I realise that most of my recent blogs have revolved around our adventures sailing.  Well, this one will revolve around my true passion and calling: writing, and more specifically, around the publication of my most recent book.

It takes me awhile to write a full-length novel, mostly because procrastination is so easy.  I'm working on fixing that.  As I worked on In Dreams We Live, I did eventually manage to set a writing routine and stick with it.  Let me clarify that one qualifying word of eventually.  When OPUS II closed for good at the end of February 2017, I got down to some serious writing (well, after a trip to Belize, that is).  So when I returned to the partially finished book (it had somewhere around 65 000 words, compiled over several years) and did some actual, day-to-day writing, I managed to write the final half of the book between mid-March and the end of May.  Final word count rests just north of 130 000, so you can see, if I actually set my mind to it--and the characters and story line cooperate--then it really shouldn't take me 7 years to finish the first draft of a book.  So maybe the next novel (currently sitting at 55 000 words) will arrive before 2020.  One can hope.

At around the 75 000 word mark in early April, I saw a contest for books published before May 19 and thought "Well, there's a goal I might achieve."  Deadlines give you incentive.  I wanted to make sure, however, that this story might actually catch the attention of readers, so I asked some people if they'd be willing to give what I had written so far a read-over, let me know if I should even continue.  Happily, they all agreed I might have something here.  So I kept at it.  Even had one wonderful woman so excited to learn what happened next that I kept sending her sections as I finished--raw and unedited (she was kind enough to ignore all the horrendous spelling mistakes).  I decided by around May 12 that, while I could indeed finish In Dreams by May 19, it would have no editing done, making immediate publication a serious mistake.  So I did not enter the contest, but I did finish my book, and with feedback and comments even as the last word sat blinking happily upon the page.

Then I got down to the editing.  First read-through, just to make sure the sentences made sense, occurred in short order, even though I find it's best to sit back and let things quieten down in the brain before any serious editing reaches the screen.  I plugged everything into CreateSpace (a wonderful self-publishing tool affiliated with amazon), made up a temporary cover so that I had a place holder for later artwork, looked through the digital proof 3 times for format, style, and content, then ordered a proof copy to do a more thorough job of the editing process.  Personally, I love having a physical book in my hands, whether reading it or editing it, though CreateSpace offers both options (physical copy and/or digital proof).  So I sat back and waited for the proof to arrive, expecting a couple of weeks of reprieve before diving back in.  The book arrived within a few days.  I made myself wait a more decent interval before plunging myself back into Angie's world, so that the distance of time would hopefully give me a better perspective.

The basic story didn't change, nor the order of events.  I did tie up some loose ends, fixed any missed typos/grammar/spelling mistakes, altered some sentence structure, etc.  The usual things one might expect in the editing process.  Then I set it aside once more and worked on other stuff.

Near the beginning of August, I took my revised copy and read it through yet again.  Out loud.  Amazing the things you catch when you read it aloud.

I then did some additional research on all things self-published and found two absolutely fantastic resources.  

Draft2Digital provides a platform to reach the ebook markets not affiliated with amazon, so now I have my books available at Kobo, iStore, Barnes & Noble, etc. as well as amazon (Spirit of the Stone, my 2nd book, is exclusive to amazon until November--just the way I had my rights set up), giving me a wider range of potential readership.
And AdobeSpark has a book cover creator which far surpasses what CreateSpace offers in book cover design (still love CreateSpace for the process of paperback creation).  It so impressed me that I redesigned the covers of my first two novels while I was at it.  My cousin made a wonderful painting as per my original concept art idea for In Dreams, but I fell in love with what I created through AdobeSpark and that ended up as my cover art.

With all tools now in hand (paperback, digital, cover art), I submitted my work to the variously chosen venues, clicked "publish," and now have my 3rd fantasy novel available all around the world.  I can't tell you how excited that makes me!

*As of today (Aug. 28), I'm still waiting for the paperback version to appear at amazon.ca.  It should show up soon.  CreateSpace  has it, as does amazon.com, so I'm crossing my fingers that the Canadian store will catch up soon.  You know, being Canadian and all.

We went sailing this past weekend, and we invited some friends to come along for the ride.  

On Saturday, we had the conductor of KMSB join us.  Dave knows his way around water at least as well as he knows his way around music.  He has many canoe trips under his belt, having done most of the backcountry of Algonquin Park among other ventures, and he's assisted on sailboats before, so handling himself aboard Freedom came naturally.  Last week when Mike and I went out, I developed a little mantra to keep myself on an even keel.  There's nothing to fear.  I may have forgotten to use that this week when the wind grabbed us and set us at a lovely angle for sailing.  The expression on my face, Dave tells me, was priceless.  How far over did we heel?  Certainly not as far as my nerves feared, but definitely far enough that the gripping mat beneath my feet shifted and slid, throwing me just that extra bit off balance.  In truth, we heeled at a perfect angle for sailing, but my one-handed death grip on the lifeline while I white-knuckled the wheel and adjusted my stance to feel a little more balanced showed that I needed to remind myself of that little mantra.  There's nothing to fear.  Rule one on the boat: Don't panic.  Rule two: don't fall off.  At least I managed one of them (OK, it wasn't real panic; just overly sensitive startlement; yeah, that's it).

