M.J. Scott's Blog, page 40

Just a taste….

For those who've been wanting a bit more about Blood Kin…I've just posted the back cover copy over on the website!

Less than six short months to go.  Hopefully there'll be a cover to share soon as well.

Randomness

Having a broken ankle involves large amounts of being stuck at home. Luckily this is a good thing for introvert inclined writer types but you can't write 24 hours a day.

Given I also have to stay off the ankle a lot, I can't really embark on major home improvement or gardening projects, nor do I have the brainpower for terribly complicated knitting (thanks to being in revision cave plus being slightly sleep deprived due to the boot) so there has been lots of reading, watching TV and playing on the internet.  So herewith a sampling of things that have been entertaining me:

1. My iPad. When I found out I had six more weeks in the walking boot, I kind of got grumpy and indulged in retail therapy. An iPad seemed logical given it allows me to do many things from the comfort of my couch. It rocks. I don't read on it but I do many other things (and not just playing Lego Harry Potter and Angry Birds!)

2. Pinterest  Pinterest is kind of like tumblr taken to the nth degree. Many pretty things to look at, crafty things to discover, recipes, girliness, really whatever takes your fancy. For magpie writer brains, it is many hours of shiny distraction.

3. Paprika app  I've had a recipe notebook for many years but with the advent of recipes on the internet, it's become increasingly stuffed with print outs that I'll write up "One day". Angela James tweeted about a recipe app called paprika which she liked so I decided to give it a go. It's kind of awesome.  You can download recipes directly from many big recipe sites, you can capture other recipes pretty quickly, you can categorise them, it will scale the ingredients for you and you can share the recipes too.  I have the desktop and iPad versions now.  Also good for storing beauty and green/home cleaning type recipes. Now all I have to do is slowly transfer my handwritten notebook recipes!

4. I have been watching Sons of Anarchy and Doc Martin. Kind of alternately. This may create story whiplash but one is dark and gritty and enthralling and the other is lighter and fun so it's a good balance.

5.  Reading.  Thank god for my e-readers which mean I have a steady supply of reading matter even when I can't get to the library or a bookstore. I have had a big glom of the Kerry Greenwood Corinna Chapman books (Melbourne, bakers, cats, what's not to like?) and many many more.

6. Indulging the girly side.  One can paint one's nails, try to teach oneself to curl hair with a flat iron, give yourself a facial (right now, I'm trying this mask….when I was a teen, Avon used to make a great green apple face mask that set and you peeled off…this may just be the unscented, home made version of that!). Pinterest is good for finding things to try. Also YouTube is girly stuff technique heaven.  I like Pixiwoo and Lisa Eldridge but there are many many out there.

7. Apple TV.  I was given one of these nifty little creations for my 40th.  Love.  Stream stuff from your computer to your TV, including photos (you can have a slideshow of your photos playing all day, music, video and podcasts!) Genius!

So there you go, many many evil (well in my case, good at the moment) sources of entertainment when you can't do much!

Have fun ; )

Cover kicks butt!

Yes, I am still alive, yes, I still have a broken ankle and am still in the writing cave with book 3 and therefore am living a life that does not feature much blog-worthy news. But I will do better in December!

But first, some exciting news…my lovely cover has finalled in both the Best Female and Best Debut cover categories of the All Things Urban Fantasy 2011 Cover Art Awards.

Covers are very very important.  They catch the reader's eye, they draw them in, they intrigue them. They're most often the thing (particularly for a newbie author) that will make someone pick up your book and flip to the first page and read a bit. And the Shadow Kin cover does all those things brilliantly.

Julia Rohwedder did the art and Eileen Carey and the fab Roc team did the design and they created something beautiful that I still stop and stare at today.  So if you like my kick ass cover too, please show them some appreciation and vote!

There are lots of categories in the award and there have been many many brilliant covers in the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal genres this year, so go check them out. You might even find some new books to try.

And now for something different…

Firstly, sorry for the blog silence. I am Mel of little brain and managed to break my ankle two weeks ago so have been preoccupied with adjusting to crutches and plaster and am also head down in my Blood Kin revisions.

