Yesterday was the Old Russian New Year, so my best wishes to everyone!
I've been busy helping Rod to promote his book, "The Demi-Monde: Winter", which involved going to London. I like London, it's always fun. I guess, I'm still a city girl at heart. Crowds, dust, traffic jams - brilliant. Rod had a signing at the Forbidden Planet, and it was interesting to meet the people who came to buy his book. He insisted that I do a little dedication in Russian from one of the main characters, Vanka Maykov, a dashing young conman. So I was busy too, not just opening the book on the right page and blotting Rod's signature at the end, but writing "With the very best wishes from Vanka Maykov" in Russian (and being very nervous not to make a mistake!).
Talking about blotting. Rod has had a special stamp made in the shape of three Valknuts - the emblem of the ForthRight Sector of the Demi-Monde - which also says "The Demi-Monde: Winter". He stamps this first volume of the Demi-Monde saga with it, plus he has a special numbering stamp, which he says he is going to use up to 999, and after that he'll be just putting his signature down. So there is a lot to dry out when you do many books altogether. I had to find a blotter - this old-fashioned piece of office and, for me especially, post office equipment, and it wasn't simple. But the good old ebay helped, as always. To be more precise, the company called "Lucky 7 Pens" (or lucky7pens as their ebay member name). They were terrific: I bought it late in the afternoon and wrote on my paypal payment that I'd love to have it posted asap. They came back to me immediately, so I explained that I needed it for London etc. They posted it specially that night, after their other things had already been despatched, so I got my blotter the following morning. This is what I call Service. Thank you so much, guys!
The Forbidden Planet also video-interviewed Rod for their website, and the three parts of this interview are now also on youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVyjxjeXpFM) - for those of you who are interested. :) I thought it went very well, considering that nobody had seen the questions of the interview beforehand.
We had dinner in a Greek restaurant with Rod's colleagues from Quercus Publishing, including Rod's new editor. That was great fun: some people just open up from a different angle when they are not in the office, and it was great to see that they all have such good sense of humour!
Overall, it was refreshing to go down to the capital, and we both enjoyed it very much.
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