The Other Bag
I’ve been putzing along on The Veil of Magic book III, and thinking about the editing to come for There’s a Witchdoctor In My Grandmother’s Bathroom (still the working title).
Editing Feather Brain went very quickly and easily, and was carefully timed to be finished before I left to the US for a trip (when I would be almost completely unavailable). Everything was finished, ready for printing, and I was packed, ready to leave very early the next morning, when I got an email: “Oops!”
A line editor had (thankfully!) caught an error my editor and I had completely missed. Lucas took the beast to the zoo in a bag. The beast returned, but, somehow, miraculously, so did the bag! The line editor joked the beast must have brought it back tucked under his wing.
I didn’t have time to do a rewrite before leaving, so in a flurry of emails we agreed to hold off on printing until I was back from my trip (in two weeks), and could rework it. Then the evening event I was supposed to go to was cancelled, and I had a brainstorm for how to fix the problem. I created a new bag for the zoo trip, leaving the original to carry on through the rest of the story, and did a little massaging of text to make it all work. Then I emailed it to Orca and left on my trip.
I was able to check my work in the page proofs when I got home – it all worked. But so much for careful planning!
Maureen
Page Proofs!
The page proofs just arrived for Crow Boy. This is an exciting moment – it almost looks like a real book. A small crow is being used as a placeholder for the glyph. It’s charming – hopefully the final version will be even better.
Having printed out the proofs and gone ooh ah over them, I’m going to ignore them and work on the third book in the Veil of Magic series.
Maureen
Haze of Fireweed
Fireweed creates a haze of purple, soft under the stark black tree trunks. When the blooms fall, the seedpods and stems create a softer red haze.
Maureen
At Marble Canyon
Another trip to the mountains = more photos!
Marble Canyon in Kootenay National Park is stunning now, six years after a huge fire. The burnt, standing trunks create a sculptural effect, white and black lines against a ground of green and purple.
Maureen
Wild Animals
We spent a couple of days in the Canadian Rockies, and saw more animals than ever before: a black bear, a young moose, several mountain sheep, a coyote, and a lynx. Plus the usual small guys – chipmunks mostly – and birds. Lots of crows. I heard a loon, although I didn’t see it. And more story ideas started cooking, which is the most satisfying of all.
Maureen