Honeymoon!

Hi everyone,

Just so’s ya know, I’m going to be visiting the Happiest Place on Earth (the one in Florida, that is) from August 17th to September 1st, so anybody who contacts me in that time period is going to have a bit of a wait on their hands for a response.

P.S. I am excited beyond all reason. Break out the mickey ears!

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Review: The General’s Garden by Michele LaFramboise

As an author who is also going through school for animation, I admire those who endeavor to both write and draw. It’s not easy to balance two talents, and to be good enough at both to present a clean, professional-looking finished product. That’s why I was so excited to meet bilingual author and artist Michele LaFramboise.

Michele clearly has a passion for her work, was fun to talk to, and gave me a great autograph and drawing after I purchased her short graphic novel, The General’s Garden. I also agreed to give her a review, and so, review I shall.

The General’s Garden revolves around the exploits of three kids in a science fiction setting, who break into a General’s garden, and start eating his food, only to be discovered, sentenced to work and then sent home.

Let’s start with the things I really liked. First of all, the production values on the book are very, very nice. The fonts, layout and colour scheme of the cover are lovely and appealing, and drew me in right away. The interior was also quite crisp, and the line art had great weight and balance to it. I think my favorite thing about this book was actually the backgrounds, as I really admired the texture and artistry in Michele’s pen work, and the depictions of the garden are rich, clear, well-balanced and interesting.

As for the plot, I’m not sure I got it. I think this may be the problem of the translation. I wish my French was better, so that I could have read it in its original form, but alas, I only got to grade eleven French class. My main critique, as I see it in this version, is that there are lots of fun shenanigans that will interest kids and young teens, but I’m not sure I get the context. Why are warriors the best gardeners? Why are there hints of technology in what mostly seems to be a fantasy context? I’m also not sure why the arrival of the parents solves the kids’ problems so easily. They clearly seem to know each other, but I’m not sure how. I’m going to assume there’s a larger universe at play here, which most readers are familiar with, but I am not. There also didn’t seem to be much character change. The kids are bratty when they break in, and bratty when they leave. There were also a couple of printing issues in my version, where pages repeated themselves, although this may just be an isolated error.

So, my verdict on the General’s Garden would be: give it a look, especially if you can read French, and enjoy Michele’s artistry and unique vision of a garden in a far-off place. I’d say this book would be great for kids ranging from about nine to fifteen.

New Friends and Fun at the Halton After Five Networking Event!

Last night I visited the Halton Regional Centre for the Joint Chamber After Five Networking event, a regional trade show-style meet and greet for small businesspeople and entrepeneurs from around Halton, and had a wonderful time. The food was good, I sold and autographed a few copies of the anthology, and I got to meet a whole bunch of nice and helpful people, and even some other indie publishers! I must say, I learned a lot from the other participants, and I was really glad that everyone was so complimentary and welcoming to the summer company students. Thanks for a great time, Halton!

I also want to mention, since I’m on an announcement kick, that the print version of Flood Waters Rising is still going back and forth in file form with the CreateSpace people, and hopefully this time it exported properly. I’m hoping that it’s ready for a proof before I go on honeymoon on the 17th, and it looks like that’s probably going to happen. If that’s the case, then it will be ready for sale in about a month if all goes well. The only reason I say ‘if all goes well’ is that the proof was much slower than estimated last time in getting here, and the mail is a variable, unfortunately, which I can’t control very much.

Thanks to all my new friends who’ve stopped my the blog, and I hope to be in contact with a bunch of you really soon! 🙂

I’m Baaaaaack!

You may have noticed that I have been dismally absent from the blog of late, but that was because… (drumroll please) I was getting married! I have taken on a new name (those of you who know me personally will know what it is, but please don’t publish it here) and my husband and I are very, very happy together.

Please don’t be offended, but my reasoning for keeping my old name while writing is simple: it keeps people from getting confused, and if I ever get famous, it means that most of my fans won’t be able to find out where I live/what my telephone number is/things that I generally don’t want them to know about me. Some authors are ok with everybody knowing everything about their lives, and for the most part I’m an open book (ha ha, I know, book, right?) but, I’m one of those internet old-timers who still don’t think it’s a great idea for every anonymous person on the internet that comes along to be able to look up absolutely everything about me. I’ve had too many experiences with creepy, clingy people in real life, before the internet got big, to think it would be a good idea if that obsessed, creepy person could look up personal info with too much ease.

But, that said, I can tell you a little bit about the day, and at the risk of taking an aside from my usual literary sojourns, I feel there are a few things that I just have to say. Not just for the entertainment of my usual readers, but to send out a little advice for any young ladies who might be heading toward holy matrimony. You see, I’ve learned a few things about weddings now that I’ve had one, and despite the fact that I didn’t listen to a lot of people about what it was really going to be like, I hope that some other young ladies out there will be a little less hard-headed, and maybe, just maybe, learn from some of my experiences.

First of all, let me state that one of the things that first acclimatized me to the thought of marriage, and eased me into the process (and out of it at the other end) was wedding shows. You see, I am not one of those women who has been dreaming of nothing but her wedding day for her entire life. In fact, at the time I met my husband, I was trying to stay as far away from the ‘M’ word as possible. You see, I have a lot of plans, am fiercely independent, and have never really thought that I need to have a husband or kids to do any of it. Then, I met a man who had a lot of plans, was fiercely independent, and never really thought he needed a wife or kids to do any of it. Needless to say, I was screwed from the start. He was wonderful, he was perfect for me, and I said yes. But in order to screw up the courage to say yes, I needed some Say Yes To The Dress. Yes, I know it sounds silly, but for a girl who was never pressured into marriage ideals as a kid, and who hadn’t really thought about it much, these sorts of shows helped me form a kind of picture in my head of what it might be like.

In short: it wasn’t like that at all, and I should have known better. The wedding industry, while fun, and quite adept at creating a Disney-esque, fairy-tale princess environment leading up to the wedding, does nothing at all to give you a realistic idea of what the wedding itself is actually like. Obviously, that’s not their job, but I felt that I must comment on the disconnect between what you really feel like at your wedding, and directly before and after, and what you’re told you’re supposed to feel like. So, without further ado, here are my comments, which I will pass on for posterity to future generations.

Comment #1: Don’t expect to actually eat or drink very much of the fine food and drink you’ve procured for your guests. Between breakfast and dinner, I managed to scarf down, in total, about three chunks of bread with spinach dip, a couple of spring rolls, a bacon-wrapped scallop and half a glass of water. Then when dinner rolled around, I got a little more, but I was a bit thwarted by the corsetting in the wedding dress, believe it or not.

Comment #2: Expect to be overwhelmed, both in a good way and a stressful way. People are going to bowl you over with love, but they’re still going to bowl you over. Give yourself a good three days before and after the wedding to recoup and stay sane. You’ll thank yourself for it.

Comment #3: Being the center of the party is not the same thing as being the life of the party.

Comment #4: This is getting a little personal, but don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re too exhausted on the wedding night to even reach over and lock pinky fingers. It happens to most couples, or so I hear.

Comment #5: There are only so many things you can pack into a day, good management or no good management.

Comment #6: Truly appreciate every person that visits you, calls, or sends a card for your special day. They’re special people, and you should share some of the magic of the day with them.

I just want to finish by thanking anyone who may be reading this who attended my wedding, for making it a truly memorable, magical and fun day. It was huge and overwhelming, but I’m still glad I did it, and glad everyone enjoyed themselves. Thank you cards are coming soon!