Parasomnia

Can-Con 2015

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Hello my Imaginary Friends,

Tomorrow is tue first day of CAN-CON: Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature!

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It’s a great weekend for anyone who is a fan or writer of genre books.

CAN-CON 2015 Poster Sep 28

What’s Awesome about Can-Con

This convention is special for its sense of community. Some of the attendees will be hopeful authors, others will be publishers, and there will be multiple award winning giants of science-fiction and fantasy. All with an atmosphere of love for speculative fiction.

It feels like a family reunion. I feel welcomed and accepted.

I unfortunately also invariably say something stupid. Mostly its small things like when I told Matt Moore (One of Ottawa’s master horror writers) I liked his reading when he’d only been the MC.

Then there was the time I told Tanya Huff (The legendary Fantasy author) and Linda Poitevin (The amazing Urban Noir and Romance author) that I preferred writing female protagonists because women are simpler to write. *Facepalm* *Blush* *Dies of embarrassment* What I meant was that I tend to understand women better than I understand men which makes it easier for me… sigh

Hopefully everyone I say something stupid to will forgive me after getting a hearty laugh from my crimson painted face.

Pitches

Speaking of the possibility for embarrassment… One of my new year’s resolutions was to submit Parasomnia to 3 agents and 3 publishing companies. I’m getting the 3 publishing companies taken care of at Can-Con. Effectively I’ll have 5-15 minutes to sell them on the concept of my book. If they’re interested they’ll take either the whole book for review or the first few chapters.

My like of what I’ve written goes up and down. Mid way through Parasomnia I hated it. When I was done I knew it was the best thing I’d ever written. When I edited it I was convinced it was crap.

I just looked over all the comments from my amazing (Seriously you guys rock) beta-readers to make sure I’m not delusional to think this book should be published. They all seemed to enjoy it. They used words like “Enjoyed” and phrases like, “kept me interested” YAY!

I’m pitching to two publishers I respect a lot and one I’ve only vaguely heard of and I’m sitting here trying not to panic.

Dealers Room

Last but not least the Dealers Room will be filled with amazing authors, publishers, and bookstores. JenEric Designs will be there, with a brand new button and more coffee than even I could drink in a weekend.

This will be your last chance to get the Great Pumpkin (Pumpkin Flavoured) coffee at a convention until next fall.

The vendors room is FREE so even if you’re not at the Con feel free to drop by the Sheraton downtown Ottawa (150 Albert St) and say hi.

 

Hope to see you there!

Éric

Random Musings June 16th, 2015

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

I hope you enjoyed Part 3 of Only Human, last week. I’m enjoying getting into the head of this character. She’s an interesting combination of awkward and intense.

Today’s going to be a random set of musings. Feel free to skip to headings that are more your taste

Critique Group

I was asked to join a Critique Group. My first reaction was utter panic. I’ve heard terrible things about writers groups in general; all kinds of horror stories about people critiquing the wrong things or just tearing you down for fun. Yikes.

Then I heard who was in the group. One is a writing coach, at least two are published authors, and all of them have a lot more experience in the writing community than I do. Double Yikes.

I dithered and waited and then finally decided to join and see how it was. (I could always run away arms flailing in fear in needed.) Turns out I had nothing to worry about. We had our first session last night and I read the first 2000 words of Everdome. They seemed to really like it which gives me hope. They were supportive and super friendly. (They could be holding it all in to pounce on me later… Naw…?)

Sometimes it really pays off to get out of your comfort zone; especially as a genre writer in Ottawa. The people here are fantastic

Time and Writing

I spent three months thinking about and planning Parasomnia before I started writing it. Then I took ten months to write it. Two months for the first edit. Then there were the Weditor and Beta readers 1 and 2 (All super-fast) and my further edits. I’m not over a year and a half into this novel and I’m almost ready to send it to Beta Reader 3. Once they’re done I’ll have another full edit and another pass by the Weditor.

