And now … to cheat blatantly at Camp NaNoWriMo …

Well, maybe not cheat, per say. More like deviate slightly from the rules, while still sticking with the spirit of the event. Sort of …

As I explained in some post in the past, Camp NaNo is all about sitting down every day for a month and writing. Now, you’re supposed to start a new story from scratch. But to that I say PAH! As if I have time for such shenanigans. What I really need to do is finish the sequel to Imminent Danger, and I’m about 20k words out from doing exactly that. And since they changed the rules this year so you can set your own word count limit … talk about a golden opportunity for a little free motivation!

So, basically, I will be attempting Camp NaNo this year, and I urge you all to join me. You set the word count, so there’s no need to freak out about having to write 1,667 words a day, where failing damns you to the eternal purgatory of crushed literary dreams. And since I’m cheating blatantly, y’all should feel free to do the same!

Got a story squirrelled away somewhere that you never quite finished writing? First of all, stop squirrelling things away. It’s undignified. Second of all, grab that story, dust off the bark and acorn crumbs, and join me for a month of glorious writing awesomeness!

This concludes my confession / call to arms. Here’s a link to my camper profile. Feel free to add me, or friend me, or however the heck the internet works. To Camp Nano-finity, and beyond!!!

 

Related media of the day:

More fan art!!! Today’s offering comes from the lovely Kate Sparks. Check out her rendition of Miguri, the loveable, contraction-phobic alien:

Miguri-brighter

Related update of the day:

No news from iUniverse yet on the ebook pricing debacle. The general consensus seems to be that people in the USA see the correct price, and everyone else … well, doesn’t. If you live outside the USA and for some reason you can’t possibly live another second without reading the brilliant literary masterpiece that is my book, Google Play has the ebook for super cheap. Oh, and the free Goodreads Giveaway is ending in the near future. So check that out. Or not. Whatever pressurizes your escape capsule.

Unrelated media of the day:

An internet classic for you:

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The problem with not controlling your own book listings (ebook pricing silliness)

Update: The pricing problem seems to be related to which country you’re looking at Amazon.com and Kobo from. Americans see the proper price ($2.99), and then outside the USA it ranges from $7.69 up to $12. Eek!

In the latest silliness news, my ebooks (formerly priced around $2.99) may or may not have jumped up to $9.99. Now, this may not entirely be iUniverse’s fault — shocking, I know! Here’s what happened.

So on Monday I hopped on to Amazon.com to see if I got any new reviews for Imminent Danger. Pretty legit, right? But when I got there, I discovered  the kindle edition of the book is listed at $9.76. Um … what? So I checked Amazon.ca, Amazon.uk, and Kobo … all around the $9 range (well, Kobo is $7-ish). Very sketchy.

I contacted iUniverse, and they explained that while online retailers can bump your book up $2 or down $1 based on assorted promotions, it definitely shouldn’t be $9. First of all, that was news to me — I had assumed that when I listed a book as $2.99, it would stay $2.99. But apparently that’s not the case.

Anyway, further strangeness ensued when iUniverse informed me that they’d also gone to check out my book on Amazon … and found that it was listed as $4.99 — and then $2.99 on Kobo. They even sent screenshots to prove it. I don’t doubt them at all, so this begs the question … what the heck is going on? Has my computer been possessed?

If you have a spare second, please do me a favour and check out the following two links. I’m curious to know what price you see pop up on your screen for the ebooks. Is it just my computer malfunctioning, or is there some devious internet plot going on against me? So check these out and let me know what you find!

Imminent Danger on Amazon.com

Imminent Danger on Kobo

And I suppose this begs the question: would I be  having this problem if I’d gone the total self-publishing route and uploaded my book to these sites myself? It’s my understanding that you completely control the price, and they can’t touch it at all. Is that true? In which case, that’s a further strike against iUniverse — not because they did anything wrong in particular this time, but just because they apparently have no control over the pricing of their books.

Educate me, blogosphere! Also, I wish everyone a phenomenal Easter!!!

Unrelated media of the day:

Don’t forget to enter my Goodreads Giveaway! Click here for the awesomeness.

Categories: My Works, Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 102 Comments

I’ve been tagged! Now I know how sheep feel.

