Inspiring Youth

While I did not meet the 50K goal this year for NaNoWriMo, I did accomplish starting a brand new session for Young Writers.

The Young Writers Club with Stepping Up 2.0 is a great opportunity for students to improve all aspects of their English: reading comprehension, spelling & vocabulary, and writing conventions (grammar). They will also learn how to write a story and how to publish and market it in an anthology. All the stories, as well as some of the essays and writing prompts will get published sometime Spring 2016.

I absolutely LOVE inspiring youth to be literate and to add to youth literature!

NaNoWriMo 2015

It has BEGUN!!!

I am working on 2 fanfictions for this year. Well, I intended to work on the Trust & Guardianship series, but got stuck. So I popped over to my Harry Potter: Sorted Too Young story and cranked out a TON of writing! Now I am back at the Trust & Guardianship series feeling more capable and motivated.

This year I am an unofficial ML (Municipal Liaison). I am helping maintain the Montreal Nano calendar, keeping on top of the Nano-Mlt Facebook page and hosting a Wednesday Write-in at Concordia's Webster Library.

This year, Montrealers voted that the symbol for write-ins match this year's NaNoWriMo theme is the book and Quill. FEATHERS! I have acquired feathers for this theme.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is upon us! I do this every year. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, thousands of people strive to write 50 000  words in 30 days. This year, I am an unofficial ML  (municipal liaison). Maybe next year it will be official. I will have to see how it goes.

I hope to complete the second novel in my Trust & Guardianship trilogy. The hard part yo this year is that i must also write a 10k word research paper for school at the same time. EEP!

I also hope to start a Young Writers Program again this year and publish another anthology of the children's stories.

Good luck and happy writing to everyone participating!

Mentioned in the Media

Around the World: Canadians in Print

For many pagans, books are the gateway to knowledge. They are our first teachers of magic and offer a new world of esoteric lore and knowledge. If you enter the home of just about any modern pagan you will no doubt find a bookshelf (or many bookshelves!) piled high with books written by English authors such as Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente or the Farrars. There will no doubt be more than a few by high profile American writers, names like Margot Adler, Isaac Bonewits and Scott Cunningham or maybe the more contemporary Orion Foxwood or Christopher Penczack. Both Britain and the United States both have successful and high profile publishers of pagan books, Minnesota based Llewellyn Worldwide LTD. being easily one of the most prominent. But north of the border, up in Canada, a growing number of writers are finding their way into print and injecting a Canadian influence into the pagan publishing world. But does being from Canada influence pagan writing?

- See more at: http://wildhunt.org/2014/09/walking-the-world-canadians-in-print.html#sthash.eefz0tGs.dpuf

 

Female Novelist Learns How Far a Male Pen Name Can Take Her

There is a gender bias in the publishing industry. Women’s writing often gets talked about differently, reviewed differently (if at all), and the content judged differently than writing by men. Of course, publishing is only one industry in which unconscious bias about names based on gender or race exists, and there have been studies done to explore this in other industries. In the case of publishing, a female novelist by the name of Catherine Nichols decided to try an experiment.

For those unfamiliar with the process, generally publishing houses don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, which means that the first thing a writer needs to do is get an agent interested in their work, and............

FOR THE WHOLE ARTICLE: http://www.themarysue.com/female-novelist-male-nom-de-plume/

Project List as of August 5th

A baby is due ANY DAY NOW!!!!

But that has not stopped me from thinking about writing...

Here is a list of the current writing projects:

• Behind the Scenes with a Fair Coordinator (IN PROGRESS)
• Update FAQ for Fair Presenters
• Update FAQ for Fair Vendors
• Zen of Tea book with a section on Meditation with Tea
• Try again to format French MMBOS v2
• Consider a third MMBOS volume: Wisdom from the Staff
• Work on Chakra book
• review fanfiction stories that are all pending new installments
• Crash Course English Tutoring for Grades 5/6 in Preparation for High School Entrance Exams
• Reading Comprehension
• Spelling & Vocabulary
• Grammar / Writing Conventions
• Paragraph & Essay Writing

My current focus are the first three on the list.

Rejection

Part of the publishing process is encountering rejection. It is a hard reality to realize your hard work is not acceptable by a particular publishing company and may not be by any publishing company, especially if they require you to consider the means by which you market your work. That, I would consider their job to figure out, otherwise I might as well have self-published to begin with.

So that is what I will end up doing in the end.

Zen, Tea, Magic & Meditation

While it really hurt to be rejected, I do understand. My work is fairly academic with a goodly splash of spirituality. That is perhaps a very narrow market of people. Not what a publisher out to make money wants to see. They want marketable. They want something that will turn some kind of profit.

Zen, Tea, Magic & Meditation

This one will have to go the route of self-publishing when it is finished.