If all goes well I’ll have something to pitch and submit by end of October which will mark 2 years of working on the book. That is an immense amount of time and energy and all that is before I start submitting it to agents and publishers.

Oh and that’s nothing compared to A Study in Aether (Which started as The Mitten Wizard) I started writing that in November 2009. It’s gone through 3 titles, 1 complete re-writes and a dozen readers. Heck one publisher still hasn’t gotten back to me and I submitted it almost 2 years ago. (My rant at the complete and utter lack of professionalism of that publisher will have to wait for another day. Let’s just say I will NEVER submit, or buy, another book to/by them.)

It just takes a lot of time.

New Sci-Fi Television

Dark Matter

I watched the first episode of Dark Matter last night and I enjoyed it. It’s not an action Sci-Fi but the action in it is really good. The characters are interesting and likeable. (My wife and I had fun naming the Firefly/Stargate archetypes)

It shows promise and has a good mix of humour, intrigue, and special effects. I’ll definitely be watching next week

Killjoys

Speaking of next week, I’m really looking forward to Killjoys; a new Sci-Fi about space bounty hunters by the creative crew of Orphan Black. (Awesome!)

Check it out:

Gaming

I’m just finishing the Emerald Spire Superdungeon with my players and it’s been fun. It’s a giant dungeon written by some of gaming’s best designers. It feels a little light on story but it’s a lot of fun.

This weekend I’m starting Character Creation on a homebrewed setting I’m calling the Pandora Archives using my custom made system FADDS (Four attribute Dual Dodecahedron System). I’m totally Nervouscited!

I NEED THIS GAME!!!

Ok! There’s roughly 36 hours before the Kickstarter A Match Made in Austin is finished and they’re $400 away from their goal.

I’ve already pledged at the $45 level that would get me a hardcopy book and a copy of the game. Seriously how many times can you say you’re getting a game and a book for $45.

If you want just the physical game it’ll be $25 (Seriously an awesome card game for $25???)

Please GO SUPPORT IT! (I want my copy…)

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That’s it for today.

 

Go Support A Match Made in Austen… NOW!

Éric

Not So Imaginary

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Hello my Imaginary Friends,

Today will be a quick post. I have finished beta-reading and received Parasomnia from my first Beta-Reader. So I’m anxious to get back to editing. I like this part of editing it’s faster and easier for me. Instead of trying to find the problems, it’s trying to fix them. Way simpler.

Not So Imaginary

Did you know that this blog is under a year old? The two blogs that combined to form JenEric Designs are older. Aspiring Something is just under 7 years old and The Travelling TARDIS is just over 3 and a half years old.

In all that time, I’ve always assumed that I was “Yelling into the void” as it were. I didn’t think, other than family and close friends, that anyone was reading. I was wrong. There was at least one person who’s been following both of us for at least six years and they came to introduce themselves at CON a few weeks back.

The person, whom I’ll call C, was really nice and friendly. It was both exciting and surprising to know that someone has read this blog that I hadn’t met. So thanks for reading and following C!

If you’ve been following I’ve been obsessively researching and roasting my own coffee. I’ve sold at Pop-Expo and at CON. My Test Subjects Friends have said they enjoy it, and I’ve loved it. I’ve sold several flavours and lots of bags.

Again I assumed only friends and family were paying attention. Again I was wrong (It happens a lot. I’m ok with it.) this weekend we got an email from someone who’s significant other had bought coffee at Pop-Expo and they wanted to get them a few bags for their upcoming birthday since the SO had enjoyed the coffee. It made me really happy.

Happy

I know one fan of the blogs and one fan of the coffee doesn’t mean we’re suddenly huge. It’s not a viral post, or a publishing contract. But it is a sign that we’re doing something right and getting ourselves out there.

Between that and editing two books that I think are good enough to publish, I feel like a lot of hard work is starting to show progress. It makes me hopeful and after last month, I really needed that.

 

Thank you my not so imaginary friends!

