Are you kidding me? Take a look at that cover right there. How freaking amazing is that? I love it. Seriously. And I know, I know, you can’t judge a book by its cover, but dude! Also, I know Jon and happen to think he’s a pretty awesome guy and a skilled writer, so, ya know, that helps…

Right. I should start at the beginning, I suppose, instead of just sort of gushing randomly.

There’s this guy, right? Named Jonathan Pinnock and he submitted a story to Niteblade. It was a great story and I happily accepted it. I enjoyed working with him and followed him on Twitter. I have since gotten to know him better and consider him a friend.

His novel, Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens was recently released and though I haven’t yet read it (It’s sold out on Amazon.ca at the moment) I am seriously looking forward to it.

When I learned he was doing a blog tour, I invited him to make a stop here. I think Jonathan is my first ever guest blogger on this blog, and what did he chose for his topic? Um, in part, me. O_o

Give it a read and then please check out the links at the bottom, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

~*~

Hello everyone. I’m supposed to be here to say a bit to publicise something I’ve written, but I really think I ought to say a bit about Rhonda instead. Because Rhonda is one of a very special bunch of people that keep writers like me going: small press editors.

In case you don’t know, Rhonda edits a Horror and Fantasy magazine called Niteblade. It’s a reasonably challenging publication to get into: according to Duotrope, only 7.5% of submissions get accepted (and you can bet the real figure is considerably lower than that). So for an aspiring writer, to get accepted by Rhonda is pretty encouraging.

Back in 2008, when I was struggling to make my mark on the world, I had stuff published in a number of small press magazines, including Niteblade (with a rather odd bodyswap story called “An Unsuitable Replacement” if I remember correctly). I think a clocked up somewhere between 30 and 40 hits that year, and each publication felt like another step along the very long and twisting road towards becoming a writer.

The editors of magazines like Niteblade aren’t in it for the money. It really is a labour of love. Again, according to Duotrope, rejections are sent out an average of 18.5 days after receipt and acceptances an average of 23.5 days. If you stop to consider the amount of consistent effort required to keep up that quality of turnaround (and also imagine what some of the rejected pieces must actually be like), you realise why so many of these magazines fold. But some of them, like Niteblade, keep going, publishing stuff from the likes of you and me.

So here I am, with my first novel in the shops. It’s called “Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens”, it’s a comic sci-fi sequel to “Pride and Prejudice” and it’s very funny if I say so myself (but I’m kind of biased, I suppose). If you want to read more about how it came to be written and published (by Proxima, an imprint of the extremely respectable Salt Publishing), please do take a look at some of the other posts on this blog tour (check out www.jonathanpinnock.com for more details). For now, I’d just like to salute the heroes of the small presses and thank all the folk out there like Rhonda who keep on doing it for the love. I wouldn’t have got to this point without you guys.

Important stuff about the book: the website for it is at www.mrsdarcyvsthealiens.com and it’s available in all the usual online places (including, amazingly, the Jane Austen Centre Online Giftshop, where they have some signed copies). If you’re in the UK, it’s still on promotion in WHSmith, so you can actually buy it in a high street store. How about that?

~*~

Thank you so much for stopping by Jonathan, and best of luck with Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens and all your future projects

My family celebrates a secular version of Christmas I’ve taken to calling Giftmas. This year’s Giftmas was very book-centric.

I got:

• The Hunger Games trilogy
• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galxay trilogy (I know I should have read it before now, but I haven’t. Don’t judge :-p)
• Entice by Carrie Jones
• Dragon Bone by Patricia Briggs
• Red Hood’s Revenge by Jim C. Hines

Whoot!

I can’t wait to get reading them, though I don’t know where to start. A dear friend of mine, Amber, sent me a crapload of books just before Christmas, and I want to read them too. I need a few more hours in the day, please. That would be fabulous. It’s also fabulous to have so many books I can’t wait to dive into

In related-to-my-book news I have a new review of Lost and Found to share. Clayton Bye, of The Deepening, reviewed it and he liked it. I liked his review, in fact it made my day yesterday.  Why? Well, in part because he said this:

Parrish represents a fresh and powerful voice in fantasy

*happy dance* How cool is that?

As you may have guessed he mostly liked the story with one notable criticism. The review is right here if you want to read it in its entirety, but be warned, it’s pretty spoilerific. If you don’t like spoilers you may want to wait until you’ve finished the story before popping over.

Speaking of the story, the next chapter will be going up on Monday

So, I consulted the random number generator and it chose a winner from the subscribers of my mailing list. It did, and I’m pleased to announce the Patricia W. will receive a free copy of Shades of Green just as soon as she emails me and sends me her mailing address. I have also dropped her an email to let her know.

Congrats Patricia!

Do you want to win a copy too? Like I said I’ll be running a contest closer to the release of Lost and Found to give away a copy of Shades of Green, but instead of having to like, think of something interesting to blog about, I’ve also decided to do another giveaway on GoodReads:

Also, if you use Goodreads and we aren’t friends there? We really need to rectify that Send me an invite, I would love to hook up with all my friends over there.

