Boarding The Enterprise

Great news!

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Ben & Bella books to see whether I might want to read, review, and give away a couple copies of the new, anniversary edition of Boarding The Enterprise edited by Robert J. Sawyer and David Gerrold for whom I have the utmost respect. Of course, the email went to my junk mail folder and then I was traveling and sick and injured and a million other things but eventually I got my biz together enough to reply and say, "Yes! Sure thing!"

And then a few more days went by as I put off figuring out how to run a legit giveaway here on the blog... but now, finally, I have put the exceedingly creaky wheels of progress in motion.

See. I have a blog tour banner and everything! I'm no(t too much of a) slouch!

Alright, I have TWO copies of this book to giveaway (US & Canada only please (sorry spam bots from Russia) for super practical shipping reasons) and you can enter thusly:

Option 1: Leave a comment below with the title of your favorite episode. That's it.
Option 2: Tweet about this blog or this book or both at once if you're feeling efficient.
Option 3: Tweet using the hashtag: #BeamMeUpAgain

My impression of this is that it will be easy. Presumably easier than that time I wrote a bunch of names down and drew them out of a legit wizard hat my husband owns because of reasons. (Magic reasons.)
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I Request A Do-Over

Last week, my second novel, Silver Tongue was released from Seventh Star Press! Hooray! I'd had a big day planned and everything was going really well and then the walls sort of came down when there was an emergency in my family and we were all blindsided and confused and worried and nothing felt ok anymore. There were lots of feelings.


I spent a week dealing with it. My emotions fell into a confused jumble as if someone had taken the neat deck of my brain and played 52 card pickup. Lost in that crazy jumble was the release of Silver Tongue. But then, yesterday, something pretty cool happened:

I got my real life copy of the novel. Honestly, it felt exactly like this: 

So, I decided to have a Do-Over. It's not that I'm pretending last week never happened. It's just that I have to figure out how to keep going, keep working, keep writing. And, I have to celebrate the stuff that really is a huge accomplishment. I wrote Silver Tongue in the first months of 2011. I spent a year re-working it and shopping it around. I'd all but given up on it when a small press I'd queried suddenly accepted it--and asked for 2 more books. Last year I worked on it again with an editor and then waited for its release while I lived the rest of my life. In the first months of this year I designed the cover. And now, four years after I started down this road, Silver Tongue is out! It's a real thing I can hold in my real hands!  So I'm celebrating. 

I bought myself some grocery store sushi and a lemon drink which is literally as fancy and extravagant as I am capable of getting. 

I watered my little container garden. 

And I realized I really needed to spend some time with my Star Trek Mom, Captain Janeway. So, that's what I'm doing now. Hopefully I can get this blog back on track this week! In the meantime, please know how much I appreciate your continued readership. This project has been an outlet for me emotionally and creatively and it's brought me readers and friends and I feel less like I'm shouting into the darkness. Thank you. 

Season's Greetings Kind Of

I've been out of touch (again) lately. I aggravated an old injury at the gym and that pretty much ate up my whole week. I did manage to watch both Monty Python and The Holy Grail AND The Life of Brian and I knitted two and a half hats and ate gallons of soup because I'm pretty sure soup isn't just for colds and I really felt awful. I'm on the mend now and moving around the house almost like regular.

Also, it RAINED today. In Southern California. This is a really big deal here. I went out for a walk at 7AM just so I could play in the rain.

Otherwise I've been working on another graphic essay project, looking over the artist's roughs for my next novel's cover, and doing some final stuff for the Awesome Jones sequel!

This brings me to the purpose of this post. Tomorrow, for Cyber Monday, the kindle edition of Awesome Jones will be available for just 99 cents! So, faithful (and new) readers, if you haven't yet bought a copy of this book, here's your chance to get it for less than what I bought a peppermint patty for today!

In case you're wondering, here's the official book blurb:

The only thing Awesome Jones wants is to be a super hero. Until he falls in love.
Despite his colorful name, Awesome Jones is a painfully average man who dreams of being a super hero, just like the ones who patrol his city. It’s been that way since he was a little boy, raised by his grandfather after his parents’ death.
The day Jones starts his new job as a file clerk at Akai Printing Company he meets secretary Lona Chang and everything changes. Lona sees something in Jones that no one ever has and the two quickly become inseparable. But when the perfect pair’s domestic bliss is threatened by a super-powered secret from the past, Awesome Jones has to make a choice. He must decide whether he should play it safe or find the strength to live up to his name and risk everything he’s come to love to save the day like he always dreamed.

This superhero novel is more than just a comic book in prose—it’s a fairytale for adults.

Bitten By Robin Hood

This morning I got up, made breakfast, sat down with my coffee and turned on the TV. This is what I saw:

"I protest. I am NOT a merry man!"

I'd hoped to get up early and get immediately to work before my LIVE EVENT at Bitten By started but allergies meant that I was tossing and turning all night and got up late. So here I sit, in my pajamas, watching Star Trek: Robin Hood and getting ready for a big stop on my Blog Tour for Awesome Jones.

I'll be replying to comments all day so come by and check it out. You can read an interview, ask a question, and possibly win a dandy Amazon Gift Card!

You can also enter the contest by going to the Entry-Form!
You can check out my Blog Tour stop by heading over to Bitten By Books any time today!

So, this Robin Hood episode (4x20: Qpid). I went back into my archives to retrieve the post I surely must have written about this one. Apparently, I went about watching all of Star Trek in a year and somehow neglected to write about the time Q pulled Picard and his crew into medieval England, dressed them up like Robin Hood and his merry men and set them off to rescue Picard's jilted one-time-Risa-girlfriend, Vash, from the clutches of Guy of Gisborne.

As a kid, I didn't like Vash. As an adult, though, I almost love her. She's sassy, headstrong, interesting and always up for an adventure. Wherever she goes, she shakes things up. And I admire that. If I were just messing around at an Anthropology Symposium and Q showed up and offered to whisk me off to lands unknown, and my one-time-Risa-boyfriend wasn't paying me any attention, I think I'd be off in a jiffy too.

Anyway, this one is full of gems. From Geordi attempting to play the lute to Worf's disgust with the whole situation and Picard's almost-enjoyment of his role as Robin Hood, this one is a classic example of the kinds of fun, ridiculous adventures the TNG crew always seemed to be getting up to. It's a romp. And you know how much I love romps.

Interviews, Shakespeare, Etc.

Here's some book news:

#1- I was recently interviewed by Katie Beer Pilkington over at The Nested Blog. You can go check it out and read what I have to say about life, comic books, and writing and enter to win a signed copy of Awesome Jones! Go do it!

#2- On Tuesday, April 15th, I'll be doing a LIVE EVENT to promote Awesome Jones over on Bitten By Books! They're giving away a $35.00 Amazon Gift Card for one lucky winner!!! You can RSVP to the event and doing so will give you 25 extra entries! Go do this also!!!

 

I've been doing a lot of interviews lately. And, that's been kind of cool. Talking about writing and my process makes me think about writing and my process and that, hopefully, will make me a better writer.

Other things I've been doing? Planning this year's Shakespeare Company show. Every year it seems like things get more hectic and I end up having to do more down-to-the-wire scrambling. Hopefully, this year, everything will work out. Anyway, as I was poking around on the internets for Shakespeare stuff, I ran across Patrick Stewart's fabulous "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech from Macbeth. It's pretty great. Enjoy!