Several days ago, I learned that the esteemed Sahm King has “tagged” me in his post. At first I was alarmed that he planned on shoving a bit of plastic and electronics through my ear and tracking my every movement, but then I remembered that humans aren’t livestock.

Therefore I present to you the tag rules, which are supposedly important:

  1. Post these rules.
  2. Post a photo of yourself and/or eleven random facts about yourself.
  3. Answer the questions given to you in the tagger’s post.
  4. Create eleven new questions and tag new people to answer them.
  5. Go to their blog/twitter and let them know they’ve been tagged.

I started answering these questions normally, but then I got bored. So instead I will answer them in the persona of one of the villains from my book: Commander Hroshk, captain of the Sriss’Ras’Kris battle ship, abductor of random high school students, and devoted fan of face-licking.

Since Commander Hroshk is an alien, no human has ever managed to capture his likeness on camera. However, Celeste DeWolfe has attempted an artistic rendition of one of his species, which will have to suffice:

The Ssrisk in question would be the creature with all those blue arms, not the girl in the purple hoodie. Art credit: Celeste DeWolfe

The Ssrisk is the creature with all those blue arms, not the girl in the purple hoodie.
Artist: Celeste DeWolfe

Moving on to the questions. So, Hroshk …

1. What historical figure, dead, would you most prefer to meet, and why?

A pitiful beginning to your questionnaire, foolish terrestrial. We Ssrisk do not look to the past for answers — we need only see the fear in our enemy’s eyes to know the truth of matters. And the truth is that we are the Ssrisk, and we shall crush all inferior beings beneath our claws!!!

2. Who is more awesome: Superman or Goku?

I know neither of these creatures. However, I enjoy the delightful “sssss” sound of the first candidate. Let it be known here and now that Ssssuperman is the supreme winner of this contest of awesomeness!

3. What relaxes you?

Hearing the cries of the innocent, specifically when I am the cause of them. I also enjoy a nice bowl of space jelly from time to time.

4. Where is the most interesting place you’ve visited in your lifetime?

The only location in this galaxy worth mentioning is my homeplanet Ssriss. The feeling of diving into its warm cerulean waters is akin to seeing your mate polishing your egg, or feeling an enemy’s lifeblood squirt against your scales.

5. What epitaph would you like on your headstone?

Hroshk the Mighty. He came, he hissed, he conquered.

6. If you could speak any language besides the one you speak, what would it be?

Blasphemy. As if any language could compare to the inherent majesty of the Ssrisk tongue. Keep your heresies to yourself, nameless questioner.

7. You have any favorite podcasts?

If you insist on subjecting me to this torment, at least attempt to formulate questions that make logical sense. What in Kari’s name is a “podcast”?

8. Are you willing to take a bribe?  If so, what is your highest preferred denomination?

Of course. Bribes are the primary form of currency in the Ssrisk military. I never go below 20,000 tetras. Favors are for the weak.

9. You have a choice in how the world ends: black hole or comet swarm.  Which do you choose?

Black hole. As if a comet swarm could destroy Ssrisk. Pah! We have an orbital laser defence array in place to prevent exactly such an easily-avoidable catastrophe. What a foolish question.

10. Really, is there any problem with the pimp slap?  Why?

While I do not know what a “pimp” is, I heartily approve of slapping — or any form of violence, for that matter.

11. What would you say is your motivation for waking up every day?

My motivation is simple — I wish to increase my own material wealth, spread the glory of the Ssrisk through the galaxy, and crush all inferior life forms in my claws until they grovel before me and swear eternal servitude.

 

I have way too much work to do, so here’s my tag: if you want to answer the following questions, consider yourself officially tagged. Here are the questions:

  1. Which animal would you choose to rule the world? (humans don’t count)
  2. Do you sing in the shower? Best song?
  3. Folk music — yay or nay?
  4. Why did the chicken cross the road?
  5. A historical figure comes back to life, and you have one afternoon to spend with them. Who is it, and what do you do?
  6. Which is cooler — flip phones or smart phones?
  7. If your life were a colour, what colour would it be and why?
  8. If you could be the author of either Twilight or Fifty Shades, which would you choose?
  9. When you read the number “9”, do you immediately say, “Number nine, number nine” like in that Beatles song?
  10. Unicorns or pegasi?
  11. What is the evillest corporation on this planet?

Happy tagging!

