“Birthday Celebration” by Cédric Boismain
Copyright 2013
Last week, I mentioned that the one year anniversary of my first post was rapidly approaching– in 3 weeks, 1 day, to be exact. I honestly never expected to last this long. (I don’t exactly have the best track record for finishing what I start unless there’s money involved.) And I certainly never expected to have so many wonderful people support me with follows, likes and shares every week. So, in honor of this milestone, I’ve decided to celebrate. It is a birthday after all. And no birthday is complete without presents! Or, in this case, a giveaway.
I’ve got some rather interesting (and hopefully exciting) prizes for you. As you know, Nightwolf’s Corner is split between the three aspects of my storytelling life– writing, art and martial arts demo teams. Therefore, it seemed only fitting to offer a prize from each area. But my schedule is a little flooded right now, so as much as I’d love to pick a winner for each prize, there can only be one. That winner will get their choice of the following:
Prize 1: A Substantive Editorial Critique
Writing has had an unfair advantage on this blog over the last year– something I hope to change in the coming months– so I suspect a majority of you will be interested in this chance to score editorial services for free.
I’m offering the writers in the audience the ability to gain some outsider input on your WIP. I’ll give you a full substantive (structural) critique, illustrating what’s working and what might need a little improvement. I’ll cover everything from flow, to character/world development & consistency, to believability, to scene transitions, etc. I won’t provide feedback on a line-by-line basis, (you’ll still need a copy editor at some point), but this will give you a definite leg up on the way to publication. And the best part? I don’t care if your manuscript is finished or not.
That’s right, you can submit your WIP in all it’s unfinished glory and still receive the same level of critique I would give a finished manuscript. That’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself. There aren’t many chances out there to get an editorial critique on an unfinished work, so I would jump on this opportunity, if I were you. 😉
Prize 2: A Custom Logo Design
I realize this may be the least popular option, since most of you haven’t seen what I can do artistically. Art has been sadly neglected over the past year, all my grand topics languishing in the draft queue unfinished. But that’s about to change. I’ll be posting examples (specifically of logo’s I’ve done) to the Art Gallery over the next few weeks, so don’t rule this prize out just yet.
I’ll create a custom, vector-based logo design for whatever you want– business, t-shirts, decals, whatever! (Remember, a logo is a simplified image meant for wide distribution on various printed materials, so please don’t request something that would be better served as a traditional painting/sketch.) The value here, besides having someone design your vision into reality, is the inclusion of commercial rights to the image– meaning you have the exclusive right to merchandise and profit from it. (I still own the copyright though, and retain the right to display it in my portfolio.) These rights can cost hundreds of dollars above the design fee itself, so this isn’t an offer to scoff at. If you’ve ever wanted to create a logo for something, or need a revamp on your current one, here’s your chance!
Prize 3: A Ready-Made Demo Concept
I’m not gonna lie, this is the prize I’m most excited to reveal. Many of you are familiar with my particular brand of demos– a hybrid of theater, dance and martial arts. Many of you have also expressed desire for learning how I create them. Over the past year, I’ve delved into the nuts and bolts of my demo team storytelling technique, but there’s nothing quite like actually applying it. And since I can’t travel to every school that might be interested and literally coach you through the process, this is as close as I can get to loaning you my brain.
For the first time ever, I’m offering to supply a ready-made demo concept. What does that mean? I’ll supply the music (usually something I’ve mixed for optimal storytelling capability. Yes, I can do that and I’m quite good at it, so stop giving me the skeptical eyes 😉 ), the overall concept (aka theme), a script detailing the storyline and how to sync it to the music, the costume/prop design and casting recommendations in terms of abilities needed per role. All you have to do is create the choreography. (You didn’t think I was going to give you everything, did you? There still has to be a shred of your creativity in there somewhere!) Pretty cool, huh?
Have I caught your attention yet? Good. Here’s how it works:
The giveaway will run from now, April 12th, until midnight on May 4th, at which time I’ll randomly select the lucky winner and notify them via email. All you have to do to enter is click here and follow the prompts.
That’s it! Let the birthday celebrations commence! Here’s to another year full of sarcastic storytelling awesomeness and wonderful people to share it with. Thank you for reading! 🙂
Nightwolf A.D.E. 
Yes, Kisa is brilliant with the music editing! It never sounds like she made 5 cuts in a song. When we hear the real version we are always amazed at the differences. This in itself takes hours to do so the demo concept she is offering is a time consuming offer on her part! 🙂
Why, Thank you! You are correct, it does take hours (probably upwards of 40-50) to do everything I’ve listed, but I’ll love every second of it. 😉
Happy Almost Birthday!! What a splendid competition and an even splendider (??) prize. I have to say, three things I’d never expected to see in the same sentence are “writing, art and martial arts demo teams” 🙂
Thank you!
