M. Edward McNally's Blog, page 4

Everybody is a Star!

(I didn’t schedule this post ahead of time, just on the off chance the world blew up)

As a gentle reminder that every book ever written gets *hammered* by one-star reviews sometimes, today’s column at Indies Unlimited runs down the 12 bestselling books of 2012, along with excerpts from 12 reviews that gave them a total of 12 stars. Enjoy.

Congrats, 2012 Holiday Hop WINNER!

 Conga rats to the WINNER of the Norothian Cycle via the 2012 Holiday Hop:

Kathy867

Who I, of course, can’t figure out how to contact.

So here’s the deal Kathy - feel free to leave a comment here with an address or profile through which I can contact you, or you can e-mail me directly at medwardmcnally@cox.net and I will get your e-books in whatever way works best for you. Congratulations, and thanks very much to all who entered. Happy Holidays, all the best to you and yours, and as always, thanks much for reading.

- Ed McNally

RESULTS: “What is the total word count of the four books of the Norothian Cycle?”

There are actually slight variations on the word counts of various e-book platforms, as each requires a different amount of front or back matter, specific disclaimers, etc. So I just went with the word counts of the original books files, without title/dedication pages, links to other books in the series, etc. So that made the word counts:

183,076 The Sable City

152,126 Death of a Kingdom

119,738 The Wind from Miilark

109,636 Devil Town

———–

564,576 TOTAL

These were the entries received in numeric order, and Kathy’s guess proved “closest to the pin” by just about 1000 words, having come within 312 of the spot-on answer.

175,000 Corey F.

183,000 Beckey

185,000 Ericka 250,000 Susana R.

425,386 Brittany C.

454,526 Sharyn BL

483,591 Rikki

500,002 Jennifer M.

513,076 Cheryl B.

523,026 jonquil

525,000 Brandi F.

526,078 Della H.

528,078 Kelly

540,076 Erica M.

551,392 Christine D-R

559,472 Sarah M.

562,419 Lisa N. (-2167)



<<< 564,576 ANSWER >>>

<<< WINNER: 564,888 Kathy (+312) >>>

565,900 Stephanie A. (+1324)

566,370 gaele1

566,374 Gale N.

566,607 bbbaddict

566,608 Sarah M.

569,743 Olga C.

573,423 Richard S.

575,705 Maria D.

582,947 Jessica C.

587,124 S.

589,879 Kai W.

595,753 Kathy D.F.

598,000 Stacey V.

600,000 Jenx B.

600,000 Alonna S.

600,001 Brenna

603,722 Stephani A.

619,670 Linda K.

620,001 Lona S.

623,023 Lee Anne K.

627,000 A.H. Thompson

635,174 John B.

635,635 Shelby F.

635,703 bubblesue

645,237 Crystal C.

645,926 Alice D.

650,000 Micelle B.

655,555 Danielle

658,551 Melissa S.

674,001 Lexie C.

700,000 Kate P.

800,000 R.W. Foster

1,000,000 (dollars) Tara W.

Thanks once again to all who entered, and remember that if the Norothian Cycle does sound like something you might enjoy reading, Book One remains FREE on all platforms.

Free Apocalypse! (that sounded weird)

Happy Friday, and just a couple things I’d like to mention today – first off, the newest short story collection from the Eclective is available for FREE today from Amazon (and Amazon UK ). This one is seven stories by seven authors all dealing with The Apocalypse, so we figured we should get it out free this weekend…just in case.



Second, over on Ed’s Casual Friday at Indies Unlimited, today’s column details some of the signs that you might, in fact, be a writer of Epic Fantasy.

Thanks for stopping by, have a good weekend, and be sure to check out the post immediately below this one to join the Holiday Hop for a chance to win prizes ranging from all the books of the Norothian Cycle, to a Kindle Fire.

Win the Norothian Cycle – Holiday Hop

HOLIDAY BLOG HOP!!! Ho, ho, ho. (In a good way…)

Hello, I’m M. Edward McNally, but you can call me “Ed” (waves). Welcome to the sablecity’s stop on the 2012 Holiday Hop, and thanks much for hopping by.

Here is how I am working my giveway, which will be very simple as befits my level of techological ineptitude. I’m the author of an epic, Musket & Magic fantasy series called The Norothian Cycle, presently consisting of four books, with the fifth out early next year. The series stars a feisty Guild-trained adventurer named Tilda Lanai, and I’m gratified to say even non-fantasy fans have thus far found her stories worth reading, so please don’t let the term “epic fantasy” worry you too much.

