Gay novelist, battered and fried

First: thanks to Jade for posting for me yesterday. Sure, I had to fudge it, but I managed to keep my perfect record of posting every day since I went online. I'm, uh, back -- after my misadventures with a carriage lamp. What idiot bolted it to the wall right THERE, at exactly the right height for someone to walk into it? Anyway, that's what I did, and almost laid myself out. The bells rang; the vision split; the world spun. Next day, I have a stiff neck on one side -- a small case of whiplash -- as well as a place on my skull where you could tap me with a feather and hear screams.

With that little story out of the way, let's get to the day's good news! The final proof of THE LORDS OF HARBENDANE has been delivered and the book is actually available -- on Amazon -- right now, even as I type.

The actual book launch is tomorrow (it was supposed to be today; bear with me, I'll tell why it's been delayed yet again), but if you're absolutely keen to get the wheels moving on your copy, check this out:



Its there -- honest engine!

And in your hands it looks like this:


Anyway! The book launch will be up tomorrow -- we're doing it on the blog here, and then the novel will slide on into the website. We'll also be doing a hardcover edition in a little while -- hardcovers are a lot more expensive, I know, but you'd be surprised how many people drool over them (myself included). I think they represent "last ditch gifts," where you have no idea what to get someone for birthday and Christmas, and because it's a major gift you don't call the extra $10 too bad ... and the hardcover just looks so good.

As I said above, the book launch was supposed to be today, but HARBENDANE has been kicked back just one more time: computer problems. Again. This time around it was software that seems to have corrupted itself (Acrobat writer; reader is OK). I'd love to say that Foxit would do the job, but the (free!) version I have at this point doesn't have the muscles.

It took about six hours to figure out a way through the problems, but in the end I found a solution ... by which time I was ready to fall face-down: it's HOT. It's 110 degrees again ... it's so hot, large numbers of people are dropping dead in this state, and trees are dying. Pets are dying. It's ... bad. You might have heard that the morgue is as capacity, and the coroner's department is now using freezer trucks. No joke, no exaggeration.

The good news is that a cool change comes through late tomorrow and then we get a week of respite. By Sunday it'll be 24C (somewhere in the environs of 75F), and a collective sigh of relief will be breathed by all ... people, animal, trees. However, there's no rain it it. Not a drop. What does the place look like: I uploaded this to Digital Kosmos a week or so ago:

http://photographyfan.blogspot.com/2009/02/drought-scourged-panorama.html

It's getting deadly serious. I'll blog more about this on Sunday -- tomorrow is book launch day. at lasy, only about ten weeks late! Best laid plans of mice, men and gay novelists...

And on that note, I'm going to call it a day. I've had just about enough of this computer for the moment! As I look at the CPU, it morphs into a boat anchor.

Ciao for now,
MK