Random

Last call for magnets + random cute animals!

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Just a reminder that the super exciting, knock your socks off, totally rad (do we still use that word?) FREE MAGNET GIVEAWAY!!! is ending tomorrow morning. So if you haven’t done it yet, hop over to this post and leave a comment about any old thing to be entered for a chance to win A MAGNET!!! I know it’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but work with me, people!

Here’s a comment prompt: You win a million dollars. What type of exotic animal do you acquire as a loveable household pet? I was originally going to say tiger, ala Jasmine and Rajah from Aladdin, but then I remembered that tigers eat people. So I’m back to the drawing board.

And now, as promised …

Unrelated cute animals of the day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/fCUvrSH.jpg

Source: http://i.imgur.com/xVyoSl.jpg

Source: http://i.imgur.com/itH4EQ6.jpg

Categories: Random | Tags: aladdin, author, books, cat, contest, cute, dog, free, funny, giveaway, Jasmine, Magnet, meme, self-publish, shark, wordpress | 27 Comments

Super amazing fantastic unbelievably awesome FREE GIVEAWAY …

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

… of magnets!

Ha! Fooled you, didn’t I? Since I haven’t actually gotten my hands on copies of my own book yet (iUniverse for the win!), I have decided to have a slightly different type of giveaway. And this giveaway will involve … MAGNETS!

Don’t get too excited. You haven’t even seen them yet.

Okay, you may now get excited. Ain’t they bootiful?

So here’s the deal. I’m giving away an unspecified number of magnets to an unspecified number of people who comment on this blog post in celebration of the publication of my totally rad new book, Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It. I have a sparkly bowler hat left over from New Years into which I will place the name of each person who comments on this post. You get an extra draw if you reblog/share this post (or, preferably, this post) on your own blog.

The prize?

A MAGNET!!!

Perhaps not the most exciting prize in the world, but you can always use it to … um … do whatever you do with magnets. Stick flyers to your fridge? Plus you get to boast that you own an original Imminent Danger magnet! Wow!

Anyway, here is a picture of me and the magnets to get you motivated.

The bear’s name is Tibbers. Don’t worry, he only comes alive and attempts to devour me whole every second full moon. Thus far I’ve fended him off via locking my door, but I found a lockpick set under his crown a few days ago, so I have a feeling my cunning ploy won’t work much longer.

This “contest”, so-called, is open to anyone currently living on the planet Earth. Visitors from foreign planets need not apply, as interstellar postage rates have really space-rocketed recently. (Get it? Sky-rocketed … space-rocketed … never mind.)

And your comment can be about literally anything. It can be about how beautiful the magnets are. It can be about my gigantic teddy bear. It can be about the current state of politics in South East Asia. You can even try to answer the age old question: Star Wars or Star Trek?

The contest ends when I wake up on Saturday morning and draw a name (so, probably around 9-10ish).

Remember, comment and/or reblog/share!

Unrelated image of the day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/rG7COMA.jpg

Categories: My Works, Random | Tags: author, blogging, books, bowler hat, crown, free, free giveaway, imminent danger, iuniverse, Magnet, Star Trek, star wars, teddy bear, tibbers, wordpress, writing | 73 Comments

The post in which I write a review for my own book

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I am in a silly mood today, so I have decided to write a review for my own book. I encourage all authors to do the same. Apart from being super fun and a nice creative exercise, I am also amused by the idea that this review might come up when people search for my book on Google.

Book Review of Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It

I found this book totally by accident. I was actually looking for my new dentist’s office when I passed a store that sold these weird, papery objects. Having vaguely recalled seeing these things before on television, I stepped inside the store and approached the owner. “Hi there,” I said to him. “What exactly do you sell in this store?”

“Books,” the man said. “It’s like television, except they use words instead of moving pictures. Try one.”

So I picked up the first “book” that caught my eye. It had a sweet starry red background with trippy futuristic fonts and a really hot couple dancing on the front. “Good choice,” the man said. “This is a real classic. It’s widely known amongst discerning YA enthusiasts as the most excellent book ever written in the entire history of everything. That will be $15.”

I handed him the money and brought the book home. As soon as I opened the first page, I noticed that I felt slightly different. It took me a second to realize what it was — it was happiness. I hadn’t felt that way since I won the County Spelling Bee back in the second grade. The warm effulgence of pure delight washed over me, and I sank back into the comfy cushions of my couch as I let the magic of this fantastic book wash over me.