Volume One, The Sable City, is always FREE for all e-book platforms. It weighs in at a robust 183,076 words and is the longest of the four books available at this time. So here is my simple “How many jellybeans in the jar?” style question:

<<>>

Feel free to leave a guess here as a comment, and a way you can be reached online (if you are not already posting as a facebook, wordpress, whatever profile). At the conclusion of the blog hop which runs December 10th to 14th, I will select a winner by a careful process of addition and subtraction to calculate the closest answer to the actual word count (guessing higher or lower doesn’t matter, so go nuts).

The closest guess will win something along the lines of A SUBSCRIPTION TO THE NOROTHIAN CYCLE. That is, I will get you e-copies of the existing books in the series ($4.99 each), provided in any of the normal ways: either directly via Kindle “gift,” Smashwords coupon, or just sending the apporpriate files for any kind of e-reader. Whatever works for you. In addition, as each subsequent volume is released, I will send you a copy of that one as well, beginning in early 2012 with Volume V: The Channel War.

That’s all there is to it, just leave a number as a guess, and do remember to check out the main page of the Holiday Hop to visit all the participating blogs, and enter for the Grand Prize packages including (drumroll) A KINDLE FIRE! 

Thanks again for taking part, Happy Holidays to you and yours, and as I always say: Thanks for reading.

Ed McNally

FREE today via Bookbub…The Sable City

Also, I would be remiss if I did not thank Bookbub for featuring THE SABLE CITY today among its FREE titles.

You can just click the cover or title there and it will take you to the links for Kindle, Nook, the iStore, Smashwords, etc, and feel FREE to help yourself to Volume I of the Norothian Cycle.

Ed’s Casual Friday: Pantser Monologue

Today on Ed’s Casual Friday over at Indies Unlimited, I pants myself.

By which I mean I opine about what it’s like for a writer who is a “Pantser” to sit down every morning in front of their writing instruments with no earthly idea what the hell they are doing there.

Plus, there’s a squirrel.

“Almost Ice Road Truckers, except for the Tulip Bulbs.” Tag Line Tuesday with Carolyn Steele

Today on Tag Line Tuesday, we sit down with (no huge spoilers here) an author! Let’s just jump straight in, shall we?

Ed: Hola! Since I hear writers are creative people, please answer each of the following biographic questions twice, once with the truth and once with a lie.

CS: Carolyn Steele. And, they call me Rocky…it’s a nickname that stuck after a long and boring story about installing some closet doors. When you go through life with a name that doesn’t lend itself to diminutives, you get kinda desperate for a nickname so I allowed it to stick. Oops, that’s not a lie. But then I write non-fiction.

Ed: Where you from?

CS: London. Tottenham to be precise, famous for a football team and a race riot. Not “London, England” though, only people who don’t come from London call it that. Now, I live in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, famous for Mennonites and physicists. And I sometimes have to refer to “London, England.”

(and)  I wish I came from somewhere that I hadn’t needed to leave to feel alive. if I were a fiction writer, I could probably think of somewhere.

Ed: You have one of those Day jobs?

CS: Copywriter and website developer. Middle-aged ladies with BBC accents aren’t supposed to be geeks but I do love a good css gag and can’t quite believe I use phrases such as, ‘I’ve almost solved it but the code is a little clumsy’.

(and) Long distance truck driver, taking less-than-load auto parts across the border to the US mid-west in an 18-wheeler. Pest exterminator, specializing in wasps, fleas and bedbugs. And rehoming lost bee swarms. None of them are lies, although one is in the past. I’m not sure if I wish they were untrue or not.

Ed: How about your Dream job?

CS: I’m easily bored, there’s a list of things I want to have a go at and they’d be the dream job for at least a year and then I’d be on the move again. Driving examiner, lace maker, chocolatier, I’d like to get back into trucking someday for long enough to be able to teach it. Oh and I want to learn to fly, and do some radio and…

Ed: Finally the inevitable question – Why do you write?

CS: Because every experience is better shared. You know how you say to someone ‘wasn’t it great when…’ and you retell a splendid event and it becomes more real? I want to treasure every moment, we only go around once (unless all that coming back as a cat is true, in which case, I’ll find a writer to live with, there will be loads of nice important papers to sit on.) Where was I? I learned way back that the best way to make sense of life was to find the funny and pass it on. It’s a habit now, if I haven’t written it down, it hasn’t really happened.

Ed: You may now return to full honesty (if you want.) for, THE LIGHTNING ROUND!

Quick! What is your favorite,

Band – Here’s a confession, I have zero music in my soul. Can I have a favourite comedian instead? Bill Bailey.

Food – My son’s signature salmon and artichoke pasta.

Game – Kersplatt! A mad card game based on a food fight.

Album – See above.

Word – Splendid. It’s so nice to say, I am on a mission to restore it to common usage.

