Celine Kiernan's Blog, page 30

In which Christmas comes early…

I heart Kate Beaton

Behold, I done treated myself to a print of my favourite of Kate Beaton's cartoons: Wells and Verne. This is me being tremendously happy and planning a trip to the nearest shop-that-sells-frames-of-a-price-I-can-afford.

I love this strip. It was inspired when Kate 'read a rant by Verne about how Wells was full of it for making up spaceships etc without explicitly showing how they functioned and powering them with steam or coal or what have you, things that made sense in 1899′. it reminds me of the many conversations between me (soft sci-fi, tell me about the characters/story) and my friend's husband ( hard sci-fi, tell me how the space-ship works!  11Billion dollar bottle of wine!)

You can see the original in all its glory here. While you're at it check out Kate Beaton's other brilliant pieces (be warned – you'll be there a while, chuckling and snorting – also you may be moved to look up historical references afterwards. Kate's cartoons tend to make one curious about the events what-done-did inspire them.)

Deadline For Art Giveaway Draws Near

Moorehawke Giveaway artwork

The Orbit Moorehawke Limited edition Art give away is drawing to a close, but you still have until November 30th if you would like to be in with a chance of wining a signed copy of ''Desecrate'.

There are only ten of these prints in the world. Each is A3 sized, printed on raw cream canvas, and signed by the artist (yours truly) If you'd like to be in with a chance to win one of the six available for this draw, just e-mail Orbit at orbit@littlebrown.co.uk and tell them your name and address. Write 'Moorehawke Art' in the subject line.

Winners will be announced sometime in December.

Actually, two of the ten prints have already been given away. Anyone who reads my blog will know the names of these two particularly awesome kids. Hayden and Laura are possibly my youngest readers and two young people I've become very fond of in the years since The Poison Throne was first released. I couldn't let the last launch party go by without finally meeting both of them in the flesh (I'd only ever known Laura through her e-mails) It was great fun to introduce them to each other. I sprung a wee surprise on them too, and presented them with the first two prints of 'Desecrate'. I look chuffed here don't I? That's because I am – it was such a thrill to get to meet these guys.

 

Moorehawke gets honourable mention in GenreVille's top 2010

Genreville is the fantasy/scifi/horror blog for PW

Rose Fox calls Moorehawke  'An improbably terrific epic fantasy trilogy.'

And boy am I in some great company (so delighted to see Mr Shivers in the horror section.)

Very happy today

Thank you Niall!

back orf, ye curs!

Many thanks to Speculative Scotsman for his brilliantly considered response to my please don't pirate my books post.

He does things with figures and explains techno stuff in a way that I would never have been able to do. I'm so grateful to him for that. Read his post, he makes more sense and has the figures to back him up.

BTW, I wasn't able to address this in my previous post because of the hackers-not-letting-me-edit-once-posted thing. But the wonderful Aishwarya of kaleidoglide (possibly one of my favourite blogs) gently took me to task for suggesting folks who can't afford to buy books should perhaps use the library. She points out that many folks live in countries who have no proper library system at all. I fully appreciate that point, and take it to heart. I'd be interested in reading an article or post from someone with experience on the ground in such a case, and hear thier attitude to piracy and how it might be over come. However, I suspect that the majority of the folks offering the types of arguments to be found HERE have no such troubles… and it this kind of argument I hear the most when folks defend illegal downloading.

Added 10th NOV:

Thanks to Adam Whitehead over at Wertzone for blogging his thoughts on this HERE

Interesting piece on the ramifications of e-book copyright by Rose Fox at Genreville HERE

Thanks to Alan for pointing to this rather more, ahem, vocal article on music piracy over at Latest Disgrace HERE ( it was written in response to a report that only 52% of Americans polled think that music is worth paying for. There is harsh harsh language throughout)

Fresh as a Daisy.

 

home again, home again, jiggity jig.

So I've moved All Things Moorehawke and Otherwise to a new host. I just couldn't cope with the amount of damage The Big Hack did to the original blog ( I couldn't edit posts once they were published – the SPAM filter was cat – and apparently there were viagra ads hidden all over the gaff  … grrrrrr)

 

Anyone who wants to catch up on my older posts can find them HERE but from this post on, I'm hanging around at the new place

Pirates, You Be Bleedin' Me Dry. Please Stop.

Ok, so I've now lost count of the number of piracy sites that have my books up for illegal download as bit torrents or as pdfs or as so called 'e-books'  The general advice in these cases, is to go to each site and 'politely ask them to take your book down'.  Apparently, 'they never refuse'. Yeah. So I'm being asked to trawl the net on a daily basis hunting down and finding these sites, then 'politely asking' them not to steal my work?

Believe it or not, I have neither the patience nor the time.

