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The first week’s sales for The Catmage Chronicles

Posted on 10/21/2012 by Meryl Yourish

I had a great first week, considering almost nobody knows that Darkness Rising: Book One of The Catmage Chronicles is out. Twenty-four sales the first week! Woot!

Actually, I really am happy about the total. It’s the first step on a long road, and there’s nowhere to go but up. I like my odds. I have a lot of marketing plans.

I’ve got a bunch of postcards coming. I’m going to use them for promotional purposes. Here’s the front:

The back is the back cover copy, plus a QR code linking to my book page on my writer blog, as well as credit to Julie Dillon, my terrific cover artist.

It’s been hundreds of years since the Darkness last surfaced, a grim time when both humans and Catmages lost their lives. But now the Wild Ones work with humans again, and thirteen-year-old Andy Cohen gets the surprise of his life when a talking cat shows up in his front yard. Goldeneyes, a powerful Catmage, needs Andy’s help. In the exciting first installment of this new series, Meryl Yourish takes the reader into a world of magical cats, dark powers, and a boy who finds himself entangled in their war.

If that’s not enough to reel you in, you can always give it a quick once-over with the Look Inside feature on Amazon. I have to upload the PDF for the same feature in the trade paperback. On my list of things to do next week.

I did some plotting on Book Two over the weekend. It’s a lot more complicated than the first one. But still a heck of a lot of fun.

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

Who, exactly, is the cyborg?

Posted on 10/21/2012 by Meryl Yourish

I finally put Instapundit in my RSS feed. In the last five days–from 16 October to 21 October–there have been 443 posts. Glenn has been using six co-bloggers. Six.

Out of the 443 posts, Glenn has written 258. That’s 58%. WHILE HE WASN’T EVEN HOME THE WHOLE TIME.

And he calls his wife a cyborg. I’m thinking Glenn’s been holding out on us.

Update: Instalink! Thanks, Cyborg Glenn!

While you’re here, new people, take a look around the site, and at my book, Darkness Rising: Book One of The Catmage Chronicles, on sale in Kindle, Nook, and Trade Paperback.

Posted in Bloggers | 7 Comments

Sunday news roundup

Posted on 10/21/2012 by Meryl Yourish

Mittmentum! The NBC/WSJ poll shows that the presidential race is now a tie. Can it be? Will we truly be ridding ourselves of the worst. president. ever? Hey, he’s directly responsible for my being put from full-time with benefits to part-time without. Crap. I have to send in my COBRA check.

Demonization fail: Women are trending to Romney in a big way. Nobody is buying that “war on women” bullshit, Dems. Give it up.

Schadenfreude: Is it wrong for me to find it amusing that our enemies are having the same stuff pulled on them that they do to us? The Kurds have blown up the Iran-Turkey natural gas pipeline again. I believe the proper phrase is: “As ye reap, so shall ye sow.” Which is the Biblical way of saying: HA-ha.

Yes, because the U.S. is where the real voter suppression is: The UN is going to monitor “conservative groups” at polling places to make sure that voters are not being “suppressed.” What does that mean?

Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

I would LOVE to see these assholes show up in my conservative, Republican suburb of Richmond. Oh, pleasepleaseplease. Make my Election Day even happier than I think it will be. Where do I write to them to tell them I think the vote will be suppressed in my town?

Posted in Iran, Middle East, Politics, Turkey, United Nations | 1 Comment

Caturday Tig

Posted on 10/20/2012 by Meryl Yourish

My goofball, being goofy.

Here he is in his tube toy.

And here he is zonked out on the newly-made bed.

That’s my fluffy goofball.

Posted in Cats | 4 Comments

Misleading headline of the day

Posted on 10/19/2012 by Meryl Yourish

Take a look at this headline and give yourself a minute to interpret it.

Jewish and Christian groups at impasse over U.S. aid to Israel

Hm, looks like the groups are having trouble agreeing on something, right?

Wrong. Christian groups are actively asking Congress to cancel aid to Israel.

Leaders of Reform and Conservative Judaism, the American Jewish Committee, and other Jewish groups sent a letter Wednesday (Oct. 17) to their Christian counterparts on the Christian-Jewish Roundtable saying they would not be attending a long-planned Oct. 22-23 meeting.
At issue is an Oct. 8 letter that many Christian leaders — from the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and other denominations — sent to Congress, asking that U.S. aid to Israel be re-evaluated in light of the Jewish state’s alleged human rights violations.

