Snow Days
There’s no better excuse than a snow day to stay indoors by a crackling fire with a great book and big mug of tea. Over the past week, our temperatures here on Denman Island took an unusual deep dive, and Tuesday night we got a dump of snow. It’s quiet and beautiful right now. Blindingly white. But snow rarely lasts long here. It’ll be a memory come the weekend.
New Course Offering
I’ve been invited to lead a workshop on Writing Deeper Dialogue at the North Island Writer’s Conference this weekend. It’s a three-hour workshop from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. on January 21st at North Island College. Registration is still open if you’re interested. Program details are here.
Audio Narration News
My newest project of narrating the Dark Dreams books is coming along. But to be honest with you, it’s more time consuming than I’d hoped. The early mistakes I made created a ton of extra work. The biggest was being too self-conscious about animating my voice. I figured that out halfway through, so had to go back and re-record the first ten chapters. Fingers crossed, the process will smooth itself out and speed up as I get better at this. Voice actors who do this work all the time have my greatest admiration.
Dark Dreams News
Ghost Mark has received a wonderful review from Scribblesworth Reviews. Julio Carlos is the man behind the reviews, and his sense of humour hits my funny bone.
In not-so-good news, Ghost Mark did not make the cut to the short list for the Chanticleer Paranormal Award for Supernatural fiction. Though disappointing, I’m still warmed by the glow from Blood Mark, which made it all the way to finalist in this category last year. Can’t win them all!
Gift Legacy News
Hidden Enemy, book 2 of the Gift Legacy series is on sale for 99 cents January 18 to 21. Scribblesworth Reviews chose Hidden Enemy for its 2022 Paranormal book of the year. Julio’s review is golden. His enthusiasm is over the top, and it still makes me smile. This is a small sample of his endorsement: “OHHHHH YEEEEEAHHHH! JP McLean knows how to grip us at once and make us curious in the first scenes. Awesome!” If you haven’t yet added Hidden Enemy to your collection, now’s the time. Find Hidden Enemy at your favourite retailer here.
What I’m Reading
I just finished The Wise Man’s Fear, which is the second book in Patrick Rothfuss’s The Kingkiller Chronicles. This book has over half a million ratings on Goodreads! Those numbers are hard to wrap my head around. Good for him! I loved the book, though not as much as the first book in the series, The Name of the Wind. Regardless, I’ll be reading the third Kingkiller Chronicle book as soon as I can get my hands on it.
I hope you’re bundled up and cozy wherever you are.
Until next time…
XO
Jo-Anne
Congratulations for tackling the hurtle of self-narration, a learning curve I’m sure! Some of my favourite audio books are narrated by the author. Your efforts and time will pay off I’m sure and the new experience is priceless!
As for the snow… the ‘memory’ of all this cannot come soon enough for me!! Hopefully the roads will be clear and safe for your writers conference on the weekend.⛄️😖
Thanks, Sally. I heard the power’s now out for many on the island. The joys of heavy wet snow ! Stay warm.
Have a fantastic weekend at your writer’s conference! Kudos to you for taking on self-narration — such a huge learning curve. I’m sure you’ll be an expert soon.
Thanks for the encouragement, Wendy.
Looks like the snow is the right consistency for making a snow woman!
Haha! Yes! It was perfect packing snow a day ago. Now it’s just slush.