T’is the Season

Christmas isn’t always an easy time of year for many people. I have been spoiled. For eight years THIS place was my home. Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise (at the time, Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts). 

Christmas was spent with hundreds of friends, surrounded by more a thousand or more guests, in the land of a million Christmas trees. 

Winter at Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, with the Ice Castle. Lake Louise, AB.

The castle in the foreground is made of ice, and it sits on the frozen glacial lake, which is 273′ deep and 5680′ above sea level. For two winters one of my jobs was to make hot chocolate and take it by toboggan out to the rink where I would start a fire in the elevated 1/2 barrel and simply chat with the guests as they skated or walked by.One winter we looked up in the sky and could see Comet Hayakutake quite clearly. Occasionally avalanches could be heard rumbling in the dark in the distance.

Christmas celebrations began in November, when the seniors started coming up for lunches and corporations started having their Christmas parties. Santa was invited to each and every one of those events, and I was lucky enough to be one of the Jolly Man’s stunt doubles. One year, during the Women’s World Cup Downhill I stepped in for him and represented him for the numbered bib distribution, and even was featured on Italian sports television. Fortunately “Ho Ho Ho!” is fairly universal.

On Christmas Eve the hotel put on a live animal nativity scene, outdoors, usually in -20 to -30c weather. I often played Joseph.

The hotel was decorated with Christmas trees and garlands for a month and to say that we “got into the spirit” would be an understatement. Not all of the staff loved it or even liked it, but for me, so far from home, those people were my other family. Too many of them are gone, now… Shenette, Tracy, Tim and Carolyn, Randy… but when Christmas is quiet around here, it is the warm memories of this place, those years, and so many friends that fill my house with joy.

Merry Christmas to so many of you who were part of those wonderful times and are still dear friends, and Merry Christmas to absolutely everyone, because Christmas is about Peace and Hope and Love, and who wouldn’t wish more of that for everyone.

Travel wisely, my friends and family, because I want you all to be around next year so I can bore you with the story again. 🙂

Ciao for now.

T-Bone.

When Words Collide & A Novel is Launched

(Long post warning. Get comfortable.)

Here in Calgary every August is a weekend event which I take two weeks off of work for When Words Collide Readers & Writers Festival at the Calgary Delta South Hotel. Although it officially starts at noon on the Friday and ends at midnight-ish on Sunday, when you combine pre- and post-festival workshops (which I attend voraciously) and a road trip to either Banff (the Rocky Mountains) or Drumheller (dinosaurs!) with the festival Guests of Honour, my three-day festival lasts 6 days.

As a rule, I don’t get out much. Due to pet responsibilities, I haven’t left town for anything longer than a day trip in over two years, so this annual weekend of writerly bonding and networking and partying in town IS my vacation. I have friends coming from all over North America for this event, and it’s great!

This year the first workshop was with Canadian author Julie Czerneda, and she had us all building aliens and environs and creating first contact…using pipe cleaners, tissue paper and PlayDoh. We had a blast! Shannon Allen and I ended up with a sentient, space-faring sea slug that lives around Arctic lava vents. That may sound strange to you, but it’s the kind of alien-building help my sci fi novel needs.

Thursday evening was the Guest of Honour Readings at Fish Creek Library, which is this wondrous glass-pyramid structure full of light and inspiration. Julie Czerneda, Ian Hamilton, and Marty Chan all read while I was there. I usually find that author readings can drag on and on because many authors are not the best public speakers, but when the excerpts read are short and filled with energy, and the writers engage with the listeners, it is a delightful time, and this was one of those times.

Friday started off with a half-day workshop with mystery writer Ian Hamilton, who didn’t START his fiction-writing career until he was in his mid sixties, and now he has nearly a dozen books of the exploits of his heroine, Ava Lee.

The Festival officially began at noon on Friday, so I raced home to tend my beasts and made it back in time for the now-infamous Absinthe & Whisky Party put on by my publisher, Tyche Books. If you haven’t tried absinthe, you don’t know what you’re missing. As server/artist Kevin Jepson explained, it leaves your mind very sharp while your body gets more than a little fuzzy.

