Oh yes, I went there…or, how to make a Red Bull slushie

A couple of months back, I was joking around on Twitter about my Red Bull addiction and how a Seven-Eleven had miraculously sprung up in my neighborhood. I was quite excited about this, because I’ve never had a local Seven-Eleven before, and everyone knows that Seven-Eleven is awesome primarily because of two things 1. They stock an entire WALL of energy drinks and 2. Slushie machine!

I made some comment about how I could now get Red Bull Slushies WHENEVER I WANTED, which horrified my mother (who has both Twitter & BlogTV, but not DailyBooth, for some reason I can’t figure out). While my mother was horrified, everyone else seemed to think that Red Bull Slushies were the BEST IDEA EVER. Apparently, like the idea of Victorian Knights, the concept of pouring a Red Bull energy shot into a slushie was something that occurred only inside my head.

Now that I’m shooting on the VIXIA instead of my anemic little webbie, I decided to SHOW YOU HOW to make a Red Bull Slushie of your very own. Now, I don’t drink these things very often. They’re specially reserved for epic, marathon deadline writing sessions, and days where the only cure for boredom is making myself so hyper that my toes tap along with my racing heart rate. However, if you are curious, I recommend the cherry coke flavor, which is 2/3 cola slushie + 1/3 cherry slushie + an energy shot.

Q&A With Doctor Who’s Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Stephen Moffat

I’ve decided what I want to be when I grow up: Stephen Moffat. Anyway…check out the video footage I put together from this week’s Doctor Who event in NYC. As to the related giveaway that was mentioned on last week’s BlogTV show…stay tuned ;)

Doctor Who Cast at the Apple Store Soho

These pictures don’t capture the awesome that was hearing Stephen Moffat, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan talk about the new series of Doctor Who, but they’re still pretty cool in their own right:

Yep, that’s the VIXIA S100 at work in photo/video mode. They wouldn’t let us use flash at the last moment, and of course I’d found out about the event completely final hour and wasn’t on the press list, and of course on top of that I had the VIXIA on me and not the Rebel, which shoots fantastic low-light, which was the WHOLE POINT in buying the thing in the first place. Sigh.

Okay guys, got to upload the video footage onto YouTube. And then, inexplicably, run off and buy glow in the dark body paint for Saturday.

QUESTION FOR THE COMMENTS: What was your first impression of the new cast?

Some Videos You Might Have Missed

Despite the MASSIVEFAIL of last year, I’m trying to Vlog Every Weekday In April, and once again I’m failing miserably. Last year I wound up having to pre-schedule things while I went off to the Cannes Film Festival, which didn’t work out so well. This year, I promised myself, would be DIFFERENT. That was before I randomly wound up in the Pacific Northwest for a week with pretty much no internet. Yep. So please, guys, be lenient. I’m trying!

If you didn’t realize I was making videos with such alarming frequency, now’s your chance to catch up! Below, I humbly present a selection of the VEDA videos. Nope, the new camera hasn’t come yet. And yep, I KNOW how badly the old Webbie is SOUNDFAILING. Sigh.

THE OFFICIAL KNIGHTLEY ACADEMY TRAILER

The official Knightley Academy trailer is here! Yus!!!

HOW TO CREATE A "PREVIEW CHAPTERS" E-BOOK FOR FREE

A couple of months ago, I asked my publicist if it was possible to have sample chapters from Knightley Academy posted online. He frowned and told me that the only piracy-proof way to do so would be to produce a read-only non-downloadable e-book, something like the “search inside!” feature on Amazon. However, these were really expensive to produce. So, although I had really wanted to offer readers a chance to preview Knightley Academy, it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.

And then, about a week ago, I was clicking though a random music e-zine when it occurred to me that, whichever company had produced the e-zine, their format was perfect for an e-book. I pulled up the website, Issuu.com, curious how much it would cost to have them produce some preview chapters of Knightley.

I clicked on the “about” page, looking for a “cost of services” section. That’s when I realized that Issuu.com allowed you to instantly convert any PDF into a read-only, non-downloadable e-book or e-zine hosted on their website for free.

I quickly formatted the first two chapters of Knightley, saved them as a PDF, and hit upload.

When I let my publicist know about what I’d found, he immediately passed the discovery on to his colleagues. When I told my agent, he excitedly rattled off a list of clients who could benefit.

And so, I’ve decided to share the wealth: if you have a short story, preview chapters, deleted scenes, or anything else that you’ve always wanted to share with readers, here’s how to create it for free using MS Word and the internet:

1. Sign up for Issuu.com

2. Open a Word Doc. For sample material relating to a book, it’s best to Insert–>Picture–>From File and place a picture of the book cover on the front page.

