Reconnecting with Writing & Art. Plus, a Surprise!

Being a writer while being in a full-time doctoral program, maintaining a full-time job, and trying to learn a language is really challenging. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reminded time and time again just how important it is to keep my creative work a priority, because stories and art are my passion. So much of the energy I have for all my other roles stems from being creative and doing creative work. 

This past weekend, I spent most of my time working on book projects and as a result, I feel happier and healthier than I have in months. And while I love all the other things I do, this made me realize I can’t let myself go this long without working on my creative projects—especially when I’ve invested so much time and energy into finding amazing resources and tools to help me do them. It’s a balancing act I think we all face to some degree, and it seems like it’s one I’ll probably continue to struggle with for the next year as I finish up my school work. 

On the bright side though—I'm super grateful I have a place to go to re-energize. Working around the house this weekend, I got so excited about all the reading, writing, creating, painting and learning I want and need to do to make the art I want to make. I have books about illustration, design, copyright, research, language learning and screenwriting all waiting to be read. I have my Wacom tablet, new paints and canvasses, and new notebooks ready to be filled. And bit by bit, I am going to do just that! 

This weekend I also got to try out a new program that I invested in a few months ago. It’s called Vellum, and it’s an amazing book creation app that formats both ebook and print layouts (Note: only available for Mac users at this time, my apologies!). I used it to format a special project I’ve been working on over the last few months and also to update the ebook versions of The Vampire Skeleton Series book, which—surprise!—now have new covers. Check them out below! 

I love these covers so much. They were designed by James T. Egan of Bookfly Designs, who just does really excellent work. I’ve worked with James a few times now and I am always really inspired by his creativity, experience and professionalism. I’m so happy with how they turned out! There are currently two books in this series and the third book will be coming out this September. The new book is called A Spectacle of Stones and I will be putting it up for pre-order in a few weeks (the first time I’ve ever tried doing this, so I'm looking forward to learning the process). I’m really excited to share the cover for this book as well, and will be doing that in a few weeks! 

Ahhhh. It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks and I actually have more exciting news to share, but I think I will save it until my next post! Until then, happy creating everyone!

S. 

Cover Reveal for The School That Ate Children!

I started writing The School That Ate Children in November 2014 and I have to say, I absolutely love this book. I love its spontaneity. I love the fact that it's about two sisters. I love that it's an adventure. The School That Ate Children was the book I didn't expect to write. It was the book that made me realize I love magic and can't write a book that doesn't have magic in it (thus changing my tag line to "My work is inspired by themes and events in Haudenosaunee history. Most of it has magic in it"). And it's the book that made me realize that without a doubt, I wanted to be an indie publisher. 

This book had two very different starting points. My first attempt at it was much more serious. I had started to write it for a contest that was looking for "real" stories - which meant historical fiction or stories that were mildly autobiographical and specifically, stories that did not have anthropomorphic animals or were retellings of legends or myths. And so I drew on some very real and unpleasant personal experiences to get at a "real" story. As a result, a very different draft of this book exists in my computer. But that story - I did not love. It felt forced - like I was writing what someone else wanted written. The whole process of writing it made me ask all kinds of questions about what a "real" story was. I managed to get a first draft down and left it alone for a few weeks but when it was time to go back to it - I rewrote the entire thing entirely new. And this story, the one I fell in love with, broke all of the contest rules. And because I loved it so much, I decided not to change it, that I probably shouldn't change it and that's when I realized I wanted to be an indie publisher. So I could write and share the stories I loved the most which in the end felt more honest and real and authentic than any other approach could be. 

For the second version of the story, I simply opened a Word file (this was before I started using Scrivener), wrote The School That Ate Children, at the top of it and off I went. It was not meant to be the actual title of the book. Just a placeholder until I could find something better. But despite having many different titles in mind, none of them seemed to fit and so I wound up sticking with this as well. In a way, the whole book has been one wonderful, happy accident. And I have to say - I really love this cover, which was designed by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design. Amazing work. 

The School That Ate Children is a middle grade urban fantasy. Despite the rewrite, it still touches on some rather serious issues. Issues of grief, of loneliness, of bullying. Of losing more when you've already lost a lot. But at its heart, it's a story about siblings and love and the surprising characters in life that help you keep families together. 

The School That Ate Children comes out on June 21st, 2016. It is available for pre-order on my website. It will also be going up on Amazon, Kobo and iBooks for pre-order in the next few days. Happy writing!

S.