He was exactly right! I sampled one of the excellent scotches upstairs in the loft,  got my absinthe lesson from Kevin (including a generous sample), then headed over to moderate a panel on Humour in Fiction. My mind stayed sharp, my body was a bit silly, and fun was had by all.

The parties continued (I didn’t drink any more), but I eventually had to get home to the beasts (and get some sleep).

 

Saturday was a big day for me, as we (Tyche Books and I) officially launched my new novel, “Waking Anastasia“, about a young man who accidentally awakens the mischievous ghost of Anastasia Romanova. It was a multi-author event, as I wasn’t Tyche’s only launching author this weekend, so we all did short readings and signed a few books. Here I am with my talented publisher (and editor), Margaret Curelas.

In addition to the Tyche launch, I had a short story in an anthology (“Enigma Front: Burnt“) being launched by my writing group, the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association (IFWA), and I taught a class on Sparking the Idea (for beginning writers). Then it was back home for dinner, a nap with the beasts, walk the dog, and right back to the Festival for the mass autograph signing in which every author at the Festival set up shop and waited for fans to come on by and stroke our egos. My ego got quite a bit of attention because when the signing event started, my publisher only had two copies of “Waking Anastasia” left. As we were packing up at 10pm, Julie and Roger Czerneda rushed over to buy one of those two copies, and then there was one (which sold out first thing the next morning in the Merchants’ Room!).

The usual Saturday Night launches and parties continued and we wandered from event to event, sampling appetizers here and desserts there, and catching up with friends we probably hadn’t seen in person since last year’s festival. This is the weekend when I stock up on hugs to last the rest of the year.

There was the Godfather of Canadian Science Fiction, Rob Sawyer’s, party, Bundoran Books’ launch party (for Jennifer Rahn’s  “The Cyanide Process” and Brent Nichols’ “Stars like Cold Fire”) and one or two others which we wandered in and out of to spread the love. Since I had to drive home later, I went without alcohol, which made some of the socializing a bit clunky, but still fun. These weekends are best experienced when you are staying in the hotel, but hangovers are fewer when you drive home to your own bed.

Sunday ‘dragged’ me back to the hotel for another anthology event, this time a tiny one of ten stories which all made the final selection of the Robyn Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest. My absolutely silly superhero send-up, “Space Junk”, was one of the lucky ones. For an hour we all read brief slices of our stories, and in the second hour the four judges (professional editors and publishers) gave us our critiques and rendered their verdicts. “Space Junk” was on the honourable mentions, which was more than I expected for a story about a union superhero rather too proud of the size of his manhood.

Waking Anastasia

Now, if it sounds like I’d had a busy, big-event weekend up to this point, it was all just leading up to my solo presentation, “Meet Anastasia”. With a PowerPoint presentation, I explained to the twenty-or-so attendees exactly where my story had come from (a dream), how much of it was true history (99% of the opening scenes), and what research led me to portray Anastasia the way I did. I had been planning this for months and hadn’t done a PowerPoint presentation in years, so the fingers were crossed…but unnecessarily so. It all went well, people learned a few things, we had a few laughs, and the official part of my weekend was DONE.

There was more visiting, many more hugs, and then I was off home for a nap, a steak, and a few hours of beast attending before returning for the last official party, the “Dead Dog Party” in Boomtown, the hotel’s pub.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t done yet. First thing Monday morning I was back up to the hotel to meet with my road-tripping cohorts, Stacey Kondla, Julie & Roger Czerneda, Cliff Samuels, and Annette Mocek… and we were off to Drumheller, Alberta, and the Royal Tyrrell Museum in the heart of dinosaur country. I could do a whole blog on the hilarity of that day alone, but I will share just one photo which pretty much sums it up.

Yes, it was that kind of silly day. And just in case you’re wondering, that IS a giant T-Rex in the background. Not only does it reside at the Drumheller Tourist info building, but you can fork over a few shekels and climb up the inside, to the head, just like the Statue of Liberty, but less French and much cooler.

