2013

            Woohoo! I actually managed to make it through a whole year of blogging every week. I didn't think I could do it – just goes to show what you can accomplish when you try.

            It’s been a good year, too, on all fronts. In the writing world, I finished writing my fourth book (my best one yet) and, while I didn't break into the publishing industry I managed to do something (almost) better – I learned how the industry works. Now I can enter the new year armed with the tools and knowledge I gained this year and, with any luck, I’ll be landing an agent fairly early in the year.

            As for the chainmaille business, Ringcrafts, this was the year that was to determine if we should bother continuing with it – and the answer was yes! It’s supposed to take a new business five years to overcome their initial start-up expenses and start making a profit and we managed it in two. This means we can go into next year with far more confidence.

            In addition, we now know a lot more about shows – we know where our products sell the best, we’re better at finding shows to go to and we have a good idea of how well we can keep our products in stock. This means more shows and an even better year than this one was.

            I hope your year was as good as ours was and hope next year is even better! Thank you all for your support (be it of writing, chainmaille or both) and see you (well, type to you) in 2014. Happy New Year!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Evolution of a Family Christmas

            Writing this, I've just gotten home from the most unique family Christmas gathering I've ever been to, so I thought I’d share my experience with you.

            This was a family Christmas for my mom's side of the family (plus a wonderful woman my mother’s family had adopted as a grandmother because she had no family in the country), where I am the second oldest grandson. Over the years, I've watched many traditions and seen many changes. At first, we got together every Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house. After the Christmas dinner (which was always fantastic), we’d go to the church service. When we returned to the house, we’d have our Christmas Pie – this is made with gifts for each person, on ribbons with their names, all wrapped up in a bundle by my grandmother. Everyone takes their ribbon, we all pull at the same time and the first gifts of the year burst out of the Pie.

            With the children occupied by the toys they just received, the Christmas Story was then read from the Bible. After that, the grandchildren were called upon to perform various musical pieces we had prepared. Then presents would be handed out – my grandfather would pull the presents from under the tree and hand them to a grandchild to deliver. Then everyone would unwrap presents at once. My grandmother always sewed pyjamas for the grandchildren, and the younger ones changed into them before going home that night.

            It was always a fun time, and the family slowly grew every couple years as new grandchildren were born. At some point, we stopped going to the church service because there were too many fidgety children. As my cousins grew older, the job of delivering presents passed down to them. After many years, my adopted great-grandmother passed away (after a full, 100 year life), so was no longer there with us.

            Then my grandparents moved to a condo, so the celebration moved to the homes of my parents, aunts and uncles, rotating each year. Much was different, but still we had our Christmas Pie, followed by the reading of the Christmas Story, music from the grandchildren, then gifts delivered by the grandchildren.

            One year, a friend of my aunt’s family joined us. I actually don’t know her story, but I believe she has no local family. She has been with us every year since and has been accepted as part of the family – she even gets a present in the Christmas Pie!

The family started slowly growing again as we grandchildren started dating. When a significant other came to the gathering, they were always welcomed with open arms (and my grandmother always managed to fit a present for them into the Pie). Of course, with dating age comes a certain amount of self-consciousness and less free time, so, one by one, the grandchildren stopped preparing music to perform. An effort was still made, but it was getting weaker each year.

            The next big change was when we had to move the date from Christmas Eve. As the grandchildren started to work, it became harder and harder to get the whole family together - especially once my mom was ordained as a minister and had her own Christmas eve services to perform. Still, we managed it. It wasn't the same day anymore, but it stayed the same celebration.

            This year saw another big change, followed by many complications. My grandparents moved to a retirement home and, shortly afterwards my grandfather began having health issues that have had him in and out of hospitals for the past several months. As he became less mobile, we planned to have our family Christmas at the retirement home – unfortunately, last week my grandfather had to return to the hospital.

            Did my family let that stop us? No. We had our Christmas dinner at the retirement home as planned, with twenty of us there! My grandmother, six aunts and uncles, six grandchildren, four significant others and three family friends with no local family to have Christmas with (and a partridge in a pear tree).