Jewish groups are, understandably, livid.

They are asking that the aid be canceled, using the cloak of “We just want to make sure Israel isn’t abusing Palestinian human rights” as a cover. And what groups are involved in this? PC-USA, the National Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church–all the anti-Israel ones that Sabeel managed to convince with its lies–the usual suspects who are pretty much always going with the one-side anti-Israel campaigns while ignoring utterly things like Hamas smuggling weapons into Gaza. Anti-aircraft missiles fired at Israeli helicopters? Pshaw! That was just one. Israel can deal. Missiles falling on children’s bedrooms? Who cares, nobody was hurt. What matters is “justice”.

“Realizing a just and lasting peace will require this accountability, as continued U.S. military assistance to Israel — offered without conditions or accountability — will only serve to sustain the status quo and Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories.”

No mention of why the military had to go back into the West Bank. That little intifada thing? You know, the terror war that Arafat launched? That’s why Israel went back. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is THE OCCUPATION. (Also note the plural, “territories”. They’re still counting Gaza as occupied, even though Hamas declares that it is not.)

I wonder if these groups are asking Congress to review aid to Egypt, after seeing all of the anti-Christian attacks since the Muslim Brotherhood took over.

Oh, come on. We all know the answer to that one. No.

Posted in Gaza, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Religion | 3 Comments

Friday briefs

Posted on 10/19/2012 by Meryl Yourish

When you’ve lost the MSM: McClatchy covers the changing Benghazi story. The AP says that the CIA told the White House within 24 hours that the Benghazi attack was not a mob, but “militants“. Oh, next week’s foreign policy debate is going to be a doozy. Watch for Romney to land a lot of punches on this issue, and for Obama to show us new ways to say he did what he didn’t do.

Moral equivalence: So let’s see. Even a former Lebanese PM says that Hezbollah sending a drone into Israel violates UNSCR 1701. So what does the head of the UN do about it? Well, he says that it’s a “reckless provocation.” And then he yells at Israel.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Hezbollah’s recent drone launch into Israeli airspace a “reckless provocation” in a report submitted Thursday to the Security Council, and warned that the war in Syria was destabilizing Lebanon.
Ban also criticized Israel, saying its use of drones and fighter jets in Lebanese territory violates Lebanon’s sovereignty. Israel and Hezbollah, a major political and military force in Lebanon, fought a war in 2006.

Because of course, that’s the issue. Israel. Violation of UN resolutions? Piffle. It’s not being done by Israel, so who cares?

But Israel doesn’t do anything for the U.S.: Yet another example of Israel sharing its knowledge with Americans to save American lives. But don’t worry, the Israel detractors will still insist that Israel gives nothing back for all those billions in aid it receives.

Muslim ERA Watch: Two Egyptian girls were punished by their teacher for refusing to wear a headscarf. Expect to see much, much more now that the Muslim Brotherhood controls Egypt.

Posted in Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Lebanon, Middle East, Religion, United Nations | Comments Off

The I thought you said no more briefs briefs

Posted on 10/18/2012 by Meryl Yourish

So, what, all of them have been middle-class now? The myth that terrorists all do it because they’re poor and oppressed continues to be busted, as an upper-middle class Bangladeshi boy (a Muslim, of course) was arrested for trying to blow up the Fed in NYC. And of course, his parents can’t understand why he did it. (It’s the Islamism, stupid.) Yeah, they do seem to be a bit obtuse about Number One Son:

Nafis was so timid, he couldn’t even venture out onto the roof alone, his father said. “He used to take someone to go the roof at night. I can’t believe he could be part of it (the plot).”
“He is very gentle and devoted to his studies,” he said, pointing to Nafis’ time studying at the private North South University in Dhaka.
However, Belal Ahmed, a spokesman for the university, said Nafis was a terrible student who was put on probation and threatened with expulsion if he didn’t bring his grades up. Nafis eventually just stopped coming to school, Ahmed said.

Uh-oh: Mittmentum is building! Could Pennsylvania be in play for Mitt? Probably not, but he’s getting more interest in the Rust Belt states.

Mahmoud Abbas: Open mouth, emit lies. Once again, Abbas blames Netanyahu for the lack of progress. Meanwhile, the Palestinians refuse to negotiate, try to make an end-run around Israel by violating every agreement they’ve ever signed, posts on his Facebook page that Israel is occupied Palestinian land, and–well, you get the picture. There is absolutely an obstacle to the two-state solution in the leadership of Israel and the Palestinians–and it isn’t the leadership of Israel.

