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Posted on April 4, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Thank you to Gwen Bristol for conducting this wonderful author interview! I award her three virtual penguins.

Gwen Bristol's avatarGwen Bristol

A month or so ago I read Imminent Danger, by Michelle Proulx (see her blog here and her web site here). I’ve always been a little nutty about sci-fi, but this one was funny and romantic as well as having a great space-setting. I loved it.

Yesterday I was able to have a quick interview with Michelle Proulx…and here it is!

Where did you get your inspiration for ‘Imminent Danger?’
Would you believe me if I said school? I was taking an Intro to Astronomy class in my first year of university, and my professor had an unfortunate tendency of regurgitating the contents of our textbook as his lectures. I gave up listening to him after a few weeks, and one day, while playing Donkey Kong Country on my laptop, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if an astronomy teacher who spends all day lecturing…

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Posted on April 1, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Free giveaway from the lovely and talented Ms. Tania L Ramos. Check it out!

Tania L Ramos, RN's avatarNew Author Publishing

Be Still is coming up on its one year anniversary in May.  When I started this adventure into publishing last year, I had no clue where it would take me.  I thought I was taking the road less traveled; turns out the Self-Publishing Road is  a crazy, busy highway.  Thank goodness most drivers are friendly and well mannered.

I’ll write a one year memoir in May, telling all the ups, downs, positives, negatives, joys, and regrets of this rocky uphill climb.  Well, guess it couldn’t be all bad since I plan on publishing again this year . . . or maybe I enjoy swimming against the current more than I think.

In honor of coming up on my one year anniversary, I am doing a biweekly giveaway (that’s every two weeks, I looked it up).  The entry date starts today and will end May 31st.  There will be four drawings:…

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Time to settle this once and for all

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I freely admit that I have absolutely no idea what to write for today’s post. Instead of blathering on about nothing of consequence, I shall instead attempt to answer the age old question: What is the best kind of pizza?

Yes, I know there aren’t many options — it would only let me enter five. Feel free to add your own! The winning pizza will be crowned King of Pizzaland.

Unrelated media of the day:

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Posted on March 3, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Amazon is apparently making authors pay refunds to customers who bought their books because they’ve gone from self-published to traditionally published. Worrisome. Very worrisome.

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Vacation = Great Success!

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I live!!!

My Caribbean cruise getaway was a great success. There was much beach lounging and Mayan ruins visiting and buffet gorging to be had. And I got lots of writing done, which was fantastic. I also got verbally lambasted by my mother for my current WIP having such a slow start that she was bored to tears. So I guess it’s back to the drawing board on that one. Ah well. Can’t win ’em all!

I have a gazillion things to catch up on, so today’s post will be short. I just wanted to say hi to everyone, let you know I’m back, and that I’ll be digging through the last week of your blog posts just as soon as I get my life back in order.

Oh yes, and Blackbird LSD, an indie publicity company based out of California, was kind enough to host an author interview with me over on their site. Check it out here.

Here’s their logo, which is just adorable with the little birdies and whatnot:

blackbird lsdPictures from the vacation will be uploaded whenever my mother gets around to loading them on her computer. So … anywhere from two hours to two months. Stay tuned!

 

Unrelated media of the day:

There is an entire website devoted to Justin Timberlake doing things — http://justintimberlakedoingthings.tumblr.com/. And just when I thought the internet couldn’t get more awesome.

One of my personal favourites:

 

Categories: Blog-related, Random | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 38 Comments

Which book would you bring to life?

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I’ve been thinking about The Pagemaster a lot recently, mostly because I think the idea of a library coming to life is just about the coolest thing ever. Here’s the movie trailer, in case you have no idea what I’m talking about:

Right. Everyone on the same page now? Hahaha. Get it? Page? Because … Pagemaster?

Never mind.

Anyway, what reader hasn’t dreamed of getting sucked into a book … or better yet, bringing the contents of a book into our world! Here’s the premise I set for myself: If you could bring one aspect of one book into our world, which would you choose? By one aspect, I mean a character, or an item, or a particular setting — bringing an entire book to life might be a bit overkill.

I think I would bring Harry Potter’s magic wand into this world. How awesome would it be to be able to do magic? Then again, I would be the only witch, since I would be the only one with a magic wand, which could get lonely. Or dangerous. And then if the government found out I could do actual magic, they would either recruit me forcibly to their cause, or steal the wand for themselves, or just kill me outright as a threat to national security. So maybe not a magic wand after all.