            After the dinner, we all packed up and went to the hospital with a Christmas dinner plate for my grandfather. We were able to take over a section of a closed cafeteria – which was lucky, because there wouldn't have been enough room for all of us in any of our houses. A few decorations were put up, my grandfather was wheeled down to us (my cousin draped tinsel over his wheelchair) and we opened our Christmas Pie (it was very big this year!). Then the Christmas Story was read. None of the grandchildren had prepared music, so we went on to the gifts – delivered (mostly) by my youngest cousins. After presents were opened, one of the family friends looked up carols on his smart phone for one of my cousins to play on the electric keyboard my parents had brought along, bringing the family’s traditional music to the evening as everyone joined in with the singing.

            It was truly wonderful to see how everything came together. I know that, by the time grandchildren have jobs, a lot of families have given up on getting together every year. Not so with my family – we didn't let a little thing like my grandfather being in the hospital get in the way of our Christmas traditions. I think this year’s family gathering will be one I’ll always remember, because it shows what lengths people will go to for something they feel is important.

            So, I’d like to wish you a very [this space represents whatever seasonal greeting you find least offensive] and I hope that your holiday season will be as great as it can be.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Inspiration

Something that, at some point in time, always gets asked of an author is, “What are your sources of inspiration?” For some, it’s a simple answer. For me... well, it’s a rather long one.

            You see, for me, inspiration comes from all over the place – quite literally. For as long as I can remember, I've been an observer. Some of my most vivid childhood memories (I can place the one of the earliest at age four) are of standing apart from the other kids and watching. Just watching. I didn't want to join them; I wasn't lonely. I was perfectly content to stand aside and observe how they interacted with each other.

            I didn't know it at the time, but somewhere in the subconscious of my brain, a file was opened. I started to log away information and, I believe, from then on everything I've observed has gotten sorted in there, to be taken out when needed – completely on a subconscious level, of course. Nevertheless, when I read my own work, I'm fascinated to see how many bits and pieces have come out of things I've observed.

            Beyond that, there are, of course, other authors I've read. The most influential ones for me have been Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Weis, Brian Jacques, Anne McCaffrey, R.A. Salvatore, and, of course, J.R.R. Tolkien. There have been many others, some of which I've been re-reading recently and discovering similarities to my writing, and I look forwards to discovering more!

            There are also countless movies and TV shows that have bits that stick in my mind and show up in my books – sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. Games, too! The concept of my series’ overarching plot was inspired by a video game and, currently, I'm working on adding creatures to my encyclopedia of my world by looking through a D&D Monster Manual, cross-referencing the information with mythology and deciding what my version the creature will be like.

            As I said, inspiration comes from everywhere! I even have creatures and plots that came from dreams. Imagination is a wonderful and amazing thing. It’s almost as if it takes everything you've seen and experienced in your life, mashes it all together into dough and hands you something new.

            There, I've probably gone on long enough for this week. Now I get to hope that next week’s blog will be more inspired.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Words

            Have you ever taken a moment to stop and think about words. I mean, really think about them. Not the meanings of words, so much as the existence of them. They’re amazing!

            It’s so fascinating that we have this in-depth method of communication. Humans wouldn't have accomplished anything close to what they have without it. Yet, if you stop to think about it, words are downright weird. We make nonsensical sounds with our mouths and vocal cords and, somehow, when we hear them, they have meaning for us. How did this come to be?

            I've thought about this a lot, as I've worked on writing my own languages. Most (if not all) spoken languages these days are built on the blocks of previous languages. Words and grammar have evolved and become so natural to us that we take them for granted – at least until we find ourselves wandering in a foreign country where no one understands what we’re saying. How did it start, though? What was the very first word?

            My theory is that the first word would have been an order, such as “Go!” or “Get!”. That seems the most likely place for a primitive language to start. You want someone else to do something, so you create a word that, when accompanied by a gesture, can convey your meaning. A language has started.

            But, by telling someone else what to do, we recognise that we are different than them. We start calling them “You.” Then, since we have a way to address someone else, we come up with “Me” to refer to ourselves.

            From then, it snowballs onwards, with the language getting larger and larger. We come up with more commands and, for clarity, we come up with words for objects as well. That way, we can tell “you” to “get” a “tree”. Poor you will have a hard time of that, but at least he understands what we want.

            Then, of course, names for people come into existence, so we can distinguish all these “you”s from each other. Plus, if everyone is “me”, we feel like just another “you”, so we want a name to use for referring to ourselves.

