Cherie Priest's Blog: It's awards season, so here comes the shameless self-promotion, page 62

Vintage Tomorrows

So here's a trailer for a very cool thing in which I have participated: the upcoming documentary Vintage Tomorrows. I appear in this clip, but only for about three seconds - which is great, because I can totally pretend to be a civilized, authoritative adult for about three seconds.

Watch this! Get excited about this! And when you're finished with the trailer, click the jump below the YouTube window to see a couple of promo shots (of me and James Carrott) taken by photographer Ben Z Mund. Because it was a KILLER setting for pictures.



Click here for pictures

Sitting in a nest of bad men, whisky bottles piling high

Here's today's progress on my fifth Clockwork Century novel - a book about teenage juvenile delinquents, hypothetical ghosts, and gangland mayhem within the walled city of Seattle ... now with Bonus! zombie Sasquatch and the return of everyone's favorite elderly cross-dressing Native American princess:

Project: Inexplicables
Deadline: September 15, 2011
New words written: 2028 (better)
Present total word count: 104,089 words

Things accomplished in real life: Daily run/climb + yoga; epic ton of day-job work; emails galore; called Dad to wish him "happy birthday"; wondered why there are so few hours in a day and really, can't I just petition somebody for a few extras?

Other: Today I realized I'd been a dumbass for a couple of months. I'd been thinking, "It sure would be nice if my Wii Fit would let me customize a yoga workout without all the cutesy stuff breaking up the action. Then I realized there was a very obvious way to program my own routines, and I felt pretty stupid. But hey, it's all set up NOW. And credit where credit is due (to me): my arms are starting to look pretty sweet. Six weeks of this stuff is actually changing my shape, in a good way.*

Other - the Director's Cut: Mostly it's day-job work as of late, and no, I still don't get to tell you about it. I find this frustrating for a number of reasons, not least of all the following: (a). I am led to understand that I might get to tell you about this job next year sometime, which is to say, after the present gig is over, (b). merely saying, "I did lots of work today!" is not very awe-inspiring, nor does it convey how much work I'm actually doing. Trust me. You'd be impressed if you knew. Somehow, the knowledge of this is less satisfying than saying, "I did XXXXXXXX today and it was badass but it took, like, six hours and then some, so I would've written more fiction except that I got hungry so I stopped and made supper."

Total narrative fiction word count for 2011: 104,089 words

* I am not trying to lose weight. In fact, the little Wii thingy - which does not take bone structure into account, or it would know I am built like a hummingbird - tells me I am underweight. It is wrong, but I don't care about that one way or another. Mostly, I don't want to reach forty with bat-wings.

Antiques Nerdshow

This'll blow the mind of exactly nobody who knows me, but I've been a huge dork for Antiques Roadshow for years - and now I'm keeping an eye on Buried Treasure.

For those of you too lazy to click, Buried Treasure is a semi-spin-off of the Antiques Roadshow premise, if not the literal franchise; and it centers on a pair of brothers who've been part of the PBS show for quite some time.

In short, people call the Kenos when they hope they're sitting on something valuable. The brothers in turn show up, poke through those people's stuff, and tell them if it's worth anything. And I absolutely adore watching them do it.

* * * * *

Much as I enjoy the roadshow, I am acutely aware of the fact that I don't own anything worth taking to it.

I am southern, and I grew up broke. I borrowed my way through college, did time in academia - and eventually left the university with an M.A. in rhetoric, of all things ... which is to say, I'm very interested in the subtextual and connotational baggage that accompanies all forms of human interaction.1

So I could sit here all night and dissect the power intersection that occurs on programs like Antiques Roadshow and Buried Treasures; I could natter on about often-wealthy authorities colliding with the uninformed masses, and all the ways it could go bad, and wrong, and condescending (but almost never does).

Instead I will tell you that I love to watch the Keno brothers, for two main reasons.

One, they are hopeless geeks. If they were living in a box beneath an overpass, they'd still be giddy over furniture that costs more than my car, and God bless 'em for it. In a world where coolness has long meant detachment and disaffection, I am thrilled to see a couple of dudes in expensive suits literally bouncing up and down and clapping their hands at the sight of charmingly dimpled stoneware.

Sincere enthusiasm - that, my friends, is cool.
To hell with anyone who says it isn't.

