Busy Week!

Wow, has it ever been a busy week! Most of that is all because of the love I'm getting from all of you out there! I've been keeping myself occupied loading my book to Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, the library apps and making sure that you can even order the physical book from Chapters Indigo as well as from Amazon. Then there are the links for each, ordering physical copies in, talking with local chapters to get my books in their stores and setting up an author page on Amazon among other stuff. With so much work getting done, I haven't had a lot of time to do the base work of editing, let alone for the stuff I do that isn't writing and editing based.

Today I thought we'd talk about what some of that other stuff is! For the record, I'm not going to include time with friends and family in this list. Just assume that they are there.

Okay, with that said, the most important things that I spent time on outside of my books right now can be neatly summed up into two neat boxes. Art and Japanese.

Starting with art, I can say that I always have something on the go. Currently, I'm working on an acrylic picture of a fox using the Golden Open slow drying acrylics. I recently ordered in extra colours and now have 16 in the line. I have more colours that I'd like to get of course (mainly purples and oranges), but I have to say that for right now, I quite like the pallet I have. With some basic mixing, I can get almost all of the shades and colours I may be looking for.

I also picked up some of Prismacolor's Col-Erase coloured pencils. These are not your average pencil crayons. First off, and most importantly, they aren't wax-based, but graphite based, so you can use and erase them like you would any normal pencil, without having to worry about smudging the wax everywhere. I'm still getting used to them, but I am really happy with almost all of them so far.

Since my coloured pencils just came in, I decided to take part in the #100headschallenge. This is a challenge happening on Instagram right now where you're challenged to draw 100 heads in just 10 days. I wasn't able to finish 10 today or yesterday, so it's looking like I'm going to be drawing hardcore for the next few days... Regardless of that depressing fact though, my first (the sailor moon type hairdo chick below) almost discouraged me enough to quit. Then I remembered that I can use references. Amazingly, even when I only use the reference as a base and then start changing everything to match my vision, my pictures got 10x better, just having a reference, even when I don't stick to the reference (since realism is not my jam as an artist). My husband identified the style as a post-modernism style near the end of the style. I have no idea if he's right or not, unfortunately. What about you guys? Do you know what style this resembles?

The other thing is a smaller draw on my time, but still a draw. I got started on Duolingo this year and so far have only missed one or two days since the beginning of January. I'm learning Japanese and while the first four or five lessons were essentially stuff I knew, we've now moved into stuff I actually have to work at. I've put myself on their "Insane" learning which means I'm doing a minimum of five of their lessons daily. I'm learning quickly, and I may eventually start in on Spanish as well. For now though, its hard enough just keeping up with just this. 

And finally, I have links to share with all of you! My novel can be preordered from pretty much anywhere! 

Physical Copies can be ordered from 

Amazon
Chapters Indigo
Barnes & Noble

And E-copies can be ordered from 

Kindle
Kobo
Apple
Nook

While I have put my book in to be released to library apps, I don't know if you guys need to request it first or not. Take a look and let me know if you do see! Hell, I'd love for you guys to tag me with pictures of your book when you get it! Post those pictures to my FB page or tag me on Instagram (@foxy_writer) or Twitter (@FoxyWriter), even if you're just showing off an electronic copy! I'd love to see people enjoying my novel out in the wild!