Happy early birthday to me!

 It'll be a few weeks until it's pubished, but it's done and in editing!

Annual write-a-thon

This weekend, I have been virtually attending a continuing medical education conference. I attend this conference every year. About half the lectures are interesting and relevant.  The rest are less so. During those, I typically write.  I call it my write-a-thon.

This year, I haven't gotten as much writing done as I normally do.  I'm wrapping up the last of the edits that my textbook needs, which has taken priority. Sadly.

Well, I was happily writing Lora when my younger son came into my office.  He's 9. He heard the lecture going on and I flipped back to it so he could see what was going on. Here is the interaction that ensued.

B: Wait, what was that?
Me, flipping to Scrivener: Lora.
B: Who's Lora?
Me, more than a little annoyed: My book? Lora Fletcher?
B: Oh! The girl with the bow and arrow! Are you famous?

Me: Only to some people 💀

My family is very supportive of my "hobby". It still warms my heart that they pay attention to these little details.  The girl with the bow and arrow. Once I finalize the cover, she won't be the girl with the bow and arrow anymore! She's so much more.

Two and a half chapters left to write before I buckle down and start edits!

Until next time 😊

Some fun stuff

So, as I was writing, I realized I didn't have a great idea of how the world outside Ydris looked.  I knew that Korlisse was to the east and Erasteen was up north, but I couldn't grasp how they looked.  In Rarity, I named some towns in Erasteen in a couple of chapters, as well as towns in Shaad, and I couldn't picture them in my mind.  Shaad was across the sea. Anouria was far to the south. But then what? So I spent yesterday and today drawing maps! Let's just say that I'm tired of making triangles for mountains, and I now understand the history of all the wars that have been fought in that world. No, I'm not the type of author who has a world built in its entirety before the writing starts. The more information I have, the harder time I have actually writing. Some of my best plotted out chapters were ones I struggled to write. Like, for a year. So, here we are.

Ydris broke off from Erasteen because, well, they're kind of jerks. Evidently, it's pretty swampy. And cold. Erasteen wants Ydris back so they can have some nice farmland with no swamps. Constant turmoil.

Korlisse is landlocked because of impassable mountains. They have a lot of rivers and a great big lake, but they want port access.  Ydris has that. Anouria does too and are happy to help them out, but evidently, Ydris is where it's at.

Anourians are chill. They have what they need and are happy to trade with others.

Shaad has very little erable land. Their peninsula is essentially Korlisse light when it comes to mountains.  Except instead of being land locked, they're limited to the coasts. They want whatever land they can get. Ydris is ripe for farming.

So that concludes today's history lesson. Enjoy the map!

Andrea.

News I hope you'll like...

Greetings from the Great White North!

My family and I are settling nicely into our new home in Canada. The last 6 months have definitely been a wild ride though.  The remainder of May was spent prepping for our big move. The first 19 days in June were spent driving here from our home in Arizona. We went to 8 national or state parks and visited a number of other interesting landmarks on our way. It was an incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience.  

We spent the remainder of June into July in quarantine.  At that time, three negative covid tests and a 14+ day quarantine were required to enter Canada from the US.  One of our tests got lost, so our quarantine ended up being 16 days. We had a big celebration on July 4th once we were "freed." Of course, we weren't celebrating July 4th in Canada... Not really anyway!

The remainder of July and August were spent getting the new house in order and prepping my boys for school. They're in French immersion and spent around 6 months being tutored by my mother-in-law so they wouldn't sit there like deer in headlights on their first day. They're doing OK.

September is when school and hockey evaluations began! Youth sports are a huge time suck. As is the contract editing job I took for a textbook I helped write.

Fast forward to Christmas and New Years, our whole family got omicron. We were fortunate to get mild cases. The fatigue is absolutely unreal though. I hope you all have been well and safe and that your holiday season was happy.

So here we are. Today, I finished chapter 30 in Rarity.  Finally. I have been working on this stupid chapter for about a year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the remaining 8 or so chapters come a lot faster.  In any case, I felt you all deserved an update. Thank you for your continued support! I will post here as soon as I type the final words in the book.

Andrea.