Good morning, Readers!

So, this morning was a whirl.  I woke up quite literally three minutes before I had to leave the house.  You have never seen someone get dressed and feed the cats so damned fast.  Waking up went something like this:

How I got to work on time is anyone's guess.  But I did, and I'm here, and I'm giddy with joy because one of my writing dreams has come true.

You can find my books in (a) store.  An actual, physical location where my books actually sit on a shelf for you to pick up and flip through.  That store is Heart Tea Heart in the Merivale Mall.  I've posted about them on Facebook before.

The store is run by my friend Rob Olsen, and sells really wonderful teas.  I'm in love with their Knights of Avalon tea, by the way.  It is SO GOOD.  I cannot recommend them enough, and not just because I'm a good friend who wants to see Rob be successful, but because their tea is genuinely wonderful.  Seriously.  I have three bags of it.

But back to the point of this post...

MY BOOKS ARE IN A SHOP!  YAY!

My books with pretty gift boxes of tea!

My books with bags of tea!

Also, Rob has read Ethan Cadfael: The Battle Prince and very smartly put it with the Knights of Avalon tea.  To find out why, you'll have to go buy the tea... and the book!  The pairing made me smile so much.  Also, Human with the English Breakfast tea also made me smile.  Because Aleksandar.  Duh.

Confused?  You'll have to go buy the tea... and the book!

I'm so thrilled that Rob approached me with the offer of stocking my books, and I'm excited that it's happened.

So, go check out Heart Tea Heart in the Merivale Mall for your Christmas shopping.  Pairing books with tea would make a great gift for the book lover in your circle!

Alright, that's my brag for today.  I have books in a shop.  I'm so happy!  Now I must go and write... which is another thing that makes me happy.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Saturday was the first holiday craft fair put on by the wonderful people who run C.O.N. (Creative Ottawa Nerds).

I couldn't make the morning half, due to events, but I did manage to get in for set-up before dashing out to teach my martial arts classes, after which I rushed back to the venue to spend the rest of the convention surrounded by wonderful, creative, nerdy people.

My Kung Fu brother Jerry was instrumental in getting me around on Saturday, and I owe him a great deal.  Thanks so much Jerry!  I couldn't have done any of it without your help.

Anyway, it was a wonderful day, Saturday.  And for once in C.O.N. history, it didn't rain!  Yay!  I was in the centre island, beside the wonderful Cait Gordon, who is both an author with Renaissance Press and a wonderful paper artist.  Another plug, she's also doing editing for independent writers.  She's good. You should really check out her stuff.

Here is her book.
Here is her paper crafting.
Here is her editing stuff.

Tell you what, though, sitting next to Cait means you're in for a brilliant time.  She's so wonderfully fun and funny.  I laughed so much Saturday.

Brilliantly, C.O.N. is held in support of the Ottawa Food Bank, with cover fees being a small cash donation or non-perishable, all of which goes straight to the food bank.

And you all did wonderfully!

So, thank you, you beautiful people!  You've helped make Christmas a little easier for people this year, and it warms the cockles of my frozen heart.

With all the terrible things happening in the world today, it is more important than ever to step and and be the good the world so desperately needs.

To alter a quote from Jana Stanfield:

We can do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good we can do.

I heart you all.  You're my favourite.

And now I must go write.

Ciao!

Good morning Readers!

It was C.O.N. this weekend, and I'll do a more thorough write up of it tomorrow, but today I wanted to talk about Sky Road Walker.

So, as you know, I decided to do some good with this book and donate proceeds to the Ottawa Caring and Sharing Exchange, a local charity that does great work helping struggling people have enough to get them through difficult times.  You can read more about them on their website here.

Since C.O.N. was this weekend, I set that as the cut-off date; when I would do all the calculations and get all the reports to figure out how much we raised for them.  So I did it this morning the minute I got into work.

​In the spirit of total openness, below is the final spreadsheet listing the final amounts for this year as per the reports generated from Square, Smashwords and Kindle Direct:

I'm so proud of us!

That's a good start to the charitable side of my business that I want to get underway.  Naturally, I would have liked to send them a cheque for hundreds  of dollars.  Perhaps one day we'll get there.  As it is now, this is brilliant!

A note on the Smashwords eBook amounts: the eBook is available as a pay-what-you-want book if purchased directly from Smashwords.com.  Of the 17 copies sold, 15 were purchased at $0.00.  The other two sold for $2.95 and $0.99 respectively.  For ease of reporting, I took the total amount of $3.17 and averaged them out across all copies sold.  In future reports, the amount donated per sale will vary, depending on what the buyer decides to donate per book.

The cheque has been written and will go into the mail tonight.

I'm so happy, and want to thank you all for supporting this effort to raise funds for a great charity.  It pleases me no end to be able to do something for my community.

I've been wanting to make a difference for some time now.  I've been mulling over how for years before I even started the first Your Very Own Adventure Story.  I don't have enough money to donate on my own, and I find myself far too busy to volunteer often.  I wanted to do more.

One of the few things I have is the ability to write.  So, I figured that making a book or two fundraising efforts, I could make something of a difference in the world around me, even if only a little bit.

You made this possible, and I really am grateful.

So well done you!

Now I must go and start on my new story. My word goal is 2 000 per day.  Wish me luck!

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I haven't much to report currently, so I thought I'd let you know that the good people at Bundoran Press, a local science fiction publisher, is running an Indegogo for a new anthology they're putting out.

