The short version: for this week only Metastasis is on sale for 25% off.
Paperback copy:
CLICK HERE to go to the Metastasis page at Createspace.
Use this code to get your discount — FYXXU8AP
Electronic copy:
CLICK HERE to go to the Metastasis page at Smashwords
Use this code to get your discount — EA29F
The longer version:
Metastasis is the most important anthology I’ve ever edited. It was also the first (if you don’t count Niteblade, and for this, let’s not). I’ve learned a lot since I put this one together, but it holds a super special place in my heart, and on my bookshelf. This was the anthology which helped me deal with my mother’s death and the one that allowed me to work with Jay Lake. The creation of this book was cathartic, not just for me, but for so many other people who were involved with it.
And it’s filled with powerful stories and poems that examine cancer through a speculative lens. And though it’s a heavy subject and not all the stories have happy endings, as one reviewer put it (I’m paraphrasing again) it’s not nearly as depressing as you think.
And a whole whack of the money it generates is donated to cancer research. I can’t remember the exact percentage off the top of my head, but it’s over 60% and includes all my royalties. I don’t make a single cent off sales of this book.
And it’s on sale.
It’s on sale because one of the contributors recently found out he has cancer. His prognosis is good and his spirits are high, but still, it’s cancer. When he got the diagnosis he wanted to find a way to turn that negative into a positive so he emailed me and said, “Hey, can we do a promotion or something of Metastasis to help raise some more money for the American Cancer Society?” and I said, “Lemme ask the publisher!” (I’m totally paraphrasing that conversation. Whatever.)
The publisher said yes and so here we have it. The totally impromptu, turning a negative into a positive, sale of Metastasis.
Pick up a copy for 25% off by using either of the methods I detailed above or if you don’t like Smashwords or Createspace you can find it at all the usual locations as well.
So this is it. The time of year where I look back at the goals I set for 2014 and find out how well I did at reaching them. What’s usually most interesting about this time for me is seeing how my priorities have shifted over the course of the year, the number of things which were really important to me at the beginning of 2014 which I was happy to back burner (which is totally a verb) but the end.
Also, I have a rule. I may explain failures, but not excuse them. Who wants to read a whole blog post of self-justifications and excuses? Not me LoL
So. 2014 goals. How’d I do?
bold = success
tl;dr — Overall, it was a pretty freaking awesome year 🙂
~*~
Health
No drinking pop. Period.
Lose 20 lbs
Lower blood pressure (bonus points if I get to reduce my medication)
Run 5k
Didn’t do so awesomely here. Or well at all, really. I’m still drinking a lot of pop (diet pop, for better or for worse) and my weight has remained steady. Much, much too high, but steady. I *was* making (very slow) progress on that 5k run thing before plantar fasciitis reared its ugly head but once it did I was less than enthusiastic about actively stretching to relieve it or exercising in a way which didn’t aggravate it so… pretty sure that counts as an excuse, not an explanation. The only thing I did manage here was to lower my blood pressure. Alas, I did not get to reduce my medication in the process so no bonus points for me. *pout*
~*~
School
This degree is taking a ridonkulously long time. I need to finish another course toward completing it this year. Bonus points if I manage two, but it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that this is honestly more of a hobby than anything and it must not negatively effect my work.
I didn’t find the time to finish even one course toward this degree. In fact as of last month I became inactive in my program, which is kinda crappy but I felt like my writing and editing took off to such an extent that it would be a bad choice for me to prioritize school over them at this point in time. So what I’m saying is, I’m okay with having failed to meet this goal. I think it was the right decision.
I am really, really, really enjoying editing anthologies right now and I’d like to have at least one more under contract with a publisher by the end of 2014.
I need to come up with a way to set actual concrete goals for promotion. Not only for Fae and Metastasis, but everything I edit and/or publish. Oh hey!
Figure out a way to set concrete goals for promotion. Set concrete goals for promotion.
