Blog - StarDance Press

Books, editing, fiction, Life Talk, reading list, school, writing

Dredging the Deep

September 2, 2013 elouisebates

Funny, when I had absolutely no time to blog, posts kept popping into my mind right and left. Now that I’m back to a regular schedule, the well (as I posted on FB) has run dry.

But look! Pretty photos!

We found the Mallard family!

Grace picking blueberries

We found the Mallard family!

Grace picking blueberries

Filled our baskets with blueberries, on to the blackberry patch!

We’ve been having Adventures.

We also survived our first week of school, and now I get to change the schedule completely since we’ve seen what does and doesn’t work. Namely, starting at 9:00 is not going to happen until the girls are able to make their beds in less than thirty minutes.

And I’m trying not to fret over this whole book cover thing. My biggest problem here is that what I want, I can’t afford and do not have the know-how to be able to do myself. What I can afford, or can figure out to do on my own, I don’t really like. This is a dilemma.

But! Luckily the extra time I’ve had to work on Magic Most Deadly has been useful, allowing me to go through it one more time and put in some extra tweaks to make it just a little bit better. Also it has allowed me to put off formatting a bit longer, so hurrah!

(Sometimes I think I’m not really cut out for this indie path. But then I think about dealing with traditional publishers, and I think well, even these stresses are better than that.)

I’ve also been journaling almost every morning, and that has been good. I am also giving Anna Karenina a fourth try, and am halfway through (further than I’ve ever made it before) and seriously wondering why people love this book so much. Can anyone clue me in? I mean, I don’t hate it, but I don’t understand the great, deep passion so many have for it. And after I finish this, should I try War and Peace, or move on to Dostoevsky (and if so, which one)? So many questions.

In addition to all this, I’ve been grieving deeply over Syria, which doesn’t exactly inspire me to write fun, fluffy blog posts.

So. That’s a little bit of what life has been like for me this past week. How about you?

1920s, Books, children, publishing, school, writing

Book Covers & Sundry

August 26, 2013 elouisebates

Quick post today. Our first day of school got pushed back a week because the science curriculum took longer to get in than I anticipated, so TODAY is our first day, instead of last Monday. Starting in 20 minutes, in fact! But I wanted to at least get something up. Trying to get back into some sort of a routine here, even if it’s ragged at first.

A little while back, I contacted an artist friend of mine about doing a painting I could use for a book cover for Wings of Song, the story currently in 2nd draft form. I have learned how long cover art can take, so I wanted to get a head start on it!

She both moved more quickly than I could have imagined, and produced something more beautiful than I could have dreamed. Here it is:

(clicking on the photo will take you to her studio’s FB page)

It’s STUNNING. I’m so pleased. The physical painting should be getting to me this week, and I have every intention of hanging it above my desk after I’ve scanned it into my computer to add title and author.

Ironically enough, right around the time Val and I were completing our transaction, the cover designer for Magic Most Deadly and I came to an amicable parting of ways – her life took a few turns which meant that she wouldn’t be able to tackle the cover for another several months, and I just couldn’t bear waiting that long to put my book-baby out there.

So now I’m figuring out my options for MMD. Do it myself from stock illustrations? Simplest, but also liable to make me tear out my hair. Hire someone else to do it? That gets pricey, and I’m also kind of fussy about my covers – standard covers today, with photos of real people gracing them, just don’t fit my writing style. Talk to artists I know and see how they feel about Art Deco? Maybe, but that also gets pricey, and can take a long time.

Plenty of options, I just have to figure out the best one. I find it thoroughly amusing that I have a book cover for the unfinished novel, and nothing for the completed one. Seems a fairly typical pattern for my life!

And now I get to put writing concerns aside for a few hours, and instead focus on teaching my kids. Science, math, and handwriting for the 1st grader today, and letters and numbers with the preschooler. Hurrah for the first day of school!

(By the way, I finished this post with TWO minutes to spare. Go me.)

goals, Life Talk, philosophy, school, seasons

Tap, Tap … Is This Thing On?

