In which the holidays eat my blog posts...

I'm missing Artemis, and so I'm posting a picture of her in order to ease the pain. (She's with a friend while the husband and I are off visiting family in the states.)

Well, this will likely be the last post in December, and it's really a token post to mark the winter solstice. I am with family and have been traveling and visiting folks since the 14th. That has been rather all consuming, so I am not getting much else done. Which is fine really, and I'm truly enjoying getting a chance to relax and spend time with my folks. (And I'm still squeaking in some writing on the side, have no fear.)

I am about to get back to doing all of that, but first just a quick note to wish everyone happy solstice, happy winter holidays, and a Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, and Happy Kwanzaa if you're into those kinds of things. :-)

Also, for those who are interested, the sales on Blade's Edge ebook and paperback versions will continue through the 26th. So if you still need to do any holiday shopping for the readers in your life, please consider it. 

I am off to eat food and socialize with family and I hope that everyone else is able to do the same. Warm wishes to all!

Winter Travels and Some Random Facts...

Did you know that penguins have knees? True story. They're just tucked inside their little bodies. Either that, or someone on the internet has been having fun with photoshop. But there are lots of images supporting this, so people have really been making an effort if that's the case.

This information brought to you by a delayed airline departure during holiday travels. 

Thanks, interwebs.

In other, related news the husband and I are off to visit family in the US. Yay! I'm very much looking forward to seeing my family and eating lots of food. Let, the festivities begin!

For those of you who missed it, I posted some new videos to my youtube channel. And you can check them out at any time by clicking that link or the link that sits in the left hand bar on over there. Just a reminder that those videos are probably only entertaining if you're interested in the publishing process, but if you just like watching me be goofy on camera you might enjoy some of them anyway. ;-) 

As the holidays are upon us, I've joined the rest of the entrepreneurs around the world in discounting some things that you can buy. Namely, the Blade's Edge ebook (for kindle) is down to $2.99 (normally $4.99) from now until December 26th. If you have a reader in your life who enjoys women with swords, fantasy, and anything related to samurai or feudal Japan please consider getting them a copy as a gift. You can gift kindle ebooks to people, and the trade paperback is only $11.99* (normally $15.99), plus amazon is offering a one time 25% discount on paperback book orders! 

*ETA: My price change for the paperback went through faster than I thought, so the paperback is on sale too! (Also 'til the 26th)

Just FYI if you're looking for other formats of ebook you might notice that I no longer have the book for sale via kobo, nook, or bookbaby. There's a long story behind that, but the short version is that bookbaby was not an effective distributor and I have canceled my business dealings with them in order to manage all versions of the ebook myself. I will be trying out KDP Select with Blade's Edge for a bit, and then you may see it go back to other retailers in the future. In the meantime, you can still buy the print book from just about anywhere. (If you are a Nook owner and would like an epub copy of Blade's Edge please contact me! I would be happy to get you an epub copy for the same price as the current kindle edition pricing, and you can pay via paypal.) 

Ok. That's enough commercialism. I'm excited to go visit family for the next two weeks and I hope everyone out there is able to do the same whether it requires traveling or not. Happy Winter, folks! May your days be full of good food, good company, and interesting conversation!

New Videos Are Up!

Well, it took a lot more editing than I had anticipated, and it turns out that it made more sense to split the original footage into two videos rather than three, but here they are!

Welcome to December!

Well, I'm back from my travels in the southwest, but am poised to head off on more adventures on the east coast for a bit of family midwinter celebrations. I laugh at the term midwinter, as midwinter in Winnipeg is generally sometime in February, but hey, if we're just talking shortest day of the year, we're almost there.

Sorry I didn't get any blogging done last week. Between travel and recovering from travel, it was not a very productive time. This week I'm back at work, which for me means blogging, making videos, and, of course, writing.

I'm happy to announce that I managed to squeak out 50,000 words in November despite how busy I was on my trip. Unfortunately for me, I was so bad about keeping up with writing that I wrote just over 12,000 words in the first two weeks and then nothing until the final four days where I suddenly knocked out about 38,000. I don't recommend that. At all.

But it worked.

So my new total for both manuscripts is the following:

Traitor's Hope: 61,578 words
Victoria Marmot: 25,031 words

Total words for both projects: 86,609

Is that the 150,000 words I was shooting for back in September when I started this project? No. No, it isn't. But it's still a lot and I hope to finish off both manuscripts in the remainder of December. Big plans, folks. BIG PLANS.

I had to take a brief writing break after the huge amount of output in the last few days of November. I actually, with no exaggeration, made myself feel exhausted and hungover for a few days from just the sheer volume of creative output in those days. And before you ask, no, no actual alcohol was involved in that hangover. Though I would not have turned it down had it been offered.

So... December. A month I'm generally quite fond of, but this year is likely to look like a toned down version of November, or rather a month in which I plan to actually write every day at a reasonable pace instead of doing the stupid break-neck of the end of November that I did once already. Did I mention what a bad idea that was? Terrible. Awful. Seriously... don't do that if you can avoid it.

Ok, enough of that. So, coming soon there will be a series of not one, not two, but THREE new youtube videos. The reason for that is that I made one huge video and realized it was probably better to cut it up into smaller, more digestible pieces. It's a video made to help folks who are trying decide whether or not to go indie or trad when it comes to publishing. I've tried to make it as unbiased as I can, but I think it's possible a bit of bias crept in there.

Anyway, I actually need to get going in order to go edit the aforementioned videos, and maybe go for a run. I'm trying not to let the colder weather stop me from running... we'll see how my lungs feel about that. Luckily I have a pull-up bar now in order to keep me from getting zero exercise at all. (Have I told you about the pull-up toll? It's my favorite game. Every time you walk under the pull up bar you have to pay the pull up toll. Exercising has never been so short format.)

I will leave you with a few photos of Artemis enjoying our new apartment (did I mention my husband moved us between two apartments by himself while I was down in the US?) and the colder weather which, of course, appeals to her.

Take a look at these shadows... this photo was taken at noon.

As was this one

Artemis has a tough life.

And here's a shot of our midwinter flare!