Each turn of the page brought a new and exciting change. When I hit page 34, the sore throat I’d been fighting off for days suddenly cleared up. On page 97, I got a phone call from my travel agent telling me I’d won a free trip to Jamaica. On page 208, I had a huge slice of pizza and discovered that I was no longer lactose intolerant. And when I finished the last page and shut the book with a sigh of pure ecstasy, I got a text message from the love of my life, begging for me to give us a shot.

At this point I became slightly suspicious of this “book” I had purchased. Was it possible that the story was so utterly, mind-bogglingly brilliant that it actually had the power to cure my ailments and fix my love life? To test my theory, I called my bookie and had her bet my entire life savings on a horse race. Then I picked up the book and began to leaf through it frantically. By the time I’d gotten halfway through, my bookie called. I’d won the race.

So in conclusion, this book made me a millionaire, cured my lactose intolerance, and netted me my future partner. I’m still testing out its assorted magical properties, but I’m pretty sure that it can also predict the future, increase its reader’s intelligence to genius-level, and possibly summon unicorns. I plan to use this book to construct an Iron Man suit and spend the rest of my life flying around stopping terrorists, ending wars, and promoting literacy programs in third world nations. With any luck, I shall become a God among men and reshape the world in my image.

ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and the story was pretty good, too. The beginning was a little slow. Funny ending. Great characters. Five stars.

Unrelated video of the day:

Not sure if I’ve shared this yet, but … eh, whatever. Enjoy!

Categories: My Works, Random, Writing | Tags: author, book review, books, ebooks, funny, google, horse race, imminent danger, Jamaica, lactose intolerance, pizza, potter puppet pals, writing, yolo | 52 Comments

The Worst Fanfiction Ever Written

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

In my continuing quest to bring to you, my dear and beloved readers, the many and varied gems of the internet, I present to you today’s offering: The Worst Fanfiction Ever Written.

The story is My Immortal, by Tara Gillesbie (username “XXXbloodyrists666XXX”). Here is a quote from knowyourmeme.com:

“My Immortal is a fanfiction that became infamous for being, what many have called, “the worst fanfiction ever written”. It contains a large number of spelling and grammatical errors and sudden unexplained sex scenes. Many of the titles for her chapters were inspired by the bands My Chemical Romance and Evanescence. The story has been the subject of several parodies and dramatic readings.”

No one is sure if this was meant as a joke, or if the author actually intended to create something so unbearably awful. I shall present to you the first few chapters (they’re extremely short), and then provide a link at the bottom for those wishing to further enjoy its magnificence.

Presenting: My Immortal, by Tara

NOTE: This excerpt contains curse words. Also, “AN” means “Author’s Note”.

Chapter 1.

AN: Special fangz (get it, coz Im goffik) 2 my gf (ew not in that way) raven, bloodytearz666 4 helpin me wif da story and spelling. U rok! Justin ur da luv of my deprzzing life u rok 2! MCR ROX!

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

“Hey Ebony!” shouted a voice. I looked up. It was…. Draco Malfoy!

“What’s up Draco?” I asked.

“Nothing.” he said shyly.

But then, I heard my friends call me and I had to go away.

AN: IS it good? PLZ tell me fangz!

Chapter 2.

AN: Fangz 2 bloodytearz666 4 helpin me wif da chapta! BTW preps stop flaming ma story ok!

The next day I woke up in my bedroom. It was snowing and raining again. I opened the door of my coffin and drank some blood from a bottle I had. My coffin was black ebony and inside it was hot pink velvet with black lace on the ends. I got out of my coffin and took of my giant MCR t-shirt which I used for pajamas. Instead, I put on a black leather dress, a pentagram necklace, combat boots and black fishnets on. I put on four pairs of earrings in my pierced ears, and put my hair in a kind of messy bun.

My friend, Willow (AN: Raven dis is u!) woke up then and grinned at me. She flipped her long waist-length raven black hair with pink streaks and opened her forest-green eyes. She put on her Marilyn Manson t-shirt with a black mini, fishnets and pointy high-heeled boots. We put on our makeup (black lipstick white foundation and black eyeliner.)

“OMFG, I saw you talking to Draco Malfoy yesterday!” she said excitedly.

“Yeah? So?” I said, blushing.

“Do you like Draco?” she asked as we went out of the Slytherin common room and into the Great Hall.

