Kim Harrison's Blog, page 27

Plotting, my second best favorite thing.

Today I’m working with paper, pencil, and my clipboard, away from my desk but still in my office. It’s one of the few times I’m allowed away, and I look forward to it every year. I’ve got the chance to actually listen and pick apart the music that’s been spinning on my radio for the last few months, and since my  brain is switched over to finding relationships between obscure things, it’s like hearing them for the first time. It’s a weird few weeks as I plot out a new book.

And wouldn’t you know it, a song I’ve been listening to and loving, thinking it belongs to Peri, actually belongs to Grace.

Ah Grace. Your time will come. Things just aren’t aligned in me yet. Deeper, deeper, more and more complex.

Stretching my tech muscles this week

I’ve been working on the website the last couple of days. I like working in a system whose rules are ironclad, even if I don’t always understand them, even if half the stuff I do is not even seen.

Today’s goal was to get the events page brushed up. I’ve been picking away at it for almost a month, adding tour cities, then stores, and then all the links and addresses that go along with that, but today I added in the fun stuff, and believe me, it’s a balancing act to get info out there without falling into the trap of making it hard to read or so overwhelmingly full of words that no one bothers.

Click to go to Events page for stores/times

I’m done with it for now, but as always, there will be changes the closer we get to the drop date of September 1st. Please check it out to see if I’ll be coming near enough to you. If you’ve been to one of my signings before, you know how much fun we have, and that if you get Tim talking, he’ll spill all sorts of stuff about me that I smack his shoulder for later. (grin)

 

Links for UK drafter outlets!

I’ve got links, links, and more links for all my UK readers looking to snag The Drafter without dealing with the international shipping fees! I can’t tell you how pleased I am, and with LittleBrownUK deciding release The Drafter through their Piatkus imprint, it will be available at the following:

Paperback:

WH Smith: http://www.whsmith.co.uk/…/the-drafter-the-pe…/9781408707562 (currently the best paperback deal)

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Drafter-P…/…/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/…/kim…/keri-arthur/9781408707562

Ebook (currently discounted to £3.99 by most retailers):

Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Drafter-Peri-Reed…/…/B00YAKIWTC…

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/the-drafter/id998512758…

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-drafter-1

Google Play: https://play.google.com/…/books/d…/Kim_Harrison_The_Drafter…

Nook: http://www.nook.com/…/the-drafter-by-kim-harr…/9781408707579

Tim and I have also decided to wave the postage requirements for those of you in the UK who want to send me a SASE for the replica of Peri’s glass phone. So it’s not so much a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope)  as a SAE (or Self addressed envelope)

So to get your “glass technology phone” send me a regular business size envelope, and Tim will drop it right back in the mail for you. I do ask that if you’re in the U.S. that you stamp your return envelope please, or we will throw it out. Sorry.

Send your envelope to:

Kim Harrison

The Drafter Freebie

PO Box 498

Dexter, MI 48130

I’ve also heard that the first order of T’s will be shipped the first week of July, so if you want to get in on the first printing, now’s your chance.

Click to order

 

 

 

 

Did ja know

Did you know that I’ve been posting content over at Instagram now for a few weeks, learning a new social outlet in prep for The Drafter release? Here’s what I posted this week. you can find me there at : https://instagram.com/kim_harrison_author/

 

SASE Shaming. video of Tim’s pet peeve. Click to send me yours.

15 seconds of morning zen video.

Shirts are in. Click to order!

Balance

If you’ve been lurking on my blog, and you’re adept at reading between the lines, you’ll see a lot of myself is devoted to balance. It can be a taxing proposition in a creative field when you’re overusing the problem solving part of your brain, resulting in off-the-wall comments to people who really don’t deserve what you’re laying down on them, then add to that you might be carrying the emotional baggage of a character who is trying to make the best of a bad situation if you don’t remember to leave it in the office at the end of the day. Readers have the luxury of knowing that it will all work out by the end of 450 pages, but the one making it is the one who has to sweat through it and figure out how. It doesn’t take a day or week to figure out, but often months. Ask a spouse or editor. They will tell you we aren’t quite rational when the work isn’t going well, and it’s not just frustration. I’m convinced it’s chemical.

