News Week - 06/17/13

Hello, everyone! As I prepare for CLAN promotion, I wanted to share various sites where you can get book-related updates from. 

    --I now have an author FaceBook page! If you "like" my page, you can get updates easily onto your FB feed. 

    --I have a Tumblr. I post a lot of geeky things as well as anything that inspires me. As CLAN comes online, there will be more artwork posted there.

    --My website gallery has been updated with some concept art. Another gallery will open up once CLAN goes live. 

Coming up next...

CLAN flap copy! 


--Realm

Photos - Engagement Party

Last weekend, I got to plan my engagement party and had a lot of fun decorating and making food. Here is the table full of snacks:

Get it? Lady fingers? With a ring on it:

 Pink Lemonade cupcakes, champagne strawberry cupcakes, pink cookies, rose + pink peppercorn chicken bites, strawberry tarts:

Joey gave me this jade plant at the beginning of our relationship three years ago. It was once the same size as that plastic walrus in the pot, but now it's towering over the walrus:

Party invitation picture--doodled by me:

After Joey and I got engaged, we went to Serafina for dinner. Live piano music was playing Casablanca's As Time Goes By. I got a bellini to drink. Our dinner was steak with peas and potatoes, quail with pea vines, butter lettuce salad with champagne vinegar, and cheesecake for dessert:

Cascades, overlooking Diablo Lake, where Joey proposed:

Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures of the festivities!

--Realm

Trip - Cabo 2013

Joe and I just got back from Cabo. It's been really rainy in Seattle, so we really needed some serious sun and rejuvenation time. One of the reasons why I chose Cabo was because they had some awesome spa treatments. After 10 years of drawing 40+ hours a week, my arms and shoulders needed some healing time. It was time to unwind and get ready for new things. 

Our balcony plus beach:  

For our last night, we got dressed up to go to a cliff-side, fish market style restaurant. The appetizer was sea bass ceviche and mango calamari. The entree I chose was parrot fish, baby corns, and chimchurri potatoes. Dessert = rosemary grilled pineapples.

Went to town one day and got big plates of lobster and fresh squeezed margaritas!

Some animals we met:

During our last day, Joey woke up early to secure us a beach front cabana. We watched the sunrise:

Good-bye, Cabo!

Now I am back refreshed! I'm preparing CLAN for publication and am doing some things for my 2nd book as well. More soon!


--Realm

Developmental Revision Tip

When you get your developmental/global edits back from your editor for the first time, it might be overwhelming. You've spent a long time revising and getting feedback and maybe you've gone through the manuscript multiple times with your agent. Still, an editor will find areas that can improve. As with all things, tackling the revision plan one step at a time will make it a lot easier. I can share with you some things I've done to organize my editor's notes and how I've plotted my revision plan.

First of all, get out some highlighters! Pick each color to represent an aspect of your book. I chose to have colors representing these things: Character A, Character B, Character C, Setting + World Building, and Plot + Pace.

Now that the notes are highlighted, you'll have an easier time isolating sections and organizing your plan. Get out sheets of paper for each category and start compiling the notes and some of your ideas. 

Make a timeline of all the scenes in your book. 

Get a colored pen and cross out scenes you want to cut or mark ones you want to shuffle. Add in notes to improve a scene or add a new one in.

(Hopefully, you don't have to deal with POV changes--but if you do, this might help: use different colored sticky notes to represent a POV change--for example, pink would represent that it was in Character B's perspective. Shuffle the sticky notes around to find a good rhythm and explore if some scenes would be better from another character's perspective.)

This step might seem like a pain but it really helps to see the big picture and saves a headache later on.

Now, when you sit down to revise, hopefully you'll have a pretty clear idea of what you want to do. One page at a time!

After you're finished with your revision, it helps to make the new timeline and double check the flow. Draw out a graph when it ramps, slows, and ramps again.

Good luck!

--Realm

Happy 2013!

'Twas the night before New Year...champagne a'sparkling, space needle a'glistening...

And the new dawn rose, golden...

Happy New Year!!!!!!

I'm very excited for 2013. It's especially a special year to me because it's the debut year for my book. Yippeee! Looking forward to sharing the year with you all!

--Realm

Happy Holiday!

I hope everyone had a happy holiday! It was a very busy holiday this year...lots of gift exchanges to coordinate, parties, dinner, planning, shopping. Christmas songs stuck in my head. Hundreds of logs burned in the fireplace. Several bottles of wine consumed. It was all-in-all a successful holiday.

A couple of things I tried making:

Fruitcake! I don't like fruitcake, but I thought I could make one that I did like--not so dark, dense, and strong, but more of a light version. I soaked a bunch of fruit in rum, molasses, and orange juice overnight. I added it to the batter the next day. I splashed the pan with coconut rum before pouring the batter in. It came out very delicious.

Christmas ham for dinner. My mom and I made the glaze with honey, hoisin sauce, Chinese five spice, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, and garlic. I stuck cloves into the ham and then I pinned pineapple slices and cherries onto it. I served the ham with potatoes and peas. Tasty!

Did you try making something for the holiday? 

--Realm

Party - Apocalypse Christmas Party 2012

This year, we decided on an "apocalypse" themed Christmas party! After all, the world blows up on the 21st, so it only made sense. I trimmed the tree into a disgruntled shape, spray-painted it black, and put up some Mayan decorations around the house. We used red Christmas lights everywhere. I made a volcano so that we can make it explode. And we had a gift exchange in the theme of "what will help someone survive the apocalypse?" Fantastic presents were opened: gas mask, knife, emergency water, pez, cookies, survival book, knife sharpener, duct tape, anti-radiation lotion, and a splint. (My guests were very clever!) My guest brought over dry ice and flammable dessert to make it even more apocalyptic.

Snacks I prepared: Volcano Cake, Mayan Chocolate Cookies, Belizean Chicken, Ash Cheese with Crackers, Volcano Rolls, Coal Candy. (I also bought red hot Cheetos...) We bought stuff to make Lava Flow (pina colada and strawberry syrup) but I confess that we didn't have enough ice to make it.

"Party like there's no to-Maya."

Apocalypse wines:

 I tried to shape these cookies into a Mayan temple:

Pigs in a blanket -- except these are supposed to be people taking shelter from the apocalypse in a blanket:

Snacks! 

 Our volcano!

 Flammable dessert!

Tree ornament:

Goggles and gas masks... we are so prepared!

Hope you guys enjoyed the photos. It was a very fun party!

--Realm