The Filing Cabinets Of Doom

This morning, I awoke to my horror to find this:

My dear, dear friend. Dearest filing cabinet. The one that stuck with me through years of writing, and hundreds of pages stuffed in its drawers. The one with at least a dozen nails holding together its frame left weak from my years of abuse. The one who finally collapsed due to being overstuffed with writing.

One might ask: how could you be such a monster, Kaleb? How, when this dear cabinet has done nothing but serve you through three homes, from Austin to Dallas, traversing the distance to be at your service. How could you just let it sit there in shambles, its own insides spilling out?

BECAUSE THIS FILING CABINET IS A BLOODY MENACE.

Do not fall for its tricks of innocence. The moment I approached this fiendish piece of furniture with my hammer and nails and intentions of repairing its broken parts, it turned on me in the most vicious of manners. Suddenly, this seemingly inanimate filing cabinet became a monstrous beast, dropping its heaviest pieces right upon my uncovered toes.

Keep in mind this is early in the morning, in the dark, whilst I am still groggy from lack of sleep. Ignoring my intention of helping mend the cabinets back together, this beastly thing fell to pieces, the metal parts of which bruised my feet and caused me to howl. Yes, howl. And kick. Yes kick. And as kicking goes, when you are in close proximity to an unmovable object (say, a filing cabinet) your toes collide with said object, and cause much pain.

My reaction following said injuries

Still, this filing cabinet has served me well for the past two years; but as the slogan goes, it is time for a change! I have been shopping Amazon.com this week for a new one, as is my custom; only to discover that shipping a filing cabinet is not cheap. Besides, I am an overly sentimental person. I have kept everything from pencils I used to draft my book to rejection letters in which my title is spelled wrong. So, don’t be surprised if I keep this old thing’s pieces in a box somewhere.

Despite now having no cabinet in which to file it in, I just completed my first-ever Publicity Questionnaire! Ever since I first wanted to be an author, this has been one of the steps I’ve anticipated the most. It’s one of those forms that nearly every author has to fill out when they are signed for their first novel, which details basic information like their date of birth and phone number, all the way to questions which might resemble:

How will your book benefit its readers/affect their lives?

Is there anything in this book that might be CONTROVERSIAL or make people UNCOMFORTABLE?

What are three hooks or ideas that might help to publicize your book?

If for some unearthly reason you were in a den of alligators, would a pen or a pencil be a more useful method of escape?

Does the chondrocyte synthesize cartilage or form the fiber found in connective tissues?

or similar. Mine was a lofty 14 pages of questions, each of which were a joy to complete.

As for new stuff that’s been happening, we finally signed on a wonderful illustrator to do the cover for The Farfield Curse. I can’t quite say who it is yet, but the signing of an illustrator means that things are really picking up pace now (plus, he just won a huge award for his last book cover, which is a good sign!). Next month I’m heading to Chicago to meet with the publishers over a day’s worth of meetings, where we’ll talk marketing and publicity and fine cheese.

Main Topic Of Conversation

Also, I just passed 20,000 subscribers on the Youtubes, which was double my goal for this entire year! This was a total shock, to say the least, but honestly vlogging is so much more enjoyable when you have people who watch. I remember when my videos used to get 12 views, all from people I personally knew. Now, I’ll certainly be putting up things on the book…and perhaps, a special book trailer I’ve been working on!

I’ve been doing lots of regular updates on what I’m doing via Twitter. If you want to know all the latest stuff before I get a chance to blog it, you can get everything if you follow me on Twitter! I also let you know about my live BlogTV shows before anyone else as well as my videos and any other big news… lots of which I’m sure will be happening in the coming months. According to my calculations, we only have about 7 more months until the book is out — but before that, we’ll have covers and pre-orders open and all sorts of great stuff.

Along that same line, here’s something new I recently put up on my Youtube channel: it’s the latest song from the soundtrack for The Farfield Curse that I’ve released for free download! Watch the video to listen, and click here if you want to download the song for free!

Can’t see it? Click here.

I’d love to know what you think of the song in the comments, or any suggestions for which song I should put up next!