What is UP?! So I finished the final proofing yesterday, and I’ve put the order in for the paperback ARCs today.
My army of proofers are currently reading through the eARCs, ferreting out all the final typos that inevitably slipped my attention.
I’m so happy to have this book finished, more than the first one, I think.
Now I’m going to take a break for a few weeks, whilst maybe doing a little bit here and there on the next next one, Divided They Fall (Blood of Ages, #2).
So I joined The Magic Spreadsheet, which is a community of writers all in agreement to produce a minimum word count every day.
The purpose of the community is to promote consistency and routine, to get (and keep) its writers in the habit of…well, writing.
Also, it provides a little competition–and that can only ever be a good thing, right?
I won’t be posting daily word counts here. Follow the third book’s journey to completion on Tumblr.
Firstly, Don’t worry, I know progress tables aren’t that interesting to those not directly involved with them. I won’t post these often, if ever again.
Secondly, The ISBW in brackets by my name is an indicator of how I came across this resource. ISBW stands for the “I Should Be Writing” podcast by Mur Lafferty, which is great for all authors, both published and aspiring.
In other news, I got “From The Ashes” back from the editor the other day with the line edits and a critique.
Good news, there wasn’t too much in dire need of revision.
Bad news, I don’t have much time to make the suggested changes, as I’ll have to order the paperback versions of the Advanced Reading Copies for the Goodreads giveaway before the end of the month.
Eep!
I am going to be working on “Divided They Fall (Blood of Ages, #2)” from now until I get the edited version of “From The Ashes” back at the end of August.
I’ve been trying to find a song to best summarise all the next book, but it’s hard.
A lot happens in Divided They Fall: it’s easily the busiest of the three novels. Readers get to see other sides of the war. The world gets bigger. New characters arrive. Old characters leave. The order shifts. The field gets levelled.
Basically, shit goes down.
I think the below summarises the story’s sentiment quite well, although I do have some backup tracks.
In all, I’m hoping to get the first draft of Divided They Fall finished by the end of November.
* This isn’t technically the first draft, since I’ve had bits of this story floating around since 2010. However, I’m planning on writing an almost “from scratch” draft, so it’s basically the same thing.
So the weekend was a roaring success for me and Kier Gill at the MCM Expo in Manchester.
Here we are just after setting up all the things:
We were sandwiched between a MLP (My Little Pony) stand and an art print stand.
Kier’s zombie prints were a real eye catcher–you could literally see people eyeing them up and making a beeline to the table.
We were so unprepared it was almost funny. Kier called out at some point to get some elastic bands (which were, by the way, some of the shittest elastic bands ever. These things must’ve been around since the 1970’s or something–fairly confident they were older than me) and jiffy bags for his prints, since people were struggling to carry them away–at one point, we had to ask the lady on the print stand if we could have one of her bags.
The two adjacent stands seemed to be good people. The MLP guy (here’s his web site) bought one of my books, and the print stand couple were staring out chopped apples at lunch. It was a nice atmosphere.
But JESUS, was it hot. At the start it wasn’t so bad; there was a nice breeze coming from the lofty building. But then people just kept coming, and COMING.
We had to rearrange the table at various points, because things were not getting seen. Much to Kier’s surprise, the MLP stand was hella busy, and as such we were getting overspill from that side (despite the stand owner’s best efforts to steer people to his own stand).
We also had to move the bookmarks back, as people kept taking them–though in hindsight, I probably should’ve just let them go, since I still have a good number that will now be taking up space in my house. We did give plenty away for free with other purchases, and I had business cards that people were happy enough to take, but still, letting people take the bookmarks too would’ve spread the word even more.
ANYWAY.
I had only 4 books left at the end of the day. I don’t know how many comics Kier sold, but judging from the movement on the day, I’m guessing it was more than me–they were cheaper, and it was a comic convention. Still, it was great to be approached and asked about my book. I really enjoyed it.
The table got more attention after I’d set up the “It’s not like Twilight” sign.
Somebody also came up asking where I got my t-shirt from, and I drew a complete blank, but since I’ve remembered–it was from perdita00 at RedBubble.
All in all, a busy, exciting, and sweaty day!
* Well, no, not more. That’s it. But that should be enough!
So here’s the inventory we will have with us at the Manchester MCM Expo on Saturday (wow, time has flown!):
I will be signing everything. The books, comics, bookmarks, scraps of paper, people’s faces…
I’m really looking forward to this, and having never done a convention before, I’m sure it’s going to be an…interesting experience.
We’re listed as “Penrefe Publications” and we’re on table P5. (Here’s a map)
You can buy tickets to the Expo here.
Hope to see you there!
I will be attending Manchester Comic Con with Kier Gill on the 20th July 2013.
I’ll be selling my books (obviously). He’ll be selling the first issue of the Blood of Ages graphic novel (and some pictures of zombies or whatever else he feels like selling–I don’t know, I’m not his mother).
You can buy tickets to the Expo here.
