Good morning, Readers!

Phew!  I've had a busy weekend.

Friday evening saw me so exhausted from the week that I went home and crashed.  I collapsed on my bed and slept for a couple of hours before dragging myself from slumber to edit the first of the ChiSeries readings.  You can watch it HERE if you want.  It's a great, quite sad tale called Dracula Must Die by talented Torontonian author David Nickle.

Speaking of video editing, yesterday was the charity screening of Joss Whedon's Serenity at the Mayfair Theatre here in Ottawa.  Thanks to the Ottawa Browncoats for organising the event.  This does have something to do with video editing.  Stay with me.  Tom of same said organisation helps out a lot with the Silver Stag Entertainment YouTube channel I run, and he asked me to pull together a trailer for the video podcast that goes up every week on the channel.  Not knowing how to capture the spirit of the show, it took me forever to edit together something even remotely decent.  I managed it, though - I hope - and I sent it off to him.  It aired last night during the screening.

I was saving it to show the world until after the initial screening.  I heard tell that it made people laugh, which is what I was going for.  In case you're curious, here is the trailer:

But back to this weekend.  Saturday was spent at a friend's wedding.  It was a beautiful afternoon for it, if a little unseasonably warm.  The location was stunning, with lakes and fountains and the changing colours of autumn.  Sigh.  It really was lovely.  I might also add, that I went not expecting to cry and ended up tearing up quite a bit.

In any case, my most hearty congratulations to the happy couple.  I hope there are many more years of joy ahead of you both.

Sunday, I had a meeting with Rob Olsen of Geek Inked Magazine.  It was more of a friendly get together thing, but it did involve work, so I'm calling it a meeting.  Then I headed over to Patty Boland's Irish Pub and waited for the rest of the Nights at the Round Table crew to arrive to film.  In between the video editing, the wedding, the filming and the meeting, I had to somehow read a book (thank goodness it was short), watch a movie, fix the formatting errors found when I uploaded The Winter Wolf to Smashwords for pre-order and try and get started organising my book launch party.

It was busy weekend.

On the bright side, I managed to read to book and watch the movie.  They were filmed for Nights at the Round Table yesterday, and the book panel should be live right on time tonight.  Even better, I think all the formatting issues have been fixed.  The book should be available for pre-order via various retailers soon.

If you really want to pre-order the eBook for your Kindle, that is already available HERE.

And pre-ordering for the paperback edition is also an option.  If you want.  You can do that HERE.

I'm not much closer to getting my launch party organised, though.  The book is due out Hallowe'en.  In relative time, that's actually quite soon.  I have made it a habit to have the launch the weekend after.  This time, however, the weekend after Hallowe'en is close enough to the actual date that I fear I'll be clashing with other functions... which would make me sad.  I'm currently conflicted.  Should I hold it the Saturday, and risk the other parties that are sure to be happening and thus have people not attend?  Or do I do the same on Sunday, and risk people not attend because it's Sunday?

I'm actually leaning towards Sunday, though OC Transpo's idiotic weekend scheduling would make it difficult for those without a car.  I figure I wouldn't be disturbing too many parties on Sunday and if we end it fairly early on Sunday, then people wouldn't be stuck waiting for buses for ages.

What do you think, readers?

Right, I have to get back to my Welsh lessons, and then to writing.

Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

How was your evening?  Good?  Good.

I burnt my hand.

That's really all I wanted to say.

I'm a little accident prone, if you haven't guessed already.  To be honest though, burning my hand was less an accident than an incredible act of monumental stupidity.  For future reference, don't grab the handle of the cast iron skillet you just took out of the oven without an oven mitt.  Just don't do it.

The burn isn't terrible, thank goodness.  I thought it was going to blister something awful, but we got the aloe gel and Polysporin on it in time.  Now it just looks like I have some vaguely pink plastic stuck to my hand.

Moving swiftly along, The Winter Wolf received its first review!  Yay!  It's a lovely review too:

Wasn't that lovely?

Full disclosure:  I know the reviewer.  He's a good friend of mine, and one half of the awesome couple behind JenEric Designs.  He was also a Beta Reader for the book, coming through for me when my previous second Beta Reader found herself unable to finish; understandably, I might add.

An aside:  Beta Readers do this stuff for free.  They are often fellow writers who have lives, goals and dreams outside of your work.  Be mindful of that, and don't expect a Beta Reader to drop everything at your call.  It doesn't work like that.

Right, anyway, he stepped in last minute and did a fantastic job.

The thing is, I totally forgot that he was a Beta Reader for the book, and was gearing up to politely ask him why he reviewed the book without reading it... because, you know, I generally frown on that sort of thing.  Even if the review is complimentary.

I totally thought I was getting a pity review, okay?

Point is, it wasn't a pity review.  And I think I may have insulted poor Éric a bit by admitting it was.  He's really not the type to give a fake review.  Sorry Éric!  On the bright side, that means I can use this review for promotion stuff without feeling like an utter fraud!

Huzzah!

The review is up on Goodreads, as is the giveaway I'm currently running for a free copy of the book.  You should totally CLICK THE LINK.

Ahem...

So, that's really everything I wanted to cover.  Want a picture?  Here's a picture:

Ciao!