So balance.

Peri is more intense than Rachel, far more isolated and alone, and you can see that in that my other creative outlets (knitting, gardening, learning a new social media) have risen accordingly. But balance isn’t just in work and play. It’s in what is coming at us as well. You get bad news, you look for the good.

For example, I had a lousy night. The storms that ripped through my area last from midnight to 2:30 am were intense. Sirens did go off in the distance, and it was up-and-down to check the radar and warnings. We’re a small town, and tornados happen about as often as a lost dog. They finally passed through, but my dog had two break-through seizures at 3:45 and 4:15 am. which is bad enough on their own, but now it means we start at zero again and I have to balance if I want to consider talking to the vet about upping her meds for the second time in six weeks, or hang for another two weeks and see what happens. I think I’ve seen more seizures than my entire vet’s office, so really, I’m not panicking or in need of a pep talk. I’ve been down this road from beginning to end once before, and I’m  just really, really tired, and damn it if I’m not going to use that in my writing today.

But balance.

Lousy night turns into beautiful day with some very good news.

The Drafter has been picked up by LittleBrown in the UK, and will be coming out hopefully at the same time as the U.S. edition. I love the backward clock. It speaks to me. And the two figures? Peri has isolated herself, but there is someone beside her.

Cover subject to change. Please don’t use for your catalog at this time.

 

Last five winners and Elsa gets her wings!

What a fabulous weekend! It rained just enough to keep me out of the garden, so I divided my time between finishing up Elsa’s wings, (she’s a snow dragon) and ah . . . organizing the garage. Yep, it started harmless enough with organizing a shelf in the laundry room. And then I went out to work in the yard, but it started raining, so I tidied a shelf out there hoping it would stop,but it didn’t, and then I decided to put together a shelving unit, and then decided to move it into place, and then Tim, in the bike-shop, playing, started to help because I couldn’t move something . . . and a big ‘old tidy happened.

But there was ice cream at the end of it, so it’s all good.

Elsa got her wings, also due to the rain. Before you ask, I’m still tweaking! The back legs are so much better now. I can’t bear to let this go until I’m satisfied with it. Here she is warming herself in the morning sun. ;-)

But as promised, this morning, I went through and picked five more winners from the swag contest that’s been going on. You guys should have an email in your FB account somewhere from me. Just send me your U.S. mailing address, and Tim will pop one of these bad-boy ARCs in the mail for you.  Thank you so much for sending all your swag pictures in! I can’t believe how long Tim and I have been doing this and how long some of you have been reading me. It is humbling.

As a reminder, Nicola’s is going to be offering signed and personalized first editions of these, and you can pre-order right now. These will be signed to you just as if you were sitting beside me at a regular signing, so if you can’t make it out to one of my stops, this is a great way to get your copy. The first shipment will go out the week of August 31st to try for a Sep 1st delivery.

Click to purchase

And the final five winners are:

Tina VP

Moxie N

Claudia D

Jessica M

Brandy D

Almost had sushi

We’ve been getting rain. Not as much as Texas, or even Ohio, which seems to be getting hammered and forgotten with little to no WeatherChannel coverage.  My fish pond is brimming, and while usually there isn’t much trouble with that, it does give stupid fish ideas that the world beyond the rim is the same as within it. Either that, or they think they will develop legs once they dry out even if I’ve told them over and over that is a fairytale.

Twice now, I’ve come out in the morning to find a fish laying on the nearby walk. Both times, they recovered, and I’ve since taken some water out to curtail this kind of finless wish fulfillment, but come on, fish! You should know better than that.

The birds have found my cherry tree, which I’m delighted with. It would be nice to have a homemade pie from cherries I grew, but I can buy cherries. I can’t buy robins feeding their babies from my back yard, so no net on the tree for me!

Have a great weekend, everyone, and remember, I’ll be accepting swag pictures for the last five Drafter ARCs up until Sunday morning. Good luck! (how to enter your swag photos)

Okay, maybe a little sore

I took a vow a long time ago not to ever complain about any aching of the hand when it came to signing, and for the most part, there really isn’t a problem when I’m on tour. It’s always my voice that goes first, because . . . well . . . I don’t sit in my office talking, I sit in my office typing, and I don’t have a lot of vocal reserves.

