In honor of National Poetry Month, I wanted to share the collection of poetry I am currently enjoying. Over the past year, I kept seeing lines of poetry from Mary Oliver in numerous places from research texts to Instagram accounts. I’ve found it’s one of those odd things about books or really any art. Even a prolific or cannon writer may not always be one I stumble on, or it may not the right time.

Receiving Oliver’s compilation of work as a gift turned out to be a gift at the right time. Complied by the poet, who unfortunately passed away in 2019, Devotions was created and arranged by Oliver.  I have taken my cue from the title and used it as a way to start my morning. While I have struggled in many ways with the idea of faith and with the structure of religion, beginning the day with a poem and one by Oliver who focuses so much on nature, on spirituality through the senses, and wonder, I have found it as centering.

What poetry have you been loving this month?

One of the fun parts of the self-published author route is getting to learn and pick up skills that I may never have considered before. The first few goes were definitely frustrating in terms of formatting my e-book and my print book. In following along the formatting style guide for the Smashwords distribution site--it all felt easy. Familiar.

                I’m still not super good in following all the bells and whistles possible, but I’ve been using the free version of Canva to make my book covers ever since my first attempt at Moonshine (may it rest in peace) was too low resolution to use.

Canva works similarly to a lot of the design platforms I’ve experienced--you build things using the concept of layers. You can make some things transparent, overlay colors, put on text boxes. It can get frustrating, to me, in that selecting the item or layer you’re working on isn’t always super intuitive. A lot of times my covers get done when I’ve thrown my hands up in the air one too many times. But Canva is helpful in that I can create covers I’m proud of using images I’ve sourced. They may not have all the bells and whistles possible, but I’d like to think they get the job done. Plus it is actually really fun to source images and put them together in a way to convey a design or aesthetic about my book. I have covers for books that have yet to see the light of day because I found an image that worked so well with the plan. It really is fun to change font types, to change an image’s orientation on the page to look completely different.

                Because I have book e-books and print books, I also need two different versions. For e-books in particular, while I tend to upload with color, I need to make sure it looks good in greyscale as not every e-reader converts. I had one of the first Nooks from Barnes and Noble forever and that was true for me. For the print brooks, it needs front cover, it needs the spine, it needs the back cover. All useful things and all things that require thinking through how the cover will look even as you design on one large rectangle. I always start with a standard size for the print cover (Amazon’s Create Space has a template as I’m sure do others). I always have to end up adjusting it though because the actual size needed will depend on the number of pages--so I always try to keep my spine style congruent with the front and back cover so that way I don’t have to do too much adjusting. If you want a very bold, very different spine, make sure you build in time for adjusting.

                Building the cover does require images. If you’re looking to keep your price low (aka free) your best bet is to use images that you took yourself or created yourself or look for public domain pictures. I’m not an expert at copyright--so I try to make sure the site I’m on notes it as public domain and I also double check the year. The older the image the more likely it is to be in public domain.

My covers themselves have images from different places. Moonshine used a photograph I took in Ireland. Catspaw was from looking through photographs posted on Morguefile. Morguefile is a great site because it’s images that photographers have taken and then posted that are free for commercial use. I reached out to the photographer that posted the image I used in my basis for Catspaw and received permission to use it. Don’t Belong to No City had a much simpler search as maps often fall under federal agencies, many of whom also provide public domain images. The map I used was from the late 1880’s increasing the chances it would fall under public domain.

                For Middle Ground, my next book, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted the cover to be. I ended up using two images that are listed on public domain after searching Europeana. Europeana is a one-stop show to browse digital collections from libraries in the European Union. You can sort by types of permissions as well--which is really helpful.
Here are the two images I used to build my Middle Ground cover--and I also used the still life of flowers to create new blog headings to match:

Quick tip! Always make sure to save the link of where you found the image along with the creator’s name in order to give proper credit. You can find that usually in the front or back matter of any books you look at including information on who designed the cover. My books tend to list that at the front cover.

