I got an inter­est­ing phone call the other day. I won’t say much about it, but it made me do a pre­ma­ture happy dance (no, my shoes did not fly off). If even greater news comes out of it though, I’ll be sure to share.

So what’s new? Well I’ve been doing a lot of “think­ing about writ­ing” and then some actual writ­ing, which is great. The last book I wrote was The Ben­son and that was a shorty, so it’s tak­ing me some time to ease back into the writ­ing game. But I have big plans for this year in terms of what I’m writ­ing — lot’s of fun stuff com­ing down the pipeline. You just need to take that first, tiny, but very impor­tant step.

Don’t worry, On Demon Wings is still com­ing. Judg­ing by the com­ments and reviews I’m get­ting, I think I’d have to fear for my life if I didn’t deliver.

There’s also some news about Dark­house — it went through a pro­fes­sional edit and is get­ting a new cover next week which I will reveal here. Per­son­ally, I do like the cur­rent cover and I would love to have that option avail­able if peo­ple pre­fer that cover over the new one. But I know what direc­tion the future cov­ers will go and I’d like all the books to look the same. As for the edit, even though Dark­house was edited a mil­lion times by moi and beta readers…it’s not enough. It never is. And while I can write, edit­ing my own stuff is damn hard. I suck at it. So I extended the cour­tesy to that all impor­tant first novel (Dead Sky Morn­ing and Lying Sea­son have been pro­fes­sion­ally edited), because I want to be proud of it and I want read­ers to be happy. Any­way, I’ll talk more when I reveal the new cover next week, but just a head’s up.

I’ve been doing a lot of read­ing lately. It’s vital as a writer. Though I’ll never be a book reviewer (I don’t write very good reviews and there are lovely review­ers out there who do a much bet­ter job than I ever could), I do like to read and com­pare notes.

This is what I got from the library this month:

The Lantern by Deb­o­rah Lawrenson(I’m a BIG fan of Daphne Du Mau­rier, so I know I’ll love this)
The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross (First foray into Steam­punk)
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake (Obvi­ously I like ghosts, want to see what the fuss is about)
This Dark Endeav­our by Ken­neth Oppel (Cana­dian, FTW)
Before I Fall by Lau­ren Oliver (I read a bit of Lisel and Po, think she’s an amaz­ing writer)

The last few months I’ve been buy­ing Kin­dle books if they are a good deal or free. But I don’t have a Kindle.

UNTIL NOW.

Well, until I dis­cov­ered the Kin­dle app for my iPhone. Sud­denly, all these books appeared in my phone! Man, I sound like my mother when she dis­cov­ered the internet.

Any­hoo, I decided my wee phone would be the per­fect place to try out a lot of self-published works, cheap books, or books I’m unsure of. I LOVE buy­ing books and putting them on my actual shelves, so if there is a book that I love, I will buy the paper­back. But it’s good to try it out first. One thing I’m find­ing with Kin­dle as I wrap my old-fashioned brain around it…I can’t spent over $5 on a book. Some­times you have to if it’s Kin­dle only, but if I’m going to pay over $5 for a novel, I want the phys­i­cal object in my hand. I want it to occupy my home. I want to look at it for­ever. Funny, that.

Here’s what I have on my Kin­dle — I really want this to be the place where I read a lot of GOOD self-published work that might be over­looked. It’s actu­ally quite fun dis­cov­er­ing the indie gems:

Hol­low­land by Amanda Hock­ing
With­er­ing Tights by Louise Ren­ni­son
Descended by Blood by Ange­line Kace
Everblue by Brenda Pan­dos
Ethe­real by Addi­son Moore
Telsa — The Covenant Keeper by Lani Wendt Young
This — A Vam­pire Cure for For­ever by Shaun Roundy (really not a vamp fan but love the title! Please cure us all!)
Stained by Ella James
Dai­mon — A Pre­quel to Half-Blood by Jen­nifer L. Armen­trout
A Job From Hell by Jay­den Scott
Dirty Blood by Heather Hilden­brand
Jenny Pox (The Para­nor­mals) by JL Bryan
Unearthly by Cyn­thia Hand
Angell­fall by Susan Ee
Entwined by Heather Dixon
Jessica’s Guide to Dat­ing the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey

In other news, I AM BANNED FROM BUYING MORE KINDLE BOOKS.