Solicit writers for B is for (haha not telling yet!) and begin that process
Continue to edit and publish Niteblade, keeping it something I can be very proud of.
Complete the edits on Grammy’s book
Wow. What a year it’s been under Editing / Publishing. Going to tackle all these one at a time…
Audience at Fae Launch at WWC
First, I did finish FAE and I promoted it to the best of my ability. That included getting over my anxiety about holding a physical launch party, and making sure I always had copies of the book on hand at every convention I went to (and I went to three) to sell. Some of these efforts were successful (the party at When Words Collide, for example) and some, like the postcards with discount codes I printed up for World Fantasy were abject failures. Live and learn, right?
I was also successful in pursuing other anthology ideas. My goal had been to have at least one more under contract with a publisher by the end of the year, but I smashed that to bits. I have two anthologies with signed contracts which I’m even now finalizing the tables of contents for and which will be published this year. They are SCARECROW and CORVIDAE. I also have a verbal agreement to begin reading submissions for a fourth anthology for World Weaver Press (tentatively entitled SIRENS: Sea and Sky) this year and publishing it next year.
I did not find any awesome ways to increase promotion efforts for METASTASIS, but even so it earned out all its production costs and began sending small (but emotionally meaningful) donations to support cancer research.
C.S. MacCath reading her A is for Apocalypse story at WFC 2014
I also didn’t come up with a way to set concrete goals for promotion, but I did get far better at tracking the results of promotions, so I’m going to call that a step in the right direction.
We held another successful fundraiser for Niteblade in 2014, raising $510 and (even better for my ego) collecting a whole lot of really nice things Niteblade authors had to say about it.
I didn’t produce a NaNoLJers anthology last year, but that is because there wasn’t much in the way of interest.
A IS FOR APOCALYPSE is awesome. I did, in fact, publish it and promoted it as well as I could. I think in some ways it suffered for being launched so close to FAE but despite that sales exceeded my expectations and it has been very well-received including having stories from it on people’s top five lists,end of the year reading recommendations and getting a handful of nice reviews here, there and everywhere.
Not only did I solicit writers for B IS FOR BROKEN I’m nearly finished editing those stories and I’ve settled on the themes for the next two alphabet anthologies and let the authors know about them so they can decide to sign up, or not, in a leisurely fashion.
Niteblade had a fantastic year with me at the helm and though I’m partly saddened that 2015 will be its last year, mostly it feels like the right thing to do. End on a high note and go out in style 🙂
I completed the edits on Grammy’s book. Added the whole new section she wanted appended to the back, got it formatted, published and shipped to her in time for her to give out copies at Christmas. So, basically, I rocked it 🙂
~*~
Writing
2014 is the year of the novel. It is because I say it is, damn it!
Complete the novel currently known as ‘Hollow’
By ‘complete’ I mean have that sucker ready to start querying agents about
Complete the first draft of at least two other novels
One of these may be one of my pen name projects
Self-publish the zombie poetry book and complete my other plans for it
Write 350 words a day, five days a week. So 1,750 words a week.
Yes. A week. It’s not huge, but I’ve got a lot of other stuff on this list, damn it! :-p
Bundle up and self-publish more of my reprints
Complete sekkrit collaborative project
Participate in NovPAD and/or April PAD
Anything with the word ‘NaNo’ in the title is optional
…except NaNoLJers. Set up prompts for odd-numbered Mondays
Well, despite my intentions 2014 turned into the year of the anthology, not the novel. Hollow is done. Mostly. I had to do a whole extra draft I hadn’t counted on, but now it only needs a final spit polish and it will be ready to start querying. It’s finding the time to do that polish that is turning into a tricky thing.