Despite the long (terrific) day, There was more to come. Monday evening was the launch of Sarah Kades’ delightful new novel “Kiss Me in the Rain” at the Wildrose Brewery, so Annette and I met up with Julie and Roger Czerneda to keep the party going. It was a great launch, with Editor-Supreme Adrienne Kerr handling the intro of Sarah and her beautiful new book. Food and dancing was enjoyed by all.

Okay. Five days down one to go. You might be thinking that after this much writerly activity, that Day Six would be a great time to chill out and kick back. Not a f*cking chance! Launches and parties and networking are all great and wonderful, but for me the big event is the novel-critique workshop at the end of it all. This workshop is where I do most of my learning and get feedback on my work in progress. My novel “The Broken Shield” was workshopped with Walter Jon Williams one year and then again with my new BFF David B. Coe the next. “Waking Anastasia” was workshopped with Jack Whyte the following year and the author pitch for WA was workshopped with Senior Editor of Commercial Fiction at a Penguin Canada (at the time) Adrienne Kerr. I took that pitch to Maragaret Curelas of Tyche Books, and she bought “Waking Anastasia”. Last year I workshopped my Young Adult fantasy novel with bestie David B. Coe, and I hope to find a publisher for that fun novel soon.

So year, 2016 brough the amazing, wonderful, talented, lovely, (she’s ‘family’, so she didn’t have to pay me to say that) Adrienne Kerr back to Calgary for #WWC2016, and this time she was leading two one-day manuscript workshops. Six of us had sent the first 20 pages of our manuscripts in months before and we’d all been reading and writing critiques in preparation for this day. I won’t bore you with the details, but I find I learn as much about my writing when I critique another author’s work as when they critique mine. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and am energized and plowing ahead with this exciting new novel (a psychological thriller, sort of).

Six Days dedicated to writing, publishing, networking, selling, hugging, and absinthe… All done. Until next year.

That’s  it, that’s all. Buy my book. Leave a review. 🙂

Ciao for now.

Tim.

“Waking Anastasia” is available in print or eBook format from www.Chapters.ca or www.Amazon.com.

 

 

 

The Presence of Past Presents

Disclaimer: This is not a plea for sympathy or invites or company. It is just how it is for me this Christmas and what I’m doing about it.

****************

Christmas has always been big for me, and Christmas 2015 is the first one in thirteen years in which I will be alone in the house with no spouse (she’s moved on), no guests (I’m not much of a host), and no family (they live a gazillion miles away). It will be me, and my fur kids. Two cats and a dog. I had a terrific turkey dinner with friends last weekend and will be having dinner with great friends on Christmas Day, but will be coming back to the quiet house. 

Santa and Kim

Christmases before I moved to Calgary were filled with carolling, tobogganing, playing Santa Claus, playing Joseph in the Nativity scene, selling Christmas trees with Dad, parties with friends, and midnight church services. One year I even spent Christmas dinner in a bunkhouse with real cowboys and trail guides, eating off paper plates and singing Christmas carols to guitars and harmonica. It was the best! 

Christmases as a child were exhilarating. Many were spent in a small town that had horse-drawn sleigh rides, carollers, and a dedicated adult who walked around town and tossed snowballs on rooftops to make it sound like reindeer were landing. The gifts under the tree the next morning were astounding. Not usually expensive, just cool and fun and full of love. It was a Norman Rockwell life.

The only gift I will receive this year will be from my mother. Same as last year and too many of the years before that. I knew that this was going to be a tough Christmas, being the first post-divorce and all, so I’ve made sure that the tree is up and fully decorated, but it looked pretty sparse with just the one gift (probably a too-small sweater, again) under it. 

Getting maudlin, I started to think about the great gifts I’ve been given over the years by friends and family, and that’s when I realized that I still have most of them. Yes, I’m a pack rat. And that’s how I’m going to save my Christmas.

I’ve decided to take the best 20 or so gifts I’ve received in 55 Christmases, wrap them, label and bow them, and stick them under the tree. There will be the teddy bear from my first Christmas in 1960 and the handmade bear I received thirty-five years later. There will be the mint coin sets our grandparents gave us from 1965 to 1981. There’s the replica of Charlemagne’s sword, and the custom, handmade, personalized pen I received only a couple years ago. 