August 13, 2013 elouisebates

Wow, I think I’ve almost forgotten how to blog.

Our days have been filled with unpacking, running errands, organizing, re-organizing, re-packing stuff we don’t need right now, making lists of things we still need to buy, throwing other stuff out, and trying to get outside to the playground with the kids at least once a day.

We’ve also been doing some fun stuff – we went to the beach, and this past weekend we visited Boston, and while we haven’t made any bosom friends yet, we have met a few people who seem like they might be kindred spirits.

Still haven’t made it to the library, though.

I will be starting school with the kids on Monday, so that will add a whole new wrinkle to things. This morning I wrote out our education plan to submit to the district. Ugh, I hate doing things like that, but oh well, they have to be done, and at least, from all I hear, this district is pretty hands-off and homeschool-friendly, so I’m hoping we won’t be asked to provide meticulously detailed descriptions of all our curriculum and materials. It is, after all, only kindergarten.

(We’re doing first-grade work with Joy (Grace is still preschool age, so I don’t need to start reporting her for another couple years), but technically she’s kindergarten age, so that’s what I’m reporting her as, which gives us some cushion room in case she hits a road block with her studies and we need to take longer with any particular subject than they would in public school. Which pretty much sums up MY entire mathematical education.)

Visiting different churches, not fun but necessary. Setting up bookcases, SUPER fun and necessary. Figuring out which of my beloved books I can keep in storage for now, painful but has to happen in a small apartment! Working on the baby quilt for my niece, not necessary but fun and a good way to relax. Working on three different writing projects, probably stupid.

I made spaghetti and meatballs, with fresh green beans and homemade bread, for supper Sunday night. It was our first “big” meal in this place, and it happened after Carl and I finally got the last of the boxes in the living room unpacked and disposed of, and the kitchen organized the way we wanted it. It felt like a celebration.

Life’s going to be different, these next few years, and parts of it will be very hard indeed. But we take our joy wherever and however we can, and I think we’re going to be okay.

Life Talk

We Are Here

July 31, 2013 elouisebates

So. The move is done.

We packed up the truck and car on Saturday. Sunday after lunch we got here, and by Sunday evening all our things were inside. I put together the girls’ bunkbeds (Carl came along toward the end to assist – I was so tired everything was taking twice as long as it should, and Grace had already fallen asleep atop her toy chest, and Joy looked rather as though she wished she could do the same), they slept in real beds, and the rest of us spread mattresses wherever we could find box-free space and just dropped.

Things are slowly starting to come together. All our furniture is put back together. Some boxes are unpacked. My kitchen is put together. The set-up will change, but at least it is usable. The kids are starting to get their feet under them.

I am still dazed and exhausted, but starting to see some glimmers of light. I knew moving from our lovely spacious house to a small two-bedroom apartment was going to be hard. I knew that, no matter how much we downsized, we would be cramped. But the reality has been harder to wrap my head around than I expected. (It doesn’t help that what Carl thinks of as “cozy” I find claustrophobic.)

We met so many nice people on Sunday, who carried bookcases and boxes and welcomed us with warmth and kindness. They’re all kind of blurred. Just as the goodbyes to our dear friends who helped us load everything into the truck on Saturday are blurry. At some point, the memories will settle, and the present will start to sort itself out. Right now, it’s all still a bit overwhelming.

I walked across the parking lot and up a small hill with the girls this morning so they could play on the playground. I could almost imagine myself doing that with pen and paper, getting some stories down while they run and play. I put school books on shelves this afternoon and could almost imagine sitting at the kitchen table doing school with them. I washed dishes and could almost imagine making bread, preparing meals that require more than two steps, using my cookbooks and recipe boxes again.

Nothing is quite real yet. But it’s getting there.

Tomorrow we’re going on a hunt for groceries, and possibly see if we can find the local library. That ought to help.

(I have pictures, but I haven’t yet found the box that holds my cord to get them from my camera to my computer. Maybe by the next post.)