Number of flotillas to help the Syrians: Still zero. Another bunch of “humanitarians” who are fighting for the rights of the poor and oppressed will be skipping the killing fields of Syria and trying to force their way into Gaza. Why? Because Israel refuses to allow Hamas free rein to import as many weapons as it wants in its mission to destroy Israel. There is no blockade of anything else, effectively. Gazans are getting plenty of food and water and other necessities, and are so wealthy they can afford to pay double for new iPhones before Israelis get them. And of course, the UN keeps yammering about how the Gazans are starving, malnourished, etc., etc., etc. Yeah. Tell it to the African migrants trying to get into Israel about how hard the Gazans have it.

Posted in Gaza, Israeli Double Standard Time, Politics, Terrorism, The One, United Nations | Comments Off

The blogging solution

Posted on 10/17/2012 by Meryl Yourish

Well, it appears that after all these months of trying to figure out what to do with this blog, I have decided: I’m sticking around.

I’m going to have my author blog for my writing. I will doubtlessly mention my writing here (probably cross-post as well), and I will continue to blog here about Israel, Jewish issues, my cats, and anything else I feel like writing about.

The more I think about it, the less I can shut down what I’ve been doing these past eleven years. I am what I am, and my Google cache is what it is.

I would very much like my long-time readers (and middle-time and short-time readers!) to help me out by passing along the links to my book. Remember I’ve had no advertising and stopped accepting contributions years ago, so all of this is on my own dime. And I was downsized to part-time in August, so the finances are getting a bit tight. The income from my book can make a difference, once the word gets out there.

If you liked Harry Potter, or have friends or relatives that did, you will probably like Darkness Rising: Book One of The Catmage Chronicles. (And trust me, you’re going to get no sicker of reading that than I am of typing it. Good thing I type 100 wpm or more.) Also, the sooner it starts getting a steady stream of sales, the sooner I stop posting that link and just leave it on the sidebar and in the page where it belongs.

Also, I may be posting this cover image from time to time. Because Julie Dillon is an amazing artist, and she’s up for a World Fantasy Award next month. Also because, well, it’s my book cover. And how cool is that?

This cool.

As of this post, I have achieved chai (18) in book sales. Woo! I’m rich! I’m a happy miser!

And I’m here to stay. And post more often than once a day or so. And on more topics.

There. Now everyone should be happy.

Posted in Life, Site news, Writing | 6 Comments

Farewell, Mad Libs guy. Blank in blank.

Posted on 10/17/2012 by Meryl Yourish

One of the men responsible for bringing Mad Libs to the world has died.

Sloan, the last survivor of the trio of founders of Price Stern Sloan publishing, died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a brief illness, said his daughter, Claudia Sloan. He was 89.
He was looking for a career that was more “distinguished” than being a Hollywood press agent, Sloan told Publishers Weekly in 1973, when he was by contacted by two men who had come up with the idea for “Mad Libs” — TV writer Leonard Stern and television personality Roger Price.
“In the early ’60s, Larry Sloan, a dear friend from high school who … had always been a grammarian par excellence, joined us as a partner and CEO,” Stern wrote in an official “Mad Libs” history, “and we became the publishing company Price Stern Sloan.”
Sloan “eventually became the business man behind ‘Mad Libs,’ ” Stern told the Washington Post in 1994.
Working from offices on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood, Sloan directed the editing of manuscripts that often emphasized humor. As of 1973, the company had 150 titles — mainly original softcovers that sold for a dollar — and expected to gross about $1.6 million that year.

Posted in American Scene | Comments Off

Kitty pictures!

Posted on 10/16/2012 by Meryl Yourish

Because Pamela asked for them.

First, a “Soon” from Gracie. She was mad at me because I woke her up to give her a pill.

Next, Gracie on paper.

Last, Tig asleep in his kitty condo. Best $20 I ever spent at Target. He sleeps in, on top, and around, and also plays in it. And announces to me that he is going to go to sleep in or on it. It’s annoying to me, but funny to anyone who’s around. He yowls and yells until he settles in. Sorta like this: “Mom, I’m going to sleep in the condo! Mom, I’m getting up on the condo! Mom, I’m on the condo! Mom, I’m lying down and ready to sleep now!”

Translate those sentences into yowls. I hear them every day. Every. Day.

