State of the Writer

I am going to try to be better about updating. Really I am. In the meantime, a rundown:

• I finished writing the book. I need to edit the book. I need to do a crapton of research before I can do so, but my goal is to find time before April.
• I have a boyfriend. He is awesome.
• Life is crazy. Work is moreso, and threatening to get even crazier. Free time is nonexistent, and I still have no money. How does that work?
• My health, a year after going on SCD, is awesome. My weight loss levelled off (being the shallow creature that I am, I wish it had chosen a lower levelling off point), but given that I wasn't actually trying to lose weight, and I'm still not, this is still pretty impressive. I have not had a prescription since going on the diet.
• I have awesome friends.

I am aiming to make Thursday nights update nights. We will see how well I stick to this resolution.
posted by Sarah E. at 10:18 PM

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On Writing, and What Not To Do

It's just occurred to me that this is the closest thing i have to a "writing" icon. I really need to do something about this....

I had an interesting conversation with a friend at work today who wants to start publishing his writing. Amongst other things, we deked off at one point into the subject of self-publishing, and why people do it. Now, there are definitely reasons for self-publishing. If I ever wanted to produce memoirs of my grandmother's garden, for example, I would probably self-publish it because only my family would ever want to read it. But I actually want people who don't know me to read my books. So I'm going the route of a traditional publisher.

I've written two complete books and two half-novels I abandoned back in high school because they read like I wrote them in high school. I'm currently working on the third book. It needs some work, but I think I might actually have it this time.

Setting the first two aside was hard. They're not forgotten, but they're also not good enough right now. And, especially given certain things observed at a recent convention, this is the problem a large number of self-published authors run into. Rather than put things aside when they're not good enough, or an editor tells them it's not good enough, they decided to publish it anyway.

Fair enough, that's their decision. And some people handle it fairly well. But some people... well, appear to lose their minds. They start doing things, and putting these things on their professional authorial website, that absolutely boggle the mind. And not in a good way.

It's not something you see only in writers. I've seen it in the bellydance community, and American Idol has made it plainly apparent when it comes to singing. Sometimes people can't face the fact that they're not instantly fantastic at whatever they choose to do, and retreat into a completely different reality.

I'm very glad that I have people around me who will stop me from ever doing that. Though if I ever self-publish and go crazy, I am totally changing my name to Gryphonia Sparklepants.
posted by Sarah E. at 12:09 AM

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A New Era

I have only one thing to say.



That was frelling AWESOME!!!!!!
posted by Sarah E. at 1:09 AM

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Etsy Roundup

So here is the stuff I currently have listed on Etsy. If I've coded things right, clicking on the picture should take you to the appropriate page:




posted by Sarah E. at 4:26 PM

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Wups

Yes, I have been absolutely awful about updating my journal. But a lot has happened in the last year, including moving back to Canada, losing my Grandmother, restarting my job, and trying to reboot my half of our jewellery business. To that end, here are some links:

• The new, improved Sarah Jane Elliott.com
  
• My Etsy Store!
  
• Sarah's Sparkly Stuff on facebook

And links to two videos: my grandmother's memorial video, and the video I made of everything I did overseas when I was NOT teaching.




posted by Sarah E. at 8:12 PM

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Back from Italy

There will be a full trip report eventually -- probably next weekend. But this weekend has been spent annotating and posting the 795 shots and videos I got from the 900 I came home with. You can see the whole thing in the Chris and Sarah's Excellent Italian Adventure set, or if you don't feel like dealing with all 795 at once, you can enter through the gateways of Milan, Florence, Naples (includes Pompeii and Herculaneum, or Rome.

That was the first real travelling adventure I have had (I don't really count moving here, as that's a work thing), and it's the most fun I have ever had in my life. I am REALLY not looking forward to school tomorrow.
posted by Sarah E. at 11:26 AM

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Weekend Away

My latest batch of captioned (and heavily geek-referenced) photos start here, but some of the highlights of the weekend in Dover / Tower of London are:



St. James's Church. It was shelled by France during the war and they left the remaining walls as a memorial. It was quite breathtaking and very good for my inexplicable fascination with doorways. This is my new desktop. I call it "Gateway to Narnia".

Secret Tunnel! No seriously, there are a network of tunnels under the castle that were used as secret wartime headquarters and only taken off the secret list in 1984. You can see part of them here.


The white cliffs, which are certainly white, and certainly cliffs. Shira gives some perspective. We climbed all the way up, wandered around, climbed all the way down, then back up the other side to get to...


"Dover Castle!"
"Dover Castle!"
"It's only a model."
"Shh!"








Yes, it is very much spring here. This is a hill at the Tower of London.


posted by Sarah E. at 11:07 AM

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