 

Éric

CON, Words, Language, and Books

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Hello and Welcome to Thursday,

Today will be a mix of subjects. Feel free to skip the ones you don’t care about.

Creative Ottawa Nerds First Craft Fair

Last Saturday was CON’s first event and I have to say I was impressed. We had over 150 people pass through the hall and most vendors seemed happy with their sales. We managed to raise over $600 for the food bank and something like 4 big boxes of non-perishables.

For a first event it was a success! Yay! That means we’ll try to duplicate and improve on that success. Our next event will be announced sometime in the near future. We just have to lock down dates.

Words

S.M. Carrière knocked it out of the park with this post. Go read it.

It’s a fact that I think we often forget. Words are powerful, they can make us feel and make us act. They’re too often short changed in what they do.

Word Cleaner

Words are powerful. The choice and structure of a sentence is important. I don’t use much profanity in my writing or my life but when I do I do it for a reason. There’s a new app out that that will filter you ebooks and “Clean” them. It’s disgusting. An author uses words for a reason and changing them changes the book.

The website for the App makes it seems like they’re protecting the children but it’s not a few F-bombs that they need to worry about. The truly objectionable things won’t be cleaned by a single word.

Don’t trust an app to clean a book for your kids, read the book and decide for yourself.

Lynda Poitevin has a great post on the subject.

Stories vs Posts

I can knock out a 1000 word story in an hour, maybe an hour and half if it’s a hard story or that annoying middle section. It can take me 2 to 4 hours to write a 500 word post.

Why is that? I think it’s that I can picture and follow a story much easier that a post. A post is supposed to say something that will keep your interest and keep you informed. A story has to keep you entertained.

It gets even worse when I’m stressed. Being stressed means I over analyze and over edit a post. I don’t want to piss off to many people or say something that can be misconstrued.

Books

Do not read an epic fantasy when you’re sick or recovering from a cold. I’m currently reading Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson. It is an unforgiving read. If you don’t remember who a character is, he doesn’t remind you. It’s an expansive and intricate book that shows an artistry I can only hope to someday accomplish.

Beta-Reader number 1 for Parasomnia has sent me their changes. It’s absolute torture not to jump into editing it again but I want to finish beta-reading what I have before I jump into it. I should be done the beta-reading I’m doing now by this weekend and then I can start editing Parasomnia for Beta-Reader 2. I’m scared and excited…

 

What have you been up to?

Eric

What has Eric Been Doing?

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

It feels like a while since I’ve written a real update about everything going on, so here’s an update on what I’m working on.

Novels

A Study in Aether

The book is currently with Beta Reader 1 (or 12 depending on how you’re counting.)

I plan on sending it to Beta Reader 2 by the end of January and 3 by the end of February. If all goes well I’ll be able to resubmit in April. Yay!

Parasomnia

I’m roughly 36% done editing and it’s taking a long time. It’s all about motivation unfortunately. I’ll start working more on in it next week. I’d like to get it to the Weditor by the end of next week. Yikes!

Everdome

I’ve been planning and prepping and wishing I could write instead of editing. So yesterday I caved and started writing a little. I’ve now got 3000 words total of a novel I haven’t technically started.

I’ll start writing it officially once I finish editing Parasomnia, so hopefully Christmas week and then in the New Year.

Stories

Sun-Speaker Universe

I’ve written a sequel to Hal The Sun-Speaker and it should be edited and serial posted here sometime in the future.

Crystal Death Multiverse

I previously called this Project Kitchen Sink. I haven’t worked much on it but I do have 3 completed stories that I’m considering serial posting here.

The Cosmic Cuckoos

The Adventures of Helen will be returning soon. I really enjoyed this story but got distracted by Felix Felicis.

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis

This story started as a one off word of the day and turned into a time spanning epic which makes me giggle every time I re-read it. I hope it’s made you laugh as well.

I’m planning on wrapping this one up around April Fools.