 

Gifts from the heart

 
There’s a novel I helped to get published, a framed photo of my youngest nephew, a carved lion my mother brought back from Africa, and a silk tie my late roommate Tracy brought back for me from her trip to Europe when we lived together.

The list goes on, and is diverse and odd, but the one thing all of the gifts have in common is that they were from people I will not be spending Christmas with this year. Some of the givers live away, but some, like Tracy, my father, and my grandparents, are dead.
This will be an emotional Christmas Day, because as I open each gift I’m going to take a moment and think about how much that loved one means to me, whether they’re across the country, across the city, or passed on. I will be physically alone, but I will be so completely enveloped in love from Christmases past that I hope it will become my new tradition. I fully expect to weep like a child as the emotions slam into me, but I’m hoping it will be cathartic. 

Because I’m the one who has done all the wrapping and labelling, the only surprises will be whatever rises up from within my heart. I’m pretty sure that there will be cat meows and dog whimpers as my trio all try to figure out why their pet papa is curled up in a ball on the carpet in tears. But that’s okay, because they are fully capable of being my comfort. Sadly, the one dog who was created from a piece of my heart and given tiny pooch form has been gone since October 2014, and I think she is who I will miss most. Whenever things got tough in the ten years she was at my side, she simply climbed up in my lap and shared her heartbeat.   

 

My little heart-warmer. 2004-2014

 
Anyway, that’s my plan for Christmas this year: reliving past giftings and past Christmases, and once again feeling the love that fills my life.

Almost fully stocked

May you have a marvellous Holiday Season, no matter what you celebrate. If you’re alone, know that it’s only in body, not in soul, because I’m there with you in spirit. If you’re surrounded by family and friends, give them all hugs and thank them the gift of their presence in your life.

That’s it, that’s all.

Merry Christmas.

Tim (and Sedona, Kerouac, and Calliope).

And Then the Work Paid Off! A Novel Sold!

It is with great pleasure that I announce the acquisition of my somewhat romantic paranormal novel, “Waking Anastasia”, by Tyche Books of Calgary, for release in 2016.

For me this is a monumentous event, as it confirms that what I think of as a delightful story about life, death, and dying is shared by someone who isn’t a family member.

So what is “Waking Anastasia” about? Well, here’s the pitch that got the manuscript read in the first place:

Why should being murdered keep Anastasia Romanova from living it up a little? She’s just a ghost, floating in front of a boy, wanting to be loved.

When Jerry Powell inherits a torn, bloodstained book of poetry he has no idea that it contains the soul of Anastasia Romanova. But when he accidentally awakens the royal ghost, he discovers that death hasn’t dulled her sense of mischief and joy for life whatsoever. Now he just has to keep up with her while dealing with a new job, a new city, and the possibility of a brain tumour.

“Waking Anastsia” is a humour-filled, paranormal, love story pitting a dying radio station manager soured on love and women against the ever-optimistic, century-dead teenaged Grand Duchess.

Alexandra Romanova and her four daughters, including Anastasia, second from the right.

I will be blogging much more later on about how the story started as a dream, became a screenplay, and then morphed into a novel. There will be all sorts of stuff about the research to bring Anastasia to life “as never before” as one critiquer has said, as well as where the history and the fiction blend.

Film rights are still available, so hurry. 2018 is the 100th anniversary of Anastasia’s murder. 🙂

That’s it, that’s all. Watch this page for further details in the months to come.

Thank you for all of your support. For a complete list of my currently available stories, check out my Amazon Author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B003KCV338.

Ciao for now,

Tim.

www.tgmreynolds.com

The Broken Shield for KOBO!

Yes indeed do, my earth-shaking (literally) urban fantasy e-novel, The Broken Shield, is now available for Kobo. Check it out at Kobobooks.com, where it has reached as high as #34 in Contemporary Fantasy.

Phoenix

This is a special announcement, because the book was written about and for a very special girl, Phoenix. Yes, to you who never met her, Phoenix was just a dog, but for those who met her and felt her energy wrap around your heart, she was something special. Unfortunately, four weeks ago Phoenix’ heart trouble resurfaced in a major way and she told us that it was time to let her go. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it had to be done.