But for those of you who follow along here, you may have gathered that I like to knit.  I also (handily) have a sister in law who is an awesome indie yarn dyer.  She, being a clever thing, has produced some Shadow Kin yarn colourways inspired by the characters (and the gorgeous cover, natch). Very cool, even if I do say so myself! I made a few colour suggestions and she has made very pretty yarn! There are four colourways:

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"Shadow Kin"

 

"Wraith"

 

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"Sunmage"

"Half-Light"

The yarn is 4ply 100% Australian Superwash merino, hand painted by Melissa and come in 100 gram hanks.  The first skeins will be available at the Stranded In Oz stall at the Adelaide Craft and Quilt Fair (November 3-6) but after that, Melissa will be taking orders via her online store.

I hope if you buy some, then you'll send me pics! Let's just say extra cool things knitted in Shadow Kin yarns may rate a prize!

Books I'm looking forward to

Haven't done one of these in a while and the TBR pile does seem to keep piling up, so here are some books I'm hanging out to read over the next few months.

Snuff by Terry Pratchett (Out next week but hopefully winging its way to me right now in the post)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Purchased but waiting for the head cold to go away a bit so I can concentrate properly on books)

Angel Town by Lilith Saintcrow (October 25…last in the Jill Kismet series, so eager to see how she wraps things up though sad the series will be over. But her new projects sounds awesome too)

Real Men Will by Victoria Dahl (October 25…the first two of the Donovan Brothers trilogy have been great books and the prequel novella to this book was also fun so looking forward to seeing the tightly wound Eric get loosened up).

Feed by Mira Grant (This has been out for quite some time but I've only just bought it…cool premise and the first few pages were very good)

The Duke is Mine by Eloisa James (December…love me some awesome Regency romance)

How the Marquess Was Won by Julie Anne Long (January and ditto)

Darkness Unbound (out now) and Darkness Rising (October 25) by Keri Arthur (Her new series and I always love reading her books in final form after seeing bits and chunks as she writes them)

Death Magic by Eileen Wilks (November…really enjoy this series which goes in some unexpected but always good directions)

Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins (October 25…there are many good books out October 25!  Am interested to see what Higgins does with third person)

The Next Always by Nora Roberts (November…new Nora series is always a good thing)

All They Need by Sarah Mayberry (November…I love Sarah's books and hey, the heroine is called Mel! )

Bride by Mistake by Anne Gracie (January…Anne's books are always lovely)

I'm sure there will be many more joining this list (so many books, so little time!).  What books are you looking forward to?

Spooky…

You can cruise on over to All Things Urban Fantasy if you want to get Lily's take on the legend of The Black Dog.

There's a chance to win a copy of Shadow Kin and the Spooky Legends event is running all month and there are many other cool giveaways and legends to read about.

 

A tale of two e-readers

So, a while back I bought myself a pretty silver Sony reader.

and for my birthday, my always awesome friend Jo, gave me a Kindle (and a pretty blue cover).

So now that I've been using the Kindle for a bit, I thought I'd do a comparison post on the two.

Stuff that I like about my Sony:

The touch screen
The ability to organise stuff more easily via Calibre or the reader software
It's prettier
It takes more formats
The books live on my computer and my backups as well as the device

Stuff that I don't like about the Sony

Having to sideload stuff isn't that much of a chore but it is one more step before I can read my brand new book (yes, yes, we all are horribly impatient here in the future)
Sometimes it's a tad small (I have the smaller version) to hold
Not wild about where the page turn buttons are
Taking notes on the touch screen is kind of awkward (not that I take many notes)
Geographic restrictions on content (yes, I know, not the Sony's fault and yes, I understand why they exist but it still frustrates the heck out of Mel-as-reader)

Stuff that I like about the Kindle

The keyboard (not that I've used it much but typing notes seems easier to me
The free 3G/wireless bizzo (haven't actually browsed the web but automagically appearing books = good)
The oh-so-seductive one click and automagically a book appears on your kindle transfer of stuff

Stuff that I don't like about the Kindle

Being tied to the Amazon store/format
The fact that once in its pretty blue cover, it's actually a little heavy
To re-iterate – geographic restrictions on content (yes, I know, not the Kindle's fault either but frustrating as hell anywhere)
I think the battery life is shorter…maybe it's the 3G/wireless but I haven't read a heap on it yet and have had to recharge it once (and have only had it two weeks)
The fact that the books are really stored somewhere in the mysterious bowels of Amazon and I can't back them up etc and really, Amazon can automagically take them away from my device should they ever want to.

