Twas the night before NaNoWriMo...

And all through the house,

Not a creature was stirring,

And no panic had set in.

Feeling pretty good about it, actually, which may just be denial, but hey, I'll take it. Not panicked, not worried. Just finishing up a nice Hallowe'en with my little girl and her Granny, and about 60 kids ranging in age from 2 to maybe 15 who came to the door. The cutest was the 3-year old dressed as a penguin.

Only a few of the kids noticed I had a skull under my arm. But then, they don't notice these things with adults, or possibly try to ignore them. One was impressed and said so.

So, the night before NaNoWriMo, and I'm feeling pretty good. Know the story, know the lead character, know the other main ones, have some idea of plot. It should all be good.

So, if I'm not posting much here, you probably won't notice the difference! (Yeah, I know I don't post enough). But seriously, I will try to get some posts up telling how it is going. I'm looking forward to it.

And now, soon to bed, to rest up for the big event.

What? How did a week go by?

It's been a week since I've posted anything, which is bad from a marketing point of view. Most things I've read suggest you should be writing at least a post every two or three days for best coverage, with 2 out of five posts on brand (meaning about my books).

So where have I been?

Exhausted.

I've a lot on the go right now, in work, in school (yes, I'm back in classes), in writing and in life. So much so that I haven't been sleeping at all well. The result: no posts.

So, I'll try to come up with something a bit more creative later this week. Now, I am going to go to sleep for a few hours.

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.

More Marketing Stuff

Can you tell I'm taking a class in this right now?

Anyway, found an interesting site called Dosh Dosh with some good marketing information on it, run out of my hometown of Toronto.

Not sure what's with all the anime images but they do attract the eye and the information they are hanging around is sound. There's some good tips for those of us trying to organize a marketing campaign.

This article, for example, on Push Marketing vs Pull Marketing does a nice job of laying out some tactics to use online for getting more folks interested in what you sell.

Anyway, it is late, and no more homework is happening tonight. I'm gonig to see if I can get some sleep and manage a workout tomorrow morning.

I have been staring at a computer for four days straight...

Time to take a night off. I'm curling up with a book.

Speaking of books, Cold Magics is coming along nicely. Had hoped to be finished by now but life, as usual, interrupted. High hopes for the end of August, though.

And maybe popcorn. I could use some popcorn.

Stress Days

We did our household budget last night, and things are not looking exactly shiny at the moment. Need to magically come up with a couple of million dollars so all my pains and cares can be washed away.

Unfortunately, I already checked the weekend's lottery tickets and for some strange reason, I didn't win. I am stunned. Stunned, I tell you.

Money is one of life's big stressors, especially if you haven't got enough of it. Coping with money stress in in fact one of thebiggest problems couples have to deal with, according to some studies. Unfortunately, I manifest stress in lack of sleep, so I'm feeling mighty baked this morning.

Anyway, working away at finding work, as well as writing and organizing and budgeting and retraining and all the other fun stuff that makes unemployment such a joy. Had my first coffee in about a month and a half this morning, which is why I'm functioning to type this.

The plan for the rest of the day: more of the same, plus cooking dinner. Orange Pork Stir-fry. Yummy.

Geek Link!

Solar wind may owe its speed to helium: study

And so folks know, I'm on vacation this week. Sleep (if I can convince my body to do it), time to exercise, time to watch a movie, and househunting.

I'll be blogging still, but look for the posts to be much more relaxed.