Tag: photography

New year, new challenge, new books.

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

A great start to the year. Hot weather, lots of writing, new books, and a photo challenge.
With some colleagues at work, I’m participating in a “Photo every day for the year” challenge. I write every day, so why not take a photo every day too?

Most of the others are using Instagram, which I guess is the thing for photos nowadays. Me, not having a phone smart enough to run Instagram, I’m uploading photos to Flickr from computer. A desktop at that. (It turns out, Instagram doesn’t work from PCs).
My page is here: Sean Monaghan 365 Flickr

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With about thirty-something pictures so far. I am taking a picture every day, just that with the whole move-it-to-the-computer thing, I’m not managing to post every day. Still, on track to get all 365 images up.
The double challenge might come later in the year with continuing the circle theme.

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I also managed to get a couple of short books out in January. Touches Electricity and Unicorn Beluga Play Madison Square Garden. Both available as ebooks and in print.
Setting higher goals for publishing this year. Last year I managed to get out just four novels and a clutch of shorter books. Aiming for ten novels and sixteen other books this year (one every two weeks). Some of those other books will be collections of the shorter works.
I’m enjoying the ability to put up a single work that’s shorter than novel length (Touches Electricity is about 10,000 words, or about forty pages, Unicorn Beluga… is about half again as long). Once I have about five or so of those out at that length, I’ll put them together in a single collection, which will be closer to that novel-length 250-300 pages.

Unicorn Beluga Play Madison Square Garden
Max Deacon, music producer extraordinaire, works with any band with a good idea. Inspiration is more important than the money. Though the money’s good.
But with Unicorn Beluga playing their hits Max might just be out of his depth. Way out.
A sci-fi story with a heart from the author of The Molenstraat Music Festival and Crimson Birds of Small Miracles.

Touches Electricity
Damian feels a tingling surge of electricity. But is it going to help him figure out what’s going on with Carina?
A quirky tale of friendship, mystery and angst, with just a dash of electricity on the loose.

ebooks
Unicorn Beluga Play Madison Square Garden $2.99, Smashwords, Amazon
Touches Electricity $2.99, Smashwords, Amazon

print
Unicorn Beluga Play Madison Square Garden $8.99, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Touches Electricity $7.99, Amazon, Barnes and Noble

 

If you’ve read this far – thanks. Here’s a free download coupon for Unicorn Beluga Play Madison Square Garden – Coupon Code: DJ77L. Just go to the Smashwords page and enter the coupon code prior to checkout. I hope you enjoy the book.

(p.s. I’ve limited the coupons to 20 – should be plenty, given how many people read my blog but if you get there and the code doesn’t work, my apologies – send me a message and I’ll get you a copy).

My schedule for LexiCon

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Lexicon header

This year I’m attending two full days of the New Zealand Science Fiction Convention, LexiCon, in Taupo. I’m honored to have been asked to sit on two panels.

The State of Genre Publishing. Discussing the various publishing options for authors: traditional publishers, small presses, self publishing and more. With Marie Hodgkinson, Darian Smith, Sean Monaghan, and Leigh K Hunt.
Sat 9am in Hine-i-tīweka (Jupiter)

Hard SF – Where Engineers Go To Die… and how to open it up for the rest of us. With Art Protin, Sean Monaghan and Mark English.
Sun 5pm in Matawhero (Mars)

I’m looking forward to the convention and getting time to hang out with old friends.

 

 

Where I Write – a photo project by Kyle Cassidy

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

Professional photographer Kyle Cassidy has a wonderful project of photographing science fiction authors in their writing space. Where I Write is a quick and cool insight into the variations in how people write – Michael Swandick’s bustling busy office, Will De Smedt’s orderly space, Ellen Datlow’s living room approach. I think my favourite is Joe Haldeman handwriting in notebooks by candle- and lamplight.

Great News – Forgotten Trees as a book!

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

I had some poems I’d been working on and I’ve decided to make Forgotten trees into a three-level piece: music, graphics and text.  There will be a 100 page book of photos and poems to complement the CD.  Get both, read the book and look at the photos (which are new, not available electronically through the website) and listen to the music in the background (with a cup of herbal tea, perhaps).  Intended release date is April 19th – at the moment just working through a sizing problem with the CD tray insert.