Carrie the Limping Lion is available for pre-order!

Yes, you read that right! I'm so excited!

I've set the release date for Monday, November 2nd. I'm self-publishing through smashwords, and I've discounted my book during the pre-order period.

(UPDATE: You can now buy 'Carrie the Limping Lion' through my blog, thanks to Payhip!) 

Two months away from the finish line!

The discount means that you'll get $1 off my $3 book. That's 33.3 recurring percent off, how exciting! This discount will end on November 2nd, the date of release, so be sure to reserve your copy before then to take advantage of it. ;)

So far, you can pre-order Carrie the Limping Lion through Barnes and Noble and Kobo, and soon it will be in the Apple iBooks store, too!


How does pre-ordering work?

When you pre-order a copy of Carrie the Limping Lion, you are basically pledging to buy the book the moment that it's released. Your money won't leave your account until the release date (so if something terrible happens and I can't finish and upload the book, you won't be charged), but you'll be guaranteed the discounted price, and you'll be one of the first people in the world to read the finished book.


A bit about my book:

Aimed at children ages 3 to 8, Carrie the Limping Lion is a short children's poem about a lion cub who has chronic knee pain. I've also written an information section after the poem, explaining more about chronic pain and hidden illnesses in a kid-friendly way. While children with chronic pain will be able to relate to Carrie, the aim of the book is actually to educate 'normal' kids about the conditions. Hopefully, that will encourage acceptance and friendships, making the lives of the affected children a little happier.

Francois is busy beautifully illustrating each of the eight stanzas, and we'll be working on the cover soon.

If you'd like a sneak preview of some of the illustrations, Francois has uploaded a few unfinished versions to his Coroflot portfolio. And if you'd like to read the (probably) finished poem, I've got it right here on my blog. Just remember, you'll be looking at the process, not the finished book, which will be so much prettier.


Will it be available in print? 

Not yet. Once the ebook has been published, though, I plan to start a crowd funding campaign to make printing a possibility.


What are you waiting for? 

Help a sister out! Go on, pre-order a copy now. You know you wanna. ;)

An Interesting Conversation with a Presumptuous Customer

For a long time now, I've known what I want to do with my life. It's not anything fancy, or different, or special. I know that I want to be a mom, and that's about it for now. That's kind of tricky, because I'm marrying an artist and can't just stay at home and look after children... I need to earn money. Anyway, the money-making aspect is not what I was going to talk about.

At work a few days ago, I was serving a friendly couple. They were easy customers, and I enjoyed serving them. However, while I was taking their money from them (with the card machine), the woman asked me what I do when I'm not waitressing. At first, I told her that I like to write, and that I spend time on that when I'm at home. But then I decided to tell her that, to be honest, I'd really like to be a stay at home mom. What followed was a very long, passionate rant about why having children would ruin my life.

This lady told me that having children would take away my control. I wouldn't be able to control the future anymore (as if I can control it now!). My life, as a young woman, would be ruined. Humanity is a disease, and furthering it is a bad idea. Bringing children into the world is a horrible plan, because they don't want to be here, and there's no future for them. And, she told me, sterilisation is an option. Because if you get sterilised, you can control your future. Hah!

After her husband managed to convince her to leave the poor waitress alone (after about five minutes of ranting about how the above mentioned waitress shouldn't have children), I walked away and laughed it off. I couldn't stop laughing, for a little while. The ridiculousness of how somebody could have the nerve to tell me how to live my life! I had a goofy grin on my face for a long time, accompanied by eyebrows that I couldn't force down into their natural position. But there's one problem...

It's bothering me.

I know that I want children. I'll be a good mom. I'm a good teacher, and patient, and have a lot of love waiting for a little person that I can give it to. But... Her rants have been sitting in the back of my mind for a while now, and it's difficult not to feel that somehow, having children is pointless. Not worth it. Or even a bad idea. It's difficult to laugh it off and not feel depressed about the thoughts that she's put into my head.