Color – Khaki, I like to fade into the background.

Animal – Cat (hey, I’m an old lady, but I’m only owned by two.)

Piece of clothing – My souvenir ball cap from a terrifying day with an 18-wheeler on a skid pan.

Movie – The Mouse That Roared, a Peter Sellers classic with politics that get more relevant with every decade.

TV show – Judge Judy.

Drink – Gin and tonic, with a slice of lime, not lemon and only one piece of ice.

Son – The ultimate song about loneliness, love and loss, by Bill Bailey

Line from a song – From the above…

“The duck lies shredded in a pancake, soaking in the hoisin of your lies.”

Pizza topping – Is it ok to not like pizza?

Crime – Defenestration.

Place – Venice.

Quote – “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room.” Dr Strangelove, I’m a sucker for Peter Sellers movies.

Ed: Finally, three random things about yourself, please.

CS: 1.) I once got drunk with Monty Python’s Terry Jones. 2.) I am the only person I know who has actually seen what hanged people look like. 3.) I am a devotee of the traditional lacemaking craft of tatting.

[image error]Ed: Now onto the BOOK CHAT portion of the festivities, beginning with books you did not happen to write yourself.

What’s the biggest consideration when you are deciding what book to read?

CS: Author and mood I guess. I’m not much of a one for genre fiction, although I do like a good genre send-up, Terry Pratchett for fantasy and Christopher Brookmyre for whodunits. I want to laugh these days, more than to impress by the literariness of my bookshelf.

Ed: Hypothetically, say you are looking at the back of a book in a bookstore, reading on online blurb, or whatever.  What sort of thing makes you say “yes,” what sort of things makes you say “pass?”

CS: If it makes me grin, I’ll go for it.  At the blurb-reading point I’m more interested in style than story.

Ed: What genre do you enjoy most?

CS: Anything based in reality, psychological drama that makes me think, I don’t mind whether it’s Dostoyevsky, Joanna Trollope or John Grisham, I want to to feel as though I’m being enabled to understand people a bit more.

Ed: What genre would you read only if you lost a bet?

CS: Anything vampire or zombie.

Ed: Do you have a favorite author, and do you think they influence your own writing?

CS: I aspire to be Bill Bryson, to the extent that I refrain from reading his stuff when I’m writing. I don’t want to have his voice in my head when I’m trying to use my own. But, for faves, I’ve mentioned most of them but I should add Anthony Trollope to the list. He’s out of fashion and has somehow lost out to Dickens in the ‘classic’ stakes but I defy anyone to read one of his books and not meet a character they have worked with.

Ed: Do you have a favorite book, and how many times have you read it?

CS: Anthony Trollope again, Barchester Towers. I’ve read it twice, which doesn’t sound a lot but I never normally reread books, I resent the time when there are so many out there to find and read for the first time.

Ed: What’s the first book you remember buying with your own money?

CS: The play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” by Tom Stoppard. I’d been to see it and the word play was so dazzling I had to buy the book to really appreciate it all.

Ed: That explains why you are here playing “Questions.”

Any books you have been told you should read, and know you probably never will?

CS: Um. No.

Ed: Ever lied about reading, or not reading, a book?

CS: A friend wrote and self-published a children’s book which turned me off at the blurb. I always slide the conversation round to the publishing experience…

Ed: Ever read a book you were sure you were going to like, and not liked it?

CS: Oh dear yes. Confession time. I’d been told I’d love Thomas Pynchon, by people whose taste I respect. I spent proper money on Against the Day.  Awful, self-indulgent twaddle, I hated every moment and bear a real grudge that he, and they, stole so much of my life.

Ed: Heh. I love Pynchon, though I admit that one isn’t my favorite.

Ever grudgingly read a book, and loved it?

CS: I visited Savannah as a tourist and every shop had piles of copies of “Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt. It’s the true tale of a murderous scandal that happened there, there’s a movie too. It seemed like you couldn’t visit the place without buying a copy so I did. And it was a total delight. I have to see the movie now, and go back to Savannah to look round again now I’ve read the book.

Ed: As is usually the case, that book was a lot better than the movie, so careful there.

What’s your favorite line from a book? (not your own)

CS: “To this day, I remain impressed by the ability of Britons of all ages and social backgrounds to get genuinely excited by the prospect of a hot beverage.” Bill Bryson, “Notes From a Small Island”

Ed: Now continuing BOOK CHAT with books you did actually happen to write.

How, and when, do you tend to come up with titles?

CS: I steal them from other people, sooner or later someone comes up with a quip that sums up the phase I’m writing about and I nick it. Sometimes I tell them.

Ed: How do your characters get their names?

