HOLIDAZE GIVEAWAZE!

Look what's under the mini-tree!

Santa wants me to give away a signed copy of IN A FIX and a signed copy of QUICK FIX. And a $25 gift card to Amazon OR Barnes & Noble. 

That's right. The winner will get all three! And if the winner happens to already have signed copies of IAF and QF, then the winner is free to re-gift them. It's like having me Santa do your Christmas shopping for you! 

How do I know Santa wants me to do this? He told me. Hey, Santa and I are close. Really, really close.*

Isn't Santa-Baby a cutie-patootie? Plus, he has *ahem* big boots:

Anyway, I'm going to try out "Rafflecopter" to organize this giveaway. Have at it! And please (if you feel like it -- no pressure) spread the word. 

Oh, and remember -- Santa doesn't care if you celebrate Christmas or not. He just likes giving away presents. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


*Okay, so TG plays Santa at the Wolf Trap Holiday Singalong every year. So, by "close," I mean very close. *waggles eyebrows*

Edited To Add: YES, the contest is open internationally! And, yeah, people who "like" my author page on Facebook (see link on sidebar) get special consideration. ;)

Meet Eeyore (Grumpy, not Humpy)

First of all, a small announcement:

I've reached "THE END"!

Of the first draft of The Big Fix, that is, the book I've been using NaNoWriMo to push myself through. 

I've never participated in NaNo before, so this was a new experience for me. And I wasn't officially participating this year, either, since I'd already started writing the book before it started. But even unofficially, the daily excruciating pressure ... er, I mean encouragement ... to churn out words was highly motivating. 

I'm normally kind of a slow writer. I tweak and polish and fiddle all the time, generally rewriting as I go. That's probably still my preferred way to go about producing a novel, but I have to say, it is liberating to know I can put on the speed when I have to. 

The best part? I like the book that came out of it. Sure, it still has a few sharp edges, and I may have to pull out the heavy grit sandpaper to polish it, but the basic story? It leaves me feeling satisfied. 

In honor of this momentous (for me) achievement, I'm going to introduce you to one of my favorite characters from The Big Fix.

Meet "Eeyore," Ciel's Shetland pony:

Not the real Eeyore. Only a reasonable facsimile. I'm sure this pony isn't an asshole, like the Eeyore from my book.

Eeyore is a grumpy (by which I mean nasty) little so-and-so (by which I mean asshole), fond of biting pretty much everybody except Ciel. Frankly, I love him as much as Ciel does. 

That's right. No camel today. But try to have a Happy Hump Day anyway. Or else Eeyore might come after you.

Also, Happy Thanksgiving (to those of you who celebrate it)! May you gobble as much as the turkey who got away. 

A Hump Day Post that Briefly Mentions ALIENS

*Knocks on screen*

Hello? Anyone still out there?

By Irene2005 [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Text added by moi.

Yup. That day. And I'm still busting my hump on Book 3. 

Which means--you guessed it--another sorry excuse for a blog post. But that's better than a sorry excuse for a third book. 

This is a dilemma a lot writers run up against eventually. Some of us have a finite number of good words in us per day, and if we leave them on our blogs, the WIP* suffers. (Of course, there are those who have a never-ending fountain of truly excellent words they can strew here, there, and everywhere, and still have plenty of genius left for their WIPs, but let's not talk about them. I suspect they're a weird alien life form that doesn't require sleep.)

Anyhoo, for those of you participating in NaNoWriMo (even unofficially, like I am), hang in there! We can DO this!

For those of you who aren't, I salute your sanity. ;)

*Work In Progress. In my case, THE BIG FIX.