So yesterday was International Table Top Day, but between Matt working late and my bookclub meet, the gaming did not happen in my house. So we made up for it tonight. 3 two player games to kill time, trying not to think about the epic awesomeness of Game of Thrones that aired today... sigh... 
Anyways, it was still a good night, especially since Matt and I have been slacking on our game nights.
So on the menu tonight was City of Thieves, King of Tokyo, and Miskatonic School for Girls. I may suck at being the king of Tokyo, but I can be a damn good thief!

For the sake of sending this to my bookclub members, here is the list of why City of Dark Magic may or may not have been written by Caitlin Perry.

Back in 2010 I had the wonderful opportunity of running away and living in the UK. Some of the best days of my life were spent there, and to this day I sometimes forget that it actually happened, that it wasn't all just some fantastic dream. Since coming back to Canada, I have two strong memories that I carry with me, one being a crazy adventure in trying to see my first  Harry Potter film and having to run around London because we had actually bought our tickets for the wrong city (really, Leicester / Leicester Square, this isn't Canadian proof), and the second is my grand UK farewell. My last trip into London my friends and I bought theatre tickets. We split off into different directions, and I went to Billy Elliot. It was a show I had always hoped to see, and being in London it felt like the best time to go. So I did, and it was more than everything I had ever hoped that it would be, maybe not simply for the show itself (which was still amazing), but for what it meant for me. When that curtain fell, that was my chapter coming to an end, but boy, what a chapter it was! 

A few months ago I found out that the American Broadway of Billy Elliot was coming to Calgary. I didn't think twice about getting tickets (and I spent about the same amount on them as I did in London, too). It was important for me to go, and it was important for me to bring Matt along with me. That time I spent in the UK, that adventure I had, he wasn't a part of it, so for me to re-live this memory, this small piece of my London adventures, and be able to share that with him, it may not be the same as turning back the clock and dragging him along, but for these few hours I hope that he got a small glimpse of my world, of what it felt like for me to be back in a time and place that seems forever ago now. 
And the show? Well I suppose you're waiting for a review. It was well done. But, to be honest, it didn't replace my London experience, though I suspect that nothing ever could. I sat there singing all of the songs, because of course I have them all memorized, and it threw me off when parts were cut out or words were replaced; I have to say, I miss the free use of F-bombs and the children did not throw the W-word out nearly enough. I'm sorry, but there was no room for "shag[ging]" in this play, the line goes "we went and fucked your Mrs.; all of us at once!" I felt a bit like a tool for belting that one out when no one on stage was doing it right. Nonetheless, it was  magical night. I laughed, I cried, I sang, and for a moment I felt like I was right back there, in worse seats with one hell of a long train ride to get me back home and loving every moment of it because I knew that it would be my last. Well, Billy Elliot in Calgary isn't my last of anything, and looking at the way this year has been going thus far, maybe my new chapter begins with it. 

Well done cast and crew. This is not my final Billy Elliot. I will always come back!

So I've just finished Beta Reading for a friend of mine, and what can I say? I love this! As much as I love reading and writing, it can so easily be limited to a solitary activity. Interacting with other readers and writers is a whole other world! I've known this for a while, but I guess all of the excitement with fine-tuning Freakhouse, doing a Beta Read, and being active in my bookclub has me thinking more and more about how important these things are to me. I'm currently trying to secure my "real world" job, but I can't help but wonder if this is truly what I'm meant to do. Having only released my first novel publication a couple of years ago, I know that I'm still a baby in this realm, and not being "officially" published does make my efforts seem less credible, nonetheless, if I've learned anything, it's that some things just fall into place and you know that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. I feel that way today. I hope it lasts.

The wait is almost over! I have reformatted, re-edited, spent far too long on the cover maker to get ride of all happy bright colours that seem to want to be there, and now the proof is ordered! Createspace has gone through a lot of changes since I first started toying with it for Galen, the process has been made easier and it looks as though they have stopped removing my website link, which I guess wasn't so bad before since I have abandoned the wordpress blog I was using back then.

I've been informed that April 8th will be my receiving date for my proof copy. I have no idea how quickly I will go through it once it arrives since I'll be on my final stretch of practicum that week. Nonetheless, Freakhouse reads quick enough that so long as there aren't huge issues (ie. Cover-related problems that almost killed me with Galen), it should be made public before the end of April, or shortly after April since I will be endeavouring to write the sequel for Camp NaNoWriMo. Huzzah, I say! Huzzah!!!

What? Two posts in one day?!?! 

I like time off. Time off is my friend. 

Anyways, after my zumba class, I was informed that people were inviting themselves over for a game night, which, considering I generally love hosting and it has been far too long since we last had a game night, this was alright by me. I've also noted how sucky I've been at documenting these games, so I made sure to do some of that this time. 

