Hot Off the Presses: The Story Box

Several people have asked about getting a copy of my book. Aw shucks guys, I'm honoured. :) Thanks. I really wish I had author copies to give to everyone, but alas I don't.

For my American friends it is very easy. You can actually order a copy cheaper than I can! (shipping to Canada is a bee-otch!!!) You just go to the Createspace estore. Please note, that I have set the price at cost (not trying to make munny's off of my peeps). I will likely not leave my store page open indefinitely, so get 'em soon if you want 'em!

For my Canadian friends, who all well know the pain of International shipping charges, duty and exchange...the best I could do was to bulk order a batch of books myself, at my "author price". They still came to about $12.50 CDN each (plus shipping if you would like me to mail it out to you), but since they are charging $25 USD per individual book to ship internationally from Creatspace (I kid you not! And that does NOT include the price of the book itself!), it is still a much better deal for us Canucks this way. So if you want one, let me know and I will hook you up.

I love having the actual physical copy of my story in hand. I had fun writing it, and I think that comes through in the story. It is a fun story. I wrote it for my sons, who were then 7 years old, and read what I had completed to them each night at bedtime for critique. They had a lot to say! And they loved my story. I included everything that a kid could want...pirates, dragons, knights, robots, dogs, a whole town made of candy, leprechauns and vampires...because, why not? Why the hell not? Sometimes more is more. And I wove it around the loss of a Great Grandmother, because the boys had just lost theirs, and filled it full of as much love and care and bravery about the Big Questions as I could for them. All in all I am quite proud of it. :)

(More art coming soon, been painting everyday, although not always completing a painting in a day. Where does this leave me for my challenge? *shrugs* Sure am having fun though, and learning a tonne, as always.)

Story Books, Art & Too Much Computer

It's been a busy last few days. Months ago I got the email notification that 2007 Nanowrimo "winners" were being gifted with a free proof copy of their novels through Createspace (a self publishing dealie affiliated with Amazon), and I thought "Cool! I'd love to have a hard copy of my story in my hot little hands for free" and then promptly forgot all about it. So in typical E-style, with only a couple of days to go before the offer expires, I finally got to work on it.

Lemme tell you, formating your own novel for publishing is not for the faint hearted. You have to know stuff about PDF files and copyright, and you have to make all sorts of decisions from font size to what colour to use on the back cover, each of which make a surprisingly large difference to the tone and readability of your book. And then last minute I realized that I absolutely needed an image for the front (I was going to go with just text, but that looked horrible for a children's story), so yesterday afternoon found me at my art desk, wracking my brains for ideas.

The idea of the tree eventually came from one of my sons. And no, my last name isn't "Gecko". It's been changed for public posting (internet safety, kids!). So anyway, done. I opted not to make it available for sale on Amazon at this point. I may still query an actual publisher about it someday, and don't want to eff up my chances by self publishing. For now it'll just be cool to have copies available for friends and family.

I have also been working on loads of art. I started a new art journal. This one will be specifically for my favourite quotations, and then exploring and interpreting them with abstract mixed media. So far I love it! And I love working in it. It's not ready to show yet though, because one page flows into the next... I may try to do a video or slideshow or something when it's all done.

It is Georgia O'Keefe month over at Mixed Media Arts (formerly known as Gary Reef ning), and I've tried my hand at a couple of O'Keefe inspired works so far. It's hard to tell in the pic, but the green one has some really great texture created with Liquitex gloss super heavy gel applied with a palette knife under acrylic glazes. (paint is so fun to play with!)

Green Glass Flower, 9"x12" acrylic on canvas board

Georgia Shell, 10"x12" acrylic on manila paper

And I've been working to combine some of the techniques from the whimsical art style (girly, folk art) that I was doing in the course I recently completed with Tam at Willowing ning, with my own slightly rougher, darker, messier preferred style.

Clogging Up the Works, 9"x12" mixed media on canvas board

Dream-Caught 16"x20", mixed media on stretched canvas

Other than that, some ATCs, a mum's day painting in the works and a challenge for the colour brown at Willowing. BUT I have been on my butt in front of the computer working on the book for 3 days, and it is Spring out there peoples! I need some sunshine and some fresh air and some frolicking...or at the very least a little Spring cleaning and some asparagus for lunch. No more sitting or computer screens! ...for a few hours at least.

Non-Nano Blues

I wish I was doing Nano! *groan* I'm getting the hilarious and inspirational email pep talks from Chris Baty in my inbox and seeing my friends chat excitedly online about the bold and determined authorial beginnings they've made in the past few days, and I wanna be writing too! So much so, that I thought yesterday, this month can't be so bad time-wise, everyone's busy, that's the whole point, you make time to write no matter what...maybe I can do this! I got out a pen and paper, planning to make a to do list and get myself so organized for the month of November that I could in fact make time for novel writing in the midst of the craziness.

The bad news is that my first instincts were right, I do not have time right now. It's impossible(why oh why sweet nanowrimo, do you have to be in November?). But the good news...by the time I was done compiling my relentless and unwieldy list of tasks and obligations, I'd pretty much made my 1400K for the day...nonfiction, unfortunately.

(perhaps I'll have to make my own lonely Nano in March...absolutely nothing happens in March...)

Warming Up

So I'm resisting the urge to post the ubiquitous and redundant introduction post, because nothing says narcissistic, blogger n00b better than a really long "about me".

I'll suffice it to say why I finally decided to join the collective (resistance is futile!) and start my own blog, and then let Mr. Whitman take it from there. November is national novel writing month, better known as Nanowrimo. Last year was my first year participating and it rocked my world, the most fun I've had in ages. I dove into the Nano creed of quantity over quality, and writing for no other purpose than the sheer satisfaction of it and my story just gushed out. (What a change from the maddeningly laborious, over thinking/over editing as I painfully eke out a story, which I more than half hate in the end anyway, that has been my usual process!) It was joyous, it was liberating, it made me feel all smug and cozy and writerly inside, and by the end of the month I had a 50000k story that I was actually kinda proud of and a helluva big pile of unwashed laundry and dirty dishes.

This year it is impossible to make the time to do it, for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is the fact that it isn't fair to ask the stressed out husband, with too much on the go right now, to pick up the extra slack while I write). But I wanted to do something to mark this magical Nano time of year, and to keep myself writing more (even if it is only slips of non fictional blathering here and there). So blog, it is...with the same philosophy of writing for satisfaction, relief, release, joy etc, fast and freely.

So back to the introductions, where I'll let Uncle Walt do the honours more beautifully and deeply than I ever could...

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

~Walt Whitman, Song of Myself