I know it’s a bit of an eclectic bag of tricks, but that’s what makes me interesting. 😉
(P.S. I saw you entered the giveaway, make sure you claim the entry for leaving me a blog comment. And thanks for sharing it! You rock!)
Never one to leave things half-done (who am I kidding?) I Facebooked you too 🙂
Right on! Thanks for helping to spread the word. You got to score a few more points towards winning, too, so it’s a win-win. 😉
Best of luck going up against the random selection algorithms!
Happy almost Birthday:)
What awesome prizes!
Hope you have a great day
Thank you, Raven! You as well. Best of luck, if you entered. (Rafflecopter won’t let me see the spreadsheet at the moment. ;/)
No problem. It is very generous of you doing this giveaway:)
I filled out the info for Rafflecopter. I’m not sure if things aren’t showing up on the spreadsheet.
I’m sure everything’s fine with your entry, Raven. It just won’t let me see the spreadsheet right now. I’m only allowed to view it every so often and I used up my chance for the next few hours. Lol. Kind of like Pandora and skips– you only get so many per hour. I’ll double-check again in a few and it’ll be all good. 😉
Really looking forward to winning the Substantive Editorial Critique. Yes, I am going to win. *This is me being positive with my fingers crossed* 😛 Happy blog-birthday Kisa and thank you so much for the opportunity.
Positive confidence– I like it! Best of luck in the giveaway! 🙂
‘Kay, in the contest form I was asked to leave a comment on what I’d like to see on here. Well, this contest idea is a good one. Also, in the future, you could offer a short story contest with the winner recieving a copy of one of your stories. Signed of course 😉
Thank you for taking the time to answer the question! 🙂
I actually did do a giveaway where the prize was signed copies of my work for Christmas last year. My plan is to offer giveaways twice a year, one for the holidays and one for the anniversary of the blog. So I’m sure I’ll be utilizing your suggestion soon. Hopefully, it’ll be for the new version of at least one of the short stories. Fingers crossed!
Felicitations!
I’m very interested in Prize 3: A Ready-Made Demo Concept and if it’s chosen by the winner, whomever they may be, I’d love to see the result.
This is not a bribe, just coincidental, but I’ve nominated you for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award.
Please see http://andrewtoynbee.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/honoured-to-receive-the-dragons-loyalty-award/ or watch out for today’s post! 😀
Thanks, Andrew! You’re the only one to choose that prize so far, so odds are definitely in your favor on that one. 😉 I didn’t know you trained in the martial arts? Or do you know someone who does? Just curious why that particular prize jumped out at you. (If you feel like sharing, I’d love to know. Otherwise, I’ll just hang out in curiosity-land forever.) I’m a little disappointed that it seems so unpopular, (especially since I know I have a pretty large following in the martial arts– WTSDA people, I’m looking at you!) but there are still 16 days left, so maybe it will generate some more interest. I thought it was cool. Lol.
Thanks for the nomination! (You sure do get hit with a lot of these type posts, don’t you?) The shout-out is always appreciated. The name of the award is pretty awesome too. I’ll definitely go see what it’s all about. 🙂
I do know someone who wrestles and is also interested in martial arts, but I was interested in the concept because I’m in the middle of trying to put together some live action scenes from ‘A Construct of Angels’ so that I can finish my promo video. I’ve contacted three theatre groups and of the one that was ‘very excited’, I’ve heard nothing else back – very disappointing.
I actually have some music, props, cloud scenes and mixed stuff, but no peeps to act out any scenes.
Not sure how this would work with your demo concept, but maybe we could discuss it – even outside of your contest?
It sounds like you already have most of the components I was offering in the prize, just no people. Unfortunately, I don’t have people either. So I’m not sure how much help I could be to you for your particular project. I’d be happy to discuss it further though. I think you still have my email address? Go ahead and shoot me a note and we’ll see if there’s anything we can work out. I’ll help if I can, I’m just not sure how I would at this point.
But thanks for entering the contest anyway! If we can’t come up with a way for me to help, feel free to change your prize request to something else. 😉
Kisa
Okay. Are you getting a good response from other bloggers? Plenty of interest?
Yes, actually. It’s going so well, in fact, that I’ve decided to increase the number of prizes I’m giving out, (dependent on the number of entries received, of course). 🙂