Posted in Cats | 3 Comments

Tuesday, briefly

Posted on 10/16/2012 by Meryl Yourish

Can you say “projection”? I knew you could: The Mad Mullah-in-chief of Iran is accusing the EU of being stuck in the 19th century. Of course, the proper response to that is, “Nyah-nyah, that’s 12 centuries ahead of you!” And the real reason he accused the EU, of course, was to bring the bullshit “colonialism” charge regarding how mean the EU is for applying sanctions to Iran to stop them from getting the bomb. Meanwhile, Iran is out to take over neighboring island nations with enormous oil supplies. Colonialists!

Yeah, we kinda already knew that: When even former Lebanese prime ministers point out that Hezbollah flying an Iranian drone into Israel is a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, you have to wonder–what will it take to make the UN sanction Lebanon? Of course the answer to that is: Nothing.

The other side of the 1948 refugee coin: Countering the Palestinian propaganda, one article at a time. Yes, Jews were forced out of the Arab nations after Israel came into existence. They lost their property and their livelihoods, their businesses, their savings, and not a dime was ever compensated.

Everybody go “awwww”: UNESCO is griping that the funding cutoff due to their accepting the fictional nation of Palestine into their ranks is hurting them. Well, perhaps they should have waited for the Palestinians to actually sit down and negotiate a state with Israel. Don’t believe the lies UNESCO passes along about itself. It’s been viciously anti-Israel for years. But then, it’s a United Nations office. Name one that isn’t.

There are your briefs. Now tell your friends about my book.

Posted in Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, United Nations | Comments Off

The human bullet

Posted on 10/15/2012 by Meryl Yourish

You know, I think I’m just about the only person who really doesn’t give a damn that some idiot went up nearly to outer space and then jumped to see if he could break the sound barrier with his body.

I mean, what’s the point of becoming a human thunderclap if there’s no one around to hear it?

Posted in Juvenile Scorn | Comments Off

A Catmage excerpt

Posted on 10/15/2012 by Meryl Yourish

I thought this scene might interest my readers the most, as it references Jewish history and religion. The book is not a Jewish book, but I do use Judaism in the roots of the Catmages’ magic.

Here’s the excerpt from Chapter 3.

I think I’ll be putting excerpts out from time to time.

Posted in Writing | Comments Off

Fall has arrived

Posted on 10/15/2012 by Meryl Yourish

How can I tell fall has arrived? I get shocks every time I pet Tig.

It’s raining out, and I’m still getting them.

Stupid static electricity.

Posted in Cats | 1 Comment

A published author

Posted on 10/13/2012 by Meryl Yourish

So I am now a published author, something I’ve been working towards, well, just about my entire adult life. As of 11 p.m. Saturday, I’ve sold exactly six copies–five trade paperback and one Kindle edition .

And you know, I’m about as proud of myself as if I’d sold six thousand, or sixty thousand.

In April of 2009, while driving down the highway, I got a great idea for a story. “What if the cats had the magic powers?” I wondered. And boom! The Catmage Chronicles were born. As soon as I got to my friend’s house, I got a notebook and started writing down thoughts, plot points, ideas, the whole shebang. Then when I got home that night, I started writing what I’d plotted out, and got a few thousand words in.

And stopped.

Like I always did.

I have a collection of half-begun novels that I stopped writing. The Catmage Chronicles looked like they were going to be yet another in my series of failures.

But then I got an email from a literary agent in the spring of 2011, asking for a link to her website. And also asking if I had anything she might be interested in. She wasn’t interested in the first few pages of my novel, but brushing it up to send to her got me interested in writing again. So I decided to make up my mind to either finish a novel, or give up and forget about writing. Just stick to blogging and figure out a career, probably in web, for the rest of my life.

I couldn’t give up. Instead, I found a way to push through what was stopping me, figure out how to plot, get into a regular writing schedule, and finish the book. Along the way I re-learned the industry by reading writing blogs, talking with my friend Neil Clarke, and getting my mind back into the writing biz. I found a cover artist, cover designer, and re-learned Adobe InDesign to typeset my own novel.

And now, there’s a book out there with a fantastic cover (and a damned good interior) with my name on it.

So yeah, I’m pretty proud of myself.

Now go buy my book, and tell everyone you know to do the same. Those books aren’t going to buy themselves, you know.

It’s been a long, long time coming. But my new career has begun.

Posted in Life, Writing | 4 Comments