Perhaps I should choose something less conspicuous. Or maybe I’m in the wrong genre altogether. I could think of worse things than flying around the galaxy in the starship Enterprise. Although again, that would involve leaving everyone I know and love here on Earth, since “Hey, want to come fly away forever with me in my interstellar spaceship?” probably won’t do much convincing.

Or I could be more practical. I could pop into one of the hundreds of fantasy books that has a philosopher’s stone / holy grail / eternal-youth-and-health-contraption and grab that up. I could live forever! But again, loneliness. Awwwwwwww.

I guess the lesson to be learned here is that being too special means you’ll be lonely. Alternatively, the lesson here is that I suck at hypothetical exercises.

Your turn! You can bring one aspect of one book into this world. What do you choose?

Unrelated video of the day:

Tee hee …

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Posted on February 11, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Wonderful review from Miss Marla Rose Brady! Thanks oodles for the kind words 🙂

papercranewishes's avatarMarla Rose Brady

ref=sib_dp_kd

Michelle Proulx’s novel “Imminent Danger, and How to Fly Straight Into It” is an excellent debut for an up and coming author.  This first book, intended to be part of a series, is about a young college-bound girl going to a boarding school.  After being abducted by an alien one night on campus, our main character, seventeen-year-old Eris, is taken away from her home planet of earth.

After being enslaved and captured by numerous kidnappers, Eris is eventually discovered by Varrin, a handsome, debonair fellow from the planet of Raskorian.  The description of Varrin’s planet is one of complete chaos: there are only two classes of people (“those who have, and those who have not”), everyone is beautiful, intelligent, and excellent fighters.  Basically, everything about Raskorian strength is superhuman compared to the regular earthling human (who many of the interstellar aliens consider “terrestrials” throughout the novel).  However, the Raskorian ethics…

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Bookmarks, Customs, and Muffins … oh my!

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

We’ll start with the best first: Muffins!

I would like to share with you possibly my favourite joke of all time. I’m pretty sure everyone and their pet llama has heard this one, but whatever, I still think it’s hilarious:

Two muffins are sitting in a microwave. The microwave turns on.

The first muffin looks at the second muffin and says, “Is it just me, or is it getting hot in here?”

The second muffin looks at the first muffin and screams, “OH MY GOD! A TALKING MUFFIN!”

He he he …

Right. Moving on to: Bookmarks!

In my continuing attempts to spend all my time thinking up marketing strategies for Imminent Danger instead of, say, actually doing my job and getting paid, I hit upon the idea of printing out massive amounts of bookmarks and leaving them randomly around town.

I found a site called nextdayflyers.com that claimed to be able to sell me 1000 bookmarks for a crazy-low sum like $60. I was sold. So I created a kick-bottom bookmark, which I shall now share with you in all it’s bookmarky glory:

bookmarkfrontback

Aren’t they gorgeous? Don’t they just make you want to run outside in the freezing cold in your bare feet and dance around in the snow exulting in the wonder of life?

Exactly. So I sent in the design files and paid the $60. I was a bit surprised that there was no charge for shipping, but I figured they were just doing one of those “Order over X amount of money and we’ll ship it for free!” promotions like other online companies do.

I was decidedly misinformed.

Three days later, I get a call from nextdayflyers.com. The nice man on the phone greets me, tells me my bookmarks are printed and ready to be shipped, and then says, “It will be $65 for customs and shipping, so I’ll just go ahead and charge that to your VISA, shall I?”

My response, obviously, was “Hell no.” It is absolutely ridiculous that an online company would not charge shipping up front … and even more ridiculous that they would actually print an order before securing the shipping fee from the client! That’s no way to run a business!

So I sadly had to cancel my order. I feel bad that they already printed it, but I’m not going to pay more for shipping than I did on the actual product. If I’d known that was the shipping charge, I would have never placed the order in the first place.

So the moral of the story is:

Check what the shipping charge is before you place your order!

And now I’m back to square one on the bookmark front. Le sigh. Anyone know of a good, cheap bookmark printer that I can order from in Canada without incurring crazy customs fees? Writer of the winning suggestion gets a free bookmark once I actually get my hands on them!!!

Unrelated images of the day:

I have no idea what this is, but it looks awesome!

