This weekend was my tenth anniversary. It seems a bit surreal to think that I have been married that long. It feels like it was yesterday that Brian and I got married. After ten years of marriage, one dog, and three children (all born at once!) ten years passed by in a bit of a blur. 

It's kind of funny to be celebrating my tenth anniversary the same year that my baby brother got engaged. To me, he's still the little baby boy who loved to crawl into my lap and listen to stories about Sitnalta and Najort. Weird.

Now, I tell the stories to my kids. They're still a bit young for the novels, but I can certainly make up stories for them and I definitely do. Their imaginations never cease to amaze me. It is endless entertainment watching them as they play with one another, and the adventures they create for themselves are a source of inspiration for me. 

Currently, I am working on writing the first draft of the sixth book in The Sitnalta Series. Right now, it's currently called The Wizard's Apprentice, but like all books and all titles I come up with, it is subject to change if anything changes in the book. I really don't like naming books. 

I'm also putting the finishing touches on Sibling Revelry. I have all the music for the first episode, written by Anthony Bastianon and Brett McCaig. Now, we search for the best possible home for it!

Tomorrow is the first of June, and I will be sending out the first edition of my new newsletter. I will also be doing a give away to go along with it, so be sure and sign up for your chance to win great stuff!

So today was both weird and amazing. It was weird because I returned to my old elementary school. It has been years since I'd been in that building. I was there as an author scheduled to give a talk to their grade seven students, and it felt a little bit strange to be walking through those halls with a student escorting me to the library. Truth behold, I remembered where it was, and I didn't need the help! But it was amazing to be able to be there in the capacity of a guest speaker. The Leo Baeck Day School was the first place where I was given the first inkling that I could actually write, and write well. It was my English teachers that encouraged me to keep writing, and to keep telling stories, and to have a couple of them sit in and listen to me speak to their students was almost surreal. Over the course of the day, I gave two talks, one at their southern campus, and one at their northern one. It felt very apt that I gave the talks to the grade seven students. While it is true that the main reason that I wrote Sitnalta was for my brother, what I haven't mentioned was that I turned it in as a creative writing assignments for my grade seven English teacher! (I got an A+, and he asked if he could keep a copy of the story!) When I told the students that, they were shocked. It just goes to show you that you should be a pack rat like me! You never know when an old school assignment will come in handy, for either inspiration, or just for a laugh or two.

I did two readings for them and then I ended up speaking to them about was how I typically go from an idea, or a moment of inspiration, to completing a novel. Then I talked a bit about how the publisher takes that novel through the editing stages, cover art, and finally publication. I showed them the maps I've drawn of both Colonodona and its neighbouring kingdoms, Hadariah, my notebooks of character biographies, chapter notes, and ideas, as well as samples of cover art so they could see how things change from one draft to another. From there, we had a question period, and I loved being able to have a lively discussion with them all. 

The day left me feeling filled with energy and I left grinning. So many of them seem like voracious readers, and hearing that I started writing the character of Sitnalta at their age seemed to intrigue them. Already, they were telling me that they were writing as well. I told them not to wait twenty years before finishing what they started. Keep writing. Write everyday if you can. I hope they take my advice.