You can fol­low my half-assed reviews at: GOODREADS

Right?

I’m a life­long lover of Monty Python so I’ve been dying to incor­po­rate them into a blog post. This works perfectly.

Because, really, now is the time for some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­ent. I’m tak­ing an extremely short break from the Exper­i­ment in Ter­ror Series to work on some­thing that’s a lot like the video. FISH-SLAPPING!

Actu­ally no, but it does involve rabid mon­keys and lots of laughs.

Back in 2004/2005 I wrote a roman­tic com­edy script called THE TRAVEL DIARY which then later became WANDERLUST. Which is now called Wan­dered, lusted because DAMN YOU JENNIFER ANISTON you stole my movie title (but not damn Paul Rudd, I could never damn you Paul Rudd). The script was mildly suc­cess­ful in attract­ing inter­est from pro­duc­ers but alas, the com­pa­nies that really liked the script could never afford to make it. The movie would have been set in Europe, on the Mediter­ranean to be exact, and that would have put it into a high bud­get bracket. Fac­tor in the rabid mon­keys and a big cli­max on a ferry and, well, who would take a risk on wee screen­writer like myself.

Fast for­ward to 2012. I’m in the midst of my delight­fully macabre but emo­tion­ally drain­ing Exper­i­ment in Ter­ror Series. I’ve plot­ted out Book #5, On Demon Wings, in detail and am ready to jump right in but.…but…

I’m not ready for it. It’s not going to be an easy breezy cov­er­girl book to write. It’s going to be emo­tional and scary and dif­fi­cult and I’m just not “there” yet. It’s a com­mit­ment I must make, of being a crazy per­son for the next few months as Perry’s story becomes my story.

So, while I plan to start ODW in a few weeks and attack it with guns a blaz­ing, I decided to start with an appe­tizer. An amuse bouche if you will (well, it is a-muse-ing, cue Chan­dler Bing).

I’m adapt­ing my script Wan­dered, Lusted into a novel. An adult con­tem­po­rary fluffy (but not too fluffy I’M STILL ME) funny roman­tic read. With heart. And a love­able main char­ac­ter called Chris Warner whom I am a bit in love with. And a girl-guy trad­ing of POVs. And a nice bout of escapism on the sunny Mediter­ranean. Ahh­hhh, just feel the sea breeze, smell the lemons on the trees. And it’s a stand-alone too, which is rare these days in the land of sequels and series (ahem, EIT 8 books).

Want more info? Here’s the offi­cial blurb:

“The hol­i­day from hell just got ugly.

As if get­ting dumped on his vaca­tion wasn’t enough, British jour­nal­ist Chris Warner finds him­self stranded on the Mediter­ranean with a des­per­ate boss push­ing dead­lines down his throat and an uncer­tain future.
…
Enter Jamie Cooper, a free spir­ited and slightly unsta­ble travel writer whose arrival only seems to make mat­ters worse. All Chris wants is to get back to Lon­don, win back his ex and start climb­ing up the cor­po­rate lad­der. Unfor­tu­nately, Jamie has dif­fer­ent plans for him and the may­hem that fol­lows turns both their lives upside down and up again.

“Wan­dered, lusted” is a rowdy roman­tic com­edy about two active yet aching char­ac­ters who embark on a jour­ney through hell, high water and a lot of wine, in order to find them­selves, each other and a mis­placed diary that holds the key to their happiness.”