Games

The Simplest RPG

I’ve done a little work on fine tuning this game and I have a playtest on Saturday that should give me an idea how well it’s works. I’ve created a cute little character sheet and everything. I’ll post more next week.

FADDS

I won’t have a website up for FADDS this year but I have been hard at work fine tuning the system. I’m very close to the editing phase.

I have a playtest for FADDS this weekend too so I should be good to make some edits and then go through the whole thing to fix issues and clean up language.

Coffee

Next step

I’m ready to call my coffee experiments a success. The product is good and I’ve had some good reviews. I’m planning on upping my production capabilities and next convention I plan on having a giant thermos to let people test the coffee.

My next phase in production is to test out weird flavours. My best sellers were Cinnamon and Banana so I’d like to try some unlikely flavours. I’ll try out some of the fruity stuff and see what happens.

Flavours

I’m keeping the Raktajino, rebranding the Banana Cream as Minion Coffee, and adding Jabba the Peanut a peanut butter flavoured coffee.

I think, unless I hear different, I’ll retire the Spiked and Davroast.

Want Some?

I still have some Spiked(Butter Rum) and Davroast(Chocolate Hazelnut) left over if you’re interested.

Youtube

Silver Stag

I’m still volunteering with Silver Stag Entertainment. Go check out the shows. We’re really quite funny.

JenEric Designs

Things have been quieter than the night before Christmas on the JenEric Designs Youtube page.

All is not lost. I have an idea that is both easy and cheap to produce. Bonus is that my antiquated Premier will be able to handle it easily. I just have to get it set up. More on that later.

 

Well I’ve been busy lately…

What project, that I’ve been working on, would you like to see more of?

Éric

Parasnomnia Draft 1 is done. Time to Party?

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Hello,

So as the title says I’m finally done draft 1 of Parasomnia. This is the biggest novel I’ve written so far at just under 100,000 words (I hear my Fantasy writer friends laughing.)

It’s such a relief to be done. The last third of any novel is always massively stressful. Even though I know I can do it, there’s a tiny voice in the back of my head that says it’s ok to quit, nobody care about the book, I’m not a good enough writer yet for this idea. I’ve managed to ignore that voice 5 times now and when I write those last few words I’m always awash with relief.

Of course it’s not really done. In late October or November, I’ll pick it up and do a thorough rewrite and edit. The first chapter sucks. I thought I was writing a police procedural at the time and it doesn’t fit with the rest of the story. Also I think I’ve changed characters names throughout the book. I also need to add some foreshadowing.

Once the second draft is done, I’ll send it to the weditor and then do another cleanup. Once that’s done I’ll send it to Beta Reader 1, whoever that will be, and then Beta reader 2 (which I need to find).

The thing about writing, you’re never done. I might have finished this book but I have a list somewhere of several dozen book ideas, not to mention I’ve plotted out the next 6 Elizabeth Investigates books.

I like to write at work, when I have down time. Currently out of four people in my section, two are retiring and one is going back to school. As of October I’ll be doing the work of 4 people. Yikes. For that reason, I’m not jumping into another novel.

I do have a few stories planed and I’m getting close to play testing FADDS.

All in all things are looking good.

Is there anything you’ve read on my blog that you’d like to see expanded or turned into a novel?

Éric

Mid-Year Review 2014

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Welcome to the new Blog.

Have a look around. Check out the Travelling TARDIS, or if you’re feeling brave read both Travelling Tardis and Aspiring Something at the same time. Gasp… I know.

With a new address, I feel like it’s time to review the goals and resolutions I set forth last December.

Resolutions

“This year I resolve to do three things again, Write regularly (500 Words a Day of novels or stories), Continue Reading as much (30+ might be tiny compared to my wife who reads that in 3 months), improve my internet presence.”

I’ve pretty much followed the first one. I try to write at least 500 words a day. I’m not always successful but at this point I’m we’re in week 31 and I’ve written 85,000 words of Parasomnia. I write on weekdays so that means I’m ahead and that’s not even counting my blogs.

