Ceallaigh's Blog
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I'm reading a science fiction trilogy right now which has begun to annoy me. It has a great plot and an interesting protagonist, but the story itself is told via a litany of social justice issues. It's as if the author had a list while she was writing and went down it, item by item, until she had thoroughly covered them all. I could play a drinking game to this series - "Drink a shot every time the author beats you over the head with her ideology," - but I'd end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning.
The Longest Road in the Universe is now available for pre-order in most digital formats.
Why are pre-orders important to writers?
Because on release day, they're all processed at once as if they were placed on that day, which can offer a nice boost in sales ranking, especially on Amazon. This boost can increase the book's visibility to other new readers, which can further increase sales.
So if you're planning on buying the The Longest Road in the Universe anyway, would you consider pre-ordering it? Thanks!
Here's where you can do that:
For Kindle: https://goo.gl/lY6Qld
For iBook: https://goo.gl/dlQCXH
For Kobo: https://goo.gl/hgpR5L
For Nook: https://goo.gl/ITFdly
The print edition is still in process, but as soon as it's available for pre-order, I'll post the link here.
In other news, I'm still working on those review copies, but they'll be in your inboxes soon, reviewers.
I've been posting these to social media, but I thought I ought to be sharing them on my blog as well. So here's the third of five posts about the kind things my fellow authors have said of The Longest Road in the Universe. This one comes from Alex Bledsoe, who writes:
This collection of short stories has a rich texture and a profound appreciation for human courage and decency, even when its characters aren't entirely human. From avenging sentient bombs to former slaves struggling to remember their ancestors' humanity, it's a vivid, epic and touching journey.--Alex Bledsoe, author of The Hum and the Shiver
A is for Apocalypse, which contains my WSFA-shortlisted story "N is for Nanomachine" is going to be a part of the 'Buy Two Get One Free' Halloween sale at Kobo between October 13th and October 18th. So if you're up for a great set of scary reads that includes several varieties of apocalypse, I hope you'll check it out!
Two days ago, the Asatru Folk Assembly released this statement on its Facebook Page:
Today we are bombarded with confusion and messages contrary to the values of our ancestors and our folk. The AFA would like to make it clear that we believe gender is not a social construct, it is a beautiful gift from the holy powers and from our ancestors. The AFA celebrates our feminine ladies, our masculine gentlemen and, above all, our beautiful white children. The children of the folk are our shining future and the legacy of all those men and women of our people back to the beginning. Hail the AFA families, now and always! - Matt Flavel, Alsherjargothi, AFA
Down-thread, one commenter asked:
Belated Merry Lughnasadh to you, and welcome to issue #20 of my quarterly newsletter, e-mailed to subscribers in August 2016.
I'll be at When Words Collide next week, and here's my schedule. There isn't much on it, which is just as well, since it's my first time at the con, and I'm leaving for Newfoundland shortly after I return:
Sunday
1:00 (Waterton) A Dialect for Your Alien Character
Did Star Wars get it right? Yoda switches word order. Chewbacca grunts. Jar Jar Binks is unintelligible. Or are there better ways to demonstrate through dialogue that your alien characters are from out of this world?
Rhonda Parrish invited me to read my story from the C is for Chimera anthology during the Sirens launch, but it looks like the one panel I'm on conflicts with that. What a bummer!
Last summer, I participated in a great scriptwriting workshop here on the island. What follows is part of the work I did during that time, since I thought it turned out well. The first chunk of text is a true, if tragic story from my life, and the second is the vignette I wrote from that experience. I hope you enjoy it.
In recent weeks (since the Orlando shooting), I've read a great deal of frustration from people where it concerns offering thoughts and prayers to tragic situations. I understand where this frustration comes from. It's easier to 'like' a post or write a quick note of sympathy and get on with the day than it is to engage a tragic situation, so offering thoughts and prayers can seem trite to people who are suffering.
On the 14th of September in 1607, Neill of Tír Eóghain, Rory Ó Donnell of Tír Chonaill and about ninety followers left Ireland for mainland Europe after several years of crushing defeat at the hands of the English. In the wake of their departure, the old Gaelic world began to collapse, and with it, the system of patronage that kept a hereditary class of Gaelic poets housed and fed. In the generation after this Flight of the Earls, the complex meters of Gaelic poetry gave way to freer, more melancholy verse as poets no longer had stable homes from which to compose. In time, this unique contribution to the world's literary craft was abandoned by its caretakers, since they simply did not have the support they needed to continue writing in the way they once had.