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Spotify Music Playlist

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Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers has some pretty great music in it, so I made a spotify playlist of all the songs, in the order they appear within the book.

Do you think you can figure out what happens during each song?

Songs in order of appearance

  • “Ordinary Day” by Vanessa Carlton
  • “Lapdance” by N.E.R.D.
  • “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” by Barenaked Ladies
  • “I Want You” by Savage Garden
  • “Let me Entertain You” by Robbie Williams
  • “The Nearness of You” by Norah Jones
  • “Bumblebee” by Aqua
  • “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera
  • “Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet
  • “Cartoon Heroes” by Aqua
  • “Deep Enough” by Live
  • “A New Day Has Come” by Celine Dion
  • “If The World Crashes Down” by Enrique Iglesias

One of the first things we did when writing this book was build a 2002 playlist.

I had already started writing my first chapter, and Kennedy had entered a bakery. I thought, shouldn’t there be music playing? What music would have been popular in September 2002?

Cue a post on Facebook asking about our friends’ favourite artists from twenty years ago. (Twenty? What?)

We bought a bunch of CDs to supplement what we already owned, and built an epic playlist to listen to while we wrote to add atmosphere. An entire scene in chapter 5 wouldn’t have been there without this playlist.

Pre-order Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers now!

Puzzle!

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I found this site that allows for any picture to be transformed into a digital puzzle. For free. And you can play for free.

So I obviously IMMEDIATELY uploaded the cover of Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. I mean, wouldn’t you want to do a puzzle of an awesome book cover?

You would?

How fortuitous!

Aassassins! Accidental Matchmakers is available for pre-order now! Get it locally (49th shelf helps you find the local stores that have it available), through Indigo, or through Amazon (Canada, US, and International all have it, I can’t link to them all, I’m sorry but it’s really easy to find!).

Faymous

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Hello Readers!

Our newest work in progress has been called The Untitled Shawna and Randal Book through the writing of the first seventeen chapters. Before that, it was called Guise and Dolls, before that, it was called Dolls of the Magic Shop.

A lot has changed in the story since it’s initial concept, and with Jen’s help, it’s infinitely better.

So without further ado, the new novel is called: Faymous

After the strangest New Year’s Eve ever, Shawna and Randal wake up in Fay. Nothing is as it seems, they can’t remember how they got there, and someone or something is hunting them. With luck, stubbornness, and a ukulele, they’ll flirt, fight, and sing their way home.

We have three chapters and two epilogues left before we’re done, but I already love this novel.

I can’t wait to share it with all of you. (Unfortunately, with editing, submissions, and schedules, we’re looking at 3-6 years)

If you’re interested in Beta reading, we’re more than happy to have the help.

Thank you,

Éric

I wrote a song? Maybe…

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

No, don’t worry, it’s not Guitar Lesson Tuesday, it’s Friday.

In our current work in progress, we needed the villain to get upset and reveal themselves. I decided, foolishly, that the best way to do that was a song of hope. I figured the character would have learned a Cataclysm Day song that would work. Cataclysm Day is the midwinter festival of Everdome, a cross between Yule and Remembrance Day.

So of course, I decided to try writing a song.

I sat down to write it and froze. I did write a bunch of lines, counting the syllables and everything. The whole process gave me flashbacks to trying to write poetry in high school and university. I wrote a sonnet for high school French from the point of view of a stapler that ran out of staples. Yeah, I was always this weird.

Anyway, I got inspiration songs and chose chords and everything, but once I sat down, nothing really worked. I procrastinated, avoided, and stressed. I had hoped the song would be ready when I got to that part of the story. It wasn’t.

Last night, I got to the part in the book that needed the song and said fuck it. I just wrote it out, not caring about syllables, rhythm, or musicality. I just needed words and rhymes.

It turned out pretty good. It’ll need to be checked for line length and put to music, but I think I can handle that. I honestly have no idea what I’m doing, and in the future I think I’ll leave the songwriting to Jen.

Happy Friday.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Goodreads Lists

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I recently discovered a thing called “Goodreads Lists.” These include things like “Most Anticipated Reads of 2022” and “September 2022 Anticipated Romance Reads.”

If you find yourself looking for something to do over the next ten or so minutes, and you’re on a computer (MOBILE DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO VOTE), please click through the Lists that contain Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers on the Goodreads page and it will send you directly to Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. At this point, please do two things:

  1. Vote For This Book (there is a button directly under the book in each list)
  2. Click the green “Want to Read” button (you’ll only be able to do this once)

I have no idea which list is the most important (but probably the ones with the higher numbers of books and/or votes in them), so if you have the time and the energy, please vote for it in as many lists as possible! The more votes, the more it gets noticed by people who don’t know us personally.

