Year-End Review

          Hello out there! This is your friendly Canadian author. Its been one hell of a harrowing year, so while I don't normally do one, I think I'll use this platform to finally do a year-in-review post. I must admit, I usually have this idea to do one and then forget and never end up posting one. That's because while I love posting these, I am always exhausted after Nanowrimo and I never seem to pick it back up before mid-January. This year, since I wasn't working a full-time job, I had the time and energy to do blog posts and keep working all through December. Which was good because it was amazingly busy. I'll get back to that later though. 

          I'll start in January. I was working away at book 2 in my novel series and had actually begun editing it before I got hurt. For those of you who didn't know, or forgot, I ended up falling head first down an escalator. I was seriously hurt, and for the next four to six months, I pushed myself way too hard. I've never been a good sick patient and always try to get back too soon. I honestly probably could have been up and about and a hell of a lot healthier had I just settled back and healed, but instead, I kept forcing myself ever upward. And I can't say that I'm back to 100% yet. I am healed enough for government work, of course. I do notice that I get headaches when the weather is changing though and that I tend to get depressed more often than I'd like to admit. Fortunately, neither is debilitating, even if I do tend to take it easier than normal when something is acting up. 

          Despite that setback, I started pouring my heart into my art again. I say despite, but it was really closer to because. My head hurt and I couldn't read or look at screens for very long, which was driving me mad while I healed. For two or three months I couldn't write at all, just because trying to write down my thoughts actually hurt and would cause headaches. Fortunately, drawing was easier, perhaps because all I was trying to do was make something pretty. In February, I entered a picture I'd coloured into Rhonda Parrish's cover contest. She had a lot of art she'd had commissioned for her anthologies but wanted one of the picture's coloured for the cover. I was honoured when she chose mine for the front cover of the anthology. So, I had my first very official publishing credit to my name early in the year for cover colouring. 

          September was a time of loss. My husband and I lost our cat, Kuro, to liver problems and within a week of that, I lost my long-time job with the Cooperators. I had worked there for over ten years, but my position was phased out. Honestly, I welcomed the chance to spend a few months dedicating my life to my writing. And while I am looking for a new job already, I haven't found one yet. 

          In October, at the very last moment possible, I published my short story, Fated. Unsurprisingly, it didn't make waves or even many ripples (though I did receive my first review on it just a few days ago and it was a five-star review. Please, if you want to give me the gift that keeps on giving, more reviews are the way to go), but I was honoured to be able to contribute it to Rhonda Parrish's Giftmas project. They did incredibly this year, surpassing their goal of $750 to be donated to the Edmonton Food Bank. In the end, $1,127 was raised, which will really help the food bank get food to the needy this holiday season. 

          Finally, I sent in my first novel to my editor and received it back in early December. Since then, I have been working hard to work on all of the edits and just a few hours ago, I managed to finish them. No, you didn't hear that wrong. The novel is done and as edited as its going to be. I've got a shiny new title and I'll be ordering a cover for it tomorrow, though, with the holidays ongoing, I assume it will be a few days before I have a cover to share with all of you. However, I am going to be working hard behind the scenes to get this novel out to you guys as soon as possible. I will have pre-orders going out as soon as I have an idea of how much the physical novel will end up costing, so if you're interested in getting a signed copy, please subscribe to my page here or keep up with my Facebook page, since I'll be putting the news up there as well. 

        What did you end up doing for New Years? Did you have any successes that you want to share? Please, tell me about them in the comments below!

A Mis-Binding of Epic Proportions Makes for a Cool Gift

          Hello, Hello everyone! I hope that you've had a rocking holiday so far. I have been busy with family, shopping, getting ready for the holidays and, of course, editing my novel. And for the first time in a very long time, I can say I'm finished. Literally, all I need to do now is to give it a quick read through, to make sure that all of my changes work well and then it will be ready to go. I think I have a title now, so I'll probably be ordering a cover in the next four or five days. Which means I should be able to start sharing hints of it in the next week or so! I am super excited. 

          That said, this will be a super quick update so that I can get back to work. I've been working on some artwork over the holidays, and it's all turning out really well. I got some really kickass books to read as well as one book I'm keeping with the weirdest error I've ever seen before. The book is labelled and covered as Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare, but the actual book inside is Stephen King's 11/22/63. I could return it and pick up an un-erred copy of the novel, but I totally think I'm going to keep this one and see if I can get it signed by both authors. 

          Oh, my Jolabokaflod gift for this year was Jade City by Fonda Lee. I remember that a friend of mine, Calvin Jim, had mentioned it during a panel at last year's When Words Collide on Asian fiction. I can't remember exactly what he said, but I remember being super interested in reading it and so I was exceptionally pleased to receive it. I gave my husband a hardcover of John Scalzi's Old Man's War. He seems to be enjoying it so far. I can't wait to start mine, but I'm about a quarter way into a re-read of Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan right now, so I have to finish that up first. 

