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. ;)

Why I've Been So Quiet

Good grief, I haven't written anything for my blog in quite a while. I do have a valid excuse though - promise! And it's a pretty great one, at that.

I've been writing for money again! I'm getting paid R20 for 100 words, and I'm writing articles about cars. Exciting, isn't it? (By the way, that wasn't a sarcastic rhetorical question, just a rhetorical question. Making money while not waitressing is very exciting!) Francois and I have been doing this job together. He does the majority of the research, and I write the articles. We make a great team. We've just finished the first batch of articles, and are eagerly awaiting our next task.

Since the Easter holiday is over, things are getting pretty quiet at work again. And since I'll be taking two weeks off next month, this extra work couldn't have come at a better time.

On to the next line of thought: It seems that Francois and I have started a trend. We moved to Wilderness at the end of 2013, because hey, have you seen the place? There's a reason why somebody started calling this area Eden... We love it here, it's beautiful, it's natural, it suits us perfectly. Anyway, Francois' mom is moving here shortly as well (in about a week or two), having found an awesome job in the area. And a friend has found work right in George at a game development studio! So he'll be moving here next month. Chances are that Francois' brother will move down eventually, too. Everybody is coming to the Garden Route!

Just a reminder that this is our garden.

 

The Garden Route, where you get awesome animals visiting you in your garden, out of the blue. I like where we live.

Speaking of gaming studios... That same studio is looking to hire artists. Francois has sent them his portfolio, and now we are holding thumbs and crossing fingers so tight that we're getting pins and needles. It would be AMAZING for him to get hired by them. So hold your thumbs, too!

Well, I'm not in a very energetic writing mood tonight. Load shedding had us powerless today, so we went off to the mall in search of food and coffee (with shopping happening along the way, unfortunately) and we ended up spending way too much time there.

Malls exhaust me, physically, but mostly mentally... So creative writing is not exactly high on my list of priorities right now. However, making soup is VERY high on that list, so that is what I plan to do next - chicken soup. With some pumpkin (which we still have a quarter of) and some carrots that aren't tasty enough to eat on their own.

Okay. We're all out of data already, so I'm going to head over to the Hoekwil Café now. They're closed already, but their Wi-Fi stays on 24/7, so I'm going to sit outside in the car while I upload this post.

Goodnight, all!

Waitressing is Boring

There's nothing quite like waitressing to remind me of how much I dislike waitressing. This is actually something that is very easy for me to forget.

Me at work! Very happy, because
I was serving my Grammy. :)

Short term, I enjoy being a waitress. I like people, I like making people happy. I learn new things about interacting with people every day, and I often do my job so well that I can change the course of somebody's day, simply by making their dining experience entertaining. This is great! But like I said... I enjoy it in the short term. Doing it for almost a year gets incredibly boring. 

Unfortunately (and fortunately), waitressing at Pomodoro, I make a fair amount of money. Working four shifts a week, I earn enough to pay the rent, my car insurance and my retirement fund at the end of every month. I can afford a few big shopping trips for groceries, petrol to pump into my car, and enough gas and electricity to meet all of our needs. There's even extra money every month for coffee at the Hoekwil Cafe, breakfast at Skotteljons a few times, and take-away pizza once or twice a month. Living expenses are not something that I need to worry about, because I know that I'll earn more than enough. 

Why is this unfortunate? Because all of this earning money results in stagnation. Every office job that gets advertised pays less and expects more. I don't want to work every day of the week! I like only working four days, and never having to take my work home with me. So, instead of making a plan to earn money by doing something more rewarding, instead of leaving my soul-crushingly boring job, I just keep on doing the same thing, week after week.

I'm writing this now, because I've finally made a decision to do something about it, and to make a change. That change involves writing every day to keep in practice - something that this blog helps with very much. It involves working on my children's poems faithfully, so that I can publish them soon and start selling my creative work. And it involves finding writing work, which may not be as fulfilling as bringing my own ideas to life, but will still feel much better than waitressing. 

So to tie up this post, I'll end with my goal for the end of this year: to be working two shifts a week, and earning the rest of my money through book sales and freelance writing. 