What are you doing for summer this year?

I’m planning a couple day trips, largely influenced by where I want to go take pictures LOL We’ll be doing that as a family (Calgary Zoo, Drumheller, etc.). In addition to that though, my daughter is taking her first solo flight and going to visit her grandparents for a couple weeks. She will have a wonderful time; they live near the beach, which she loves, and will take great care of her. Jo and I have been trying to decide what we will be doing while she’s away. So far I’m coming up with nothing.

We have pets that would make it complicated to do something that involved leaving the house overnight or what not, but as much as we love Danica and will miss her, we’d like to do something special when she’s gone. No idea what that might be though.

One thing I plan to do a lot of is reading. Do you use a summer reading list? I never have, but I’m thinking about changing that this year…or maybe doing a book bingo thing. Our local library had it last year, if they aren’t continuing it this year I can make up my own card LOL Basically you got a bingo card with squares on it like ‘Read a book by a Canadian author’, ‘Read a book with a color in the title’ or ‘Read an autobiography’. That sort of thing. It could be fun.

So, summer reading. Do you do it? Wanna play bingo? I’m seriously thinking about it…in addition to trying to figure out what to do with two weeks while Danica is away.

For people who are subscribed to my newsletter this update post will have some news that you’ve read already. Bare with me (or is it bear with me?) though, there will be some stuff you’ve not read before too

First of all, Clarion West sent me their spiffy form rejection letter last week. I was disappointed, of course, but far less than I would have guessed. Truthfully, as much as I wanted to go to Clarion West (or Clarion), the idea of being away from my life and family for six weeks was a difficult one. It would have been tough on them, Danica especially, and I wasn’t sure I was actually willing to be that selfish, or what the cost for the people I love would be. Still, yes, disappointed. Maybe next year — Dani will be more independant then. We’ll see. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I keep writing. I entered the Whittaker Prize this year in an effort to give myself deadlines and also receive completely unbiased feedback on my work (since judging is anonymous and I don’t know the judges so they can’t recognise my style). I shared the story and poem I was submitting for the first round in my newsletter. The scores are in and I did better than I expected (74/100 on the poem and 85/100 on the story — surprising, I would have never guessed I’d score higher on the story than the poem.), now I’m looking forward to receiving my written feedback. I’m also working on my submissions for round two.

One of the prompts reminded me of a story I’d long wanted to write about Michael and Margaret. It’s set a long time before Sister Margaret but when it’s done I hope that you’ll be able to see the seeds of their future in its pages. It’s also meant to stand alone. Progress is going well on it, and it will make me happy to be able to submit an Aphanasian story for unbiased scoring and feedback. As for the poem…I’ve only a vague idea. We’ll see what comes of it. It is, of course, zombie related

Speaking of zombies, I will be doing the poem-a-day challenge in April. Sorta. My plan is to follow his prompts and write a poem a day, then after revision combine those poems (all zombie, of course) with the zombie poems I wrote based on Robert Brewer’s prompts in November and see if I can’t come up with a chapbook. I don’t know that I’ll do the ‘enter-the-contest’ part though. I doubt it.

Let me leave you with a short story about the kind of book I want to write. I was talking with my daughter about a book* she was reading and loving. We were discussing the storyline and one of the mysteries within. Danica said, “Well, that’s possible, but we think *insert spoilerific theory here*”. I said, “Oh, are some of your friends reading this series too?” she said no and asked why I’d think that. I said “Well, you said we think. That implies that you’ve been discussing this with other people.” Danica laughed and explained that no, when she said ‘we’ she meant she and the other characters in the book.

Think about that for a moment.

Those are the kinds of characters I want to write, the sorts of connections I want to make with my readers. Bravo Kelley.

*The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong. Danica loves what she’s read of the series so far. I, personally, enjoyed the first book in the series, The Summoning, until I realised there wasn’t going to be any resolution at all. I don’t like book series in which none of the books can stand alone.

Lastly, that picture? I just love it, and with the snow that has decided to return and cover my world with its beautiful but decidedly cold goodness I am truly longing for warmer weather and flowers.

The contract has been sent, signed and sent back to the publisher. That means it’s official! My novella, Shades of Green has been accepted for publication by Sam’s Dot Publishing. *squee* The publication date is January 1, 2010 and I can’t think of a better way to start the year.

Shades of Green is an Aphanasian story, it was originally part of my novel-in-stories, Swamp Story, before I decided to rip it apart and make the stories stand on their own. Shades of Green is about a swamp elf, Z’thandra, who lives with the reptar, a fierce race of lizard-people who resent her presence and want her gone from the village. When she discovers a human in the swamp and falls in love with him, she needs to make a difficult decision, the reprecussions of which will affect the Reptar for generations.

It’s a love story…of a sort, and I am really proud of it. I can’t wait to see it in print and be able to share it with readers!

