Monday, March 30, 2009

Geek Link!

For all you archaeology buffs out there, possibly the coolest archaeology geek link I've come across in a long while:

The Archaeology Channel

This is a great website. All sorts of neat videos on all things archaeological. I watched a really interesting one on the relationship between early steel forging and the deforestation of part of India.

Very cool.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Great Weekend!

I just finished up at Ad Astra, and I want to say, I had a blast!

As with every con I've been to (all three now) folks were friendly and fun, panels were great, the other speakers lots of fun to discuss and argue with, and everyone very nice. Some great costume work, too.

So, lots of fun was had, lots more to be had. My next goal is Worldcon in Montreal in June, and I'll be blogging more about that soon. And now, I need a nap and then, I need to do homework.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Ad Astra - Quick Saturday Blog

Having a great time so far at Ad Astra. I actually had people at my reading of Small Magics! It was amazing. Especially when you realize I was opposite the guest of honor meet and greet and the pajama party. I damn near left myself.

And I had my camera in my pocket and was going to take pictures but I forgot. Sigh.

I had a great time. I met the woman who will be editing my next book for Dragon Moon Press: Gabrielle Harbowy. Nice woman, great sense of humour was willing to listen to me ramble on for far too long.

Got to hear Douglas Smith read one of his short stories. He's amazing. Great writer. Has his first novel nealrly done and I can't wait to read it.

(Word of advice to folks out there: long periods of low sleep + too much caffeine = babbling idiot)

Today, I've got a panel in the morning and an autograph session in the afternoon. Then I get to come home and miss entirely the evening sessions in favour of grinding out this report which we should have done far more on by now. Oh well.

Off to shower and shave, then off to the Con!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

A Little Bit of Luxury

It's troubled times, we all know, and there's many folks facing a lot of hardship. Those of us who have jobs are working hard to keep them, and those who don't are working hard to find new ones.

In the midst of all this struggle, though, a little luxury is a fine, fine thing. Here's a great little article on luxuryfrom CBC. It's also a great reminder that luxury doesn't have to mean having all the fancies.. It can just mean treating yourself once in a while.

Now THAT is comedy!

This one is making the rounds of facebook, but I had to put it here after reading it:

Pub is closed by Monty Python grenade

Yes, the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is once more loose in the world.

*snerk!*

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Ad Astra, Bookmarks and Marketing

Well, another long weekend filled with work. Fortunately, half of it was for myself instead of for class, so that was nice.

Built a bookmark to help push Small Magics at Ad Astra next weekend. My reading is at 9 p.m. Friday night, and I'm hoping to bring in some people. I'll also be doing a signing on Saturday at 4 p.m. I'll be bringing copies of Small Magics, so if you want one, here's a place to get it.

The bookmark is pretty cool:



Not bad for 8 hours work on Gimp (open source image manipulation software. Not Photoshop, but mighty good). Now the issue is, can I get them printed on time for Thursday evening, which is when they are stuffing them in the package. Got a call out to a print shop near my work, so we'll see what happens.

Very much looking forward to Ad Astra. I haven't been since Sandy McMaster and I did a stage combat demo there year and years and years ago. Should be lots of fun, a good chance to promote the book, and I get to do signings and all that other fun stuff.

Also, while surfing for ideas for the website at work, I came across a couple of interesting sites. One — Browsershots — allows you to see what your website looks like on a bunch of different browsers from all over thee internet. Mine looks mighty similar in all of them, so I'm quite pleased. Another — WebDistortion — is by an Irish web designer and is giving me some interesting ideas for when I resdesign my website, or possibly when I hire someone else to do it. I'm kind of busy and those things take time. Also some good articles on web marketing.

And finally, a fun little piece on why you get all your best ideas in the shower, and how to retain them.

And that's it for me. From Sunday night to Thursday I had a grand total of 16 hours sleep, so I'm now playing catch up.

Hey, only three more weeks of classes left, then a week to recover, and it's time to start editing Cold Magics (the blurb is halfway down the page). I'm looking forward to it almost as much as I am looking forward to getting started on my next writing project.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Another Late Night

I am once more burning the midnight oil, and unfortunately, not writing while I'm doing it. This has been a pattern for the last few months as I take classes and try to stay ahead of them.

Unfortunately, it isnt happening.

Right now I'm wired on caffeine to stay awake, struggling to get finished what I need to get finished (which is neither writing nor classwork but some old business which should have been resolved months ago), and hoping that once this is out of the way, I can get focused on the things I need to focus on to get caught up and maybe, with luck, even ahead.

On the bright side, I'm booked to go to two conventions this summer, and have to book myself into a third (that one in Montreal - expensive, but the publisher will be there).

Anyway, back to the grind. I want to get to sleep before midnight.

Free Blog Counter