And two, they are always kind. Even when dealing with people who don't understand what they're saying, or don't believe them, or openly distrust them ... I've never seen the brothers be anything but earnest and warm. It's an art form. Maybe it's a geek art form - maybe it's learned from caring passionately about a subject that's largely dismissed by others.2

Regardless, I'm glad to see them out there, doing their thing and making people happy.

Yes. Well. Anyway.

Here on the West Coast, Buried Treasure will be on-air soon - right after Jeopardy, in fact. (Double nerd points!) I'm going to go make myself a drink, sit around, and watch the ever-living crap out of it.


1 And, one could argue based upon that degree, I am not very interested in earning a steady living - but that's not true. It's not my fault I'm no good at anything but making shit up.
2 Or maybe the moment the cameras stop rolling, they turn into a pair of bookend douchebags. But I doubt it. And if you have anecdotal evidence to the contrary, keep it to yourself. Leave me my happy delusions!

Don't think 'cause I understand, I care

Here's today's progress on my fifth Clockwork Century novel - a book about teenage juvenile delinquents, hypothetical ghosts, and gangland mayhem within the walled city of Seattle ... now with Bonus! zombie Sasquatch and the return of everyone's favorite elderly cross-dressing Native American princess:

Project: Inexplicables
Deadline: September 15, 2011
New words written: 1441 (still ugh)
Present total word count: 102,061 words

Things accomplished in real life: Daily run/climb + yoga; epic ton of day-job work - no, seriously; lots of research on a few things I'm not prepared to discuss; a handful of pretty important emails; went grocery shopping, which was desperately needed; cleaned kitchen; took out several loads of trash.

Other: Got lots done, but have lots left to do. Most of the day was eaten up with day-job work, thus the low word count; but I'll try to do a little more this evening, after supper.

Total narrative fiction word count for 2011: 102,061 words

September 6, 2011

Look! A post without the Hellbent cover!

Here's today's progress on my fifth Clockwork Century novel - a book about teenage juvenile delinquents, hypothetical ghosts, and gangland mayhem within the walled city of Seattle ... now with Bonus! zombie Sasquatch and the return of everyone's favorite elderly cross-dressing Native American princess:

Project: Inexplicables
Deadline: September 15, 2011
New words written: 1027 (ugh)
Present total word count: 100,620 words

Things accomplished in real life: Daily run/climb + yoga; epic ton of day-job work; went to Walgreens; went to postal place and mailed Hellbent giveaways, a package to Spyder's parents, our quarterly tax payment, and my dad's birthday present; cleaned the fish tank; did two interviews; adjusted my bio/bibliography in every place I could think of, throughout the internet; moved money around at the bank because the alternator died on our car and it had to get fixed today, ka-ching ka-ching; exchanged several business emails/calls re: the book release and whatnot.

Other: Okay, it was a hella-busy day. I'm frankly astounded I got as far as a thousand words, and oh, hey - broke 100K. So that's nice.

Total narrative fiction word count for 2011: 100,620 words

HELLBENT PRIEST*

(*Post title stolen from a tweet, re: a confusing and ultimately misread note about this book which made me giggle.)

Today is the day - Release Day! - for my eleventh(!!!*) novel, Hellbent! [:: insert flailing Kermit icon of indescribable joy HERE ::]

If you've been following along, you know already that this is the follow up to Bloodshot, and it's chock full of dirty jokes, drag queens, magic, and kittens. You can read the first 50 pages of it here for free, at your leisure (should you doubt me).

Please pick it up! If you like it, please tell a friend! That's how writer-type folks such as myself are able to (a). continue writing, and (b). eat.
________________

Friends! Countrypersons! Other sorts! Lend me your ears: The " Negotiable Handbasket " contest is OVER - not that this you should stop you from talking about your charity of preference. You are, of course, welcome to continue to post over there; the entry has gotten a great deal of traffic, and the groups you suggest and support might still pick up a few pence due to your efforts.

But all the winners have been (utterly randomly) picked; the packages are are packed up; and I'll be dropping the loot into the post today.

________________

So! Thanks for reading, everyone - and later on tonight I'll try to come back and blog about having my wonderful out-of-towners in town, and providing word metrics, and giving you an end-of-day tally re: the vast, ridiculous volume of errands I need to run and stuff I need to tackle today. But for now, I leave you with a list o' digital places where you can pick up Hellbent (or anything else of mine, really), and I bid you all a good morning - plus a fabulous foreshortened week!


