Here's something fun! I've won something! Don't laugh at my excitement, it very rarely happens!
A few weeks ago I participated in a Q&A at C.C. Chronicles with author Anna L. Walls for a chance to win her self-published novel King by Right of Blood and Might, and it's signed! Yippee! I've very excited as Anna and I had started communicating a while back through goodreads.com and later on facebook (small side note, networking works!). So, I intend to read it as soon as I receive it (which probably will be a while since Anna lives in a remote part of Alaska) and write a review of it here and perhaps, if time permits, interview her. Yippee! I'm very excited.
Last night's entertainments was a lot of fun, and made me miss university something fierce! It's nice to see such a show of support from the community for the Celtic Studies programme. I'm very pleased that it is now a minor. Paul Birt, Ottawa Chair of Celtic Studies, did a fabulous job of organising the event. There were a few (blissfully short) speeches, followed by some amazing performances - singers who sung in Irish and Scottish Gaelic and also a small Welsh group that sung with an accompanying harp. It was simply lovely. The evening ended with a few great tunes on the bagpipes played by a woman from the Sons of Scotland (irony much?) pipe band.
Also, completely by chance (from the comments of Wednesday's blog), I stumbled across www.authonomy.com, a website run by the HarperCollins group where you, as a writer seeking representation, can upload a few chapters of your book/s and have others comment and possibly find representation. Pretty awesome. Check it out.
I've put up some choice sections of my first book, The Third Prince, for all and sundry to review, and thus far, I've gotten very, very positive feedback! It has made me blush. There are only two comments thus far, but I've copied them here so you can read them:
Sonia,
Excellent job. Great descriptive prose, well set up and executed.
I didn't see a thing I would change.
Not the kind of story I would normally pick for myself, but I see nothing but good writing here.
MickR - The Nightcrawler
Thanks MickR! And my favourite comment:
Hi Sonia, Mick recommended this to me so I came over to have a look. I'll be very honest, this kind of high fantasy epic is not my usual fare and, when I first looked at this yesterday, I was a bit put off by your prologue sections and didn't read further. I thought they were well-written and deeply sonorous in best epic style - but just not my game. However, based on Mick, I came back and read beyond. As I say, I'm not really in a good position to give you any meaningful crit. It put me in mind of Lord of the Rings (of course - see how limited my reading is here!) and your world is incredibly well-imagined and resonant. When we leave the background and launch into the here and now, with people we can relate to, I am far more at home!
Putting my personal preferences aside, I think this is incredibly well-done and should be of huge interest to fantasy fans. I am in awe - you have written this in its entirety? Respect.
My concern is that, by putting all the books up here, you will overwhelm readers and dilute the backings you receive. The advice people here seem to give is to put up just the one book initially and, when that is flying high, to post the next one. Just a thought.
Anyhow, I've backed you (put your book on my shelf) and really hope this attracts a lot of interest here.
Sigh. I am very happy this morning!
That's all from the peanut gallery. Until next time!
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