Holiday Thoughts

I am not here. I am not anywhere near town. I am away, probably sketching on a canvas as I prep for an oil painting I’ve been wanting to do for years now. I haven’t worked in oil paints for aeons, so I’m not sure I can pull this painting off. It’s rather ambitious. But we’ll see. If I can paint it to my satisfaction, I will be happily offering it to Can*Con to see if someone would want to buy it and help raise money for the convention. I’ve been doing that a couple of years running now, and I’d like to continue to do it.

As I was going away for all of this week, I wrote these blog posts well in advance. Alright, not well in advance. I have been ostensibly on holidays, but I’ve hit the ground running. I have been spending the days I’m not at my normal office job doing a bunch of other stuff that I hope will pay off. So, I’m writing this post Sunday night.

There is no internet at all where I’m staying. There’s a family thing, and so I’m up at the cottages, staying with family. The days are (or will be, I hope), much calmer here than the previous week, which has felt very hectic. There will still be a bunch of visiting, but it’s looking like I’ll have the majority of the day to myself, so I intend to paint. I have four days to get this painting done. I’m not sure I can do it. But I’ll try.

I also have my watercolours with me, so I’ll be attempting a water colour painting in case the oil one doesn’t work out. I don’t know what I’ll paint for that yet, but I’ll have a good think about it tonight, and see what I can do. Something autumn inspired. The colours up this way are glorious, and it’s doing wonders for my mood and mental health.

There’s something about leaving the city and heading into cottage country that helps me immeasurably. I keep joking that I’m going to buy a small house in the forest and slowly morph into the witch in the woods that the neighbouring villagers are unsure about. I’m only half joking, and only half because I can’t afford any property, wooded or otherwise. But it is a dream on mine to have a lovely small house on a large, heavily wooded property.

It’s that or vanish into the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.

I have money for neither, but that’s the dream. I just need to get my books to sell.

I will be back in town for Can*Con this coming weekend. I mentioned in my last blog post that I had been asked to moderate a panel. I said I would, finally, and so I shall. These next few days will also be spent brainstorming on the topic and picking out a few ideas that I think will be interesting to explore further. Of course, it will depend on the panellists. I am there as a facilitator, not a dictator. I am very nervous about it, actually. I am terrified that I’ll make it boring, that there will be a lot of silence, that I will utterly fail as a moderator. But they say do one thing a day that scares you and, well, it’s well under the prescribed one thing a day, but this terrifies me, so I figured it counts for several days at least.

Also while I’m up here, I will be playing around with book cover ideas for The Timbercreek Incident. I mentioned to the Starlings in their exclusive post that I have a couple of ideas, and so I thought I’d mock them up and then give them to vote on which they would like the cover of their special edition to be.

My Ko-Fi supporters, you see, will have the opportunity to purchase exclusive editions of any of the books I self-publish; they’ll have a different cover, and perhaps some other extras like pictures or something. I’m not entirely sure yet. For the books that are published through another publisher, I’m trying to come up with ways that the Starlings can still get some exclusive thing. Not sure yet what, but I’m playing around with ideas.

I also have to finish planning the schedule for the Renaissance Launch Party happening on the Saturday. I think I should have that nailed down pretty quickly, once I have all the details, and then coming up with a script will be next. I’ve never done this kind of launch before. I’ve organised one, but just for me. Multiple people launching and so having multiple readings is a different beast altogether. Added to the fact that we are not permitted to bring food in from outside, the planning has been trickier than I’d like.

So, despite being on holidays, I’m busier than ever. It’s just really nice to have the time to do it all, though. I don’t have to worry about the normal job, and all that time is freed for the work I enjoy. I wake up in the mornings feeling excited for the day, instead of sad and frustrated.

It’s a lovely feeling.

Well, I have another blog post to write (the exclusive one for the Ko-Fi supporters), and so I must dash.

Slán go foill!