This is going to be a fun lit­tle sum­mer fling before I set­tle down with Ms. Perry Palomino and Mr. Dex Foray. I’m still torn whether I should self-publish or seek tra­di­tional pub­lish­ing for Wan­dered, lusted, but I’ll let you know how it goes!

First the bad news: Casablanca didn’t make it into the com­pe­ti­tion *sob* — we did feel the love though! Over 700 votes which is amaz­ing and awe­some, so thank you all for your help. I’m proud to have worked on such a film and I thought we did an awe­some job. But alas, Clas­sic Films are over­looked these days (hence why two ver­sions of the Matrix made the com­pe­ti­tion) espe­cially by the pop music pub­lic. Not an easy sell!

No wor­ries though, because I was glad to help out and get some expo­sure for my hard­work­ing friends. And also, we have a win­ner of the The Ben­son Paperback!

And that is…ANDY!! Con­grat­u­la­tions Andy I’ll be in con­tact with you shortly.

I also decided to put forth a sec­ond prize, a signed copy of Lying Sea­son, and that book goes to Kristi Perry (love your last name, btw

Thanks every­one for play­ing! Con­tests are fun

OH RIGHT — and while I have your atten­tion, check out For­ever Young Adult’s review of LYING SEASON! Once again, Perry and Dex break the SWOON-O-METER (if that’s a thing!)

Hi folks!

My friends and I made a short film and entered it in a con­test. The basis is that you have to accu­rately recre­ate a film in 60 sec­onds. Then you have to get lots of peo­ple to like it. If the judges like what you’ve done on both accounts, you win the con­test — $10,000.

I did makeup/hair and wardrobe on the film, which enti­tles me to a chunk of change from the pot. It was a load of fun, and though hair isn’t my exper­tise (I didn’t go to school for makeup though…12 years ago), I think we made a great film.

What would be even greater though, is if we won. You all know I need the help, and that amount would mean On Demon Wings might come out ear­lier (after all, I need to cash to pay my edi­tor — and he’s already doing me a huge favor).

That sounds like bribery though, doesn’t it? Mwha­haha. Seri­ously though, if I could get YOU my dear read­ers and fans and looky-loos to “like” the film, I’ll give you some­thing in return.

A signed copy of The Ben­son — IN PAPERBACK.

Do you know who has copies of The Ben­son in paper­back? NO ONE. Not even ME! For realz. I only made this as an E-version, so I’m going to print just one of them. It’s going to be cus­tomized. It’s going to have the first two pages of On Demon Wings at the back of it. That’s right…I’m includ­ing an excerpt from Book #5…something that won’t see the pub­lic eye until at least May.

I will ship this puppy any­where in the world. And I will throw in a signed Dark­house book­mark as well!

And then when you receive the book, take a pic­ture of you with it and I’ll post it here and on the EIT Face­book page

So how do you enter to win this? SO SIMPLE.

Click on the link to the con­test page and our Casablanca film: http://vancouver.virginradio.ca/FFF2012/View.aspx?PostID=45564

Click “like” below the video — no need to sign up or any­thing like that. Two clicks, two seconds.

Then come back and tell me you entered. Either email me (see con­tact page) or leave a com­ment here or leave one on the EIT FB fan page. But you MUST tell me you liked it, oth­er­wise there is no way I will know. I’ll be watch­ing the num­bers too, so I’ll know if you’ve actu­ally voted (not that I’m not trust­ing y’all

You can gain an extra entry too by “lik­ing” our Face­book Fan Page for Casablanca too or fol­low­ing @strutyourfunny on Twitter.

Did you already “like” the Casablanca video before I announced this? Just help me out with a per­sua­sive RT on Twit­ter and you’re entered too! (again, lemme know about it).

All right. That’s the con­test. It’s a con­test within a con­test. INCEPTION CONTEST. And some lucky EIT reader is going to be very, very happy. I’ll be doing the draw on Feb 5th and will announce it HERE and on the EIT FB page!

Good luck and thank you!