 

Unrelated media of the day:

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One writer in search of a conclusion …

I am almost finished the first draft for the sequel to Imminent Danger — currently titled Chasing Nonconformity. It’s going really well. Eris and Varrin are up to their usual shenanigans, Miguri is fluffy and wise as ever, Grashk is doing a great job hissing at everyone, the settings are bizarre and fun, and the new characters I’ve introduced are all performing very well in their respective roles. There’s just one problem: I don’t know how to end the damn book.

I thought I had it all worked out, until I was informed that the ending I had planned was too depressing for my light-hearted series. Fair enough. So I re-worked the ending. And re-worked it again. And re-worked it again. And now I’m totally baffled.

I know I need an epic battle scene, possibly involving a chase of some sort, and lots of ridiculous one-liners thrown in at totally inappropriate moments. I have the big cliffhanger worked out, but beyond that … nada.

Watching Star Wars — Attack of the Clones last night helped. I think I’ve settled on the chase sequence, followed by a dramatic showdown at the __________ (Ha! Like I’m going to reveal that.) But I still haven’t quite worked out how they’re going to enter into said chase sequence, or how to tie up all the loose ends in the dramatic showdown. Sigh.

Any tips for conclusion-writing? I had everything worked out in Imminent Danger, but the ending for the sequel is maddeningly elusive. Any and all advice is welcome.

Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!

 

Unrelated media of the day:

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Bookmarks! Bookmarks! Bookmarks!

Sorry, I tend to get over-excited by little things. However, yesterday was quite thrilling in that my shipment of 3,000 bookmarks arrived in California in preparation for the LA Times Festival of Books. Here’s a photo of the bookmarks sprawled across a random flat surface, courtesy of Daniel Mariano at Blackbird LSD:

883287_505472546165822_669495894_oAin’t they bootiful? I’m still not sure if 3,000 bookmarks is way too much, or way too little. On the one hand, the Festival of Books attracts 200,000 people a year. On the other hand, 3,000 bookmarks is a lot of bookmarks. Let me find the other picture Daniel sent me … hang on …

image_1363729479722463

See??? That’s a stupid amount of bookmarks right there. And yet I have a feeling they will all be snatched up long before the end of the weekend-long festival due to their extreme awesomeness.

Moving on.

I went through several designs before I landed on this one. My initial design was incredibly crowded, as you’ll remember from my previous post about bookmarks. Here’s the new design — you’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s an improvement or not:

bookmark_front_wordpress

bookmark_back_wordpress

Important note re: designing bookmarks — you have to leave a 1/8 inch “bleed” around the edges of the bookmark design, since this will be cut off when the bookmarks are printed.

This design is definitely much simpler, but it’s more in keeping with the simple, black and red theme of Imminent Danger’s cover. Plus, my hope is that when the bookmark is stuck in a book, the Imminent Danger title / “A YA sci-fi novel by Michelle Proulx” part will stick out the top of the book like a mini billboard for my book. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

My bookmarks, for anyone interested in bookmarks and printing and whatnot, was ordered from printrunner.com. The price was reasonable — it came out to $174.96 with tax and shipping — and the quality of the bookmarks looks to be pretty good. So if you’re in the States and looking for bookmark printing, check it out!

As for creating the bookmark itself, I used Inkscape, which is basically the free, glitchy younger cousin of Illustrator. It has lots of neat features and, fingers crossed, I will hopefully be able to design book covers using this program in the future.

This concludes my sales pitch / bookmark how to lesson of the day. Live long and prosper, fellow bloggerites.

 

Unrelated media of the day:

Fun with a big piano:

 

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Writing Apocalypse Book of the Month!!! + Minor iUniverse Silliness

We’ll start with the exciting bit first. The lovely Ms. Tania L Ramos and the folks at Blackbird LSD run a website, which celebrates well-written books and the people who write them. Naturally, my book is nowhere to be found. Ha! Kidding, kidding. They were kind enough to slap Imminent Danger up on their site a few weeks ago, and to my delight, they’ve actually named it the Book of the Month for March 2013! Wooooo!

Another item of note, for anyone who lives in the vicinity of California: Blackbird LSD will be representing my book at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. I will not be there in person, due to my living in the frozen wasteland that is southern Ontario, but they’ll have lots of Imminent Danger swag (bookmarks, stickers, books, etc.).