The Broken Shield, by Timothy Reynolds

I will dedicate an entire blog or two to life with Phoenix (and the pain of life without her), but suffice it to say, heart and soul, she’s a big part of The Broken Shield, and my life was all the better for having had her in it.

That’s it, that’s all.

Ciao for now.

T-Bone

www.tgmreynolds.com

Remembrance Day & Politicians

A group called “Our Duty” has gone public with a request that politicians stay away from November 11th Remembrance Day events. They say it is because the day is about remembering and memorializing, not about photo ops and politics. Here is the original article: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/no-photos-of-stephen-harper-or-any-other-politician-during-remembrance-day-please-group-askse.

Sorry, but I disagree with Our Duty. It IS about politics, because the men and women who have made wartime sacrifices did it so we could have the freedom to practice the politics of our choice. We elect politicians to represent us and speak for us on a global scale, and so this is right. Yes, remember the fallen, but allow the leaders who represent the nation they fell for to show solidarity and respect.

I would be more upset if our leaders did NOT show up at war monuments during this one solemn day a year. The elected officials who send our young people to die in foreign lands defending the rights and freedoms of others have a right themselves to publicly show that the decision is never easy and that they will not hide behind policies and committees.

Remembrance Day isn’t just about soldiers, it’s about humans, and what one human will sacrifice to defend the rights of another human. We should not forget the non-military personnel lost when the battles came to their homes and they stood beside the soldiers we sent over. Most of our troops get to come home…the locals ARE home.

So, let the leaders appear…but ban the media. It’s not a circus without the media making it so. The less-ethical politicians will keep themselves away if there’s no media, while the true leaders will still be there.

That’s my opinion.
Take it or leave it.

Ciao for now.

Tim.

Free for Kindle?

I know I’m going about this in the wrong order but I finally self-pubished my novel “The Broken Shield” as an eBook exclusively on Amazon for 90 days.

The Broken Shield by Timothy Reynolds

Very quickly, the reason for an Amazon exclusive was to have access to the Kindle Select features, which includes the ability to do a free giveaway for one to five days. This past weekend (September 13 & 14) I had a two-days-for-free giveaway of “The Broken Shield”. The book launched on July 21 for $2.99 and between then and August 23rd, a grand total of 22 eBooks sold. Then, for the next 20 days, not a single damned copy was downloaded. That’s right, not a one. But that’s okay, because 21 friends and family had already supported me. I bought the 22nd copy, back when it was the first copy. I knew the steam would run out on the book eventually, and it did.

So, zero sales for the 20 days leading up to this past weekend. The Kindle Select program requires a Kindle-exclusive for 90 days, but offers up, amongst other things, 5 days total of free giveaway. Not having done this before, I decided not to use up all 5 days at once, but rather go for the entire weekend. Two day of free. Another goal was to keep costs to zero, because there’s no point in spending a fortune in order to give something away. In order to promote this, I decided to only use social media. Facebook and Twitter are my go-to social medias, and even Twitter is seldom used, by me, at least.

This was my first post on Facebook:

Okay, Kindle-owners (and app-users)… My urban fantasy eNovel is now free! Go get it! If you read it and don’t like it, I will give you your money back, but only if you get it this weekend!

Where else will you find a history-bending adventure in which the hero has MS, hangs out with a whistling pixie, and can compare Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler and make sense? This is NOT satire. It’s a story of the battle for our souls, with plenty of fighting, some humour, and warning about all those security cameras you see around you.

From Lake Louise to Tasmania to Tokyo to London to Chile to Holland to Central Park and even Mecca… can you handle the adventure, the danger, the broken hearts, and the sacrifices made for us by complete strangers?

The response took a few hours, but then the downloads started. Throughout the course of two days I made 9 posts on Facebook and 4 tweets. I also kept FB friends, apprised of progress, and made sure to express all the gratitude I was feeling.

On Saturday, downloads kept climbing, andI kept posting. On Sunday, I cut way back on posting to see the difference between heavy whoring and mild petting when the price is zero.

