C.X. Wood's Blog, page 2
July 11, 2018
Two Ways to Read for Free
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Are you a member of Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited?
This is Amazon’s membership reading service. Love!
For $9.99 a month, you can check out up to ten Kindle books at a time and read to your heart’s content. Want an 11th book? Just return something you didn’t care for and go for it. That is the price of one book! If you chew through books, it’s a great deal.
I love it. It allows me to try new voices, read magazines, listen to audio books, or grab a non-fiction title and get up to speed on a subject quickly — while staying within my budget.
Not all books are available through this membership service but, because I’m a fan, Vice Report is.
So go ahead and read! The first month is free!
The other way to read for free? Enter my giveaway and score a free paperback copy of Vice Report.
July 10, 2018
Want a free copy of Vice Report?
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I’m giving away some print copies of Vice Report! It’s easy — and fun — to enter to win. Just go to this link on Amazon and follow the directions.
Good luck!
June 28, 2018
Vice Report Large Print Edition!
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Journalists are being murdered at work. I am trying to shut off the signal coming in because it’s full of horror. I’m just trying to do some things on my to-do list that I can do. Announcing the large print edition of Vice Report seemed easy enough. But, here we are. It’s only the first paragraph, and I’m already talking about the horror.
Let me try again:
If you have trouble reading the small print in a beach-sized novel, I am pleased to report you can now buy a Vice Report in a large print edition. It looks awesome bigger, I think, because Leslie Peterson Sapp’s gorgeous cover art fills up the room more. This one looks great on my bookshelf.
I can’t help mentioning, though, that while journalists in the real world are being called ‘enemies of the state’ by our president and getting shot by madmen, the journalists inside Vice Report are finding a way to survive.
As Mona Breen, my protagonist, puts it:
“I refused to give up. It felt like walking toward death. If carrion feeders are the only thing left of the fourth estate, and Vice Report is Queen of the Carrion Feeders, we had to become the fourth estate, didn’t we? Who else was going to do it? A country was fucked without a working fourth estate. Sure, we were burnt out and fucked over, but couldn’t we pull some sort of superhero, rise-from-the-ashes type maneuver here? Maybe the carrion feeders—that’s right, motherfucker, us—are about to come out of the crapper and kick some ass?”
Or, paraphrasing Dorothy Parker, “Writing is the best revenge.”
June 10, 2018
The King’s English Bookshop
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I am thrilled that the King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City is carrying Vice Report. It’s an old-school bookstore full of nooks and crannies to hang out in, an enormous children’s section, and a terrific mystery section, which now contains five copies of Vice Report.
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If you are in Salt Lake City, stop by, browse, and pick up your copy of Vice Report! Say, “Hi!” to the wonderful people there who are running a beautiful bookstore in an era where bookstores are hard to find.
June 5, 2018
All that talk of Donuts…
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Social media was full of donuts for a few days. It was fun. I want more of that. More donuts, please!
In a desperate attempt to keep the donuts coming, here is a donut-sized excerpt from Vice Report:
“They are standing outside their hybrid cruiser when I pull up, laughing and eating donuts. There were no parking spaces nearby. I had to park a block away. I suppose there is a big team here eating up all the parking on an already busy-for-street-parking Sunday morning. “Really?” I say as I walk up. “Isn’t that a stereotype?” “Visual joke,” Devin says, munching on a chocolate old-fashioned. “For you. Made at great personal sacrifice.” He’s wearing serious-looking Oakland PD-labeled SWAT-type gear. He bends his arm into a weightlifter pose, holding a donut instead of weights, sticks his tongue out in an exaggerated lick, touching the donut with its tip. I get out my phone to take a photo. Olivia puts her finger through the hole of a raised glaze and licks her finger—so I can see the manicure. “Sexy! Sexy!” I say. “Give me a tiger! Give me a kitten!” They mug for the camera, switching positions, ass butting. She hangs on him, pinup-girl style. He kneels in front of her and holds one foot as if fitting her for shoes. They do it all with donuts.”
May 28, 2018
Sunday in Santa Barbara
My book tour is taking a small digression onto college campuses this weekend.
UC Santa Barbara. Beautiful.
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I could dive in that.
My son said, “You can visit but don’t show up at my dorm room with a full dive kit at 6am asking, ‘Ready to go SCUBA diving?’
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That doesn’t even sound like something I would do. Six! AM!
Nine? Sure.
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And there are the dorms.
I wonder if I should go back to school.
My publisher wants me to talk about the book.
Here’s a tiny excerpt:
“My boss sent me,” I explained, big smile, my own form of camouflage. Because pretty smiles lubricate access to the dismal. “I have no idea how he knows this stuff. ” I put a hand out to shake his. “Mona Breen, Vice Report.”
May 25, 2018
Drinking Wine in Space
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If you have been watching The Expanse, you know that in space, perhaps everywhere in the future, we will drink from Klean Kanteen double-wall stainless vacuum-sealed cups. Or maybe future cups are made by Swell. Or someone else. Or maybe all the cup makers merged into one evil mega-corporation.
In any event, I’ve already got mine. (Shown.) I drink wine from it. I drink tea from it. I even drink 12-year-old Islay Scotch whiskey from it. It holds whatever I’m sipping at the perfect temperature.
So, on this road trip, whenever we slow down and lose gravity or have to burn really hard, my cocktail is fine. (As long as I have time to put a lid on it.)
May 24, 2018
Book tours aren’t only about book stores
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I maybe be on a book tour. But books like wine, right? Mine certainly does.
In fact, I am very fond of these Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard wines. The wines are delicious and affordable. And the people who run this place are awesome!
I brought several bottles home. A fair exchange. Books for wine.