According to Goodreads I’m at 22 of 30 books for the year. However that does include three graphic novels and a very small book. I think I’m well on my way to reaching the 30 book mark that was my goal.

As for the third part of the resolution, I think I’ve been doing ok. I’ve managed to blog at least once a week and even twice most of the time.

Moving Forward

I think for my resolutions I’m going to do my best to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m within spitting distance of finishing Parasomnia and once that’s done I can start planning my next book, and writing a few short stories.

Projects

FADDS (Four Attribute Dual Dodecahedron System)

Between buying a house, extending the size of Parasomnia, and other valid excuses; I’ve barely touched FADDS. I have managed to finish Building the Second set of classes, built most of the Race builder, doubled the amount of Talents, and started work on cleaning up the language. It’s at 60 pages and 25000+ words, without counting the Beastiary.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to have the site and PDF build for 2015 but I’ll try.

Project Kitchen Sink

The idea of a series of short stories that intertwine to make a larger more interesting novel still fascinates me. I’ve only written three stories and barely looked at it. I think this will take the backburner for a while.

The Dying World

This was my plan to write a Role Playing Game module. It will be epic but I think I’ll wait until I’m finished with FADDS before I write it. I still plan on having it be a rules-generic adventure that can be played in any system.

I hope to start work on this in mid-2015

Youtube

I still plan on doing a webshow but it’s a lot more complicated than I expected. I’m not sure when I’ll get to it but hopefully you’ll have some silly antics on film (Digital video) soon.

Websites

If you’re reading this than you know I’ve succeeded in combining certain parts of my and my wife’s online presence. For the moment I’m keeping JenEric Photo separate until I decide what to do with it.

My Tumblr will stay on its own.

I have added a Youtune Chanel and it has one video. I think I’ll wait until our view numbers are high enough to add a Forum.

This weekend’s job, after seeing Guardians of the Galaxy, is to build a commission request form that will act as a store. The idea is that my wife’s stock varies and with 2 giant cons coming soon she can’t take a lot of commissions. So using a form will allow us to decide what to accept. If we do accept your commission, we will then send you a Paypal bill. If you aren’t a Paypal user, fret not, because we also accept Perfect Money payments. Just check out this site on how to proceed with converting it.

Other Things

I’ve been up to a few other things since I made this list and I think it’s important to mention them, in case you thought I was slacking.

Parasomnia

A weird novel that I’m so close to finishing. I’m hoping to be done in two weeks or so. Once it’s done, I plan on ignoring it for a few months while I work on FADDS. I’ll then do a quick cleanup and send it to the Weditor for beta reading. After that it’ll do the circuit of other Beta-readers, or as I call them “The Best People on Earth”.

This book is different from what I’ve written before and has a lot more emotional depth for the characters. I’m not sure if it’s brilliant, horrible, or something in between. I’ll let you know in a few months. I’m also not sure if it’ll be publishable. It doesn’t fit into any normal category.

The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicis

I wrote a short-short story for April Fool’s Day and people really enjoyed it but hated that it ended in a cliff-hanger. So I wrote two others that both end in equally ridiculous cliff-hangers. I plan on writing another part every month or so. It’s a lot of fun getting into the head of the grumpy main character.

Go and read it. It’s silly fun.

Conclusion

I think that I’m well on my way to meeting at least half my goals and resolutions.

I feel both frustrated and thankful that I have more projects and ideas than I can put down or get started on. As long as I keep getting ideas, I know life won’t be boring.

How have you done with your Goals and Resolutions?

Thanks and once again welcome to the new Blog,

Éric

Gaming and Writing

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Hello my Imaginary Friends,

I may have way too many things on my mind right now. It has nothing to do with being busy and everything to do with my mind working in overtime. I blame running oneshots and preparing to run a new campaign.

Gaming

After nearly four months of not running or playing in any games (pen and paper games like D&D) I ran a oneshot two weeks ago and another yesterday. Oneshots are short adventures that take an evening to start and finish.