But when tip-in sheets come in to be signed, I have to be careful, because I could sit for hours and sign. It’s very zen like, and if I’m not careful, my arm and neck will begin to cramp.

Today was damp with rain, so I did another batch today since the moist air keeps the solvent from drying the pens so fast. (Trust me, it’s significant.) It pushed me past the halfway mark for the B&N signed books, and I was tempted to just keep going because of the rain. And if you’re wondering or suspicious, I can honestly say that every one of those first-edition bad boys you might see on a bookstore shelf with the special binding and the signed page has an individual signature, not printed or reproduced–signed to the sound of rain and singing robins.

And don’t worry about my arm. I do more damage to it knitting or editing. Editing is by far the worst with those tiny movement with the up and down arrow and the delete button way up in the right hand corner. (snerk)

Click to reserve

 

If you want to pre-order one of these B&N bad boys, here’s the link. I’m not sure if they are going to distribute any to individual stores or reserve them for online sales.

 

And if you’ve not entered my “Show me your Kim Harrison SWAG” contest for one of the ten Drafter ARCS I’m giving away, there’s still time until Friday. Just drop a picture of you and your Kim Harrison swag on my FB page or Instagram. No swag? Take a pic of your favorite Harrison book. It’ll do. :-) More info

Winners so far:

 

Deep into it

Ahhh, summer. I can tell already you will end before I’m ready this year. We’ve had such a nice one so far even with the very cold start and the rain that only now seems to be letting up. Even with the lack of commitment on summer’s part, things are moving. Lawns have needed to be mown, flowers are showing. [I’ve got a bunch of them over at Instagram if you insta] Parent birds are bringing their babies to the feeder to try and get them more independent, and my cherry tree is fruiting.

My mom and I have been out on the course a couple of times, dodging the rain and lucking out because there’s only one day a week that we can realistically do this if I’m not on a league, and that is not happening. I’ve only been at it for a couple of years, but I spent a summer in my teens with a club in my hand, and it came back pretty fast. I’m good enough to keep up with my mom, whose been doing this most of her life, but not good enough to keep score. She’s about ready to make me count my wiffs, which is saying something. My game is erratic, with long beautiful drives followed by swings and misses–but the long beautiful drives are starting to show more than the wiffs. And even better, our drives are landing just about at the same place. So to me, it’s not just two different colored balls landing near each other, it’s two people. :-)

Milkweed and roses

Milkweed and roses. They seem to go together, both needing copious amounts of sun. I’ve been spotting them around town–people letting it grow, incorporating the wild Michigan flower into their landscaping. The picture with the roses on the left is not mine. My little patch, which has tripled in size this year, is the other. You can still see my roses, but they are much smaller.

I can’t help but wonder what happened to the seeds I gave away at last year’s signing. Milkweed is  a perennial , and they don’t always flower that first year, but after that, watch out. They spread wonderfully if they’re happy and in the sun. I can’t wait to see if my little patch brings any monarchs in. My little town is amazingly nature-balance oriented for a small town. I’m not saying we don’t have issues, but we’re easy to rally, valuing the scrubby, “ugly” places having seen fawns there, and know that so-called mosquito pits harbor sleek, beautiful fish, frogs, and the ducks.

Not mine

Mine

I’ve been working on Peri Reed for the last couple of weeks, polishing up the second manuscript before sending it off at the end of the month. (I’ve even got a name now, but I have to run it past my editor before I even can hope I might get to keep it.)

I usually don’t write the last comfy cozy coda (last chapter) until I’m in my rewrite, and so I worked on that yesterday, finishing it with a good feeling and finally knowing what the core of the story is about.

It’s not as comfy cozy as I’m used to with Rachel. Peri Reed is . . . complicated, and though moralistically centered, she’s far more jaded, realistic, and inclined to take the money and run. I like her that way.

The swag contest is still going on, so keep sending me your pictures of you and your swag to FB and instagram.