Ruined by the Perfect Cappuccino

Quite a while ago, Pomodoro (the restaurant that I work at) sent me on basic coffee training. We don't usually have a barista in the bar, so we tend to make all of the coffee ourselves. This makes training fairly vital to the reputation of our coffee.

The three day coffee shop course by Ciro focused primarily on setting the grind of the coffee beans for the perfect espresso, but we were also taught how to texturize milk for cappuccinos, which is pretty important, too. I absolutely loved learning about coffee, and for the first time, I understood what truly good coffee should taste like. I enjoyed a cappuccino that was so exquisite, that I didn't need to add any sugar to it. This is a problem... Because now I'm very fussy about my coffee.

I'll still drink a cup of coffee that isn't quite right, but every time that I do, I'll be thinking about how it's too bitter, or a little too sour, how it's been over-extracted, or probably been burnt in the machine. Every time that I taste an imperfect espresso, or see a cappuccino with a towering head of foam on top, I feel the need to walk over to the barista, give them a stern look, and then set them straight in the not-so-mysterious ways of coffee. (I have actually done this before. Don't judge me. The cappuccinos at the Hoekwil Café are better for it, and the staff have thanked me for sharing my knowledge. So there!)

Anyway, most of the cappuccinos I've had since that day in training have not lived up to my new expectations, which is really disappointing, because I used to enjoy all cappuccinos. My newfound knowledge and skills have deprived me of a constant enjoyment of coffee...

Of course, the utter contentment I experience when I taste a REALLY good cup of coffee is totally worth it... I appreciate it so much more now.


Topic Change! I have the best Grammy in the world. After reading my post about being interested in doing some short courses to improve my writing skills, she sent me over to The Great Courses and told me not to hold back. I sent her links to this one about storytelling and this one about writing fiction, and she promptly bought them for me! So I now have two courses to get to work on, which I'm very excited about. Thank you, Grammy!

Awww, how cute! Very silly. But cute!

Also, puppies!

No, they're not ours. We don't need puppies, we have a permanent kitten. They're just frolicking around the Café and I'm watching them being stupid (i.e. eating actual mud) while I'm writing this post. It's very entertaining.




I'm going to stop writing now. I have a lovely day off to enjoy, which I'll be spending doing whatever pleases me! Cheerio!

A Rushed Post Before Work

This is me trying to write a quick, short blog entry, before going to work. While I'm writing this very sentence, I have an hour before I have to leave home. That hour is also meant for getting ready and stuff, so I'd better not get too carried away here.

We still have so MUCH.

First of all, I made even more pumpkiny food last night. We have so much pumpkin, I'm getting kind of sick of it... And yet, the food was still really tasty (pumpkin, chicken, saucy goodness and rice). And it was tasty again for lunch today, because I made enough to have leftovers. (Whyyyyy? Too. Much. Pumpkin.)

Next. Francois is being totally awesome and creating a header for this here blog of mine. He's doing a silhouette of me on my bike and EVERYTHING. I love him. He works so hard, and I repay him with tea and leftovers and back rubs and never doing enough dishes. I'm a lucky girl, to get so much for so darn little. (If Francois didn't do any of this for me, I'd have to pay a lot of money to get it done. Or I'd have to do it myself, and everything would look horrible, and that would be terribly disappointing.)

Next. I'm trying to type up an educational spot of information for the end of my children's poem, but it's proving to be much trickier than writing the poem itself. I know what I want to say, I've typed it up, and I think it's way too long. I think I need to sit down and sum up what I want to get across in a few short points, and make those points fun to read. Too much content there will just decrease interest, and that won't do at all. So that may take a little while to get right, but that's okay... I've got time.

I'd also appreciate some ideas for causes of chronic pain in children, particularly joint pain, but other kinds too. I want to include some examples, my brain isn't working, and google is proving difficult. I will look again tomorrow when I have more time, but any excellent ideas are always welcome. Hint. Hint.

In between writing this, Francois has been calling me over to give him my opinions on the progress of my header. I've been posing for him, and contributing my point of view, and all of those clienty things. Eep! :D

Well, I now have forty five minutes left to get ready for work. It may not be a spectacular post, but it sure was written quickly! It isn't very short, though. Oops! Well done, me... And sorry to all of you if it was horrible to read.