So, what happened once the freebee ball got rolling? Saturday saw 79 copies downloaded. On Sunday, 29 kind souls went for the download thing. That’s 108 copies! But it didn’t end there, because wherever Amazon is based out of, there were a few hours of Monday which were still Sunday for everyone else. Three more copies were uploaded. 111 total. Wow.

That’s 111 new readers. One cool thing about Amazon is that it lets me get a breakdown of which Amazon online stores saw which numbers. It doesn’t tell if if two Amazon.com buyers were from the USA and one from Mexico, but it does tell me that two used amazon.com and one used Amazon.com.mx.

That said, here is how 111 downloads break down, by Amazon websites:

• Amazon.com: 57 Saturday + 19 Sunday = 76 Total
• Amazon.ca (Canada): 11 + 4 = 15
• Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom): 9 + 3 = 12
• Amazon.de (Germany): 2 + 3 + 1 Monday = 6
• Amazon.com.au (Australia): 0 + 0 + 1 = 1
• Amazon.com.br (Brazil): 0 + 0 + 1 = 1

 

And the next step is… Well, if this was just about selling/downloading, I’d move on to the next marketing tool, through Google or some such. But this is an experiment, a learning process. It’s sloppy experiment with no control group or true scientific method, but it’s still an experiment. The next step is to see if word-of-mouth can make any sales. Will anyone actually read it? Will they tell anyone else about it, and will any of those people buy the book now that the price has gone back up to the crippling $2.99USD?

“The Broken Shield” is a 101,000-word novel, so few people will read it in the next few days. When people do get around to reading it, not everyone will tell anyone or write a review. If they’re anything like me, they’ll take awhile to read it, and then they’ll forget to review it either on Amazon or on Goodreads, so I will remind them on a week or so.

My hope is that 20% will actually read it and maybe 25% of them will review it. That’s five or six reviews, and in the review world five favourable Goodreads reviews can start the ball rolling.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

In closing, here are the rest of the posts I put up on my Facebook wall and Twitter:

2: (Repeated on FB Author Page, too)  Money is just money, but a reader is someone you have touched with your words. My free-for-this-weekend promotion has just added 17 readers this morning. That’s as many as the total from July 21 to yesterday. I will make about $20 less in royalties, but 17 more people will now have a chance to join me in a story world where pixies are disguised as dogs, a Sasquatch is named Beauty, and the Shields of Light don’t just sacrifice their lives for us, they EACH do it over and over, for more than the last two thousand years.The Aussie link: (part of it is set in Tasmania!) US link (part is set in Central Park)

Canadian link (part is set in Lake Louise!)The UK link (part is set in London! 

3: It’s only available in English, but if your account is in Japan, here’s the link:  Part of it is set in Tokyo and one of the heroes is a Japanese woman living in South Africa.

4: Yes, my wall is full of my book today. It’s only a two-day promotion and I’m only using free social media to promote it. This is all part of my experiment, to see what can be done with a great story for little $$ outlay in marketing.

5: One last post before I leave you all alone and get some work done around the house…One of the favourite characters in The Broken Shield (free for Kindle today & tomorrow!!) with readers so far is Arvinder… a sassy, stylish, 2000-year-old gay East Indian living in London. You can call him any name you want, but don’t try to keep Arvinder from doing his duty for mankind—he’s a two-sword master and one of the deadliest people on the planet. Oh, and he has a wicked sense both of humour and style.

 

Phoenix

 6: I lied. A final book-whoring post for the morning, because people love dogs.This is Phoenix. She’s one of the heroines in The Broken Shield, and she’s not all she appears to be. Her story is free for Kindle today and tomorrow.

TWITTER:

1: Free eBook! 2 days only! Check it out! An urban fantasy novel with a hero with MS, and a smartphone app from Hell. (Amazon Link)

2: 1 Japanese heroine & brief scene in Tokyo, my (free 4 Kindle 2 days) eBook should be avail. in Japan (in English) (Amazon Japan Link)

3: And for Australians (and everyone else) today, my eBook for Kindle is FREE! (Amazon Australia)

Ciao for now,

Tim.