3. Include important information: ISBN number? Release date? Publisher?

4. If you’re using text from an ARC (AKA 1P), think about adding a disclaimer along the lines of “uncorrected proof”

5. Add chapter headings. Get as creative as you’d like with the formatting. You can find some great fonts at http://www.1001freefonts.com/ and it’s a few easy clicks to install them—just google “how to install fonts on a mac/pc”

6. Go to File–>Print–>PDF–>Save as PDF

7. Follow instructions to upload to Issuu.com

8. Use a URL shortener for a customized, shareable URL. I chose bit.ly/kach12

9. Share on your website, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

You can read the first two chapters of Knightley Academy, out March 9 from Aladdin, as an online preview here: bit.ly/kach12

KNIGHTLEY ACADEMY TRAILER STILLS

As you’ve probably gathered from my recent tweets, I’ve been busy with pre-production on a live action trailer for Knightley Academy. In a marathon 6 hour session this afternoon, the cast and crew camped out at an undisclosed location to shoot the trailer. You won’t be able to see the trailer–or the amazingly hilarious behind-the-scenes footage–until the very end of the month, but here are a couple of low-res stills from the set:

It’s exceedingly rare for novelists to have a chance to see their stories come to life, and it was so amazing to write, direct, and produce this project. Just seeing Alec (“Lord Havelock”, picture 3, left) portray the menacing Head of First Years gave me chills. He was terrifyingly authentic to how I had imagined the character. Paul (“Fergus Valmont”, pictures 1 and 4) was phenomenal as the sneering arch rival to our hero, Henry. It’s quite strange seeing these two in the behind the scenes footage, as they’re completely goofy and lovable, but come across as such villains in the trailer. And I can’t imagine why Thad (“Henry Grim”, pictures 2, 4 & 5) hasn’t already been discovered. Working with him was like working with a massively successful professional actor, and he’s such a sweetheart on top of it. Thad’s the one who made me first think of seriously attempting a trailer for the book. (And he introduced me to the Jacobin calendar) Funny story–my production assistant, the intrepid Emily, picked up a reference copy of Knightley that we had sitting around in wardrobe and by the time I’d figured out where the book went, she was 150 pages in. I had to let her take it home.

And of course there was a FlipCam wandering around the set, begging for people to pick it up, turn it on and…do impressions of Lord of the Rings, debate whether Dumbledore’s sexual orientation can be considered Canon, and sing show tunes–yes, with jazz hands.

Maybe one day Knightley Academy will be picked up by a real production company, but even if that never happens, I already got to see my characters come to life, and, in another week, so will you guys!

xx
Robyn

What’s sitting in my Amazon checkout cart?

I’ve been amassing a small fortune worth of items in my Amazon shopping cart lately, and I think tomorrow I’m going to take the plunge and hit “purchase.” After all, this is all stuff I *need* right?

Mine broke, so obviously I need a new camera tripod. This one is pretty. It has a leveling ball and is all professional-grade (ie hopefully less breakable than my last one, which perished merrily after about 6 uses). I have these hideous orange lights hanging in my bay window left over from Halloween because I love the idea of lights decorating a big bay window. White lights on a white cord will look far less “ZOMG WHERES DA PARTY?!”

Three words: BlogTV Sound Fail. Never again, not with this beauty.

What? Surely you can see that I need my own home photography studio. Since I already have one umbrella light, I would be able to do three point studio lighting for portraiture, plus GREEN SCREEN. This is definitely an essential item.

If I’m getting the equipment for a home photography studio, I’ll obviously need a new camera. Especially since my DSLR has been sucking it since Cannes, which, come to think of it, is when I decided to replace it with a front-lit DSLR with multiple point autofocus. Way back last May. This new camera is clearly overdue.

This is not what it looks like. This is not a television, it’s a shiny shiny gigantic monitor to plug my MacBook into when I’m working in my office, so I can have yards of screen when editing video, or shifting between multiple word docs (like KA2-Synopsis, KA2-chapterbychapteroutline and KA2-Draft1).

Well, see, there’s this brass ring above my dining table, which is for a chandelier. And since I splurged on Starck ghost chairs last fall, I should just finish what I started and USE THE BRASS RING. Plus, this chandelier holds candles. And it’s only $15.
Oh, come on, like you’ve never wanted to throw a Commentary! The Musical party?

Clearly I need help. But really, readers, is there anything in this list that isn’t totally essential now that I’ve explained myself?

Knightley Academy, Chapter One, Part I

The sound-smothering potatoes of doom seem to have climbed into my throat, since I am currently voiceless at the moment. In any case, I am trying to melt the potatoes (potatoes melt, yeah?) with lots of hot tea and honey so I can be back on the case producing part II of this little foray into preview chapter podcasting. Please enjoy part I, below. And yes, it did take me hours to figure out how to achieve the 3-D reflection effect, thank you for admiring.

Blog TV Questions

Hey, guys, I’m really sorry about the BlogTV potatoes of doom sweeping in to wreck the audio on the show. I’m going to be fiddling with things (and buying an external mic) over the next week so that everything is 100% potato free for next time. And there will totally be a next time! I have a song about narwhals which you NEED to hear, plus copies of Linger, Raised By Wolves and Sisters Red to give away, not to mention some pretty cool celeb autographs and lots of other surprises.

