Good morning readers, writers, and BryonySeries fans. I hope you're having a wonderful day so far, which turns into an even better day.
With Calkins Day less than a month away, consider this post your first official invitation to attend what might be the most unusual hour of your year: 7 to 8 p.m. Feb. 13.
And if you're part of the majority that has no idea what Calkins Day is, watch this video, starting at the 4:50 mark.
Here's what's going on so far.
* Calkins Day 2021 is a virtual event this year for reasons that don't bear repeating and will be held on Zoom.
* The event is free, but you must register. Here is the link: bryonyseries.com/registerforcalkinsday.
* After you submit your registration, you will receive your Zoom coordinates and a menu card of the food we'll be serving that night. Wait! What? We're serving food? At a virtual event? Yes, that's correct.
* "Chef Tim" will be hosting three food demonstrations of festive, especially designed for Calkins Day refreshments, that you will be able to assemble right along with him. The ingredients are simple, common, and most likely items already in your cupboards. Again, you will receive your menu and "shopping list" at the time of registration.
* Local author, local celebrity, and my WriteOn Joliet co-leader Tom Hernandez has kindly agreed to emcee the event. In fact, we built the event time around his convenience.
* Topics for the hour will include the following: author collaborations, how to legally fictionalize a real person, literary nonsense, Irish vampires, deep time psychosis, and Astro-Time Physics.
* A Calkins Day 2021 news release is ready for, well, release.
* We'll be circulating a flyer, too - just as soon as I send off the flyer information and photos to a friend who is better at graphic design than I am.
* Ed Calkins (yes, the Steward of Tara himself) will randomly giveaway a few copies of Ruthless to whomever pleases him.
* Also, Timothy is redeveloping Ed's page on the BryonySeries website that will include a few helpful links, including a guide to Calkins Day and how to best prepare for the optimal celebration experience.
* BUT FIRST we must have a book. Colleen Robbins returned the copyedits to me this past week, and she said the manuscript is fairly clean. This makes me happy that I spent ALL of my Thanksgiving break doing a very hard edit on the book (not on content but on spelling - Ed is terribly dyslexic). I also feel pretty good that I caught most of errors since copy editing is my weakest editing link.
* So, trusting in the cleanness of the pages, I'm embarking on the ambitious task today of (hopefully) copy editing the entire book, so Rebekah can format it this weekend. The art is also scanned and ready to go. The goal is to have a proof copies on their way to Ed and me by Monday.
* Side note: I'm also finishing the copy edits of a novel for a client. I have two more chapters to go, so I hope to get that done this weekend, too. Hey, my toe is still broken; it snowed yesterday; and I have plenty of coffee in the house.. I might as well get some projects done.