You can check out the summary while you’re on the page, and if it looks interesting, ask your local bookstore to order it! The distributor for our publisher is going to independent bookstores over the next couple weeks, so it would be cool to get our book in local stores as well as the big chains.

Thank you in advance!

Good Reading

Jen and Éric

Typesetting Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers

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Hello Readers and book lovers,

The typesetting for Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers has started. This is the first version called an Advanced Reader Copy that will go to reviewers and people who will blurb the book.

One of the perks of being with a smaller press and being a professional typesetter (AKA: Internal Layout Artist) is that they let me do the insides.

I’m really excited for this book and I can’t wait to share it with everyone… Unfortunately, unless you’re getting an ARC, you’ll have to wait until September.

Social Media

We have a lot of different things planned for promotion. The first will be creating new social media accounts.

Stay tuned for the saga or the 38 year old trying to figure out social media that isn’t fifteen to twenty years old. (Google+ is still a thing right?)

Éric

BOOKSTORE? AHHHHH!

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Hello Imaginary Friends, Readers, and Fans,

I had to go to Carlingwood mall the other day to return some online purchases. (We’ve been limiting our excursions to make sure we don’t expose Pegasus to Covid until he’s vaccinated.)

While there I decided to go look at the bookstore Coles Carlingwood. Mostly because I like bookstores. Once inside, I decided to go check if they had my book.

And they DID!!!

I knew that local stores had them in stock and that they were available online from all bookstores, but it was so amazing to see it in stores.

I asked the person working if they wanted me to sign some and after an adorkable exchange where I offered to show my ID and we both geeked out, I signed all five or six books.

So if you’d like a signed copy, get to Coles Carlingwood before they all sell out!

I’m so excited!!!!

It felt really cool doing this and I look forward to doing actual signings at bookstores. AHHHHH! Maybe if all goes well, Jen and I can do a signing for Assassins! in the fall.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Cuteness

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

This week has been tough but I managed to accomplish a lot and still took some time to rest. Heck, I even finished the book I’ve been reading.

Anyway, it’s late, so have some cute Dragon and Pegasus cuddling.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Here We Go Again

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Hello Readers,

In case you missed it, Jen and I wrote a book together called Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. It took us two and a half months and was a wild ride. Renaissance Press loved it and will be publishing it in Fall 2022. It’s the first in a trilogy or quadrilogy, called The Gates of Westmeath.

I took some time to finish Elizabeth 4 and now Jen and I have started writing book 2 of the Gates of Westmeath.

We finished the first two chapters this week and I’ll be starting on chapter 3 today.

We’re super excited and can’t wait to share the first book with you. So excited we made shirts for the whole family.

It’s had the adorable (and awkward if in public) side effect of having the kids screaming “Assassins family!”

Well as they say, I should be writing.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Process of writing

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Kennedy and Jason, in their first iterations, appeared in our D&D game in 2010. Kennedy Fairfield was Kennedy Lake, and she was a kindergarten teacher who had an affinity for guns. Jason Johnson was Giles Momoa, and he was a Mafia leader that the player characters had to interrogate. Kennedy rolled a natural 20 and did something fancy, getting his attention, and they flirted and eventually became romantically involved. The other players liked him too, and he kept coming back into the game. When that game ended, we played a superhero game, and Jen played Giles’s niece, a 6 year old water creator named Chelsea who couldn’t control her creation. She appears in our book as Brooke, Jason’s niece. After that game ended, that was it; we put them all aside.

Fast forward ten years, and we didn’t really remember the storylines from the game, but the characters really stuck in our heads (although we had forgotten most of their names, other than Kennedy’s first name). And then we started discussing potentially writing a book about them, together.

We started off by talking about it A LOT in Fall 2020. Then on Jan 1, 2021, we sat down and wrote jot notes for the first Act. We split the book between us by main character and alternated chapters (minus a couple places in Act 2). When we finished the first Act, we made jot notes for the second. And again for the third.

We have a separate document for the cast of characters and important locations, with descriptions about each so we could stay consistent.

We wrote in Google docs. After each chapter, the other person edited, and then Jen read it aloud to Dragon (4.5yo). She picked up on a lot of repetitive words and typos that way…

It worked really well for us, but we understand why it wouldn’t work for everyone.

We finished the first draft on March 14, 2021.

More than half of the words Jen wrote were written on her phone while nursing Pegasus (18-20mo) to sleep!

Lots of writing late at night happened. Éric would bring his laptop to bed and write while Jen was nursing Pegasus (when it was his turn to write). Occasionally, we’d get a nice chunk of time in the middle of the day when the kids were playing well together, and we could write.

One memorable occasion, Jen wrote 4k words during our daughter’s virtual school day while she (Dragon) was paying attention to the teachers. :O