“No I so fucking don’t!” I shouted.

“Yeah right!” she exclaimed. Just then, Draco walked up to me.

“Hi.” he said.

“Hi.” I replied flirtily.

“Guess what.” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“Well, Good Charlotte are having a concert in Hogsmeade.” he told me.

“Oh. My. Fucking. God!” I screamed. I love GC. They are my favorite band, besides MCR.

“Well…. do you want to go with me?” he asked.

I gasped.

Click here to continue the story!

Unrelated Image of the Day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/ch3ke.jpg

Categories: Random | Tags: bad writing, captain america, Draco Malfoy, fanfiction, harry potter, loki, my immortal, tara, worst fanfiction | 35 Comments

Random Website Idea

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I randomly came up with this idea whilst contemplating how hit-and-miss self-published books can be in terms of quality. The story can be fantastic, but if the editing is terrible, I won’t be able to get past the first couple of pages.

Which leads me to wonder … is there such a thing as a website that lists eBooks not in terms of reviews, but in terms of whether or not it’s actually been edited?

Here’s my idea (assuming it doesn’t exist already):

This website has nothing to do with reviews — it strictly deals with whether or not a book is edited to traditional publishing standards (“E” for edited, “NE” for needs editing)
You can type a book name into the search bar, and the result is an image of the book cover with either a big, green “E” stamped across it, or a big red “NE” stamped across it
It could be called something like SPEVNE (self-publishing edited vs. needs editing)
That’s a terrible name
We can come up with a better one later

The point of the site is that it would be the last stop for a reader before they decided to buy the book. We assume they’ve already read reviews for the book … but there are people out there who will overlook glaringly painful sentence structure issues and grammatical errors when writing a review. Hence the point of SPEVNE (goodness, but that is a bad name) — discerning readers can just type in the book name and get that final quality assurance check. SPEVNE doesn’t tell you if the book is good or bad — SPEVNE just tell you if it’s readable.

Examples of the big letter stamps:

Imminent Danger, obviously, would get a nice big E. Also, notice how I worked in my book cover into this post in a subtle yet powerful bit of subliminal marketing? Granted, I probably just negated the subliminality (totally a word) by pointing that out, so … obliviate!

And thus, my idea presentation ends. SPEVNE (anyone got a better name?) should be a thing. MAKE IT SO, INTERNET!

Unrelated image of the day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/YXDMYh.jpg

Unrelated video of the day:

Categories: Random | Tags: books, ebook, ebooks, editing, karma, literature, review, self-publish | 44 Comments

Read this if you asked me to review your book!

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

What up, fellow bloggers. This post is for housekeeping purposes, so bear with me.

I’ve amassed a large selection of self-published books I’m supposed to read and review, and I’m getting a bit confused. Therefore, here is a list of all the ebooks that I currently plan to read/review. They aren’t in order or anything, just me scrolling through my tablet and typing them as they appear.

If you asked me to read/review your book, and it’s not on here, TELL ME!!!

The Altar of Deimos — Antoinette M
Can’t Live Without — Joanne Phillips
The Crimson League — Victoria Grefer
Entanglement — Maya Panika
L’Aria Onyx — Sahm Attaine King
Trapper & Emmeline — L. Flinch Bedder
Poor Percival Stories — Matthew Milson
Remember — Cristian Mihai
Water — Terra Harmony
Why Aren’t You Sweet Like Me — Carrie Nyman
Shadeland — DL Miles
Jazz – Cristian Mihai
Once & Always; Heart Stealer; Wishing on a Rodeo Moon — Grace Brannigan
28 Shades of Black — Sahm Attaine King
Heroes’ Awakening — Rigel Ordinario
Shadows of Penumbra — Margaret E. Alexander
The Friendship of Mortals — Audrey Driscoll
The Valley Walker — T.W. Dittmer
Surviving the Writing Apocalypse — Tania L Ramos
The Warden in the Gates — DL Miles

Again, if I said I would read/review your book and it’s not on that list, TELL ME!!!

Otherwise, I won’t read it. Because I don’t have it.

In other news … what’s with the new WordPress format?

Anyone else ticked off by it? I hate that they’ve put the author name in tiny little letters at the bottom of the blog post on the Reader. I click on posts because I want to read what the blogger has to say. Now the author name is so small that I’m worried I’m missing posts by bloggers I love because their title isn’t super eye catching and I scroll right past it.

