I did it! It's just over 51,000 words, and it's done a week early! Granted, I scrapped the majority of what I wrote before NaNoWriMo started, and I had a little prewritten (making me a NaNoRebel), but it's finished! I have completed the final instalment of the Hadariah trilogy that starts with The Strings of the Violin, goes on to The Dybbuk's Mirror (coming out September 2014), and will finish with (the tentatively titled) The Dybbuk's Revenge. It is so weird to be done writing about these characters. I have had them living in my head for so many years now, from when I first came up with the idea for writing a book based on Jewish folklore, to today. It's strange to me to have this sense of completion. I know that I still have edits to do, and more edits, and submitting it to the publisher, and then more edits etc. But for me, the hard part is over. The series now has a concrete beginning, middle, and end. It feels bittersweet. It's odd to no longer have to return to these people's lives and add more to it, because I feel there is no more for me to tell. I'm at a bit of a loss right now. 

In my other worlds: Sitnalta's sequel is chugging along nicely. I have the playground of Colonodona still to visit. I'm doing well there. I'm also adding up my list of cons and fairs that are to be attended this coming year, and it looks to be longer (and possibly American in some cases)! Bath Salts is offline temporarily. This is exciting news! Severed Press is doing an epic rerelease and relaunch with a brand new cover, and bells and whistles (sold separately). We will be appearing on Bathtub Bran's webcast in celebration.

My own celebration is as follows:

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a Torquere Author Chat on Google Hangouts and YouTube. I had an amazing time and got to meet some other fantastic authors. If you missed it, the whole chat can be watched here:

It was as if I was at a convention panel, but in the comfort of my own home! It was really nice to talk about writing, NaNoWriMo, and hear how other authors get their inspiration, and do what they do.

In other news, there is a Goodreads giveaway going on now where you can enter to win a signed copy of The Strings of the Violin. The link is here.

And now, since I am participating in NaNoWriMo, I think I am out of words for the day. However, I am officially over 24,000 words on the book I'm working on... YAY!

Now back to The Daily Show where Patrick Stewart has jumped on the bandwagon of mocking Rob Ford. COME ON MAYOR FORD! EVEN CAPTAIN PICARD IS MOCKING YOU! STEP DOWN AND GET HELP!!!! and that's all i have to say on this topic. i'm done.

It's that time of year again, and National Novel Writing Month is creeping up on us. Once again, I have decided to participate. What will I write about this time? Zombies? Trolls? Dybbuks? I am vacillating between a few ideas. I have a whole list of story ideas I would love to put down. I will probably choose one of those.

In other news, I am embarking on another blog tour, and I am enjoying this one immensely. Keep your eyes open on my Facebook page for my stops and what's going on there. There will be interviews, reviews, excerpts, and guest posts written by me on a lot of wonderful people's pages.

This Saturday, An and I will be appearing at the Toronto Zombie Walk to sell Bath Salts, and our official poster. We won't be the only ones there, there will also be thousands of shambling zombies! I've been thinking that a place like Zombie Walk would probably be the worst place for a zombie outbreak to begin. It would be quite difficult to tell who was among the afflicted, and who just had an awesome costume and makeup job. Hmmmm..... I smell a book idea there...

This is probably the perfect time of year for something like the Zombie Walk. Halloween is just around the corner, and with that in mind, guess what's happening on Halloween! That's right! That is the day that Sitnalta will be available as an ebook! The book that An affectionately calls "Princess Troll" will be available to buy. I am ridiculously excited. I have had these characters bouncing around in my head since I was thirteen years old and making up stories for my little brother. Now everyone will be able to read some of them.

Here is the official blurb from Pandamoon Publishing:

"Her third published novel, Sitnalta is a young adult fantasy. In the land of Colonodona, being a princess is not all fun and games. It means being shackled to the ancient tradition of an arranged marriage to a King that Princess Sitnalta does not love. Left with no other choice, the princess runs away as the King tries to find Sitnalta while Sitnalta tries to find true love."

In even more exciting news, Brian and I are going away on our first trip together since the triplets were born! We are going to New York, and this means SHOWS!!!! I have a (longish) list of things I would like to see, and I know there is no way I will get to see them all, but I will sure have fun trying!

While I'm gone, Pandamoon will be having a launch party on Facebook, for both myself and fellow author Jackson Baer for his new book The Earth Bleeds Red. Check out the link here, and be sure to stop on by for games, giveaways, and other fun stuff. Even though I'm out of town, with the help of the internet, I will be able to fully participate!

