with DNA testing for genealogical purposes, three fundamental options currently exist: testing the Y chromosome, testing the autosomes or testing mitochondrial DNA.

• Guys pass down their Y chromosome from father to son, virtually unchanged from generation to generation.  For males, Y-chromosome testing provides information about their male-to-male paternal family line.  
• Mitochondrial DNA passes from mother to child, also without significant change from generation to generation.  For males or females, mitochondrial DNA testing provides information about their mother-to-child maternal family line. 
• Autosomal testing can reveal information about both maternal and paternal family lines.  However, autosomes change from generation to generation.  Thus, autosomal testing is best used for researching ancestry within the past ten generations.  

Because I would most anticipate Native American markers in my paternal lineage, and I’m female, I had chosen the autosomal testing option. 

The first table in the report from DNA Consultants showed the results of my tests for 15 autosomal markers: 13 from the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and 2 from the Identifier system in Europe.  CODIS is a computer system that stores DNA profiles created by federal, state, and local crime laboratories in the United States.

Next in the report came a list of the 50 world populations where known patterns of DNA markers most closely matched my own.  Two of those populations were Native American, thirteen were deemed “Hispanic” or from Latin America, eight were North African/Middle Eastern, five were Asian and fourteen were black.  Only two of the matches tied me to Europe.

Wait a minute.  I had blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin.  My mother’s side of the family had immigrated from England and Sweden.  I could trace my father’s paternal line to Scotland and Ireland.  A Mexican medley comprised only one fourth of my gene pool.  What was going on?  Had my DNA swabs gotten mixed up with someone else’s?

Duh, then it hit me.  Autosomal markers were just that:  markers.  They didn’t affect appearance.  And they were handed down through the generations by the biological equivalent of dealing cards.  A person might have the same markers as their siblings–or not.  All the luck of the genetic draw.  I continued on with the next section of the report: a chart of high random probability matches between my DNA and present-day European populations.  The list of the closest 20 matches included Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Estonia, Netherlands, Finland, France, Spain and 12 more.  DNA Consultants had not mixed up my swabs.

So what did all of this really mean?  I moved on to the 18-Marker Ethnic Panel and the maps showing historical and prehistorical world population migrations.

The ethnic marker panel suggested an ancestry that included Native American, European, Eastern European (crossover with Sweden), Sub-Saharan African and Jewish.  All of this made perfect sense to me.  Berber Moors, after all, had invaded the Iberian Peninsula (where my Spanish ancestors had lived) in the Eighth Century.  Plus, traders had transported black slaves to North, Central and South America when Europeans–including some of my Spanish ancestors–settled the Americas.  The Spanish Inquisition had forced many Jewish families to convert to Christianity, move to the New World, or both.  And random probability statistics offered by DNA Consultants tied me closer to Europe than to other populations, which matched my known family history during the last couple hundred years. 

But what about those marker-matches of mine in common with Asian populations?  Most likely, in the absence of known Asian family members, those marker matches represented deep ancestry–peoples who migrated to the Americas in prehistoric times, the forbearers of Native Americans.

Wow!  Was I ever connected to the world.  A regular genetic United Nations.  My revelation prompted a broad smile.  I strolled to the back of the house where my husband was.

“I received my DNA report,” I said.  “I’m part black as well as American Indian.  Bet you never bargained on an interracial marriage.”

We both laughed and I twisted a lock of my thin, straight hair around my finger.  All those ancestors with gorgeous black tresses and my crowning glory turned out dishwater blonde.

Just the luck of the gene pool draw. 

Warm wishes from Laurel Anne Hill (http://www.laurelannehill.com) 

Black, Like…Me? (A Blue-Eyed Blonde Receives Her DNA Test Results) is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill

Thursday, October 27, 9 pm (Pacific 2/3:
The Ship (or Dirigible) as a Fantastical Character
      
They’re more than a setting; that’s why we give them names. From Catellus to Paragon and Althea, some have even given ships voices in literature. Are they always more than just a means of transportation? Should writers be surprised when they discover their ship is speaking to them?

Panelists: Barb Galler-Smith, Laurel Anne Hill, Robert Redick, S. M. Stirling (M)

To view the entire WFC schedule for 2011, go to http://www.wfc2011.org/html/mainmenu.html

Warm wishes,

Laurel Anne Hill  (http://www.laurelannehill.com)  

The Ship (or Dirigible) as a Fantastical Character (A WFC 2011 Panel) is a post from: Laurel Anne Hill