We will be at table P5. (Here’s a map)
If you are coming, you are more than welcome to come and say hi. Just don’t be offended if I don’t talk to you, or look at you awkwardly and smile awkwardly and then wait awkwardly for you to leave. I’m an introvert by nature–the entire day will be absolute torture for me.
Maybe I’ll see you there! o/
Those who know me know I love websites. I’m like a gnome (World of Warcraft, not Garden, variety) in that respect: I love to tinker.
So I’ve done (yet another) overhaul of my sites, and reorganised my “online presence” into something more segregated, like so:
I can’t promise this will be the last time I mess around with the sites like this. I can’t even pretend, because I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face.
TL:DR Want to know about my books? You’re in the right place. Really want to know about my books? Snoop here. Want to know about me? Check out my blog. Everyone else, shut up and go home.
2013/08/02 – I CHANGED MY MIND.
Everything, everything, is now on www.penrefe.com
SIMPLE.
(Best thing about this post? You can download ALL this music LEGITIMATELY right here.)
My introduction to the Legacy of Kain series was with the PlayStation game, Soul Reaver. It was a dark, atmospheric third person adventure game, with the usual block-moving puzzles made most popular by Crystal “Tomb Raider” Dynamics. But by far the favourite part for me was the music. By the second game, I’d become so fond of the soundtrack, I used to leave the game running just to have the music playing (these were before the days of YouTube–I had to work to listen to my favourite tracks!). (more…)
In association with Bewitching Book Tours, from the 1st to the 15th of March 2013, I will be whoring myself around various book blog sites on the Interwebz to promote “The Genesis” and also to do other, more interesting, things.
Spotlights, Interviews, Guest Blogs, Reviews…you’ll get to see them all! Oh my glob*, this is so exciting, you guys.
Here is the current line-up for the tour, which will start on March 1st:
| Date | Blog Name | Post Type |
| 1-Mar-13 | Fang-tastic Books | Interview |
| 2-Mar-13 | Curling Up With A Good Book | Interview |
| 2-Mar-13 | Krystal’s Enchanting Reads | Spotlight |
| 3-Mar-13 | Pembroke Sinclair | Interview |
| 4-Mar-13 | White Sky Project | Spotlight |
| 5-Mar-13 | Butterfly-o-Meter Books | Review & Guest Blog |
| 5-Mar-13 | Paranormal Book Club | Spotlight |
| 6-Mar-13 | Michelle @ Mom With A Kindle | Guest Blog |
| 6-Mar-13 | Unraveling Words | Review |
| 7-Mar-13 | Howling Books and Design | Spotlight |
| 8-Mar-13 | Love YA Books | Interview |
| 9-Mar-13 | Lunar Haven Reviews and Designs | Guest Blog |
| 11-Mar-13 | Jodie Pierce | Interview |
| 12-Mar-13 | Beauty in Ruins | Guest Blog |
| 12-Mar-13 | Immortality & Beyond | Interview |
| 13-Mar-13 | Book Addict | Guest Blog |
| 13-Mar-13 | A Dream Within A Dream | Spotlight |
| 14-Mar-13 | Nomi’s Paranormal Palace | Spotlight |
| 14-Mar-13 | Phantasmic Reads | Review & Spotlight |
| 15-Mar-13 | Secret Southern Couture, | Spotlight |
I will be posting daily (maybe twice daily, depending on the content), for the duration of the tour, which will include links to the post(s). Make sure you check them out. I’ll be putting up all kind of insightful stuff!
Boy, if I didn’t have a genuine reason to finish the first draft of The Vampire’s Son by the end of February, now I really do.
* Been watching a lot of Adventure Time recently. Lumpy Space Princess is my favourite EVERYTHING.
A while back, I talked about how I didn’t want to release the paperback edition of “The Genesis” straight after finishing it, because I knew there’d be typos and the like. Well, after another two months’ worth of re-reading and proofing, the paperback is finally here.
You can totes buy this now:
I know there will still be typos hiding in there somewhere. I just know it.
My book has been through beta readers, through an editor, and re-read by yours truly too many times to mention. And still, at the final proofreading stage, there were a total of 149 changes. Granted, a large portion of these were formatting issues, but that figure includes sixteen typos. Sixteen. Six-teen. Six and ten.
But then that’s the magic of eBooks. Made a boo-boo? No problemo! Just whack up the changes and notify people to update their version. Granted, it still doesn’t look great to the people who originally bought it when you go around making stupid mistakes, but I imagine it’s easier to forgive when you can just replace it with an undated edition instead of a lump of a dead tree, where those errors will live forever.
It just reaches a point where you have to let it go, move on, accept that nothing can be absolutely perfect. Otherwise, I’d still be proofing it next year, and probably the year after. I can’t be proofreading ad infinitum. I have other books to write, to have edited and beta read and proofread and to send out into the ether, most likely with mistakes in those, too.
So yes, it’s out there.
I love you all.