Here are the full links for the two images used above:
https://sammlungonline.mkg-hamburg.de/de/object/Kopf+mit+Heiligenschein/AB1988.336/dc00029988
https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/2021672/resource_document_mauritshuis_548

I had a chance over the holidays to sit down with the wonderful book, Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book weaves together Wall Kimmerer’s experiences and knowledge from the multiplicity of her identity in a way that takes the reader on a journey through scientific knowledge, history, and cultures. Wall Kimmerer showed how her approach to teaching changed as she grew more confident that the ways to reach her students also meant reframing the paradigm. She challenges the western approach to scientific knowledge, the patriarchy and the hierarchy of academia, and the view of nature as driven by their value as resources. She does the by demonstrating that humans are in a relationship with other entities; a plant, a rock, an ecosystem, have their own knowledge and abilities. The book frames ways to consider knowledge and viewpoints and encourages all readers to consider their relationship with land usage and how it is a fraught conversation.

After finishing the book, I was left with a great deal to ponder and examine. My parents garden but in my own adult life, I have never attempted to keep plants. To read and hear about all the knowledge within the cycle of chestnut trees, as one example Wall Kimmerer uses in her book, furthered my understanding.  Her book showed how many natural cycles have been disrupted and knowledge lost. Humans have a hand in the disruption and the destruction. Humans will be needed for the solution.

Happy New Year!

I spent New Year’s Eve playing a Sherlock Holmes game, where my parents and I looked for a conspiracy at every turn. I also spent some time thinking about resolutions, about what I wanted to accomplish this year. It is an odd time to consider goals, to plan, to consider how to step away, when events in the world, and in the U.S., without stop.  

Yet, I am attempting to carry on and, in some ways, have tried position it in my brain as a way to rebel. There is a lot I cannot do so I do what I can. I wear a mask, I try to avoid populated gatherings, I vote, I donate money. I also write. I plot and research for my next book. I’ve started journaling, and a quilt, and planning my next trip.

Self-care has been a buzz word, I have no proof, but I’m guessing its popularity tracked right after the time burnout became a part of mainstream conversations. Like many things, self-care has often been positioned as a way to increase purchasing. Self-care as in new bubble bath, wine, sneakers. Self-care as code for eating healthy as code for losing the weight. Self-care as a new skincare product because we all deserve it. Maybe that’s my experience based on the ad algorithms and a sign I spend too much time scrolling through social media.

At its heart though, self-care does suggest the need to check-in. Check on those standing calendar appointments, check on those spiraling thoughts, the people and support systems in your life. What’s working? What’s not? What’s missing? What’s too much? This self-reflection is new to me, and while I’ve done it previously it’s normally in reaction to event, to when I’m feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or when I’ve already through it and realize wow, I was not doing good for a while there.

When I had migraines on a more regular basis, my doctor told me to keep a journal. I was supposed to record when the migraine hit, symptoms (aura, nausea, pain scale), along with triggers I could identify. There is something about being purposeful about my emotional state in much the same way that has gone a long way to helping me. Getting stressed or annoyed? Take a deep breath. Write it out on a piece of paper. See what I can change and then put in the steps to do it.

If there is anything 2020 has taught me, it is the need to be purposeful with myself and finding out what I actually want to spend time and focusing on and what I don’t.

First, here is a distracting photo of the two batches of cookies I made yesterday: chocolate chip and snickerdoodles. The recipes for both come from typewritten index cards from my grandmother.

Now on to the hard bit:
Almost two months, I updated the blog with the next book. I also (foolishly) put out a release date of October 31.

You may have noticed no book.

This process, as I have alluded to before, all comes from me. As a self-published author that does this for her own benefit that means every step in the process is done by me. There is a lot I enjoy about it, but it also means when the rubber hits the road, it is also all on me. The release date for October 31 was ambitious. A part of me really wanted to be done so then I could perfectly segue into National Novel Writing Month. In the end, neither happened and I’m instead just sitting down to write this blog post.

I don’t like not meeting deadlines--even self-imposed ones. If this experience, and really year, has taught me anything it is to appreciate the small moments over the bigger ones. Setting the date for October ended up overwhelming me, and I did nothing instead of the something I had managed over the previous months. I hope everyone is also learning to give themselves some grace in not being able to accomplish everything their hearts and minds want too. I am definitely still learning.

Once I have a more concrete date, I will make sure to update all the things. I hope to also begin sharing with you more about the book and the cover art! I’m excited for the story and hope to have it to you soon!

Check-out the blog next week for more about creation of the cover and in the upcoming weeks for excerpts and snippets!