So if you’re in the LA area April 20-21, stop by booth 214 and claim your swag! Or, if you have a moral objection to the term ‘swag’, you can claim whatever you want — booty, plunder, spoils, etc. *insert pirate joke here*

In other news … some minor iUniverse silliness

I say “minor” because it isn’t a huge deal — more of a “Really, guys? Really?” 

You all know about my struggles to get my book listed under the correct genre, right? I would have thought that, at some point, a proactive iUniverse employee might have put a note on my file mentioning that the book is actually “Young Adult”, and not “Children’s Lit”, despite what the unfortunate book category might say otherwise.

This is apparently not the case. I’ve recently been corresponding with the iUniverse Publishing Programs Department, who are going to get my book into Chapters for 8 weeks as per the publishing package I purchased. So the lady I was talking to whipped up a “sell sheet”, which basically has all the relevant information about Imminent Danger that she’ll send out to the local Chapters store in my area. Here’s a screencap of the top of the sheet she sent me for approval:

sellsheetTime to play Spot the errors!

1. “Children’s” should be Young Adult or Teen.

2. “Juvenile” should be Young Adult or Teen.

3. Romance is fine, but Sci-Fi should really be first. Also, who ever heard of a romance book for children? Is that a thing?

4. Fantasy is just wrong — maybe stick Romance here instead?

On the plus side, they definitely got “Fiction” right. Three cheers for iUniverse! I shall inform them today of their amusingly incorrect first attempt, and advise them on how to actually make it accurate on their second go.

Update: The iUniverse lady was very prompt and professional, and said there was no problem changing the genre to Fiction / Teen / Sci-fi / Romance. So points to iUniverse for fixing this problem ASAP!

 

Unrelated media of the day:

I want to live here …

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How do you name your characters?

I ask this because I’ve always had trouble naming my characters — let alone remembering their names once I’ve come up with them! If you watched one of my recent vlogs, you’ll recall me admitting that one of the characters in Imminent Danger started off named Vallin, and then changed halfway through to Varrin because I forgot his name. Eek. Obviously that has been corrected, but still … eek.

I have several naming methods for my characters, some of which are more or less ridiculous than the others. Are you prepared to bathe in the gentle hurricane that is my wisdom? Awesome. Here are my naming methods, in no particular order:

Drawing inspiration from surrounding signage

My favourite example of this is a character from one of my WIPs. I knew her name was Caroline, because I love that name, but I couldn’t figure out what her last name was. I was sitting in Starbucks one day, looked up, and saw a McDonald’s Drive Through sign. I stood from my chair, shrieked “EUREKA!”, and Caroline Drive was born.

Basing names off of a character’s species

This one mainly applies to all my crazy aliens in Imminent Danger. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know there’s a race of six-armed, blue scaled lizard men called the Ssrisk. How did I name them? Easy. What sound do reptiles and snakes make? Hsssssss. Hssssssss … Sssssssssssrisk … EUREKA!

Naming after friends / family

Not main characters, obviously, but I’ve definitely done this with locations. The Barlow Collegiate Institute, for example, in Imminent Danger, is named after my best friend. Anyone who’s followed the adventures of “Immin Dang” (my ill-fated book cover) will also be happy to know that there is now an Imindang district in a new alien city they visit in the sequel.

Classical allusions / Pop culture references

This one is obviously my main character, Eris — aka the Greek goddess of Discord. I actually first fell in love with that name when my brother introduced me to Final Fantasy VII (you know, that iconic game where Aeris is famously stabbed by Sephiroth and dies despite the fact that resurrection spells are very common in that universe?). So I combined the two and came up with Eris, abductee extraordinaire. Woo!

Making up names that sound cool

I love names with Vs and Rs in them. Oooh, and Zs! I’m a sucker for a good Z. Hence my awesomely-named emperor of Rakor, Ka’zarel. Booya. Note how I included a totally unnecessary apostrophe in his name for style.

 

How do you name your characters? What’s your favourite name that you’ve ever come up with?

 

Unrelated media of the day:

 

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Just entered my first book contest! (IPPY Awards — deadline March 16th)

Just popping in to share some super exciting news — I’ve officially entered Imminent Danger into the 2013 IPPY Awards (Independent Publisher Book Awards). Preliminary research indicates that this is a legit contest — and if it isn’t, don’t tell me now, because I already entered and it’s a little too late for second guessing.