I also sold my Aphanasian novel, SHADOWS, to World Weaver Press. That required a lot of re-writing and I anticipate at least one, possibly two more passes before it’s ready for release. It’s scheduled to be released some time this year though, so we’ll have to wait and see when that comes to pass 🙂
I did self-publish my zombie poetry book, and a collection of funny zombie reprints. I didn’t find time to ‘complete my other plans’ for the zombie poetry book, but who knows, perhaps a miracle will happen and I’ll find a way to do that this year LOL Could happen…
Still not finished my sekkrit collaborative project with Marge Simon, but working on it. Still working on it. Kind of like the tortoise in that story…
I participated in NovPAD and April PAD. I was not super successful at either but… I got a few poems out of them. I also participated in NaNoWriMo, however in recognition of how busy I was I re-named it MicroWriMo and aimed for 10k words. I wrote just under 8k. Meh.
Also, I had prompts set up and scheduled for odd-number Mondays for NaNoLJers and then I did something very stupid and deleted them all. So, that was a big fail right there.
~*~
Reading
Read at least 50 books.
Have 25% be non-fiction
According to Goodreads I read 63 books (I really ought to keep track of how many stories I read in slush LOL) 11 of which were non-fiction. So, I surpassed the main goal but fell short on the mini one. Of those books my favourites, in no particular order, were:
So… the good news about all the things I missed on this list is that they are all still on my radar, and aside from A Month of Letters I can do them anytime. I’m surprised I missed A Month of Letters this year, so surprised I had to go and check my blog archives to make sure I really had. Weird. I do write snail mail sporadically over the course of the year anyway but historically I’ve really gotten a lot out of A Month of Letters so I’ll have to work pretty hard at re-adding that next year.
Also, I went to three conventions. When Words Collide is my new all-time favourite convention ever. Plus I also attended my second World Fantasy and went to Pure Spec here in Edmonton. The highlight of Pure Spec, for me, was the Character Death Matches (I participated and got my butt kicked. Fun!)
~*~
And there you have it. My year in review or, more specifically, a look at the goals I set last year with an eye to seeing how successful I was.
On paper I wasn’t super successful, but as I mentioned at the start of this (very long) entry, it’s always interesting to see how my priorities shift and change over the year. While my health-based priorities remain the same and I really need to devote more time, energy and effort to them I’m perfectly good with the progress I made on my other goals. Writing a lot of novels got pushed back a bit in favour of editing a lot of anthologies, for example. I’m good with that, and very proud of the results.
I know a great number of my friends struggled through 2014 in ways that meant getting dressed each morning was a victory, but overall, 2014 was a very good year for me. How did it treat you? Did you accomplish most of the things you set out to do? Are you happy with what you managed?
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what 2015 has to offer. I’ll be making a new set of goals for myself and sharing them here in the near future. If you do the same please let me know, I like seeing the goals other people set for themselves, sometimes they help inspire mine 🙂
You know how some fundraising / charity projects never actually make enough money to cover their costs let alone to contribute to the cause they want to support? Well, Metastasis does not fall into that category. The anthology has earned back all it’s production costs and has sent it’s first payment to benefit cancer research! Whoot whoot!
If you haven’t yet and you’d like to pick up a copy, there are links to all the places it’s available here:
and for what it’s worth? Though I can’t find the direct link right now, this book has been reviewed as being ‘Not as depressing as you’d think’ LOL Just in case that’s what’s kept you from reading 🙂
Metastasis is on sale at Smashwords right now through to the 8th. That means if you use the coupon code REW50 you can pick up an electronic copy of this book for $3.48. Dudes, that price is going to be tough to beat. Now I’m biased and I don’t want to give you a hard sales pitch, but for the next week you can support cancer research and get a copy of a great book for less than what I pay for a chai latte. I’d call that a win-win situation.
Each year, like so many other people, I see the changing of the calendar as the perfect time to look back over the past twelve months and set goals for the next ones. It’s super helpful to me and I look back at my goals over and over during the year, whenever I feel myself going off course… They help keep me focused on the things I want to do, motivated when depression decides to rear its ugly head, and give me things to celebrate when I achieve them. Also? Posting them publicly helps make me feel accountable to someone (that would be you lol) and serves as motivation for the thing that is my motivation. Whee!