Find Hellbent in eBook form
(click the appropriate "select a format" button)

Search for an independent bookseller near you through IndieBound.
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble.com
Powell's.com

As always, scroll down for directions re: acquiring a signed copy (for any of my in-print titles) from the University Book Store in Seattle


* As some have been quick to point out, Hellbent is really sort of my 12th book - if you count Fort Freak. But I only wrote the interstitial bit for that one ... which is to say, I wrote more of it than the other contributors did, but it still wasn't my project alone - not by a long shot.

Everybody's Free To Feel Good

Everybody loves free stuff, right? Right. And I'm reasonably sure that everybody (or if not "everybody" then probably "a lot of people") loves one or more of the following: dirty jokes, drag queens, magic, or kittens.

So here's some excellent news for those of you who fall into the category of "everybody" (as defined in the parentheses above).

Right now, over on Scribd.com, you can read the first 50 page of Hellbent for FREE, baby. And those first 50 pages - up through the end of chapter three - include all of the aforementioned elements. Just click the pretty cover that accompanies this-here post, and the handy-dandy link will take you right to it!

September 1, 2011

The day-job is eating my life, and also, tonight I begin playing hostess to a couple of old friends who are coming into town to see me - so I do not anticipate a whole lot of writing for the next few days.

But while I wait on (a) my next round of revision feedback from California, and (b). my friend's flight to land ... let me hook you up with some kick-ass links:
Ganymede is an Editor's Pick - Over at Seattle Magazine. Can I get a WOO-HOO?!!

Booklist loved Hellbent! Just scroll down a little bit to see their (spoiler-free) review for this book, which comes out ... *gulp* ... THIS WEEK. Please consider picking it up! It has vampires! Drag queens! An unbalanced sorceress! And the obligatory club scene, in case anyone ever decides to make this book into a movie. AHEM.

Speaking of that franchise - The UK's Fantasy Book Review blog dug the ever living daylights out of Bloodshot. Huzzah! I'm glad that the UK is enjoying this one, and I hope they like the sequel, too. (There's been a bit of a delay between US release and UK release, thus the rash of overseas reviews as of late.)

LitStack features Boneshaker - Always nice to see this one getting more love! I'll be stopping by and taking questions for LS later on this month, so keep an eye on that space.

I want to bang on the drum all day

In answer to the most Frequently Asked Question re: yesterday's post - I'll probably run the contest through the end of the week, at least. Most likely, I'll start randomly picking winners and/or launching into shipping on the sixth of next month.

To answer the second most Frequently Asked Question - sure, international applicants are fair game. I won't disqualify you for being a long way away.

But on a related side note, fully 1/3 of the people who've entered the drawing thus far have great faith in my psychic abilities, it would seem; and initially, I would poke these lovely souls with a *hint hint hint* to remind them that I don't magically know where they live.

But I give up on that.

If you do not include a snail mail address, I cannot send you snail mail goodies.

I love you guys, but I'm too busy to police this thing with hand-holding for a week - so if you can't follow directions, you can't be in the running. Sorry.

* * * * *

Warning: Quotation marks ahead.

In other news, yes, I know I've been "distant" lately. When it comes to the internet, I've been forced to institute a policy of "log off, and stay off" during my "office hours." (My "office hours" are "however long it takes me to get all my work done.") And lately, I've had a positively epic amount of work - much of it pertinent to my day-job.

Never mind that the deadline for Inexplicables looms around the corner, and I still have perhaps 20,000 words left to write on that bad-boy. So...yes. I'm spending a lot more time offline than usual.

Besides, I've actually been pretty sick. Long story short - I got nabbed by a couple of pretty serious spider bites, and I have a bit of an allergy. I very nearly went to the hospital to see about some cortisone shots; but my fever never went anywhere, I never showed any signs of blood poisoning ... and after four or five days, the swelling finally went down and the oozing finally stopped.

I dragged myself out of the house last night for a friend's birthday shindig, but other than that, I've been a huge homebody for the last week - as a matter of necessity. Not much to blog about, I'm afraid. Just restless sleep, antihistamines and hydrocortisones, itchy bandages, and work.

My apologies for being so damn boring.

