Devon Monk's Blog, page 22
March 31, 2013
Cooking Oregon – Applesauce Cake 1
I have this 1964 cookbook that belonged to my grandmother or one of my aunties, I think. The cover has fallen off and the spiral binding has disintegrated. It was printed here in Salem by a local press that is still around (Your Town Press) and it carries this exciting title:
FABULA’S FAMOUS RECIPES by Oregon’s Finest Cooks!
Oregon Farm Bureau Women!
And yes, that is a 1960′s beaver housewife you’re looking at there. 
This book is a collection of recipes from the ladies all across Oregon, and it...
March 27, 2013
Winners! Cold Copper ARCs
The random number picker has spoken! Here are the 6 winners of signed COLD COPPER ARCs. Please contact me with your mailing address by clicking on the little envelope button in the upper right of this blog.
Congratulations, winners!
If I don’t hear back from winners by next Wednesday, April 3, I will do a first-come first-win giveaway of the remaining prizes here on the blog that evening.
Big thank you to everyone for entering the giveaway!
muddybeagle who said: I am so excited that I am typing t...
March 22, 2013
Cold Copper – Giveaway
In yesterday’s news post, I mentioned all sorts of good news, including that I’d gotten ARCs of COLD COPPER and I want to give them away!
COLD COPPER is the third book in the Age of Steam series, and doesn’t come out until July. This is your chance to get your hands on one nice and early!
I have six (6) copies that I will mail internationally. Remember, these don’t have pretty covers, but I will sign them, and they are filled with typos and other silly mistakes.
All you have to do is leave a com...
March 21, 2013
News and Whatnot
HANG FIRE – Finally! Thank you, everyone for being patient with me on this one. HANG FIRE is the twenty-part serial short story I wrote that takes place between DEAD IRON and TIN SWIFT in the Age of Steam steampunk series. It originally appeared as part of a blog tour I did before TIN SWIFT came out. I’ve been contacted by several people who are disappointed they can’t backtrack and easily find all the sections of the story. I am happy to say HANG FIRE will be e-publis...
March 12, 2013
Vacation + Murder = bunny ears
My best friend and I decided to get away for a couple days as a birthday gift to each other. We thought the beach would be a relaxing place to get a room, knit, stare at the ocean, take walks, and catch up on Dr. Who.
Things don’t always go as planned.
We were supposed to check in to our hotel on Saturday. I had a family medical issue crop up, (nothing dangerous, just a routine procedure that the family member must go through every few years.) How long did this 1 hour procedure (plus 2 hours of...
February 27, 2013
Word-by-word
Here we are almost at the end of February, and I thought I’d do a little recap of my writing year so far. As of today, I have:
Finished writing HELL BENT (although there will be revisions, copy edits and proofs yet to go)
Finished page proofs for DEAD IRON’s release in paperback format (in June! Yay!)
Finished the copy edits for COLD COPPER
Written a short story that will be available in April 2013
Cleaned up HANG FIRE (that online steampunk short story from last year) for epublishing
Almost finish...
February 16, 2013
The Knights who say “Knit!”
So there are a few really cool crochet patterns for knight’s helms out there, but my crocheting skills are pretty rough. When I got a request to knit a knight’s helm for a nephew’s birthday gift, I thought I’d give a knitted version a go.
Here it is: (trust me, it looks better on my nephew!)
How hard could it be, right? As it turns out, it’s *not* all that hard, but since I gave the helm away and didn’t write the pattern down as I went, I’m going to give you the basic guidelines for making this...
February 12, 2013
The Short of It
Penguin in a Jayne hat, of course
I wrote a short story. I was talking about it last week, wondering if I remembered how to do the little tricks that make a short story work since I’ve been so focused on novels the last few years. The obvious difference between writing a short story and writing a novel is the word length. My novels run about 100,000 words. This short story was only allowed to be 6,000 words.
There are a *lot* of similarities in tackling the writing of both lengths of stories: w...
February 9, 2013
A Good Deed Opportunity
As I mentioned recently, a local elementary school burned to the ground. The amazing Dina James, and Skyla Dawn Cameron along with the rest of the Evil League of Evil Writers have put together a terrific auction to raise money for basic necessities for the the kids and teachers to get them through the year.
For a full list of auction items click here
For a direct donation to the school (be sure to select Crestline from the drop down option), click here
To donate books, click here
What have I dona...
February 7, 2013
Three things for a Thursday
My blogging has been a little sparse this week, due to me trying to remember how to write a short story. I started out as a short story writer and spent over a decade dedicated to the craft, but over the last 5-ish years of novel work, I find myself a bit rusty in the shorts.
A-hem.
I’m happy to say I have at least written a thing of appropriate length and theme, that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Whether or not it will meet with the editor’s approval is yet to be said. I su...