My crazy busy summer is definitely full to overflowing with things I need to get done, and things I've committed to doing. And to top it all off, I've become an Arbonne consultant. First of all I love the products, second of all, some people I respect very much have taken me under their wing and I have met so many amazing people and heard so many fascinating stories, which, money aside, as a writer is just incredible. I have never seen such a close-knit group who support each other's endeavours so whole-heartedly.

Back to writing! My chair that I had in my office was an old chair I got from my Bubbie Minnie. She was my dad's mom and I took her chair. It looks like an old wooden dining room chair with mustard yellow corduroy on the seat cushion. Not great for sitting for long periods of time at a desk in front of a computer. So today, while my husband and I were at Staples, I found a new chair and just bit the bullet and bought it. So far, my back thanks me.

More exciting news! An and I are having our official book launch this Saturday at Milestones at Empress Walk (5095 Yonge Street) between 2-4 pm. If you're in the GTA, stop on by! I'd also like to give a giant "thank you" to Milestones for sponsoring our launch. Guys! We have a sponsor! This is too awesome!

I am still making progress on the third Hadariah book and the sequel for Sitnalta. Slow and steady everyone. Maybe now that I can sit for longer at my desk, I'll stop it with the lame excuses. Okay, my chair and Candy Crush. That game is pure evil.

Well summer is gearing up to be a busy busy time! An and I will have a very exciting announcement coming up about a Bath Salts launch party this month. Stay tuned for that! You will not want to miss it if you're in the Toronto Area. It's sure to be a wild time. No one throws a party like An Tran, and with the two of us colluding on it, well... hilarity should ensue! Preliminary plans involve food, drinks, and zombies walking around. Now we just need to find zombies...

Speaking of zombies, we have officially signed up for Toronto's Zombie Walk as vendors for this October! I know it seems like a long time away, but you have to plan ahead. I am excited about this one! Me, An, and thousands o zombies set loose on the streets of Toronto. I have been practising my makeup application to look sufficiently zombie-like. I think I may have to go with the stage makeup look I did on myself when I played Beth in Little Women as she was dying horribly. It looked sickly from the audience point of view with the stage lights, but up close, everyone said I looked like a member of the undead.

Also coming up this summer, An and I will be returning to The Pirate Festival! Yaar! We will be selling both Bath Salts and the new Prizm Books version of The Strings of the Violin. Come on down and see us in full pirate wench garb in our awesome tent! Later that month we will be official guests at the Toronto FanExpo along with Max Brooks (so excited about that!), Lena Heady, and George Takei! Norman Reedus will be back, as well as his Walking Dead brother Michael Rooker.

As for my other books, Book Three of the Hadariah chronicles is underway, I have started a sequel to Sitnalta, and I have a new novel idea that will be set in Sitnalta's universe tentatively title The City of Arches. Also, Sitnalta is scheduled for release this August as well. I have been having weekly phone meetings with my Pandamoon editor, and everything is right on track. I am so excited!

This month is also the Toronto Fringe Festival, and like every year I have a whole list of shows I'd love to see there, and hopefully I will get to at least most of them, if not all. There seems to be quite a few Shakespearean spoofs going on this year, one of which has puppets. I have to say that this intrigues me...

I know that this blog is a bit disjointed today, but I am feeling a bit disjointed. Apparently I somehow managed to perforate my eardrum. How did I do this? When did it happen? The weird thing is that I have no clue! I think I'll blame the triplets. It seems like the simplest answer. It's just one of those things.

In the land of disjointed entries, this is where I will put my estimate for a release date for The Dybbuk's Mirror I'm going to say that I hope to have it out by early 2014. Should all go well with The Strings of the Violin (Out now! Get your copy!) this seems reasonable to me.

Oh! Also August, The Canadian Jewish News will resume printing! I don't know how many of you know what was going on, but The CJN had to stop printing due to budget issues. There was a public outcry, and lots of public support rallied, and now our paper is back! Coming up in the August edition, I was interviewed by one of their reporters, and this interview will be printed there. It's amazing what we can accomplish if we band together. Eh?

Basically, this small announcement is one I am very excited about! I have all three of my upcoming release dates! Bath Salts is coming up fast with the ebook ready to drop on May 10, 2013. The paperback edition will follow shortly after that. One week to go! Yikes! There is much to do to get ready for this.

The Strings of the Violin will follow shortly after that with a release date of June 26, 2013. I will be having an online launch party with contests and games. 

After that comes Sitnalta which is being released on August 27, 2013. This is definitely shaping up to be a very busy summer. Lots to do, things to plan, and celebrating to be done! 

As if I don't have enough on my plate, I am props manager for Angelwalk Theatre and KooGle's coproduction of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. This loads in to the theatre tomorrow, and show week continues from then. Oy. It looks to be an amazing show. If you're in the Toronto area between May 14- June 2 you should definitely check it out. (An says she's probably going four times!) Tickets are available here.