Pirates and pirate-site users, I'm not going to give you the 'I have a family to support and these books are my lively hood' speech. I'm not going to give you the 'musicians, artists and writers are the only folks in the world who have to justify getting paid for their work' speech, I'm not even going to point out that 'if my sales are low my publishers will think twice about publishing another of my books.'

To do that would be to assume that you are too stupid to know any of that for yourselves.

I'm just going to ask you to stop. Ok? Stop stealing money from my pocket, sales from my reputation, and business from the legit booksellers and sites who legally support me and others like me. If you can't afford to buy my work then, please, go to the library - at least they keep track of how many times the books are checked out - and those reports go back to my publishers, and believe it or not, that's important.

Walking DeaAAAAAARRGGHH

SO … I thought I'd be watching The Walking Dead TV series tonight. I really did. I've been waiting for it with grabby hands and shining eyes since I first heard they were adapting the graphic novel series. I LOVE the Walking Dead graphic novels. Robert Kirkman's writing amazes and delights me with every issue. Uncompromising, honest, gritty and tradgic, it's got everything I love in writing - Plus Zombies. There hasn't been anything like this for me in years. I'm a die hard fan. Team that with Frank Darbond and zooowee… I'm there man.

Well … I was there.

You know what I forgot? I forgot that Zombie movies give me nightmares. Ahuh, cowering, puking, shivering in the corner nightmares. I've had them on and off for years. They always involve me running, tear soaked and desperate, through a barren countryside/endless corridors of a stately home. They always end with me crouched in a corner/against a drystone wall with one of my kids and a hammer while hoards of zombies close in.

Me, my kid*  and a hammer. Yeah. Lovely.

Guess what I woke from this morning: Starey-eyed, heart-rabbiting, cold-sweat-drenched, still clutching the imaginary hammer in one hand and shielding my kids eyes with the other?

Yeah. Reading the graphic-novels doesn't do this to me. Writing my own undead fiction doesn't do it to me. I actually don't think I can face the TV show. I really don't. But I still want to see it.

WAH!

-0-

* and they're always a small child in the dream - despite them being big bruisers of human beings at this stage, well able to combat a zombie on their own.

Shameless linkaging

I've just put the structural edits on Ghostbook to bed, and I'm in the middle of doing up the latest issue of the newsletter. So I'm shamelessly filching the interestingness of other for your edification and amusement. The trio of links to follow are two causes I am devoted to and one very interesting article which talks about those neglected folks in the book world - the readers.

One: That Lunatic Dave Maybury is growing a tasche to support Prostate Cancer research. Everyone who knows me, knows that this cause is unfortunately one very close to my heart. Not to put too fine a point on it DONATE!

Two: Sakineh Ashtiani is still in danger of execution. As far as I know, her son and her lawyer are still in jail for thier attempts to save her from the Iranian justice system. Please take a moment ( literally one moment of your time) to not only potentially save Sakineh's life again, but to show the Iranian government that we notice and care. Send a message HERE

Thirdly and on a lighter note. This is a very interesting piece by Laura Miller on her attitude to NanoWriMO. I've nothing against NaNoWriMo myself, but this article brings up many things I agree with. The most resonant line for me? ' far more money can be made out of people who want to write novels than out of people who want to read them' You can say that again.

Read Laura's article here

Qualities needed to become a published writer

Here is a segment of a long interview I did this morning. The interviewer is a lovely young woman from New Zealand called Amelia Brenchley, and she's interviewing me as part of a school project. I was floored by how interesting Amelia's questions were so I thought I might share some of them. This is probably the poorest sound quality of the entire interview, but it's easy enough to hear. I really liked this question! No-one had ever asked it of me before. ( I'll be putting the rest of the questions on youtube later)

Thank you, Amelia! It was a real treat to speak with you this morning.

Bookclubs, Goodreads and Skype

The Poison Throne

So I'm taking a breather from the Ghostbook edits today, and heading to Bailieborough library for my first ever session with a bookclub. I'm quite excited. I've only ever addressed conferences before, or done readings for young adult audiences - it's going to be very interesting to sit down to a Q&A with a group of adults who have read the book on a critical level. I wonder what kind of questions I'll be asked?

Tomorrow I'll be skyping again. A young woman from New Zealand is going to interview me for her school project. We'll be doing our technically challenged best to record the interview so fingers crossed we can!

Apologies again for the delays in newsletter sign ups and in the lack of replies to reader mail. I sat down to tackle the backlog on Sunday and was happily distracted by a particularly delightful group of readers on Goodreads. We ended up messaging each other for the whole time I was meant to be mail-answering, and I got nothing done ( except have lots of fun. Heeeee!) Next weekend I will catch up. This I swear (ish.)