Because the deadline is in two days, the entry fee is $95. Yikes. But you know what, why not? I think I’ve produced a pretty darn cool book, and I’m hoping the IPPY peeps will think the same.

Anyway, if you’ve got $95 lying around and feel like entering your book in what is purportedly the “World’s largest international and regional book awards competition”, this is pretty much your last chance! Deadline is March 16th, so get over to their site and enter! For anyone interested, I used the online entry form, which just involves filling in a few fields, entering your credit card info, and then printing out the resulting page and sticking it in the front cover of your book and sending it off to the address they helpfully provide.

I predict great success and imminent victory for Imminent Danger. Should I not win this prestigious award, I shall do something JAW-DROPPINGLY TERRIBLE!!! — probably along the lines of drowning my sorrows in ice cream and then writhing on the floor in pain because I’m lactose intolerant. The future is bright, my friends. The future is bright.

Unrelated media of the day:

Some English guy in Japan moved into a new apartment and got this note from his neighbour:

 

Semi-related reminder of the day:

Enter my Goodreads giveaway so I can send you my book, dang it.

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Book Review: A Sense of Light or Darkness by Lizbeth Wright

The lovely Lizbeth Wright sent me her poetry collection … in physical form! Woo! I just feel so much more legit as a reviewer when I can hold the actual book in my hands. Points for style, Ms. Wright!

And now … THE REVIEW! Dum dum dummmm …

The Booka_sense_of_light_or__cover_for_kindle

A Sense of Light or Darkness

The Genre

Poetry

The Author

Lizbeth was born and raised in Las Vegas, where she graduated from UNLV with an English degree in 2010. She loves to write, her favourite colour is brown, and her main forms of entertainment are video games and movies. Several of her poems have won awards and been published in both print and audio collections.

The Plot

Since it’s poetry, it doesn’t really have a plot. All the poems do, however, have something to do with either light, or darkness, or both — hence the title of the collection!

The Review

The poems in this collection are beautiful. The imagery is at times haunting, at times ethereal. I love the theme of these poems — light and darkness. It’s very Kingdom Hearts (video game), which the poet mentions in the preface was one of her inspirations. I’m not a huge poetry fan, but I definitely enjoyed reading this collection.

Several of the poems in this collection really stick out in my mind — namely, Full Moon, Shadows, and The Tower Window. My favourite is definitely The Tower Window — it’s creepy, it’s intriguing, and I feel like there’s some moral to the tale, although I can’t imagine what it might be. I love when a poem really evokes emotion in you, and tells a story that you remember long after you’ve read it. That’s what The Tower Window did for me.

The Rating

4 out of 5 stars for the collection as a whole ( but 5 out of 5 for those three poems I mentioned!)

Check out Lizbeth’s blog here.

 

Unrelated media of the day:

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga apparently sang a duet together. Did anyone else know this??? Anyway, here it is. I like that Tony’s just rolling with it and having a ball.

 

Shameless plug of the day:

The Goodreads Giveaway for Imminent Danger is on until April 11th. Enter here!

(Open to CA, USA, UK)

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Imminent Danger GIVEAWAY starts today!

Note: Giveaway is open only to Canada, US, and UK.

Having at last figured out how the internet works, I am pleased to announce that I have signed Imminent Danger up for a Goodreads Giveaway. Huzzah!

Click here to enter the giveaway.

I’ve started off small — just 2 books to be won — but if I get enough entrants, I’ll upgrade them from softcover to hardcover. Woo! And in case you don’t know about Goodreads Giveaways, they’re awesome. They’re totally free to enter, requiring no commitment other than providing your mailing address. The address is only sent to the author (me) if you win the contest, and we have to click a little “I agree” button to promise that we won’t use your mailing address for cruel or nefarious purposes.

What else is relevant? Um … oh yes, the giveaway is open for an entire month — so, until April 11th. I’m sure I’ll bring it up at least once or twice before then, so don’t panic. And, as always, I will love you forever and a day (but not a minute more) if you’d be so kind as to spread word of the giveaway to your assorted social media associates.

Fin.

Unrelated media of the day:

This one’s for all you Game of Thrones fans out there.

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