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.
Read moreSneak Peek - A Work in Progress
A few years ago now, I found myself in between books and unsure about what to write. After a few weeks of indecision, I wound up starting a rather fun project that I never actually intended to publish—or even finish—but started to become more and more invested in the longer I worked on it. Once the rough draft was done though, I put it away and moved on to writing something else. I never really intended to return to it. That all changed when I happened across the book in May/June of this year and found myself getting caught up in the story again and next thing you know the book I was supposed to be writing had fallen by the wayside and another book had emerged in its place! And now that book is (mostly) done.
It's an adaptation of the wonderful and much-loved Pride & Prejudice except all of characters are Indigenous and they live in a fictional First Nation community called Smoke River. And honestly—this book was so much fun to write.
Read moreCover 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.
Read moreHow My Research Needs Have Grown Since Becoming An Indie Author
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of non-fiction reading. This is because I'm trying to learn how to better share my books, make them look nice, and adapt them into other formats (ebooks and audio books). There are a lot of amazing tools and resources that enable you to do all of these things within several different budgets.
But one thing I’ve noticed over the last few months is that the type of non-fiction reading I’m doing has changed significantly since I first started out trying to write seriously. Like many writers I know (on Twitter for example), I read a TON of blogs posts and books about writing. I still do. Only now, the books I’m reading are very much about the business side of being an author. I can definitely see how once I made the decision to move in one direction (indie publishing) over another (traditional publishing), the kinds of resources I needed to help me do so shifted dramatically.
Read moreI Formatted An Ebook With Scrivener
Yesterday was an incredible day. I wrote 1154 words for a new story, I watched a Scrivener webinar (which is an amazing piece of writing software I've just started using more), I researched for a non-fiction book I'm working on, AND—I formatted my very own ebook!
This is a big deal for me. You see, a few months ago when I was getting ready to publish The Vampire Skeleton and my short story collection I decided I would like to try and format my own ebooks. I did some research and learned there was a free program called Calibre that could help you, which I promptly downloaded and tried to use. I didn't have much luck. Nor did I have much luck formatting ebooks using InDesign. And so, because I was in my first trimester, working full-time and doing my doctorate, I figured it might be best to find an ebook formatter and work with them. And so that's what I did.
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