It's another quick entry this time. More updates: An and I have finally finalized the cover for Bath Salts! I am revealing it here for you all to see. We are very proud of it and it took a lot of time to go through different versions with our publisher. I have put the final version below. We feel it captures the mood of the book, as well as the zombie-ness of it all. (It's a word!)

What do you all think?

Well, Chanukah's over. Now we have to find spots for the toys the children have acquired. They are having a blast playing with all their new stuff. It's great watching them figure out what everything does. Joseph and Phillip are fighting over their Mickey Mouse figurines, while Hailey is loving her new baby.

I have a bit of the post holiday blahs. I don't want to take the decorations down, or acknowledge that it's over just yet. Soon, our friends will be in from out of town for Christmas, so I suppose it's still going on in some way. We will have our holiday party with everyone and their children, and we will get to see everybody again. That's always the great thing about this time of year. It's not the presents and the food. It's about being with everybody.

The triplets are growing so fast now. It's amazing the changes I see everyday. Not only that, their vocabulary is getting a lot bigger. Joseph's new favourite word is "cow". I read him Good Night Moon every night, and he has to find the cow on every page and tell me what it is. Phillip now tells me when he has to go. Every time he feels he must leave a room, a house, the car, he points and tells me "go go go". Hailey has developed this fascination with the parts of the body. She can spend hours pointing at the parts of the face, and tell you what they are all called. She also knows her tummy, fingers, toes, and bum. That last one always makes her laugh.

On the writing front, I have decided to do more work on the zombie novel before I move on to the third Hadariah book. I know how the trilogy will end, but I don't want to leave this new project so close to completion. I will pick up on the Hadariah books soon. The Dybbuk's Mirror is now in good hands awaiting opinions and suggestions. Then we shall see what the world thinks of it!

Now a picture of storytime:

I am trying desperately to work on my next book, and I'm finding that with the kids able to climb things, and figure out drawers and doorknobs, dishwashers and dvd players, there just aren't enough hours in the day. I almost wish for the days when they were little blobs that didn't do much! But then, I see their smiley faces and hear them try to speak, and sing, and dance, and I realize that I like them as they are. I just need a way to add a few hours to my day where I'm not too exhausted to write stuff. I have my outline complete for what may be the finale to a trilogy about Hadariah, and I know how I'm starting it, and ending it. Now I just need to fill in all the middle bits. Easy. Right? No. Not at all. I have this going on, and all the festivals and stuff. I also did a really fun interview which can be read here. So things are happening all around, which is very exciting. I just need to learn to function on no sleep, so I will have more time to actually write. Let's just say that caffeine will become my very best friend. (No offense to my humsn friends.)

In other news not related to anything of importance, I have a simple question: Why do children's toys have an adult proof way of assembling them? I recently bought our kids a castle for the backyard. Three adults, and three days later, the darn thing was still in pieces all over the deck! I was ready to tear my hair out in frustration. The instruction manual had pictograms illustrating how the pieces should fit together, but really, a man doing chinups on a plastic wall is not a very helpful representation of assembling something. Luckily, my sister had purchased the exact same thing for my nieces. She was very helpful in coming over to work on ours. To my eternal embarassment, it took less than ten minutes with her help to get ours in working order. Thank you Jodi. You are appreciated very much.

First things first: This week has been amazing in the amount of news I have to share with all of you guys! I don't know how many of you follow the Toronto theatre scene, but Angelwalk has been nominated for three Dora Mavor Moore Awards! This is too awesome! I Love You Because has been nominated for Outstanding Production, and Jeff Madden has been nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male. Also, Off Broadway On Stage has been nominated for Outstanding New Musical/Opera. This is amazing! In other news, I will be returning to the stage. I am so excited about this. I got offered the role of Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof, and can't wait to start! I have always loved Shalom Alekhem's Tevye stories, and the musical that is based on them is phenominal. So much to be excited about. Yay!

This summer is gearing up to be a busy one. This August, I have FanExpo, and earlier that month, I may be appearing at The Pirate Festival. This looks to be a fun opportunity to dress up, meet readers, sell books, play with pirates! When I know more, I will definitely pass on the information.

As for the new book, I have added a page for it on the website. If you want to check out a short teaser, feel free to click the link on the header. Yes, I have not unveiled the title as of yet. I am strongly leaning towards one in particular. I will be making an annoucement shortly. I promise. No Leo, it is not called The Keys of the Piano, although I will admit I had a good chuckle over that suggestion. Stay tuned for more updates.