*does a little happy dance*

Being a writer changes a lot of things in my life, including how I read a book. I can’t read the same way I could before I started writing ‘in earnest’ for lack of a better phrase. I judge books differently too. These days when I’m finished a book and it’s time for me to assess what I thought of it I tend to ask myself questions beyond ‘Did I like it?’. Did I enjoy my time spend within its pages? Was I able to suspend my disbelief throughout its entirety? Did it make me think? Was it well-written? Were the characters real? Did they grow?

In the case of The Mermaid’s Madness the answer to those questions, for the most part, was yes.

Okay, biases out on the table, I adore Jim C. Hines. I like him as a person, a blogger and a writer. Thus far I’ve enjoyed every novel of his that I’ve read and I’ve paid (via charity auction) for him to critique my work. That’s a double-edged thing though, really, because while it means while I was pre-disposed to like The Mermaid’s Madness, I also had high expectations that could easily have been disappointed.

They weren’t though. Yay!

The Mermaid’s Madness is the second in Jim’s princess books, the first being The Stepsister Scheme. I thought this was a great book and enjoyed it more than I did the first. It had a darker feeling to it than The Stepsister Scheme, which could well be one reason I liked it better, but I think there’s more to it than that.

The characters were very real, three dimensional beings who grew and developed over the course of the story. Jim built on what he’d started in the first book and made it even better. This is where I find it difficult to really make points without giving things away…so forgive my vagueness.

One of my favorite things about this novel is that actions had consequences. The consequences from the first book weren’t simply forgotten, they carried over and touched this one. Not heavily really (except in one case…man I suck at vagueness), but they were there — just like in real life. I can’t abide stories where everything works out well in the end and everyone lives happily ever with nothing changing except for the better, blah blah blah. That is great for children’s tales…I suppose…maybe…in pre-school…occasionally… /digression . Happily, Jim doesn’t do that. Bad things happen, and they can’t just be made better by waving a magic wand or kissing the prince. I like that.

That’s not to say I think this book was perfect. In a couple places in action scenes I got a little bit lost and had to read back to re-imagine the scene and exactly what was happening, and I struggled a bit with suspending my disbelief at how quickly some people recovered from…things (stupid vagueness). Occasionally people seemed to have supernatural endurance/recovery powers that didn’t fit with what I thought probable, that sort of thing. But I wasn’t bothered enough by those things to set down the book or even slow my reading.

On a pseudo-related note, no matter how hard I’ve tried (and I have tried) the Danielle in my mind doesn’t even come close to matching the Danielle on the cover. Not. Even. Close.  I’ve given up on making the two match and I’m just going to enjoy how Danielle looks in my imagination.

Right, back on track.

The Mermaid’s Madness made me think, about lots of things. Stuff like reprecussions, character growth, real emotion and magic. Quite specifically about magic, magic systems and mechanics. I had a few revelations related to my own writing that was sparked by thoughts about The Mermaid’s Madness. This, as you can imagine, makes me happy.

I also enjoyed the ending, and the way Jim has started subtle mysteries in this novel I look forward to seeing how they develop in the next book…though waiting for it to come out may be painful. What do you suppose the chances are of my picking up an ARC of it before its release date?

After posting my last blog entry I sent an email to Ms. Fisher to make sure she’d actually received my story to critique. She hadn’t. I swear there are gremlins living in my email server. Seriously. *sigh* Anyway, the good news is I’ve sent her the first 100 pages and she says she’ll have it critiqued in good time for me to do rewrite Shadows on my retreat. Yay! This makes me very happy because I’m anxious to get it rewritten and in reader’s hands.

In other good news, my ARC of Jim C. Hines’ book The Mermaid’s Madness arrived today. *squee* I can’t wait to read it.

The only bad news I have is that I will have to wait to start reading it…because I need to write something for my critique group to, well, critique, on Monday. I’m out of un-critiqued stuff…seriously. That like, never happens to me. I’m thinking about doing the first chapter of See The Sky Again and sending that…just as soon as I figure out if my love interest is a man or a woman. Hmm…

Back in May I read and reviewed Troll’s Eye View which is a great YA/MG anthology edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It looks at fairy tales and re-tells them from the villain’s point of view (Review is here). When I was done I passed the book on to Danica, who enjoyed it very much. I was going to ask Ellen and Terri for an interview for Niteblade but then I got thinking. Danica is more the target audience for this book than I am, so why not have her conduct the interview?

Ellen and Terri consented to the interview and I put it up on Niteblade yesterday. Please check it out and leave a comment. I think Dani did a great job at coming up with questions and Ellen and Terri are made of awesome too.

Interview with Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Help Catherynne M. Valente

My auction for ad space on Niteblade, a copy of Sister Margaret and a copy of Lost Innocence ends at midnight tomorrow. Right now it has one bid on it (thank you Greg) for $5. Surely we can do better than that? The auction is here please check it out.

In other news, my short story “How It’s Supposed To Be” is up at The Legendary. Sadly, this story was inspired by a very similar situation that happened here in Edmonton not so very long ago.