Sarah Ettritch's Blog, page 30

Review: Losing My Virginity

Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson's autobiography, weighs in at a hefty 578 pages, and Branson occasionally adds new material. The edition I read covers up to 2007, and it looks like it might have been updated since then. I bought the book after attending a lecture Branson gave at McGill University a couple of months ago. I watched it live, over the internet. Ain't technology grand?

I never know what to expect with autobiographies (as opposed to biographies). Sometimes the subject dwells...

Mini Review: Just a Geek

I haven't watched Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG) for several years, so Wil Wheaton had fallen off my radar. A friend introduced me to The Guild, a web video series about a fictitious guild of online gamers. While watching season 3, I kept looking at one of the actors and thinking, "I've seen him before." Yep, Wil Wheaton.

A few months later, I was shopping at Amazon and wanted one more book to round out my order so I could get free shipping. I stumbled across Just a Geek...

Outlining vs. Winging It

I've decided to update the homepage's Rymellan and fantasy progress meters every Friday. I just updated them for today, and I've passed the halfway mark on the fantasy story first draft!

Well, not really.

Writers fall into two camps: those who outline and those who don't (the latter group is sometimes referred to as "organic writers"). The camps aren't mutually exclusive, but most of us probably tend toward one method or the other. I'm in the organic camp. I write by the seat of my pants. That ...

Changes to sarahettritch.com

I started this blog back in August 2009. At the time, I was in the process of publishing Rymellan 1: Disobedience Means Death and felt that the information around the net about self-publishing in Canada was sparse. I'd also owned the sarahettritch.com domain for a couple of years and figured I should do something with it. Well, everyone seems to insist that writers should have a blog, so why not blog?

I installed WordPress and started to post about self-publishing and anything else that came t...

Gaming Roundup #2 – Oblivion it is

It's time for another gaming roundup . . .

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition: I'm now 151 hours and 52 minutes into my Oblivion game and have made great progress on my quest to clear every ruin, fort, cave, mine, etc. I've cleared numerous locations that I'd never found before and have completed a few quests that were new to me. As far as quest lines go, I've only completed the Mages Guild and am about halfway through the Fighters Guild. I'm not planning to join the...

Rymellan Fiction Breaking News: Lesley and Mo go Straight!

"Ooppss! Dear Sarah Ettritch,

We are so sorry to inform you that we could not approve your link Rymellan Fiction in the [mumble, mumble:] directory. Our guidelines are quite simple. Your site has to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender related. Please read our submission guidelines or resubmit your site later."

Maybe the Words Every Rymellan Knows scared him off?

How to Publish to Kindle in Canada (or anywhere)

I see this question asked a lot "out there," especially for Canada. You see, as I've mentioned in other posts, Amazon.ca is a scaled down version of Amazon.com. If you want to publish to the Kindle and go to Amazon.ca, you won't find what you're looking for.

To publish to the Kindle, you must use Amazon's DTP Platform. If you have an Amazon account, you're already registered. If not, it's easy to sign up.

Read the Get Started and FAQs sections. If you run into a problem, check the forums...

Review: 100 Canadian Heroines. Famous and Forgotten Faces

Merna Forster's 100 Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces offers a brief look at 100 accomplished women. It's the sort of book you can pick up and put down, since each profile only takes 5 to 15 minutes to read.

The title irks me. The back cover says, "… has created the ultimate guide to cool Canadian women…" No, it hasn't. Too many of the women featured in the book weren't Canadian. In fact, given the book's title and back cover copy, one non-Canadian woman is too many.

The following g...

10 Social Sites for Readers: Schmooze and Discover New Books

Goodreads – friend/follow/giggle at me here
LibraryThing – I plan to do a giveaway here in May
Shelfari
Bookarmy
FiledBy
Mobile Read Forums
weRead
Book Glutton – pretty cool concept
Kindle Boards – active forums for Kindle folks
aNobii

Don't see your favourite hangout? Tell me.

Dumb or Brave? You be the Judge!

My cats would never do this! Doesn't this cat have a water bowl?