Basically, I am going to try to remember most of the questions that you guys asked me during the show and then recall my answers so that, if you didn’t hear the answers, you shall still have them.

BLOG TV SHOW QUESTIONS: January 25, 2010.

Q: Where is your accent from?
A: It is from being American and spending too much time in England. My accent hovers somewhere over the Mid-Atlantic, although I try to sound super American in my YouTube videos for some bizarre reason, mostly because it amuses me.

Q: How tall are you?
A: Five feet. It is ridiculous how tiny I am in real life. RIDICULOUS.

Q: Did you model in England?
A: I am FIVE FEET TALL! Actually, I was on Vogue.com and they made me pose a bit for street style, which is not really modeling, and then I was in some tabloids, which is not really modeling either, and then there was a bit more nightlife/streetstyle stuff which was far more posed, but I shamefully can’t remember the names of the magazines, as they are all foreign/not Vogue.

Q: If you could take 3 things back in time anywhere for 1 day, where would you go and what would you do?
A: I would take my iPhone, Red Bull and modern undergarments and go back to Edinburgh in the Victorian Era to spend the day solving medical mysteries with Dr. Bell, who was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s real life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes (also the inspiration for Dr. House!). I would tweet the whole thing whilst being blissfully caffeinated and also not having to wear a corset.

Q: Why are there Jewish Knights in your book?
A: There is one Jewish knight and one Indian knight. It’s because, in the story, Knightley Academy accepts commoners for the first time in history. These are two of the main characters in the book, and they are AWESOME.

Q: How many books will Knightley be?
A: Knightley is going to be a trilogy. Everything should be resolved by the end of book 3, although, if my publisher/fans want me to write more, I was considering doing a second Knightley trilogy, which would be published as YA and would feature the characters a couple years after the events in book 3.

Q: What are you writing next?
A: I can tell you nothing except that it’s about a kid called Peter Brimley, and it’s sort of like what would happen if you made a mashup of A Little Princess and the Chrestomanci books.

Q. What is the most interesting thing anyone has said about Knightley?
A. Tamora Pierce said XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX [redacted due to my being unable to post this comment on the internet all official-like], which made me laugh so hard, and someone at my publisher’s put in their catalog that Knightley is “like Hogwarts without magic,” which is somewhat depressing when you think about it, because that basically means it’s like a drafty old castle where people are randomly getting killed and all the kids wear funny clothes and wave sticks around. Actually…hmmmm….

Q: Did you always want to be a writer?
A: I wanted to be a scientist and I was always inventing things until I was twelve and read the Harry Potter books. Then I wanted to be a writer. Now I’m a writer/scientist.

Q: Which is your favorite Jane Austen novel?
A: Northanger Abbey. It’s set in Bath, which is this ridiculously cool English town where my favorite YouTuber, Charlieissocoollike is from, and is mostly about a girl who wants to be a tragic heroine in a gothic romance novel and winds up spending her days walking around this place called the pump-room. Then she is the target of a MASSIVE PRANK where a sarcastic, adorable guy pretends that his house is all gothic-novely just to screw with her. Go read it.

Q. Which is your favorite classic novel?
A. If this counts, any of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I wrote my thesis on them.

Q. What do you study?
A. Bioethics. I’m a graduate student.

Q. Are you dating anyone?
A. Sigh. No comment.

Q. Have you ever been to the ballet?
A. When I was in Budapest, I bought a box in the royal opera and saw the Hungarian Ballet put on Romeo and Juliet. It was awesometastic. I met some crazy Danish guys there and we took a road trip to Transylvania.

Q. Are you going to Vidcon/Infinitus/Leakycon2011, etc?
A. I am probably going to VidCon, Infinitus, Steampunk World’s Fair, Lunacon, DragonCon, BEA, SCBWI-LA and a couple of others this year.

Q. Where are you going on your tour?
A. My publisher hasn’t confirmed dates/places yet, but I expect to visit these states on tour in March: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts. I’ll let you know when I know.

Q. Why is Knightley Academy better than your other books?
A. Because I wrote it many years later, and after 4 more years of practice, I think I have vastly improved as a writer.

Q. How old are you?
A. I am 23 which is TOTALLY NOT OLD.

Q. Can I fence against you?
A. You would probably win. I fall over a lot. I am hopelessly uncoordinated.

Q. What if you got superglue and fixed your broken garden gnome?
A. I am afraid of superglue. I would probably glue my tongue to my eyelid or something. I had silly putty once. They gave it to us in my graduate program and I got it all over everything I own. Even my pajamas. Even my JAR OF PEANUT BUTTER.

Q. Do you play an instrument?
A. I play guitar. I am not very good. Perhaps there is some music in our future? If you will cover your ears…

Q. What is your favorite food?
A. Well, I *was* going to say mashed potatoes, but NOW I can never think of potatoes the same way again.

Q. Who is your favorite character from Twilight?
A. Carlisle Cullen! I want to be him.

Q. Are you going to do another BlogTV show?
A. YES!