To the tea lovers out there... Look for it around Yule/Christmas.

Books & Barbeque (For Literacy!)

https://www.facebook.com/events/759877640787052/

Books! Readings! Barbeque!
Raising funds for the YMCA's Children's Literacy Program


I will be at this with other friends and authors fundraising for the YMCA children's literacy program. My books will be available for sale at of 5pm. I should arrive by about 6:30pm and will be giving a potions presentation about about Holy Water and Magical Vinegars.

For sale:
Magical Blend Book of Shadows vol 1 (English and French) $15 each
Magical Blend Book of Spells & Rituals (English) $15 each
Young Writers Anthology (pre-order) $15 each
Bottles of Holy Water $5 each
Bottles of Magical Vinegar $5 each

Possibly even some wonderful other products from The Magical Blend!

Come support a great cause! Come support local authors! Come get your magical potions! Enjoy a fantastic BBQ are a great Resto-Cafe !
See you there!

MORE DETAILS:

Come for the barbecue, stay for the stories. We will also be passing the hat in support of literacy programs.

Our confirmed guests are...

1. Veena Gokhale, globetrotter!
2. Greg Stroll, advocate and autobiographer!
3. Pat Flewwelling, your hostess!
4. T. Scarlet Jory, apothecary and teacher!
5. Ethan Kincaid, novelist extraordinare!
6. Mon Spolia, philosopher, poet, and polymath!
7. Special musical guest Max Comeau, singer-songwriter to watch in 2015!

And your Master of Ceremonies, Ian Gurudata, will be on hand to help answer any of your questions.

So how does it work?

First stop: the market! Weather permitting, our author-guests will be outside with their books (weather prohibiting, they'll be indoors). See something you like? You can buy in cash or credit card directly from the author!

Next stop: the barbecue! Our upgradeable barbeque menu starts at $10 per person. Mariposa also has a fine selection of coffees, teas, and cold beverages, but cans of pop and bottles of water will be sold separately as part of our fundraiser.

Got your bbq and bib? Excellent. Head on inside Mariposa Cafe to eat that yummy barbecue meal. While you enjoy your charbroiled treat, our guests will take the stage, one by one, to read aloud and chat with you.

So bring your appetite and your curiosity, and join us Sunday evening!

Upcoming writing projects

Now that the big event I was coordinating and presenting at is finally over, I can get back to writing.

Here is a list of the current writing projects:

• FAQ for Fair Presenters (DONE)
• FAQ for Fair Vendors (DONE)
• Behind the Scenes with a Fair Coordinator (IN PROGRESS)
• Proposal for Zen of Tea book with John Hunt Publishing (IN PROGRESS)
• Try again to format French MMBOS v2
• Consider a third MMBOS volume: Wisdom from the Staff
• Work on Chakra book
• review fanfiction stories that are all pending new installments

Also, there is an event at Mariposa Cafe that is a BBQ and meet authors of various genres of books. What a great opportunity! I will be there a bit later with a POTIONS PRESENTATION... after my Belly Blessing ceremony (as I will be 7 months pregnant by the time this happens). More details soon. Book your calendars for May 31st,  5-9pm.

Meet me at Montreal's Beltain Spring Fair 2015

I will have books for sale on the authors table at the Montreal Beltain Spring Fair this year. Come see get your copy, have books you own signed, and contribute to the Young Writers Program to help this year's student host their very first book launch (and to support further efforts to inspire a love of reading and writing in children).

http://mtl-sacredspace.blogspot.ca/p/fairs.html

https://www.facebook.com/events/456717411143415/

The first of hopefully many to come

This last 2014-2015 group of young writers have finished their work. Editors have volunteered to improve the interior. An artist volunteered to create the gorgeous art for the cover. Look for these to be available as of May 2nd.

Young Writers in Editing Mode

Way back in October, I started a Young Writers Program at Stepping Up Resource Center. It was a way t encourage students of grades 5 & 6 to be creative and have the opportunity to publish their stories in an anthology. I have four students this time around. It was a great opportunity for an advanced student to face a large wordcount goal. For the other three students, it was an opportunity to face a challenge and prove that despite their learning difficulties they can rise above and write something amazing.

And they HAVE!

October was a learning month. They learned about story sequence, plot, characters, etc.
November was the NaNoWriMo challenge! Write Write Write!
December was the time finishing up their stories.
January is editing.

(Myself, reviewing a story, and 3 of the 4 students working on their editing)

They are now putting all the summer tutoring about spelling, grammar, and paragraph writing to use. Their biggest issues have been the comma and dialog.

What will happen next for these four students?

February, while their book goes through the publishing process, they will learn what that process is. They will also learn how to do self-promotion, prepare a section of their story to read out loud, and how to plan a Book Launch.

March/April, they will host a formal Book Launch for their anthology.

I am so proud of them!