          Okay, with that said, I'm going to sign out now and start editing. Reading should only take two to three days at most and then I'll be able to start doing things like giving you guys dates for release and cover reveals and fun stuff like that. 

          In the meantime, tell me what your favourite gift was, or what books you got or gave this season that you were excited about and why? Or perhaps a story of misprints you've found in a book? 

Early Presents

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

          Or at least that's what the song says. Personally, I love all seasons of the year for different reasons. One of the reasons I do love this time of year though is that my childhood basically taught me that the colder months of the year were filled with presents. First, there was Back-to-School Shopping, which as a stationery lover, was always amazing for me. Then in October, my mother and brother had their birthdays, as well as Halloween happening at the end of the month and then we'd move right in Christmas when my sister and I celebrated our birthdays. While it was tough on the gift side of things, I did learn that it wasn't the amount spent on the gift but the love behind it that mattered. That is why, even today, when inviting people to my birthday, I remind people that I want their presence, not their presents. 

         This year, a friend of mine got me the coolest gift though. She'd heard that a local book bindery/bookstore offering classes that taught us bookbinding. Seriously, by the end of the day, we had all created a tiny hardbound notebook each.

          I should note here, that the pictures below were all taken by a mutual friend of ours that also attended the class.

          We started off with taking about fifty sheets of plain paper and folding them over in groups of five. Then we poked four holes along the edge and tied them together with a needle and beeswaxed thread. 

Take some sheets of paper and fold in half. Then rip or cut down the folded edge. Fold each of the remaining sheets down the centre again. Do them in groups of five or six. Otherwise your packets will be unruly to work with.  

Take a piece of tough string and run it through beeswax a few times. 

Poke four holes through each sheaf of paper. Then start running the thread through, tying each sheaf to the others as you go. 

Here is what the finished set of knotwork looks like. 

          After that, you get to glue on a type of cheesecloth over the spine to help it stay together and you glue on the inner pages. Once you're done you can choose your cover colour and measure out cardboard to make the hardcover. Then you can take the leather or other cover material and glue your cardboard onto it. Then you can wrap the leather around it and glue your book into it. After that, you can press the books to get the inner glue to stick your books together super tightly. 

Unfortunately, I missed getting pictures of most of the cover making and final assembly, but we did get a picture of all of our notebooks getting pressed in the machine though!

         In the end, you have a perfect, little, finished book; notebooks in our cases, since we just used plain paper.

Here are our finished books. 

          The person running the class even let us use some gold leaf and design our books to be more personalized. Unfortunately, the gold leaf didn't stick on the bottom design of mine; its the one in the back that says Feytouched, which is my preferred online handle.  

        Overall, we had a great time making these, even if my cover ended up a bit misshaped on the spine end. I really like the way it turned out, though the rose design on the bottom didn't take the gold leaf well, so it looks more embossed than gold-leafed. One of my latest art supplies though happened to be silver and gold ink, which makes me wonder if I could ink it and make it as nice as the rest. If I do attempt it, I'll share the results in a future post. 

        Offhand, if you are ever looking for a really cool way to spend an afternoon, talk to your local book bindery and see if you can find a place that offers the class. If you're in Calgary, Alberta, I really suggest calling Octavia Book Bindery. It was where we went and they were awesome. I learned a lot and it absolutely rocked. Have you ever done bookbinding? Do you think it would be something you'd enjoy? Let me know in the comments below!

Giftmas

      Happy Holidays, everyone! I am here to tell you that it has been insanely busy over here this last week and a half. First, for Nanowrimo, I finished with 57,161 words. I was so tired I took a couple of days off reading and resting my poor hands. I wrote another 7,000-8,000 words and then my kickass editor got my novel back to me. Since then I have been working at editing my novel. I currently have 48 pages out of 246 finished and ready to go. I'm hoping to have at least the e-copy available for Christmas, but I'll let you know as soon as I've seen how long this very final run of edits will take me. 

     More importantly, Giftmas is the other thing I'm involved in right now. A friend of mine, Rhonda Parrish, is hosting her yearly Giftmas. She and I, and a whole slew of other writers are asking you to consider donating to the Edmonton Food Bank. This is a charity that is close and dear to Rhonda's heart, having used the service before. Having had to rely on the Calgary Food Bank myself on occasion, I can fully understand why she likes showing them the love and trying to get them a large donation every year. 

        However, it isn't only donations you'll be seeing. There are a host of authors offering free daily short stories (some Christmas-based and some not) to get you excited and hopefully willing to donate. In addition, there will be prizes and gifts sent your way... not the least of which is a free e-copy of my short story, Fated, for everyone who donates more than $1. So if you've been holding off on buying my story, you can donate and get it, along with other items. Please check her site for all the awesome details and links. 

          You can donate below using the link provided. 

Merry Giftmas to All!

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