The first game we did was Defenders of the Realm, a cooperative fantasy game were you choose your hero and try like crazy to not be killed or let the world be destroyed. This was only my third time playing this game (if you ignore the back-to-back plays in the same night), and the funny thing is that I never remember how to play it, but I firmly remember loving it. I expect that I will have to be re-taught the game, even if we play it tomorrow. Anyways, the one thing I did know when sitting down to it today was that I wanted to kill the dragon. She is one the stubbornest bosses on the board, but I was determined. I chose a new character for this game. I've been the Cleric and the Sorceress before, so this time I tried out the Eagle Rider. All three of these characters are pretty good. My eagle rider didn't win, but I did manage to take on Sapphire the Dragon all by myself, no one could reach me to even try to help. All of my cards resulted in direct hits (thanks to Eagle Rider's special ability of being able to re-roll failed dice) and I proudly took the kill! She was the only boss I killed; the unicorn riding dwarf was collecting hood ornaments with the bosses he was cleaning up after the other players brought them down. You know you're the badass when you strut around demon infested villages on a unicorn, swinging an ax overhead. 

After that epic adventure, my friend MM unpacked his box of Settlers of Cataan since neither Matt nor his friend had ever played it before. I explain it as Carcassonne meets Pillars of the Earth, but since more people tend to have played Settlers than either of those other games, I guess that explanation only works in my house. Basic Settlers is almost too simple of a game for us, I guess. Between it being a minimum three player game and the fact that EVERYONE has this game, we haven't added it to our collection. Though tonight was my first time playing with a Settlers expansion... something about Knights... We did the basic game first, then the expansion. I got blocked in during the first game and couldn't expand to save my life. Second game I build a huge road, but that did me little good when MM built up his cities super fast and out victory-pointed (yes, I use made-up verbage!) us all! Long night, but a fun one. 

Still need to have a bug game night soon so that we can break open Shadows Over Camelot. I have played it before but we haven't even opened the game since we bought it. Another game I remember nothing about other than the fact that after I first played it I knew that I had to have it. Joys of goldfish memory.

So Matt brought home The Hobbit and we watched it last night. It was just as wonderful and epic as when we saw it in theatres - all those times we saw it in theatres. But last night did get me to thinking. This, at least for me, is the year of the Dwarf. Undeniably there is a bounty of sexy dwarf in the new Peter Jackson film, but this hasn't been my only dose of sexy dwarf. This is also my first year of getting into the Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series. As a rule, I am reading each book before allowing myself to even glimpse at the TV show (so no spoilers!), so I was introduced to literary Tyrion first, and it was instant love. Sexy dwarf. Lo! and behold! Peter Dinklage! Sexy dwarf! And for the month of March my book club has been reading Magnus Flyte's City of Dark Magic; and while Nico doesn't seem particularly physically attractive to me given the way my imagination has constructed him, there's something about that infallible wit (hey, I'll let the Shakespearean pun stand if you will, wink-wink!) that tells me that there is an undiscovered realm (at least to me) of intrigue in all of this. I enjoy the thought of new possibilities. 

Not to worry, Honey, I won't go exploring. But I am curious if some up-coming work of mine may benefit from this. I mean, I already have Orin in Knightsbridge, but I wouldn't consider him sexy, or dwarf, more like an aged gnome. Oh well, until lightning strikes, I will revel in the thoughts of fan-fiction spin-offs. Those are fun, too!

Adult life really gets in the way of writing. By now, I should not only be done editing Freakhouse, but my cover should be made and this post would include a release announcement. Reality, on the other hand, has determined that I have not even opened up the Freakhouse file since I consulted with my last beta reader, something that has me concerned since I have also vowed to undertake the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge in order to complete the sequel, a feat that I believe requires me to refresh my memory on Freakhouse related things.

I must be in NaNo mode already, look at that run-on.

So why am I taking the time to complain about this on a blog as opposed to actually using this spare moment get my act together and re-read the damn thing? Because this takes far less time and effort. Sure Freakhouse can be read in one sitting, but I don't believe for a moment that will actually bring myself to do that today. And since I really only have today (thanks to an unexpected middle of the night excursion in Emergency; I'm doing much better now, by the way), I have the terrible feeling that I will put it down, walk away and not even look at it for at least another week - probably in those last few moments before NaNo actually begins.

A poor excuse I know, but really I just felt the urge to do something partially creative with the small burst of motivation I have right now, which will probably soon fade into a fog of naptime. Hey, I wasn't released until 3:00am, I can naptime all I want!

Though if I can take anything away from this experience, I must say that the inmates of Freakhouse have a far better doctor response time. No character of mine is going to spend hours in a waiting room, praying that they don't have to run back out to spend another $20 on parking, and wondering as each hour passes if somehow they were forgotten about! Granted that I wasn't tortured for scientific experimentation either - at least I hope I wasn't - but still, it shouldn't require one to break into a seizure just to be allowed to get a blood sample over and done with. Hmmm, new ideas for new lows in the new ward...

Regardless on when I get Freakhouse up and running, April will be the commencement of Parish. I don't feel nearly as prepared as I was for Freakhouse, but I have a good sense of the milestones. Plus, Dotan is pretty good about running his own show so I know that the story will go where it's supposed to.

I know, until it is actually released, this all pretty much means nothing, except to two other people who have some idea what this is all about. In short, two books are coming. Three if I am very optimistic about Knightsbridge - but don't get me started on that one. This post has already turned itself into a long rant of pent-up writer aggravation. You can rest assured that it will only get worse in April when I'm freaking out about word counts and trying to not-so-secretly compete with the random strangers who have been placed in my "cabin". I don't know if I like this "Camp" idea, but I'm committed now. NaNoing outside of November... it's almost sacrilegious...

Well that's enough rant from me. There is still much procrastination left to do!