Two-fer-Tuesday
I’m over at Sara Dobie Bauer’s site with an interview all about The Clockwork Dagger. She’ll have a review of the book up on Thursday! Eep!
You can also find me at J. Kathleen Cheney’s blog where I discuss the joys of grammatical goofs.
On that subject, Weird Al’s new video has brought me much happiness on a morning where my allergies are doing unkind things to my body. Thanks for the distraction, Al. <3
Read MoreA Mention to Mention
With my book coming out soon, I can’t help but be paranoid about people talking about me. But this isn’t junior high–I want them to talk about me. Book sales are all about generating buzz. However, Google Alerts haven’t worked in years.
Lo and behold, I was keenly interested in an SFWA blog on Finding Replacements for Google Alerts by Caren Gussoff. She listed two replacement options, and I decided to give one a try: Mention.
I’ve been using Mention for a week now and I am very pleased. Every day it’s sending me links–a few are old, but most are new. I’ve found out about a number of book blogs spreading the word about two upcoming anthologies I’m in, FAE and A is for Apocalypse, and there’ve also been some positive mentions of The Clockwork Dagger on Absolute Write, Twitter, and major fan sites.
If you want to monitor key words online, you might want to give Mention a try.
[Now I’m curious if Mention will alert Caren Gussoff that I mentioned her name. I hope so. I want to tell her thanks!]
Read MorePhoenix Comicon, in Retrospect
Wow. What a weekend.
From Thursday with the craziness of the Holy Taco Church and friends dining together in a former church now dubbed the Taco Guild, to Friday’s full day of convention, to Saturday with back-to-back panels and a grand finale of Drinks with Authors… whew! I’m still tired. My toenails are even sore after two days of steampunk boots.
I’m very happy I was able to share the days with my friend Rachel, who flew out from Texas to keep me sane, because I do crazy things like feed churros to the people but I don’t feed myself. We also glammed ourselves up for Saturday!
I made so many new friends. Maybe a few enemies. But we won’t speak of them.
Plus, I was even provided the divinity known as Churro Bacon Cupcakes. A holy chorus sang. For a few brief seconds, the world was at peace.
Then the cupcake was gone and the world went to crap again.
But that’s okay, because there’s always next year, and more awesome people, and more cupcakes.
Read MorePhoenix Comicon Schedule
Next weekend, I’m a panelist at Phoenix Comicon. My first time as panelist and it’s at a honkin’ huge event–some 30,000 people will attend Saturday alone! This is my schedule as it looks right now:
- The Secret Lives of Debut Authors : Friday 4:30pm – 5:30pm
- Science Fiction and Fantasy Poets : Saturday 10:30am – 11:30am
- Fantasy that Defies Description : Saturday 12:00pm – 1:00pm
The most current info can be found at my guest page.
In addition, I’ll be stalking a lot of my author-friends (and Nathan Fillion. Because reasons.). I’ll be in steampunk attire… and at this con, that pretty much means I’ll blend in. Which is pretty awesome, I think.
If you’ll be attending, let me know! And please, come up and say hi.
Read MoreCareer Day
Last week I took part in Career Day for 6th-8th graders at my son’s school. This was my first time doing any public speaking about writing, and for an age group that’s known to be a tough but honest crowd! I spent four hours straight talking to four different groups of students.
A few things that stood out to me:
– they loved it that I mentioned anime and video games, and that I encouraged them to use fan fiction as inspiration and practice. I saw lots of friends whisper and nudge each other when I said that. A big part of my talk was that anything that uses imagination isn’t a waste of time–and that the video games I loved at their age inspire things in my books even now.
– they wanted to know about all the work that went into the creation of my book cover. I hadn’t even planned to talk about this, but the host teacher brought it up and it interested every single group.
There was another common question they asked: “Who’s the guy on the cover?” Not a single person asked about the woman. I love that they connected with Alonzo, the rare dark-skinned guy on a book cover. It makes me want to shake the book industry and say, ‘SEE?!’
We need more books–and book covers–that reflect our diversity. Kids needs to see more strong characters who look like them.
– talking about the apocalypse makes me cool. Me, cool. How crazy is that?
– they always asked how old I am. I don’t mind saying that I’m 34.
– one girl had the most gorgeous purple hair. I am still in envy of that hair.
After each talk, I had several students stay behind to tell me about what they wrote and ask me some questions. This meant everything to me. When I was their age, I would have walked on hot lava to talk to an author. I saw myself in them, and it made me happy for the future.
Read More