I’ve learned some valuable lessons with both games. The first being that rules light games are harder for people to grasp as a first gaming experience. Second is that I’m very rusty with the D&D 3.5 rules. It took me forever to make characters.

I also got the Emerald Spire Superdungeon in the mail from Paizo. It’s the special Kickstarter, leather bound edition. It’s beautiful and exciting. I can’t wait to run my group through it on Thursday.

Hobbies

I’ve noticed most authors I know have another creative outlet. It varies from person to person, there’s gardening, sculpting, drawing, painting, music, acting, web videos etc.

I think it’s important to have an outlet that lets you do something other than writing. I’m still not an official author but I’ve noticed that writing sort of steels a section of my brain. I’m constantly thinking of scenes, stories, novels, characters and other things for what I’m writing or want to write. It’s exhausting and sometimes builds into stress.

If I don’t do something else with my mind, I often feel guilty for not writing. Writing is a combination urge, craving, and need.

The closest thing I have to another creative outlet is gaming. It allows me to use the same parts of my brain that create stories for another purpose. A good gaming session, or preparation session feels like I’ve rebooted or defragmented my brain. It’s great.

I’ve also greatly enjoyed working on my own gaming system called Four Attribute Duel Dodecahedron System or FADDS for short. I’ve talked about it before but I’ll be doing some playtest at the end of August for the game.

I’m toying with the idea of filming a playtest oneshot to see how well it plays.

fadds

Parasomnia

On the note of writing, I’m hard at work on chapter 20 of Parasomnia. It started out as a Supernatural Suspense but I think I’ll have to re-classify it as a Drama Fantasy. I also started writing it for Adults but I’m fairly sure it’s better suited for Young Adults, or that odd new category called New Adults.

The book should have roughly 23-25 chapters and I’m going to do something with it that I’ve never needed to do before and that’s edit the crap out of it before my Weditor (Also known as my Wife) looks at it.

Unlike the Elizabeth Investigates series, I find this book needs a lot more cleanup. It might be that I have 5 POV characters instead of 2 or maybe the others need it and I didn’t notice. Either way once I’m done I’ll have a few weeks’ worth of work before I send it to the Weditor.

An author I know, and respect, sends her beta readers her new books one at a time. So she’s already edited what the first one says before she sends it to the second one. I think this is a brilliant way to get a book edited and that’s what I’ll do with this one when it’s done.

It’s been a hard book to write. Each of the five main characters is fundamentally broken. I don’t mean a fatal flaw but a mental problem that hampers their development and their ability to deal with the world. It’s hard to include those things and try to make them realistic without caricaturizing them.

There’s still a strong dose of action and adventure throughout but this book has more character introspection than I’ve ever attempted.

I’m very proud of it so far and I hope it will be well received.

That’s it for today.

See you tomorrow with more random topics.

Éric

Shame, Biking, and Sadness

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Reading Shame

So the other day I read an article from a successful author, saying that it’s ok to read young adult literature but that you should still be ashamed of it. I raged and sputtered and beat my chest like some sort of primal monkey man and howled my anger. (It was just in my head but I was on the bus at the time.)

I had planned to give my usual rant at people being classist etc. but S.M. Carrière beat me to it and probably said it with more tact and finesse than I would have. Go read her response.

One quote that S.M. didn’t go into that had me frothing at the mouth late that night was this:

“Let’s set aside the transparently trashy stuff like Divergent and Twilight, which no one defends as serious literature. I’m talking about the genre the publishing industry calls ‘realistic fiction.’”

True I haven’t read Divergent and I loathe Twillight but to automatically dismiss two of the best selling novels in YA and then say that they are “Transparently Trashy” is not only harsh but sort of hint that she thinks all Speculative Fiction in the YA Genre isn’t serious literature. GAH!!!!