Time to go make money!

Ranting Over Breakfast

It constantly amazes me that so many strangers find it necessary to tell me what I should do with my life. There are loads of people out there who seem to think that it's their life's mission to give their opinions and advice to people who have by no means asked for it. I'm all for friendly, helpful advice when I need it... But then I'll ask for it, thank you very much.

(Note: Certain close friends and family are welcome to give me advice at all times, whether asked for or not. I'm specifically ranting about complete strangers, here.)

A recent example of this rude advice-giving (and this is a recurring event - same advice, different stranger) took place while I was at work a few days ago. A middle-aged couple sat at a table that I was serving, and when I arrived to get their drinks order, they recognised me. Their faces did seem familiar, so I wasn't surprised when they asked if I'd started studying yet, and commented that I was still waitressing at the same place. Obviously, they'd had a chat with me quite a few months ago, and for some reason I'd made a good enough impression for them to remember details about me. Impressive memories, I must say.

Well, when I replied that I still wasn't studying, because I hadn't quite gotten around to it and still wasn't terribly sure about what I wanted to study, they proceeded to give me a lecture. Rather than allowing me to fetch their drinks and send their food order to the kitchen, they preferred to go on (and on) about how important studying is, especially for women. According to them, as a woman, you need at least two or three pieces of paper to your name for anybody to take you seriously. They made it very clear that I MUST study, that I HAVE TO study, and that I MUST do it very soon.

While I agree that studying is important, I don't think that it's a very good idea to study something that you're not too sure about. (I've made this mistake once. It was a very expensive mistake, and not one that I'd like to repeat.) I'm also not convinced that every career path requires a degree or diploma... And while I'd like to do a short course of some kind to do with writing in some form or another (because that's what I'm pursuing at the moment), I don't want to throw my money at something unnecessarily expensive, just so that I can say that I have a degree.

What strange people... Anyway, I managed to escape and get back to work, but I suppose my interaction with them has been on my mind more than I realised. Hence the rant. Aaaaand... Rant over. Sorry about that.

Fun Fact: We go through about
four dozen eggs in a week.
We like eggs. A lot.

On a lighter note, I had a very tasty breakfast this morning. It's something that I make fairly often these days, but I'm pretty sure it'll get quite a few confused reactions: Pap and fried eggs, with salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. Yum! (My Grammy and Puka taught this one to me.)

Now to have a shower out in the rain (more like drizzle by now, so it's time to just grit my teeth and get out there...) and then visit my Dad for a long-overdue cup of tea. Ciao!


P.S. I'm getting very excited about Carrie the Limping Lion. I've updated things with the help of a few trusted friends and family members, so feel free to swing by and take a peek at the latest version!

A Sci-fi Story Concept

What you're about to read is an idea for a science fiction story that I came up with quite a while ago. This concept led to some brainstorming with Francois, and we thought about creating a comic called "The Last Apple Tree" together. I ended up being horrible at creating content for him to work from, and it got put on a back-shelf for later... Now that I'm writing more regularly again, I'm going to try my darnedest to churn out some interesting adventures for our sci-fi characters to go on, so watch this space! 



Lizbeth's just a regular human being, and that's her problem - nobody's regular these days.

What's worse? She can remember being better, and every now and then she re-lives it again, when her faulty implant decides to wake up and jump back into action.

Most of the time, when it doesn't work, she can barely do the tasks required for simple physical labour - her normal human physiology isn't fast enough, her normal reactions not quick enough, to work with the machines of today. 

Even worse, she can feel her stupidity. No, not her regular intelligence - her actual stupidity. She fights to learn more every day, she struggles to think better... But after so many years - so many generations - of relying on the implants, human beings (and Lizbeth) have stopped exercising their own brains.

"We've evolved too quickly with technology," she realises, "and we've devolved without even noticing it..."

Lizbeth has heard rumours that a huge electro-magnetic flare will be coming soon. Apparently, there have been safeguards put in place, and nothing will be affected. "That's good," Lizbeth supposes, but she can't help but wish that something would go wrong... Maybe afterwards, she wouldn't feel so alone. Maybe afterwards, she'd be the better one.