I suppose at the end of the day, I should pay more attention to what I noticed right when I first met her. She looks worn and hard at the same time. She looks sad, but she looks like she's denying it. This woman doesn't have children. She chose to sterilise herself and deny herself the opportunity to ever feel the love that a mother feels. When she meets somebody who's happy about the decision to have children, she probably feels envious about the opportunities that she pushed away. Maybe she isn't conscious about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if she's jealous of every mother, and of every mother-to-be, because she can never be one of those, ever again.

Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's what I'm going to choose to believe... Because I'm sick and tired of being affected by her bullshit attitude and presumptuous behaviour. It's time to feel good about myself again - to feel good about my decisions and my plans. And nobody else is going to dictate how I feel about my life for a long time to come.

I miss pancakes.

Being unable to eat wheat is such a pain. What? I feel like pancakes? Google a wheat free pancake recipe, read comments praising said recipe, cook it up myself, watch it flop. Miserably. Add more egg. Flop. Add more almond flour. Flop. Throw it in a mug, add cocoa and more sugar, put it in the microwave and enjoy an adequate mug cake. Sigh.

The adequate mug cake.

Well, Francois ate the flops and mug cake alike, so there's that, at least! And because of that, there are no flop pictures, which I'm only mildly sorry about.

Anyway, something that I feel like writing about is my imminent wedding. For those of you who are still in the dark, we're planning to tie the knot on the 8th of January, which is our next anniversary. That way, we won't have any extra dates to remember. :P Francois and I are not hugely fond of extravagant celebrations and crowded gatherings, so we'll only be inviting the immediate family, for the most part. If you don't get an invitation, don't be offended... It's nothing personal. Well. Probably not, anyway. We just feel like keeping things small.

By the way, it feels very funny planning a wedding, when all I can think about is all of the "wedding things" that I don't want... Like fancy cutlery, and white tablecloths. But I'm sure we'll figure it all out in the nick of time. (And if anybody knows of a small area in a forest in Wilderness that would fit about twenty people, please tell me about it! A forest would be nice.)

This mug cake is very rich. (I've been slowly making my way through it while writing this.) Note to self: Almond flour in cookies gooood. Almond flour in pancakes baaaaad. Almond flour in mug cakes? Okay, but use less and mix with banana, next time.

Okay, bye for now! Sorry for the haphazard post. :P

Daisy, Daisy, why do you cook weird food?

Well I certainly have been quiet for a very long time. And the best way to break the silence is with a lot of noise, right? With that in mind...

We're engaged!
(Cue hysterical high-pitched giggly voices, courtesy of my sister, mostly.)

Yup, Francois and I have decided to get married. We've been together for a long time (over three years) and don't plan on changing anything. So there's a (small, please, very small) wedding on the horizon!

Hey look, there's my fiancé in the background!

Soon, this finger will have a ring on it. As soon as we can afford to go and buy one, that is. Which should be fairly soon, because Francois is making a decent amount of money over the next few days. Good timing!

It looks REALLY weird.
But it's surprisingly tasty, I promise!

By the way, this is the food that I'm eating while typing this post. As Francois likes to say, [I] make weird food. It's the guts of four tomatoes (left over from this stuff that I made this morning... Well, I made something similar, anyway - there was cheese involved!), fried in some garlic, with soy sauce, mustard and pepper. Then I fried/poached/something'd two eggs in it and threw a bunch of cheese over the top and let it all cook and melt and stuff. It's very nice. But it sure is strange.

Anyway, I'm hoping to end this silence for a while. I'm going to be very busy soon, visiting family, hiking up the Drakensberg, studying two short courses that Grammy bought for me (which I'll finally be able to download!) and all sorts of things like that, but I'm going to make the time to write posts, because it's important and fun and it feels good.

Right, have a lovely Tuesday, everybody! I'm going to finish eating my weird food and then do the dishes before going to work.