            Armed with our new language, we charge into the future, teaching these odd sounds we've made up to our children, and they to theirs, until the vocalisations become second nature and no one even thinks about how remarkable words are. In fact, we even have squiggles to visually represent words.

            The squiggles are taught to us as sounds that string together into the words we know, but eventually they take on a life of their own. We see a word and, even if it’s spelled wrong, we know what it means just as well as if we heard it. It truns out taht as lnog as the frsit and lsat letetrs of a wrod are in the rhigt pacles, it deosn't eevn meattr waht odrer the rset are in! W3 c4n e3en r3pl4c3 c3r74in l3773r5 wi7h numb3r5 4nd 57ill b3 4ble t0 r34d. I wouldn't be surprised if I ardshfu tunboef slinwy guwisju and you still understood what I was talking about.

            Yet, all this time, it is still just random sounds we make or generate in our heads. Sounds that, more than likely, would sound incredibly stupid if we didn't know what they meant (some sound stupid even when we know what they mean). Somehow, there is a transition in our brain where the sounds and squiggles that represent a “tree” turn into a tree.

            Aren't words incredible?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Editing Process

            I haven’t had a blog about my writing recently, so I thought I ought to change that. Since I finished writing my latest book last week (throw confetti!), I thought it would be appropriate to share what happens next.

            While I budget myself a year to write each of my books, that clock stops ticking when I write the last word of the book (usually with a couple months to spare). The process, however, does not stop there. That is when the editing starts.

            First, naturally, I read through the book myself, fixing all the typos I can find, smoothing out awkward sentences and such. Sometimes I need to rewrite sections that aren't good enough and occasionally there’s a minor plot hole to fix (for a while, in my second book, there was an object in two places at once). Once that’s done, I hand the book off to my wife, Colleen.

            Now, Colleen has a very special job while editing. Not only does she have to watch for the same flaws I did, but she also needs to fill in a few... blanks that I left for her. Blanks that tend to look like [INSERT DESCRIPTION], [DESCRIBE PRETTY SUNRISE] or [DESCRIBE DAY AT FAIR]. Plus she has to report back to me on her thoughts on the book (incidentally, two chapters into the latest one she has emphatically declared that this is my best book yet. Be excited).

            Then the book comes back to me to go through once again. I read the whole book again, making the same edits as before and making Colleen’s suggested changes, as well as editing her new parts (sometimes – although rarely – I send some back to her to be rewritten with, usually with specific requests). Oh, and I get to read her delightful comments, particularly on some of the references I made.

            Once I'm done that edit, the book goes off to my parents. I know this might seem cheesy to some people, but my parents (along with being awesome) are very talented and, while most parents will shower their children’s work with praise, mine have always been fantastic at providing wonderful feedback.

            My dad has done a fair amount of writing himself, and – back when he had more free time – he used to tell his great stories at schools and events. He is also a library technician and he reads a lot. Like me, he is the type of person who analyses a book while he’s reading it, picking up on the foreshadowing and guessing what’s going to happen next. He’s my best source of feedback on the book’s overall content. He’s stopped bothering with doing technical edits because my mom will catch all of those.

            My mom is one of those (despicable) people who are amazing at everything they do. She knows her grammar exceptionally well and, if she’s not sure on something, she takes the time to look it up. She also reads at a snail’s pace, making her an ideal line editor. By the time she’s done reading my book, I'm confident that there are next to no technical errors remaining. It’s definitely worth waiting the six (or more) months it takes her to read the whole book.

            With my feedback from my parents, I go through the book again, making even more changes. Then, it’s time to get down to business. I sit down with Colleen and we go through the book together, making it as perfect as we can. This is where the greatest conflicts in our marriage come from – we once spent over an hour arguing over the wording of a sentence. It was great.

            At long last, the book gets declared done and I get to work on getting it published, which will involve even more editing.

            Blogs, on the other hand, are much simpler. I usually skim through them once after writing them, then don’t bother with any editing until someone sends me a text of Facebook message to let me know I've got a bunch of typos. Thanks, editing types! All literature would be a lot messier without an outside eye to whip thins into shape.

            (P.S. I'm taking the liberty of not reading a single word I wrote in this blog. How did I do?)

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.