Uncategorized

Excitement

July 19, 2013 elouisebates

The question we’ve been asked most often recently is “So are you getting excited about the move? Nervous?”

Up until just a day or so ago, my answer was always “Nah, pretty calm about the whole thing, actually.” There are certain aspects to the move that excite me (living so close to Boston! Living so close to THE OCEAN! Being able to explore new places, etc), and certain aspects that make me nervous (figuring out homeschool requirements in a new district and state. Living in an apartment again after six years of duplexes/houses. Exploring new places, etc), but about the move overall, I’ve been calm.

Yesterday, stress started to set in (there’s some alliteration for you!). I’ve reached the packing stage where I’m trying to make sense of all the little things (how do I pack everything that’s been scattered all over my dresser top for months because I can’t throw it out but there’s no other place for it?) and figure out the bare minimum of what we need to survive for the next week so I can pack everything else.

Along with the stress, though, has come a certain building excitement. When the pillows and mattress cover that will transform our daybed into a couch (our old sofa is too big and clunky, so we’re selling it & using the daybed) arrived in the mail yesterday, it was a definite thrill, envisioning them in our new living room. As I tape closed boxes of kitchen supplies, I imagine unpacking them in my new kitchen, and preparing and eating meals as a family in our new home. When the girls squabble and fuss with each other, I pry them apart and think gratefully of how soon this time of uncertainty will be done and they’ll be settled back down into their usual (mostly) cheerful selves.

So yes, now I am getting excited, right along with the stress. Moving is never fun, per se, but it can be thrilling. And it’s taken a while, but that thrill is finally sinking in with me.

One week and one day!

writing

Handwriting

July 8, 2013 elouisebates

I was having a terrible time getting going on Wings of Song. I would sit and stare at the blank page on the computer, finally write a few paragraphs, get going, feel pretty good, write a few chapters … and then come back either an hour or a day later and delete everything.

Finally, I took drastic measures. I pulled out my old clipboard, scavenged a lined paper supply from my children’s hoard (for whatever reason, they would ten times rather draw on lined paper than on blank), found my pens that are the only pens I can ever write with, world without end, amen (hey, I know I’m not the only one that fussy about my pens), and started writing longhand.

It worked. It worked really well. The writing is slower, but so much better – I can see the improvement already. Even the notes in the margins, rather than simply deleting and replacing text, seem to help.

Sometimes you just have to return to the old-fashioned way, right?

But oh, my poor hand muscles. They are so sore after a bout of writing. I started using a computer for all my writing purposes in college ten years ago (ten years! I bumped into one of my favorite profs this weekend while visiting home, and both of us felt immensely old when we realized how long ago it had been that I was in his class), and I’ve been almost exclusively computerized since. My handwriting muscles are seriously disused.

(This immersion into computer writing happened mostly because of readability. My thoughts have always raced so much further ahead of my fingers that my handwriting is cramped, tiny, and painful to decipher. My eyes, and the eyes of everyone who had to read what I wrote, figuratively danced for joy when I started typing.)

I keep reminding myself to be thankful I don’t live a few hundred years ago. Imagine trying to write a novel with a quill pen!

And no way will I start using candles to light my paper. I’ve done that before, when we lost electricity for two weeks following an ice storm. Never again.

I may be old-fashioned, but not that much.

Books, favorites, fiction, publishing, writing

Summer Sale!

July 1, 2013 elouisebates

Right now, all my publications are on sale.

(“All.” Doesn’t that sound grand? So much more impressive than “one short story on its own and two shorts bundled together.” Language is a beautiful thing.)

“Justice’s Mask,” a historical fiction short story published under the penname of Louise Ayers, is on sale through Amazon for $0.99.

“If This Be Magic & The Traitor and the Spy,” two historical fantasy shorts published in one volume, on sale through Amazon for $1.99 on Kindle, and $3.99 paperback.

This is the start of my summer promotions for Magic Most Deadly, which currently does NOT have a release date, but most definitely should be out by fall. I also have some lovely giveaways planned, and some picture teasers for the book itself.