I tried to send WordPress a letter asking them to change it — at least make the blogger name larger!!! — but I can’t figure out how to contact them. Anyone know the secret to contacting them?

Unrelated video of the day:

This song is so happy. How can you not love it?

Unrelated image of the day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/nU0Pv.jpg

Categories: Book Reviews, Random | Tags: blog, book review, housekeeping, miracle whip, owl city, stephen colbert, when can i see you again, wordpress | 39 Comments

2 Quick Blogging Tips

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

In my surfing of assorted blogs, I’ve found two little nit-picky issues that really annoy me because I’m ridiculous like that.

Therefore, here are my 2 Quick Blogging Tips (so that you don’t irritate your readers):

Give every post a title. Otherwise what the heck am I supposed to click on to read your post?
Make sure there’s a “Like” button accessible under every post. Some people disable the Like button due to personal aesthetic choice, but I feel that having to mouse up to the WordPress bar and click Like there is such a hassle. Give us both options, or we will become unnecessarily rageful! RAWR!

That’s it for now. Check in tomorrow, as I’ll have some exciting news (I hope!) to share. Maybe even a vlog. We’ll see how ye olde work goes.

Peace out, home skillets.

Unrelated image of the day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/xJVwR.jpg

Source: http://imgur.com/RxsJv

Categories: Blog-related, Random | Tags: blog, Blogger, blogging, blogging tips, chewbacca, cute, funny, gravity, wordpress, writing, writing tips | 26 Comments

Resolutions still count if they’re a day late, right?

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

As you will recall from yesterday’s post, I was supposed to write about my resolutions but I ended up doing a shameless plug for my book instead. And look — I just did it again! Shame, Michelle. Shame.

Anyway, I really do want to share my resolutions, because I’m pretty sure they’ll never happen if I don’t get them written down somewhere that I can’t retract them without attracting public ridicule. Therefore, my 2013 Resolutions:

Stop eating dairy. I don’t actually know if it’s the cause of my poor stomach hurting, but it seems as likely a culprit as any. So goodbye to pizza, ice cream, cheese, and assorted dairy goodness, and hello to … soy? I’m regretting this already …
Exercise daily. I keep reading all these articles about how our sedentary lifestyle is killing us, and it freaks me out. Therefore I resolve to get up and move every day, even if it’s just having a dance party whenever a good song comes on the radio.
Write daily. Okay, everyone and their mother has this resolution (assuming their mother is a writer). But I’ve been really bad about this over the last few months because I’ve been focusing on getting Imminent Danger published and working on my blog. Bad Michelle! So now I have to write every day whether I have time for it or not.

That’s probably enough, right? Three is manageable. If I add any more, I’m just going to get confused. And believe me, I confuse easily.

Tragic Imminent Danger Update:

Mother is going through the final proof of the book to make sure there aren’t any typos. Then she found this sentence:

“He was taking them to Alpha Centauri to sell them to a faceless megacorporation, and there was precious little they could do to about it.”

Did you catch the typo? The copy-editor didn’t. I didn’t. But mother did, so now I’m worried about all the other little typos I didn’t catch. For that matter, why didn’t Word Spell Check catch that? Le sigh.

Related link of the day (for East-coasters):

Writer’s Digest Conference East (New York: April 5-7)

Unrelated image of the day:

Source: http://imgur.com/gallery/91XAS

Categories: Random, Writing | Tags: darth vader, imminent danger, lactose intolerant, New Year, New year resolution, polo, resolutions, Sedentary lifestyle, writer's digest, writing | 35 Comments

2012 RAWR!

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Michelle Proulx

RAWR! because 2012 was the Year of the Dragon. Obviously.

I have officially returned from my Christmas vacation. Went home to visit the paternal unit, ate some turkey, watched Modern Family, went shopping on both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day (guess which one was busier?), got a Nintendo 3DS so I can play that new Kingdom Hearts game … and now I’ve returned to my apartment, my mother, and to the many hours of cleaning I will need to do in order to prepare for our New Years party tonight.

Phew!

Anyway, I’m in a reflectory (totally a word) mood since it’s the end of the year, so I thought I’d share my top picks for 2012. And then I have to work, because I’m still behind 14.75 hours for the month of December, and it ends … well, today.

Top Movie of 2012

Dude, it’s the Avengers. How could it not win?