You know those self-help books that tell you to pick out a word for the year and to try an live that word for the year? I do that. 2015's word was "courage."
I already have the word for 2016:
I'm an idiot. I won't go into why just yet, because I still burn with shame, but I feel bad and I should feel bad. Here's something that cheered me up:
I am now Standard First Aid certified. After a two-day course that ate up my weekend (luckily, fellow trainees were hilarious, making the training very fun), I have my proper certification, and I'm prepared (ish) in the case of an emergency.
Beta Reader number three has turned around the manuscript for Sky Road Walker in record time. Three days. Three. Today will be spent combing through the comments and doing probably a lot of editing. Beta Reader number three is usually the harshest of the three.
That said, he really did enjoy it, so that's good.
For those of you not aware, Sky Road Walker is a story I wrote via democracy. What that means is, I started with a section of story here on this blog and gave three possible choices for a course of action. The readers then voted on which course of action they wanted the character to make and the action with the most votes won.
I then wrote the next section of story accordingly.
It was a lengthy process. I thought it was going to merely take a year. Well over two years later, the story finally came to a close. Lo and behold, I had enough story for a full novel. I was expecting a novelette. Apparently even democratically, I'm unable to write anything but a novel length piece.
*grumbles about personal ineptitude*
The goal right from the off was to create this book for charity. The plan was that all proceeds from the eBook sales and $3.00 from the paperback sales (which would pretty much be the profits, cost of books + shipping factored in) would go to a charity of my choosing.
I had a Kung Fu sister who did some work with the Ottawa Caring and Sharing Exchange, which does fantastic things for families with nothing. Their Christmas Exchange programme ensures that underprivileged families get a proper meal or gift certificates so that they can have just as joyous a Christmas season as the rest of us. Their Sharing in Student Success programme offers school supplies and lunch kits to families that need them so their children can have every opportunity the rest of us did to succeed in school and life.
It's important work, and I loved their programmes so much I decided to make them my charity of choice for this book.
I'm almost done the book. I will edit this last round of comments, write the foreword and the dedication, and then send it off to the formatter to make it look all professional and stuff. Then I have to send the specs for the book dimensions to the cover artist and I'm all done! That's a weird feeling.
This book isn't supposed to be out until Hallowe'en of next year. Go figure.
Right. There is a lot of work before me today. I must be getting on. Have a great day everyone.
Ciao!