Once I got over my own nerves and just let myself flow with waves and wind, we cut a smooth path toward Burlington Bridge.  And then we entered the channel, and had our first inkling of what we might expect on Lake Ontario.  We hit waves.  Waves enough to kiss near the top of the pier and to smash against the breakwater in foamy delight.  My stomach suggested it might not like this, but we had hopes of things calming down on the other side of the channel past the bridge.  After all, not much wind actually blew, and we wanted to swim near Burlington Beach.  How bad could it get?

Bad enough that raising the jib on the other side did nothing to mitigate the rolling waves, mainly because the wind had pretty much died, leaving behind the waves.  We had water splashing over the bow as it played catch with the boat.  I let the guys know my stomach couldn't handle much of this tossing (luckily verbally, and not physically), so we decided we'd turn around.  Of course, at this point, we had to wait a half hour for the next opening of the bridge.  So I stretched out and lay down (the cushions on our benches are surprisingly comfortable), handing the wheel off to Mike.

We made it back into the Bay and low and behold, no wind.  We'd had wind until the bridge, but it apparently wanted a little rest too.  We put up sails anyway, and Dave had a blast steering us slowly homeward, managing to catch any minute gusts he could find.  Mike cooked up some sausages as we trundled along at 2 knots, and we eventually pulled back to our dock (maybe we had an awkward angle or two as Dave and I and a helpful fellow boater hauled on the dock lines, but we didn't smash into our neighbour boat or the dock, so job well done).  Great sailing, great conversation, great day.

On Sunday, we had Ashley and Matt over.  It was a last minute invitation that luckily they took us up on.  Ashley had the good fortune of receiving some free samples of wine to test for her blog (Caviar Taste on a Bologna Budget), and I happened to mention that her research into this topic would go well on a boat.  And voila, Freedom had company on Sunday.  Now, while we did have some good, if spotty, wind with Dave, with Ashley and Matt, we had gusts up to 9 kph.  Yes, the weather reports said 'gusts'.  The Bay looked like glass with maybe the barest hint of a ripple now and again.  We motored to the bridge.

We had it all wonderfully timed to make the 11:30 bridge raising, and at about 11:15, we saw they already had the bridge up.  What the heck?  Then we saw the freighter barreling toward the canal (it didn't really look like barreling, but those ships are huge and you certainly didn't want to get in its way).  We had a brief scramble as we tried to figure out the proper protocol, then just pulled off to the side to wait, as did most of the other boats who had aimed for the 11:30 slot.  Once the freighter made it through, the bridge closed.  We shrugged and stopped the motor to wait for the next opening.  Which actually happened sooner than we'd thought.  The bridge master just closed it long enough to clear the backlog of vehicular traffic, then raised it again for those of us who had waited for the freighter's passage, so we motored through only about 10 minutes off schedule.  Although schedule implies we actually had a timetable.  We didn't, which is always the best best for sailing.

We pulled up close to Burlington Beach and dropped anchor in a calm Lake Ontario.  Last time we went swimming with Ashley and Matt here, the water felt, in Mike's terms, brisk.  Which basically means bloody chilly (high teens).  Not this time.  According to our water temperature reader, we'd found a pleasant part of the Lake, with a temp of 23 Celsius.  Mike pulled the dinghy alongside Freedom (we'd brought it along for just this purpose) and we used it as a launching point for swimming.  Which worked well for getting into the water, but posed some very amusing difficulties for getting out again.  Much laughter ensued, and we had a fine time swimming, testing out various flotation devices.  [Our ladder at the back of the boat is missing one of the rubber feet that keeps it from rubbing against the hull, so we didn't want to rely on it exclusively--though we did end up using it briefly]

We had some snacks and lunch, then thought we'd sail toward Bronte, pull up to the pier and have a little afternoon drink.  We'd sailed to Bronte before with Ashley and Matt and all liked the little town, so off we set.  Just as the speck of wind that had drifted past abandoned us almost completely.  Our trip planner/chart plotter informed us that at present speed (of about 1.7 knots), we'd reach Bronte in about 5 hours.  After an hour of little progress, we finally concluded that the wind did not, in fact, plan to help us at all, so we turned around and headed back toward the bridge with the intention of going for fish and chips back in Hamilton.

Matt took the wheel and set a course.  And the wind said, "that's better, that's where you meant to go," and gave us a bit of a boost.  In fact, once back past the bridge (a lot of boats chose the 4:30--that is, 16:30--crossing with us, so the channel got a tad crowded, but again, no one hit anything and no one died; and we got to watch a tug boat boot past us going in the opposite direction), the wind pulled us along at closer to 4.5 knots, and on a pretty straight course back to the marina.

Once back at our dock, we did pull out the bottle of wine Ashley had brought for her research, and we all partook of a nice white Ontario wine.  Then went for food.  Great times, great company, great laughs.