Book Release – Red-Headed Stepchild

I have nothing today. Feel slightly better, but other than that – meh. So, how about a nice plug for a writer friend?

Jaye Wells has a book out today. It’s called Red-Headed Stepchild. Here’s a description:

In a world where being of mixed-blood is a major liability, Sabina doesn’t really fit in. And being an assassin – the only profession fit for an outcast – doesn’t help matters. But she’s never brought her work home. Until now.

Her latest mission is uncomfortably complex, and threatens the fragile peace between the vampire and mage races. As Sabina scrambles to figure out which side she’s on, she uncovers a tangled political web, some nasty facts about her family and some unexpected new talents. Any of these things could be worryingly life-changing, but together, they could be fatal …

This time, it’s personal.

Buy it!

Raisin the Roof

Home from work today sick. It feels like the same sickness I had a month ago, right when the baby was born. I guess the universe thought I had too much energy and wanted to take my last remaining bit. Also sick are my wife, my daughter, and the baby. Fun!

Bunch of stuff in the works, though. I’m still trying my luck with the web comic, though I’ve hit a bit of a block with that. You can read Knuckleball here.

I also have a small writing contest I’m gonna enter this week. It’s only 500-600 words, so that shouldn’t take long.

I showed the novel to the family yesterday. They all enjoyed it. I was particularly please my Grandfather read it and like it. Very cool.

Finally, we’re getting a new roof put on the house. The old one is very old, and a little leaky. Not to mention it’s about to blow away in the next stiff wind. The best news, though, is our friend who is a contractor is doing the roof for us and is giving us an amazing deal. We are very lucky indeed.

Oliver Wendell Holmes on Free Speech

I heard a great quote this morning attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes I thought I’d share. (emphasis mine)

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought — not free thought only for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate.

This was in regards to Supreme Court case United States v. Schwimmer in which a woman was denied citizenship because she would not take the oath because of the “take up arms personally” in defense of the United States” part.

A New Car

Read the title of this post in your best Bob Barker voice, as it was meant to be read.. Also, make sure nobody is around. You don’t want anybody to think you have the crazies, after all.

Anyhow, I’m in the market for a new car. New to me anyhow. I’m in the market for a different car, OK? That better?

Also, I just want to say that I know a car is the worst thing in the world to spend money on. The moment you drive off the lot, the value drops. By the time you own the stupid thing (usually four or five years after purchase), it’s worth $.50. I know this.

Still, I need to part with my beloved Honda Element. There’s nothing wrong with it, really. It runs great, goes great in the snow, and all that stuff. Still, it has a tendency to rebel against my wife whenever she tries to get the kids in/out of the car. See, we live on a hill and the door has a tendency to swing closed randomly and crush my poor wife. It has happened enough that it’s time for a change.

I have my eyes set on a couple cars. One is the Honda Insight hybrid. Pretty cool car, but it just launched this week. Not gonna find a use one.

The other is a Prius, and I’ve found a used one close to my house. I think I can get it without my monthly payments increasing very much. That’s the key, of course. It all comes down to money.

So, maybe I’ll have a new car soon, one that won’t randomly attack my family. We shall see.

My Name on the Cover of a Book!

So, I mentioned yesterday that I ordered a free proof copy of my novel from CreateSpace. Well, imagine my surprise when it showed up in the mail yesterday. It looks even better than I thought it would. It even has a glossy cover of my own design!

I just want to stress for a moment just how cool it is to physically hold a book I have written. As soon as I saw it I wanted to hug and squeeze it and call it George. Or booky. Here are some poor quality pictures I took of the book last night.

Front Cover

Back Cover

In theory, I could now read over my proofs, and start selling them at the CreateSpace sight. There are a couple problems with that. First of all, the story doesn’t have an end, and hasn’t been edited. The story is just not ready for prime time.

That said, this will be great for getting some feedback on the story. If someone wants to read it I can just give them this copy rather than sending them a word file. This is a good thing.

In conclusion, I absolutely recommend all you writers give CreateSpace a try, even if you don’t want to sell your book. I think it costs around $12 (including shipping) for a proof copy of a book without the special NaNoWriMo code. I think it’s worth it.

Odd Bits

Here a few of the things going on with me right now.

I should be getting the proof copy of my novel from CreateSpace any day now. Just a perk of completing NaNoWriMo. I’ll post pictures once it arrives. It will be nice to have a physical copy of the story, if only to give to my “beta readers” aka my wife and my parents.

The baby is sleeping a little bit. We’re still up a few times a night, but that’s to be expected. He’s not supposed to sleep the whole night through anyhow.

Reading an interesting book on Lincoln. It’s the one I mentioned the other day. I’m reading it on the Sony Reader. Pretty weird reading a book written so long ago (1901) on such a new piece of technology.

Enjoying working on my web comic. We’ll see how long the ideas for that last.

A Monday

Not much new here on the writing front. I’ve been spending more time lately working on Knuckle Ball, my web comic. We’ll see how long that keeps my attention, but right now I’m enjoying it. If you get a moment, please head over there and check it out. Comments are welcome. Also, here’s the latest comic:

You can see if full size here.

Not a whole lot new on the baby front. We’re tired. That’s probably the best way to describe things. We’re getting some sleep, so that’s good.

How are you?

A Webcomic

Just because I haven’t spread my free time thin enough, I’ve started a webcomic. So far I’ve uploaded one comic and am working on the site design.

The character featured in the comic, Knuckle Ball, has been a character I’ve been drawing since as early as 5th grade. I’ve always wanted to put him in a comic strip of his own, but never did. I’m excited about what I have so far. Anyhow, check out Knuckle Ball and let me know what you think.

Google and Sony Reader

Did any of you hear yesterday that Sony and Google announced a deal that brings 500,000+ books for free to Sony Reader users in Reader format? Here’s a quote from the press release:

Sony and Google announced today the launch of a partnership to bring upwards of 500,000 public domain texts from Google’s Book Search collections to Sony’s line of electronic Readers at no cost to the user.

What does this mean? It means Paul has got some readin’ to do!

These books were previously available from Google anyhow and it was possible with some software and some time to make files you could read on the Sony Reader. This just makes it much more accessible and easy. All I have to do is go to my Sony Reader software, find the book I want, and click “Download”.

There is some great stuff there. Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, L. Frank Baum (all of the Wizard of Oz stuff is there), as well as non-fiction books. Here’s a link to a book I downloaded yesterday titled The Life of Abraham Lincoln (written by Henry Ketcham in 1901). Note you don’t have to have the Sony Reader to read this online.

This is such excellent news for me as a book lover and a Sony Reader owner. Anyhow, just thought I’d share.

Wall-E End Credits (the best part)

There’s the end credits for Wall-E. Definitely worth a look if you haven’t taken the time to watch them before. In fact, I would say the end credits here are better than some of the full movies out there now!

By now, almost everybody has seen the movie Wall-E. Just a beautiful movie, animated or not. We watched it again the other day with our daughter and it was neat to experience it through the eyes of a 2 1/2 year old. We fast forwarded through any of the violent or scary parts, not that there were many of them.

Do you remember the part where Wall-E has a Rubik’s Cube? Well, my daughter picked up on that right away. In fact, she remembered we have a Rubik’s Cube and she even had me bring it to work with me. He he.

Anyhow, that’s my contribution to the web world for today. I’m feeling a bit punchy due to lack of sleep.