Source: http://thechive.com/2013/01/30/mind-is-officially-blown-31-photos/

And a cute/disturbing comic to brighten your Friday:

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=525118494186494&set=a.465299380168406.106666.465298390168505&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

Categories: Random, Self Publishing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 56 Comments

My messy writing space (and why it is slowly sucking out my soul)

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I am a messy person. This has been evident since … well, since as long as I can remember. I have gotten into multiple arguments (read: screaming matches) over the years over my inability to do the dishes, vacuum the carpet, refill the water jug, etc. I have accepted this about myself, although my living companions still live in hope that I will one day reform and become a cleaning goddess. This will never happen, but I try to encourage them by occasionally cleaning the bathroom so they don’t give up on me entirely. I haven’t been thrown out of a house/apartment yet, so I’d say my plan has been largely successful thus far.

Anyway, today’s topic is on writing spaces. I was inspired to write this post because I’ve been feeling very aimless recently when I sit down to work at my desk. And then the reason behind my aimlessness occurred to me — it’s because my desk is a disaster. If this were Jurassic Park, my desk would be the bloody remains of that goat the T-Rex chomped up. Disturbing mental images aside, check out the horror that is my sacred writing space:

20130201_141929Because that isn’t the greatest image in the world, not to mention the cherry blossoms somewhat detract from the point I’m trying to make, I will now provide a listing of everything currently scattered across my desk. Ready?

  • 4 printouts of my book cover, in various states of wrinkley-ness
  • a pricing sheet that lists the various author discounts at which I can purchase my book
  • 4 notebooks
  • a diagram of a high pressure boiler feedwater pump
  • 3 to-do lists
  • assorted papers
  • “Be Still” bookmark
  • 3 pens
  • 1 mechanical pencil
  • 2 silver sharpies
  • old book manuscript (spiral bound)
  • fancy leather binder my dad gave me for Christmas
  • Flipcam
  • glass of water
  • note with directions to London Writer’s Society meeting
  • “Im in ur cassel, advizin ur king” mousepad
  • mouse, keyboard, monitor

In case this hasn’t become apparent, the moral of the story here is that clutter stifles your creativity. This mass of junk is a reminder of all the things I have to do, or that I haven’t yet accomplished, and it’s exhausting. So if there’s one thing you should take away from this post, it’s that some mess = fine, but stupid amounts of clutter = bad.

So if you’re swimming in a sea of random papers, old journals, and a truly unnecessary number of writing utensils, just do as I do — write a post about how horrible clutter is, and then do absolutely nothing to fix it.

Success!

In other news …

I’ve been intending to do a blog tour to celebrate the release of Imminent Danger, but I keep putting it off. I had intended to continue putting it off, until the lovely and talented J.R. Wolfe informed me that she had A) read and enjoyed my book, and B) was going to post an author interview with me on her blog on Saturday, whether I liked it or not. Just kidding! Mostly …

Anyway, a few hours later the equally lovely and talented Celeste DeWolfe also requested an author interview, and before I knew it, I had somehow become involved in a mini blog tour. I will definitely be holding a longer blog tour (probably in March), so don’t despair — you, too, will have a chance to be a part of my blog tour, aka the greatest blogging event known to mankind.

I’ll post links on Saturday and Sunday to the respective lovely ladies’ blogs, where you’ll find insightful (ha!) interviews in which I reveal assorted facts about my life and writing. So stay tuned for Michelle’s Mini Magical Weekend Blog Tour! (I think MMMWBT rolls off the tongue, don’t you?)

Feel free to stop by and ask questions if you feel so inclined. Here are some example questions you might consider asking:

  • Has your giant teddy bear come to life and eaten anyone yet?
  • Why is your hair tied up in all your pictures? Do you have some sort of weird phobia about having hair on your neck?
  • Why haven’t you reviewed my book yet? ARGHHHHHH!
  • Why do you feel that bacon is the greatest and most magical foodstuff in all of creation?
  • What are your thoughts on unicycles?

Unrelated image of the day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/5YbbaBO.jpg

Categories: Random, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 61 Comments

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Second review of Imminent Danger! Thank you Matt Cook for taking the time to write this! You’re a rock star!

Matthew Cook's avatarmcook145

Exciting non-cartoon related news today!

Ever read one of those books that breaks apart genres? Something that takes an idea and turns it on its head, that does something completely different from what anyone would expect? Those are the books I respect – ones that aren’t afraid to try something new. I’m talking about things like A Song of Ice and Fire, Battle Royale, and other books like that.

Well, a friend recently published a book that defies genre expectations in a very different way, by taking two genres and blending them together. She wrote a book that combines the science fiction genre with the romance genre.

At first I was confused, but then I really gave it some thought. Blending those genres is one of those ideas that’s so smart that it seems really, really obvious. Plenty of girls are into science fiction, but nobody really capitalizes on that in culture today…

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