I might not be the best person to say this (seeing as I primarily write YA, Fantasy, and Scifi) but Spec-Fic and YA are great genres that exist to challenge our perception of the world. To say that they aren’t real literature is ignorant, classist, bullshit.

YA is a beautiful and clean pallet that allows an author to ignore and mix common story structures that wouldn’t be allowed in adult literature.

Writing

I restarted writing Parasomnia yesterday. I had taken May off of writing and I feel it was a good decision. I needed to remember why I love writing. As I get older I’m having a harder time adjusting to new things and moving/ buying a house threw off my groove. (The two horrible colds back to back didn’t help either.)

I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to get back into writing this novel but when I started yesterday the words just flowed out of me. It was a great feeling and one that has calmed me down.

It’s been 4 months since I last heard from the publishing company that said they’d get back to me soon. I emailed them last week but I’ve decided I’ll email their generic email at the end of this month and If I haven’t heard anything by my birthday (17th of July) I’ll contact the various editors that I’ve spoken too.

It’s frustrating because I’ve heard great things from this company and I really liked them in person but I’m a little sick of waiting and I feel like I’m being jerked around. I realise I’m about as important as a slug to them but… sigh.

If you’ve noticed I did something that I’ve never done before. I wrote a sequel to a “word of the day” story. Several people were very upset about not getting more story so I decided I’ll make it a random serial. Expect more from Felix in the future. Start here to read the story.

Biking

Another thing that went on the back burner while I was sick was biking. I had always told myself that if I lived in an area that connected to Ottawa’s awesome bike trails, I’d bike to work. Well I managed to bike in once and bike home once. It was HARD. Google maps said it would take 45 minutes but it took me close to an hour and a half and I was sticky, hot, and wobbly the rest of the day.

Almost immediately after I started the back of my knee started to hurt. So between the plague and my knee pain I haven’t done it again. I’m frankly terrified of it and that makes me sad.

I’m a big guy and I always have been. Even at my healthiest when I the hint of abs, I was 40 pounds heavier than what doctors say I should be. Since then I’ve gained more than I’d like, biking was supposed to be the fun and happy activity that would help me slim down and be happier.

I haven’t given up. I’ll talk to my doctor about the knee and if he gives his permission I’ll try to do it at least once a week.

Breaking Down is ok

A lot of people I know have issues with depression in early or late winter. I’m different; I struggle with it in spring and summer. I think it has something to do with my severe seasonal allergies and my hate of heat. It’s not normally that bad but the other day I broke down.

I mean a full breakdown, getting angry at my wife for an innocent comment, crying on the bus, deep-feeling of complete failure type of depression.

It was a bad day. The biking, the weight, the lack of success in writing (combined with the utter slowness of the industry) all made me want to curl up into a ball and make ugly sobbing noises.

The next day I felt better. Nothing much has changed since the breakdown but I feel hopeful.

Sometimes it’s important to let yourself feel the sadness in order to get over it. It’s healthy. I think.

It’s important to remember that you can’t be happy all the time. Sometimes you have to be sad and that’s ok.

 

That’s more than enough from me today. How do you deal with sadness?

Éric

Sick, Writing, and stuff

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Like a horror movie villain in an ill-advised sequel, my cold has returned. I had a sore throat, chills, headache, and general symptoms just before comiccon two weeks ago. I never really go back to feeling 100% I was hovering at 40% wondering why I felt crappy. I assumed it was simply because of allergy season. Turns out I have been fighting this this for over two weeks and now I’m losing. That or my wife didn’t catch my cold but something similar and then passed it on to me.

I’m in a weird, uncomfortable period of mourning for the character I killed in my novel. It’s weird I didn’t think I’d feel it but I did.

Between the persistent cold, the death of a character, an excessive amount of work, and a favour I promised a friend I’d finish by May. I took last week off from writing and I’m going to take this week off. I might take all of May to make sure I get everything done in time.

I was hoping to finish this novel before July but I have another 5-9 chapters left. Hopefully by September.

Ok. Back to work!

Talk to you soon.