At some point, there will be a COVER REVEAL, and I’m still trying to figure out if it’s worth doing a blog tour for that – if you’d be interested in signing up to join in the cover reveal, let me know!

But first, the sale! What better way to kick off promoting a forthcoming novel?

(And hey – if you happen to buy either of the above books, and you want to leave a review on Amazon? That would be AWESOME. Even if it’s a negative review. I promise, I won’t even read it, I just want to know it’s there!)

(And if leaving a review is way too much of a pain for you, that’s cool, I get it. Sometimes I have a hard time doing reviews even when I want to, too. I’ll still think you’re awesome just for buying and reading.)

(Actually, I’ll probably still think you’re a fantastic human being even if you don’t even buy and read.)

And hey! Happy Canada Day, north-of-the-border friends!

goals, God, Life Talk, philosophy

Moving Back to Move Forward

June 25, 2013 elouisebates

This weekend, we made a flying trip back to PA, where we lived for the first four years of our marriage. When we left, there were two weeks between finding out we had to leave, and pulling away from the house with our moving truck. It’s been almost five years, and we’d never made it back for any kind of closure. With Carl starting grad school this fall, and another huge move coming up in a month (EEK!), now seemed like a good time to finally go back, see our friends there again, show Joy the house where we lived when she was a baby, revisit some old haunts.

And go grocery shopping at Wegmans. Because we have MISSED it.

Bringing Joy home from the hospital. — Bringing Joy home from the hospital almost six years ago.

It was so, so good.

We had dinner Friday evening with some of our dearest friends. It was sheer chaos in parts, with ten kids running around and six adults trying desperately to cram five years of conversation into a few hours, but it was so good. It felt like we’d never left.

Saturday was a more leisurely lunch with more friends, these with two daughters close in age to our own girls. The four of them played so nicely together all afternoon, and Joy cried when we left – she felt like she’d finally found the Betsy to her Tacy, and then had to leave after just a few hours. We told her we would start praying, and KEEP praying, that God would send her a best friend at Gordon-Conwell, now that she has a taste of what it’s like.

Then we went back to where we used to live. NOTHING has changed. I don’t think anybody’s even painted their house a different color or bought a new vehicle. It was so weird, like stepping into a time warp. Milkshake (Carl and me) and chocolate milk (the girls) at the dairy bar down the street (and wasn’t THAT place dangerous to have within walking distance when I was in my third trimester during one of the hottest summers EVER), and then on to the cemetery where all the locals go to walk. It’s the closest thing to a neighborhood park around.

Posing just a few feet down from where the previous photo was taken

And THEN we did our grocery shopping. Then came home. Then crashed the next day (literally, for me – we got out our bikes on Sunday and mine decided it had had enough of my stumbling attempts to master it, and showed me who was boss. Hint: it wasn’t me).

The entire trip felt both like closure of the past AND reopening of old friendships. We were able to lay to rest some of the miseries that had chased us from PA, remember the good parts of living there, and reaffirm the friendships we made while there.

I also was able to remember that old tombstones are one of my best sources for finding awesome character names, and that ancient cemeteries are beautiful, peaceful, other-worldly places to stroll.

Despite our exhaustion, we came home energized, ready to tackle packing up this house, thankful for all God has done in our lives, and in my case, ready to dive back into writing now that I’ve gotten some more real-life filling.

How was your weekend?

"Rest in peace" feels a bit more tangible, here. — “Rest in peace” feels a bit more tangible, here.

Books, fantasy, fiction, publishing

Elle Strauss Cover Reveal

June 19, 2013 elouisebates

I was tremendously excited when I heard Elle Strauss was putting her “Love, Tink” serial together in one complete package, with a new cover and everything. I bought every one of the episodes as soon as it came out, and I’m happy to see them all together now. So naturally, I signed up to be part of the cover reveal!