Because these goals are so integral to my life, I set them in a lot of categories, not just writing. It seems like a lot, but it works for me.
Health
No drinking pop. Period.
Lose 20 lbs
Lower blood pressure (bonus points if I get to reduce my medication)
Run 5k
School
This degree is taking a ridonkulously long time. I need to finish another course toward completing it this year. Bonus points if I manage two, but it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that this is honestly more of a hobby than anything and it must not negatively effect my work.
I am really, really, really enjoying editing anthologies right now and I’d like to have at least one more under contract with a publisher by the end of 2014.
I need to come up with a way to set actual concrete goals for promotion. Not only for Fae and Metastasis, but everything I edit and/or publish. Oh hey!
Figure out a way to set concrete goals for promotion. Set concrete goals for promotion.
Looking forward, with these goals to help me define the trail, I am really looking forward to 2014. I hope it builds on the momentum that developed in 2013 and just keeps getting better.
At the beginning of last year Jo, Danica and I made a ‘Good Things Jar’. The idea was that over the course of the year we would write down good things that happened to us and put them in the jar then, at the end of the year, we’d open it up and read all the great things that happened. Our ability to remember to add things to the Good Things Jar was a little spotty, but we did have a dozen or more little pieces of paper in there which we opened up and read over dinner yesterday. It was a lot of fun to relive some of 2013’s little victories.
Just before we had dinner (and thus read through the things in the jar) I learned that Metastasis was the best selling print book for Wolfsinger Publications in 2013.
Let that sink in for just a moment, I’ll wait.
…
Right. How awesome is that? The best selling print book for 2013! I’m SO pleased.
An interesting thing happened while reading the Good Things Jar notes though. A little piece of paper marked January 2nd said ‘Sold the idea for a speculative cancer anthology to Wolfsinger Publications!’ After we read that Jo said, “Now isn’t that interesting? It went from an idea, to a book, to the best selling print title for your publisher all in a year.”
Isn’t that interesting indeed.
While I’m super pleased to have edited the best selling print title for Wolfsinger Publications in 2013 I’m not done with Metastasis yet. Our sales are good, but they need to be better. They need to be fantastic.
We’ve got a reading coming up with Sandi Leibowitz, Scott Lee Williams, David Sklar and David McLain on February 1st at The Astoria Bookshop (31-29 31st Street in Astoria, Queens, New York City) to start, and plans for more events (online and off).
Can we be the best selling print title two years in a row? Wouldn’t that be interesting? Let’s find out…
What a year. To say it’s been exponentially better than last year would be a huge understatement, but at the same time, it’s been far from perfect. It’s that time again when I look over my goals, see how well I did, celebrate the good things and figure out how to fail better at the others next year.
I’ll list my goals for 2013 below, bolding the ones I figure I accomplished and addressing each briefly. I don’t want to turn this into a novel-length blog post 😉
Health
Lose 25lbs
Successfully complete the P90x program (I’m giving myself permission to swap Cardio X workouts in for Plyometric ones because I worry about my ankle and also, I’m a bit of a wussy)
No energy drinks
Significantly cut the amount of sugar in my diet. I have a complicated set of rules for this for myself, but I don’t want to bore everyone with sharing them.
Right. So I totally fell down on pretty much all my health goals (though I mostly managed to avoid Red Bull). I’m not even sure what happened to tell the truth, I just never managed to get back into the habit of working out and watching what I ate. This needs to be my primary focus for next year though because if I’m unhealthy everything else falls apart too. I may need help remembering that over the coming months though, so I’ll have to figure out a way to address that when I set my goals for 2014.
School
Begin another course (or two) toward my degree no later than April 1st and complete it/them successfully.
I took Psychology 304 – Research Methods in Psychology (which is required for my degree) and passed it with a B+. A very irritating B+. I was point five percent away from an A. >_<
Editing/Publishing
Sell my cancer anthology idea to a publisher.*
Edit the cancer anthology, making sure the end result is something I am proud of.
