Paksworld

The proof copy of Deeds of Youth, that’s what!

Because I’m a writer with a fat glob of Ego, I took a picture of it lying on its padded yellow envelope for posterity or at least later gleeful gloating over just as I’m sitting here now with the book beside me, periodically opening it and reading more.  Yes, I could call up the stories on the screen and read them off the file, but…it’s a real, physical BOOK, with pages, and I can look at it and touch it  and feel the smoothness of the pages and (on and on and on.  Did I remember to admit the large glob of Ego?  Yes?  OK.

I really, really needed to see another new book with my name on it.  Yes, some of the stories were published before but…in this format, it’s new.

I can’t remember if I’ve listed the contents before, so I’ll do that now.   I know I have said before that the protagonists in the stories (each different) are older in each successive story.

“Bad Day at Duke’s East”

“The Dun Mare’s Grandchild”

“Dream’s Quarry”

“Gifts”

“First Blood”

“Mercenary’s Honor”

“Consequences”

Realizing now I should’ve taken a picture of the inside somewhere too.  DUH.  Tomorrow, maybe.  You can see by the shadow it’s not just a cover flat kind of thing, it’s got thickness.  But I’ve typoed almost every word in this sentence…BED NOW!

We had seventeen entries at the end, after I found John McDonald’s in the moderation queue.    Alas for what I said in the comments to the previous post, I don’t really use hamsters to generate random numbers, and I used an online random number generator instead.    I wish I had seventeen ARCs to hand out, because, folks, every one of you wrote something that made me chuckle, or cry, or just sit there feeling Paksworld around me.    So in the midnight dark, I decided that three ARCs would find a new home in this thing. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, it’s less than 12 hours to the deadline.   Time for all who haven’t put their name in the hat for an ARC of Crown of Renewal to come up with a little “Midwinter Tale” (it can be short.  It’s not going to be judged on anything but its existence in the comments section of this post) and email it to the ARC Contest post by midnight tonight.

Each person who enters will have one chance to win one of two ARCs up for grabs, no matter how many tales you enter…though I admit a special glow of thanks to those who entered more than one.    A random number generator will toss me the numbers, and I will announce the winners tomorrow (if we don’t have a power outage or something else happens to prevent me…this is winter, after all, even in Texas.)    Winners will then have 48 hours to send me their package-mail address, and the books will go out by the end of the week (I’m not sure when our local post office will close, other than New Year’s Day, but it often has restricted hours around holidays.)

Ideas come not to those who wait, but those who set fingers to the keyboard and start.  9.5 hours is plenty of time for a couple of paragraphs.

The good news is that I heard from Editor that ARCs are on their way.   That’s right, plural.   We will have a contest & drawing for two ARCs of Crown of Renewal.    Here’s your challenge for this year… Read the rest of this entry »

And the winner is…#1, Jet.   I realize that random number generators of any type can indeed come up with the first or last number, but this is the first time in the ARC contests that it’s happened.  Congratulations to the winner!

So….I need a snail-mail address for the winner.    Email me from the contact form on the website with a subject line of ARC winner so if it happens to fall into a junk mail basket, I can find it easily.

…is I should be getting an ARC later this week, so the contest is just about ready.

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You are the host.  You invite a character to dinner.   Which character from the Deed or Oath, and what do you cook for him/her, and why?    Try to fit the answer in just one or two sentences–this isn’t a demand for vast culinary expertise.   Something like “I would invite  A, and cook B (as simple as “bread” or as elaborate as you please), because (something about A that makes liking B plausible.)  Needless to say, you don’t have to be able to cook the meal in real life.  It’s a fantasy world.  All valid entries (includes character name, menu, reason) will be assigned a number, and the number entered in the drawing for the ARC.   I will co-opt my webmistress to pluck one from a hat.

Post entries to this topic as comments.   Entries must be in by midnight November 2 (the night of our concert, so I may be able to do the drawing within a day or so.)   When I do post the winner’s name, winner must contact me with a mailing address within a week, so we can avoid the holiday jam-up at the post office, which starts earlier every year.

I’m hoping you all have fun seeing who wants to invite whom for dinner, and what kinds of interesting menus are involved.    (I know what to cook for some of my characters, but not all of them.  If you’re actually dying to do menus for more than one, just for fun…sure, you can, but only the first one you send will be in the drawing.

I now have ARCs for Kings of the North in my hot little hands (the weather turned warm and muggy–hands are definitely hot.)    There will be a contest in which someone will win an ARC.   However, due to multiple instances of LifeStuff, I don’t have the contest idea worked out yet, so the contest isn’t today or maybe even this week.   It will happen, however, because I now have a prize some of you will probably want.

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