Not familiar with Love, Tink? Here’s a brief synopsis:

Love, Tink: The Complete Set by Elle Strauss
Publication date: July 10th, 2013
Genre: YA Fantasy

Synopsis:

Originally published as six separate novella episodes, Love, Tink the complete series is all six stories together in one volume.

Tink is hopelessly smitten with Peter, the leader of the Lost Boys who’d mysteriously arrived at Neverland two years ago. Unfortunately, Peter is tired of the adventure and especially tired of dodging Captain Hook who is after his head. He just wants to go back to New York City and live his life as a normal fifteen year old

Tink is the only one who can help Peter return, but it breaks her heart to do it. She just wants to make him happy, so she does the unthinkable and betrays the fairy king. Now her heart is filled with remorse. Should she go after Peter? Should she follow him to his New York?

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18029050-love-tink

—-

ELLE STRAUSS AUTHOR BIO

I write fun, lower YA fiction (time-travel and fantasy). I’m fond of Lindt’s sea salt dark chocolate and hiking in good weather. I’m married with four children and divide my time between British Columbia, Canada, and Germany. I also write upper YA (historical and science fiction) as Lee Strauss.

Author Links:

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

Ready for the cover? Here … we … go …!

Isn’t it lovely? Doesn’t it make you want to read the novellas? The complete series is coming out July 10th!

editing, goals, Life Talk, school, seasons, stories, writing

Scattered

June 11, 2013 elouisebates

-My copy-editor send back Magic Most Deadly this morning. This marks the last round of edits on it (whee!). Then I get to move on to formatting (not so whee). Still, overall way more exciting than not.

-On Saturday, Carl, the kids, and I went to the fabric store to pick up supplies for my sister’s baby quilt. Carl is, surprisingly enough, absolutely the best person to go quilt-fabric-shopping with. He has an unerring eye for colors and patterns that will work well together. Most of the prettiest quilts I’ve made have been ones he helped with.

-I’ve started packing up non-necessity items around the house. Pictures came down off the walls last week, and I’m starting to eye the bookcases, wondering what books we can live without for the next month and a half. (Answer: not many) Winter clothes are already packed away, and pretty soon I’ll be putting extra linens away in totes. Despite the many, many moves we’ve made in the almost-nine years we’ve been married, I still loathe packing.

-In related news, holy cow the end of July and our big move is coming up FAST. We’re going to be traveling three of the weekends between now and then, too. Yikes.

-As the work I need to do on MMD winds down, I’ve actually started writing, not just plotting and researching, my next book project (working title: Wings of Song). I’ve written, deleted, and re-written the first chapter already. Exciting! It’s odd but fun to be working on something without any magic in it at all. It’s also just sheer delight to be writing something set in the same era and general location of my grandfather’s childhood. I think this book will be dedicated to all my grandparents, in thanks for the stories and memories they’ve always shared.

-I’m backing off on the full load of school I’d been attempting with Joy. I think we’ll be fine doing that once the move is done and we’ve settled, but everything is too crazy right now. We’ll just keep doing a little bit here and there (working mostly on art lessons, because that is what she loves the best), but not try doing full weeks until sometime mid-August.

-I love all the fresh fruit starting to be available now. I’ve a big batch of rhubarb in my fridge waiting to be made into rhubarb crunch, and I made a strawberry cake for Grace’s birthday party that was amazingly good, and just to be able to open the fridge and indulge in fruit without worrying that it means we’ll run out before our next grocery trip is a treat. It’s so much easier to stay healthy this time of year!

Although this isn't technically health food, I suppose. — Although this isn’t technically health food, I suppose.

-It’s also pretty fun to be back browsing at the farmer’s market every Saturday (the ones where we aren’t traveling, that is). I came home this weekend with a pot of thyme and a tiny bottle of fresh cream. SO good.

-There’s not much else for news on this front! Posts are probably going to be scattered and/or non-existent from now until after we move (early August), so don’t get alarmed if a week or so passes without hearing from me. I will try to stay active on Twitter and Facebook just so you all know I’m alive!

-Have a fantastic week, all.