CS: Since I write non-fiction I don’t have to worry too much, they name themselves. Although I have a policy of using real names for the people I’m nice about and changing the names of people who won’t like what they read if they know it’s them. Sometimes I’ll give the baddies a nickname.

Ed: What do you think your books say about you?

CS: Self-obsessed. I have no idea why people read my stuff, I feel like the pub bore when I’m marketing…’Hey people. Read about me!’ But I see life through the lens of humour, everything that happens has its funny side and apparently people like that.

Ed: Is there anything you have written which you would now like to change or revise, wish you had written differently, etc.?

CS: My first book began as a journal and it stayed true to the unfolding of events when it was published. If I revise it, which I might, I think I would impose more structure, give it more of a story arc.

Ed: What’s your favorite line which you have written?

CS: “Almost Ice Road Truckers, except for the tulip bulbs.”

Ed: Now for few questions about your own writing process, which always seems like it should be capitalized. PROCESS.

Plotter or Pantser?

CS: Pantser, the great thing about doing mad stuff for a living and then writing about it is that the plots write themselves.

Ed: What is the Best and Worst advice you ever got as a writer?

CS: Don’t bother, only your Mum will read it.

Ed: What is the Best and Worst thing about being a writer?

CS: Best thing is definitely how it alters your approach to disasters. Whenever anything goes wrong, like, say, getting fired with a week’s notice in a foreign country when your home was part of the job, or finding out you’ve been harbouring a murderer in your B&B for 6 months, or accidentally ripping the door off a 53 foot trailer, you might thing ‘oh dear’ (or words to that effect) first but pretty much instantly you’re working out just how funny it will be in writing.

Worst thing, um, struggling to think of one.

Ed: Why Indie?

CS: I write about obscure stuff, I got sick of the rejections that said ‘send us something else’. That was a few years ago, now Indies are a vibrant, supportive community, working to improve things for all of us. I like the collaborative, inclusive perfectionism.

Ed: Is being a writer what you expected? How so or how not?

CS: I’ve only started calling myself a writer quite recently, although I’ve been writing for years. Once I had a paid gig, even though it was very part-time, I decided I could justify the label and I’ve been surprised that people don’t scoff when you tell them that’s what you do. Apparently it’s an ok thing to be. Who knew?

Ed: Have you, or would you ever, collaborate on a story?

CS: I am hoping to collaborate on the next book, which will be written from three people’s points of view because I think it will be funnier that way. Then I have plans to write more seriously, about the stuff I have studied properly instead of rampaging around the world having a blast, those may well be collaborative books. I’m planning one about post traumatic stress and one about coping with losses, I’m lining up some people to work with who know these from the inside.

Ed: Finally, What’s the moral of the story?

CS: Have fun.

Ed: In closing, a few REAL answers to HYPOTHETICAL questions.

Your computer is smoking, wheezing, and sparks are shooting out of the back.  You can save one thing off the hard drive.  What is it?

CS: The WIP, what else?

Ed: You have one perfect day of free time, no obligations, needs, or responsibilities.  What do you do?

CS: Tatting and crafting, while catching up with the dramas on BBC Radio 4. Unless of course someone has bought me a gift certificate for flying lessons, a skid pan day or racing car experience.

Ed: Someone “in the business” suggests you change something you feel is a critical part of one of your books, and guarantees it will increase sales. What do you do?

CS: Consider it very carefully, in case they are right. Ask the betas what they think. Decide whether it’s ego or integrity, dump the first, hang on to the second.

Ed: You are offered just enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life, if you will just stop writing.  What do you do?

CS: Um, can I podcast? I promise to improvise and nor write anything down.

Ed: What question do you wish I had asked?

CS: Should a writer try to grow up?

—————————

Thanks much Carolyn Steele for stopping by and playing along, and all readers please do feel free to check out Carolyn’s books, mentioned here with a FIVE WORD SYNOPSIS I ask all writers to do, because I know how deeply they loath distilling their work into ridiculously brief tag lines.

Trucking in English

“Pink baseball caps don’t help.”

A Year on Planet Alzheimer

“Travelling is mostly about meatballs.”

Ed’s Casual Friday: BIG books

Today on Ed’s Casual Friday over at Indies Unlimited, re-watching LOTR for the umpteenth time causes me to drone on at some length about why people like biiiiiiiig books.

Ed’s Casual Friday: Digesting Every Word

Today at Ed’s Casual Friday over at Indies Unlimited, I go even more casual than usual as I loosen my belt in the wake of Turkey Day, and pontificate about the benefits of taking a day off from writing now and again.

I’m only kidding about the belt…I’m actually wearing sweatpants.

How DO you get to The Sable City?

Thanks much to Iaqulotta for the lover-ly review. How DO you get to The Sable City?.