They're a fantastic publisher and really wonderful people.  They'd like very much to be able to pay the contributors of their latest anthology a fair payment for their stories.

Enter the Indegogo campaign.

There are some pretty amazing perks to contributing to this campaign, including physical and electronic copies of the anthology, which is estimated to come out October next year.

You should really check it out.  

Contribute if you can.  I very much would like to see writers get paid fairly and Bundoran consistently puts out really awesome stuff.

I like to see things be successful.  It gives me the warm and fuzzies.

And that's all I've got for you today.  Go check out Bundoran's new Indegogo!

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers

I'm still watching The Big Fat Quiz, and it's still cracking me up. I was in hysterics this morning, as Dara O'Briain was on the 90s episode, and I honestly think he is the funniest comedian I've ever seen.  His bit on video games still makes me cry-laugh.

There are few comedians I would really want to meet.  Mr. O'Briain is one.  He's genuinely hilarious.

Yesterday a new idea struck me.  It's been something I've been mulling over in my head for some time now, but yesterday I got the bug to write it.  That's generally a sign that it's time to start writing the thing.  I have the beginning, the protagonists and the ending.  That's pretty much all I need to start writing, so I might abandon my current project and get to writing this one.

Then I want to adapt it for a television miniseries or a webseries.  It would be too expensive for me to put on myself, but it would be a good exercise in writing for television.  It would be a new skill to add to my writing suit.

I'm not telling you any more about it until the manuscript is written and away to the first beta reader, though I may post occasional snippets on my Facebook page.  Maybe at the end of each writing week.

This new development has me excited about writing again, which is nice.  That said, I really have to finish rewriting Soldier, the first book of my grimdark fantasy series The Great Man.  In almost every manuscript, there comes a point when the writing is no longer exiting, and it's an utter drag to force yourself to sit down and write the thing.

That is what separates professional writers with aspiring writers, I think.

Note here, both are absolutely writers, and both can lay claim to that title.  Neither you nor I have the right to tell aspiring writers that they are not, in fact, writers.  M'kay?

So, I think I will have a new writing schedule beginning next week.  Mondays to Thursdays will be spent writing this new story, Friday will be spend writing the new Your Very Own Adventure story Skara Braens, and Soldier.   That way, I'll be plodding along with Soldier (thousand words a week is far better than no words a week), despite no longer being excited by it.

'Cause I'm a professional.

Or something.

Anyway, I have language lessons to be getting on with, and then writing stuff.

Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

How are you all?

I'm getting more and more depressed at the news coming out of the U.S. of late.  It's scary stuff.

So, naturally, I'm escaping with things that make me laugh.  Of late, it's been watching old episodes of a British quiz show call the The Big Fat Quiz of (insert relevant year).  It's a bunch of comedians participating ins a pub-style quiz and it's frakkin' hilarious.  I was laughing like a maniac last night as I watched 2014's episode.  It was some serious laughter happening, and it startled the cats.

Laughter certainly does make things better, even if for only a little bit.

I was pretty productive yesterday, though I spent most of the day drawing.  I was asked to design a friend's tattoo.  He's getting it in honour of the birth of his daughter, which I think is very sweet.  It will also be his first tattoo, so he's quite nervous about it.  I will be accompanying him to the consultation and the actual tattooing. Most of the day was spent drawing tattoo designs, until we struck something that he felt like he could put on his skin forever.

Also on the list yesterday was soliciting book reviews for Sky Road Walker.  Most of the time, traditionally published authors don't have to worry so much about soliciting reviews from people, especially if the publishing house is relatively large.  And for good reason, too.  It's time-consuming, and that's time better spent writing/editing/other writerly things.

I could spew forever about how much I hate marketing, but it is absolutely a necessary evil.  For those of us who are self-published, we must handle it all ourselves.  Once you get into the swing of soliciting reviews, it's not that bad.  It's still tedious and annoying and frustrating and time I'd rather be spending writing or drawing, but there you go.

Today will be spent beta reading, as I'm quite behind in that regard.

On that note, I must go.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I feel like a right fool today.

Saturday night was supposed to be the monthly meet-up I run for anyone who just wants to come and hang out over dinner and drinks.  It happened, I'm told.  Only I wasn't there.

While I do have a fairly good excuse involving the beginnings of a migraine, I forgot about the meet-up entirely.  If I'm not well, I usually send out an emergency broadcast email letting people know.  Not this time.  This time, all thoughts of the meet-up completely slipped my mind.  i thought I had put in the alarm for it when I entered it in my phone's calendar, but I guess not.

I'm so, so, so sorry to those who went.  I understand that you had a fun time regardless, but I'm so very sorry about the whole debacle. Most everyone I've apologised to has told me it's not a big deal, but it kind of is, at least to me.  I'm quite frustrated at myself for it.  It's not on, and I'm sorry.

To make up for it, I'll be breaking my No-Meet-Ups-In-December rule and scheduling one for early December.  So, eNewsletter subscribers, check December's email for details...

And I'm sorry again!

Sunday was better, though Saturday's headache had blossomed into a full-out migraine.  I managed to get out of the house to spend the day with my Dad as a belated birthday celebration.  We hung out and later went to dinner and a movie.  We watched Doctor Strange, which was well worth the viewing.  It was precisely what I've come to expect from Marvel.

There is a lot for me to do today, including trying to design a friend's tattoo, so I'm off for a second cup of coffee and then to get stuck into work.

​Ciao!