* * * * *

Here's today's progress on my fifth Clockwork Century novel - a book about teenage juvenile delinquents, hypothetical ghosts, and gangland mayhem within the walled city of Seattle ... now with Bonus! zombie Sasquatch and the return of everyone's favorite elderly cross-dressing Native American princess:

Project: Inexplicables
Deadline: September 15, 2011
New words written: 2975 (pretty good)
Present total word count: 99,593 words

Things accomplished in real life: Daily run/climb + yoga; epic ton of day-job work including four rounds of revisions long-distance, wee!; absolutely nothing else.

Other: Note that I have changed the estimated final word count on my widget. It may well run longer. I never finish up drafts as quickly as I expect.

Revenge of Other: Almost 3K for the day isn't bad, especially considering everything else I'm working around - but this was the first bit of writing I'd done in days. I need to average this every afternoon for the next week to get anywhere near my goal - if I want to revise for a few days before handing in the draft. And believe me, I do.

Total narrative fiction word count for 2011: 99,593 words

All the pretty things are going to hell

Today we are approximately one week out from the official street debut of Hellbent - that is, Book #2 in the Cheshire Red Reports. ('Tis the sequel to Bloodshot, my first foray into urban fantasy.)

September 6 is fast approaching ... and here I am with this big fat box of audiobooks and author copies, just begging to be tossed to readers like so many beads from a pirate float at Mardi Gras.

I've been giving quite a lot of thought as to how I ought to offer these up and send them out. I mean, my book is called "Hellbent" and my last name is "Priest." Surely some wacky confessional contest is called for, right?

Well, maybe not. This being the internet and all, I'm not so sure I want to subject myself to the inevitabilities of such an adventurous undertaking; and anyway, apart from offering all you Philistines and perverts the opportunity to unburden yourselves ... it doesn't really do much in the way of Decreasing World Suck.

So a very wise woman I know suggested something cheerier - something brighter, friendlier, and more helpful. Something less likely to make me want to steam-clean my brainmeats. And thus was born a different sort of "how badly do you want a book?" challenge.

Ergo, I give you ... Operation: Negotiable Handbasket

And it shall go like this: You will do things to keep yourselves out of hell. Good things, that is. Things that will benefit somebody else, either from the kindness of your heart or for your greedy desire to get a free signed book mailed straight to your doorstep - now with Bonus! schwag such as I picked up from Archee McPhee's yesterday, for the sake of added drama.*

Here's what you do if you want to participate:
1. Pick your favorite charity, and give it some money. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, but I'd recommend oh, say, ten bucks for starters - if you're able. Alternately: call up your charity and offer to volunteer some time and/or elbow grease.

2. Come to THIS WEBPAGE and leave a comment. Include a link to your chosen charity and a little blurb about why it's great, so that other people can see it and throw a few pence in the pot if they feel moved to do so.

3. Send an email claiming your comment, including your snail mail address to - cherie.priest@gmail.com - and please specify whether you'd prefer a trade paperback or an audio book. (I have MP3 CDs and regular audio CDs available. Pick one, or mention that you don't care - and you'll get whatever I have the most of.)

And that's it. Follow those easy steps, and I'll put you into the running for some loot! But before you go nuts with your virtuous badass typing selves, let me first make a couple of notes on this promotion.
Winners will be chosen at random, from all the people who know how to follow directions. I'm not sure how many winners there will be, because honestly, I haven't counted up how many extra copies of everything I have lying around. (Don't ask me why, but Bantam has been sending these things piecemeal.)

I will be forced to trust that everyone who posts a charitable link has actually donated money or arranged volunteer time for that charity. Will some of you be filthy liars about it? Maybe. Is that terrible bad form? Yes, but I can't really judge you. After all, I once cheated on a Christian Ethics exam.** But still, I hope you'll take this as an opportunity to do something nice - and not as an opportunity to bullshit your way into some free stuff.

So ... yeah. There you go. Have at! And kindly pass around a link to this entry, if you're so inclined.

And if (for some reason) you'd rather investigate purchasing options instead of taking your chances with the charitable internet masses, I can hook you up there, too:
Search for an independent bookseller near you through IndieBound.

Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble.com
Powell's.com

As always, for all my titles - scroll down for directions re: a signed copy from the University Book Store in Seattle



* No, not ALL of that schwag to one winner. I will divvy it up as I see fit.
** I spent most of my education in parochial school ... which explains a lot, I suppose.