To sum up, neither is my perfect e-Reader.  That device would have wireless/3g free delivery, e-Ink touch screen plus a little keyboard and take all damned format and let me store my books where I wanted as well as having them stored in my accounts in the respective booksellers' stores. (Don't tell me an iPad lets me most of that…I do not want to read e-Books on a backlit screen as I spend too much time on computer screens as it is…I will however someday buy an iPad for videos, games and knitting pattern use : ), it is just never going to be a great book reading device for me and my over-computer exposed eyes).

Which one would I recommend?  Well, as an Aussie, if you can only have one, I'd probably still lean towards a Sony because it gives you more flexibility in formats and most stores that sell to Aussies other than Amazon seem to lean towards ePub as the format. I also like the touch screen a lot.

The Kindle is certainly very convenient in terms of purchasing stuff wirelessly and Amazon do seem to be working hard to make stuff available in more areas (unlike Sony who won't sell anything Aussies in their own store –at least last time I tried–though as I said, there are many retailers who will.) And the Kindle is cheaper (will be interested to see what the Aussie Kindle retailers do now in the face of the price drops).  Although, I cannot for the life of me understand why Aussies can't buy Kindle books from Amazon.uk when Aussie rights usually go with UK. I'm sure there is some obscure legal reason tripping things up. Also I do not like having all my eggs in one basket so to speak format wise and retailer wise. Your mileage may vary on that front. If I lived in the US, I'd probably still have both (or a Kindle and a Nook or something) but I can see why it's pretty hard for US-ians to go past a Kindle, particularly at the new prices and with the intro of the Kindle Touch (which Amazon aren't selling to we poor downunder types).

If you don't mind the backlit thing and have the moolah and don't mind a heavier device, I'd say go an iPad which gives you many reading options plus does other stuff to boot. I can't see the point of a Kindle Fire in Oz, even if they'd sell me one as Amazon don't sell most of the other content they want to push to Fire users to Aussies. iPad definitely wins that one.

So there you go, possibly clear as mud. Mel's verdict is two e-Readers best option right now, neither of them is exactly what I want and let us hope that the geographic restrictions schemozzles get sorted sooner rather than later. Until then, the majority of my book buying will still be in paper. Everyone is happy to sell me that at least!

Launch pics!

A few pics from the book launch tonight, taken by Jo (who also did my author pics)….there are more over on the Facebook page.

How do you spell M.J.?

Keri making an awesome speech!

Me making a speech (though I look like I'm about to entertain the crowd with a song)

A Queue!

Even my Mum had to queue!

Thank you to everyone who came along! You made my first book launch and signing a fantastic experience! Hopefully you all enjoyed it too : )

Special thanks to Keri for her speech, Robyn and Tony from Miss Marmalade for the wonderful food, Jo for the picture taking and Louise and all the staff at Dymocks Melbourne for hosting me!

On big birthdays

So today I turn forty.  Four decades of Mel on earth : )

This last decade has been an interesting one, I have to give it that.  It has had its ups and downs and its sadnesses but on the whole, I have to give it a tick of approval.

In my thirties I:

1. Bought my first house

2. Wrote my first book

3. Made many fabbo new friends in the writer biz

4. Learned a lot about writing.

5. Sold my first book (and thereby achieved my big goal for the decade).

6. Saw my first book on the bookshelf of a bookstore (with just a few days to spare)

7. Celebrated with my friends as they did cool things like have babies, get married, started businesses, hit the NYT list and other sundry awesomenesses.

8. Learned a reasonable amount about myself.  Though, hey, as I was saying to someone just yesterday, I'm really not sure I feel that much different to how I did back in high school.  I *know* more stuff and am slightly wiser perhaps but I'm still me.

9. Did just about the right amount of crazy things. Took some risks. Laughed a lot.

10. Read many many many many many good books (and some less good ones but moving right along now).

So now it's time to pause, reflect, consider and make some plans for even more kickass next decade! Oh, and eat cake. Everything is better with cake.

Another Shadow Kin giveaway

And interview with me over at The Qwillery.  Where as usual, I'm happy to answer questions during Aussie operating hours : )