I used to have a hang-up(s) about yoga. I never thought I would be one of those people. In my head, people who did yoga filled out to a caricature of expensive cloths, expensive classes; naturally skinny people that go to yoga and then brunch. I never begrudged them the brunch--I will never begrudge anyone brunch, brunch is great. It’s probably easy to tell the hang-up were mostly my own insecurities in that yoga seemed like a black box. I wasn’t flexible. There were so many kinds, and I’m not a huge fan of group classes to start. It’s also fair the craze that swept the nature originally likes to call back to roots of a practice that is part of a Hindu religion. What I’ve found on the score shows mostly what we practice here in the U.S. is only loosely based on what is practiced in the religions--but, still a name is a name is a name.

All that to say, I didn’t get it. I didn’t want to get it. Then I hurt my knee and was worried about the high-impact running causes on the joints. The physical therapist had cleared me but I still was slowing working my way back up to doing any exercise besides walking. Then I went and watched the Chicago Marathon. Definitely, an endorphin rush, and I wasn’t even the one running. So I decided I’d get back into this running thing. Then the pandemic happened. Chicago, rightfully so, closed down the lakefront trails, the parks, people were encouraged to stay indoors. Then it rained. I needed to do something and I figured yoga would be a low impact way to trick myself into doing something and I could work my way up to other stuff. Whew, boy.

I started on youtube and found a playlist with thirty days of yoga (yogawithadrienne to give credit where credit is due). It took me two months of listening to my body and working my way through moves that were unfamiliar to me and yet also shapes I had done in other ways. Then I continued it. Another thirty days of daily yoga practice. Now yoga in some fashion, energetic, or  stretching, 15 minutes and up is something I like to do every day, and with a few exceptions, I’ve met it. I think I’ve been able to stick with this practice, even with everything in my life and in the world, in that it continues in the soft vein and I’m also seeing results. Not just in ways I thought, liked increased flexibility, but also in less wrist and back pain. The amount of actual muscle tone is also a surprise. When this is all over, I’m still not sure I’m quite over my block about in-person class, but I think it’s skills and an activity that I want to continue.

Hope wherever you are that you have been able to find new ideas, practices, activities to help your well-being!

One of my first courses in earning my degree at library school brought up ethical conundrums a librarian may face. Having never really considered this before, I was surprised by the many different ways librarians are challenged. From the books, and other media, to possible restrictions on sites that may be accessed by computers, all are ways to either help or create barriers to community.

I recently thought back to those as I am fact-checking my current historical fiction. Needless to say my search history would not give anyone pause, but it was interesting to reflect that before the internet my searches--some already frustrating--may have been even more so. My searches have led me as far as afield as when tea, and what kinds, would have been available in Britain during the 1810s--which lead me down some rabbit holes and I now know more about the Opium Wars and how that interacts with the larger history of trade. I now know more about gin, champagne, and bourbon as well. Those led to more interesting results.

But what my searching has shown me, is there are a lot of really passionate people in this area. A lot of the culture, clothing, housing, has come from blogs in addition to other sources. A lot of digital archives of census records and museum archives has helped provide detail and depth in ways that surprised me. The internet has helped make a lot of passion projects reality. In thinking back to my librarian training days, I am reminded that the ability to access information is a privilege hard-won whether that information is on the popular form of decorating or on accurate maps.

My wonderful readers, I have updated my Coming Soon page here on the blog!
Mainly because the muse is the director, and I can only sort of quietly nudge her back into the lanes I thought were mapped out.
To that end, the third and fourth books in the Ravanna Series are drafted. The third, Bone Marrow, is more or less complete--yet I am struggling with moving it forward. When I wrote the story the plot went in a particular direction. Those books in general are written in an odd way, and it did so sort of wild. I am struggling what to do with it. Until, I get it planned out, there can be no third or fourth book. So they are planned. They will continue--just without any definitive time.

The second book in the New World has a title, and I really thought I would start writing that second book immediately. That’s what I did with the Ravanna Series--in fact I really wrote straight through books 1-3. That has not happened so for now there’s a title, I am excited for that universe--just not right now.

So the big news actually, is the next book is (tentatively because this year has been a mess) scheduled to release May 2021. I’m pretty confident where I’m at with it and hope to stick to my guns. That means watch this space for the cover reveal and teasers and count down! The book, Middle Ground, is a historical romance. I can’t wait to hear about what you think of Eveline and her story!

In general, I’ve been sticking to one book published every two years. A part of me would like to go faster, but then my brain tends to decide it doesn’t what to write, and also kind of would like to talk to other people. As always the book writing, editing, formatting, proofreading, cover designing, all happens around everything else.

More details soon!