Promote the hell out of the anthology, ensuring that there actually are royalties to donate to charity.
Continue to pursue my sekkrit projeckt with CJD
Increase Niteblade’s readership and distribution
Begin offering Niteblade in more file formats
Hold a successful fundraiser for Niteblade
Produce a NaNoLJers anthology if sufficient interest exists
I sold the Metastasis anthology idea to Wolfsinger Publications and edited the hell out of that thing. I am *SO* freaking proud of this book. So proud, and my mother (who I dedicated my efforts to) would be as well. We’re still in the process of ‘promoting the hell out of it’ and our first statements haven’t come out so I’m not sure how sales are going yet. Fingers crossed though… and if they aren’t where we want them to be, well, I guess I’ll just have to put some more time in.
This year I did increase Niteblade’s readership, distribution and the number of file formats it is available in. We also held a super successful fundraiser (raising $604!) and even adopted a chimpanzee.
While I did check to see if there was interest in a NaNoLJers anthology, there didn’t seem to be. Maybe next year… And my sekkrit projekt kind of got left behind a bit this year, but maybe that’s something I can look to a little closer in 2014 as well because I sure wasn’t slacking when it came to editing projects this year.
In addition to Metastasis and Niteblade, I’m also working on an anthology with World Weaver Press. You may have heard of it, it’s this little thing I like to call Fae. And I also broke ground on the first of what is going to be a huge series of anthologies, A is for Apocalypse.
Successfully complete the weekly version of Write 1 Sub 1. For the ‘Write’ portion of this challenge I will count completed short stories or poems as well as individual scenes from longer works. By allowing myself to count individual scenes I will be able to work on longer works and still participate in W1S1
NaNoWriMo and both camp NaNoWriMos are all optional
Finish writing poems for all the 2012 NovPad prompts
Actually successfully complete the AprilPad or NovPad properly, without having to make up prompts after the month has passed
Self-publish “Aphanasian Stories”
Look into the practicality of bundling and re-releasing some of my previously published short stories as ebooks
Follow through on my 2012 plans for my zombie poetry
Well, you win some you lose some, right?
For example, I participated in The Whittaker Prize (well, this year’s incarnation was the Not-Whittaker Prize) but when it carried over into November, when I was trying to do All.The.Things including NaNoWriMo I decided to drop out for my own sanity. I was successful with NaNoWriMo however… but then I totally haven’t written another word on my novel (which needs about 30,000 more of them) since then. >_<
I did participate in Writo De Mayo where my primary goal was to transcribe a family history my grandmother had written and format it as a book to give to her. I did, and she loved it very much making the month’s worth of work well, well, worth the effort. (Alas, now she has edited the proof copy so guess what I’m doing in May 2014? LOL).
I also self-published Aphanasian Stories. Sales have been pretty lame (read: nearly non-existent) but I’m glad those stories are out there and available to an audience who might want them, if not today, perhaps tomorrow. Plus, the reviewers seem to like them, so that’s good for my ego 🙂
I’m looking at bundling some of my other previously published short stories to re-sell as ebooks but right now I don’t have enough which aren’t under contract that have common themes, so that’s something I’ll have to look at again next year.
As for the zombie poetry collection? It’s a work in progress. Hopefully I’ll have something to show for it before the end of the year, but I don’t want to rush through and create an inferior product. Because.
Under the writing umbrella for 2013 I’ve had a fantastic year. I’ve produced some stories I’m really, super proud of, and many of them have found homes with dream publishers. Highlights definitely include being published by Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast, work forthcoming in Kzine, Mythic Delirium and the Trafficking in Magick anthology, poetry publications with Every Day Poets and especially the story I co-wrote with Jo for Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories.
Reading
Read at least 30 books
As of today I’ve read 47 published books. I’ve also been privileged enough to read one soon-to-be published book as a critiquer and a couple anthologies I may have mentioned above. I also read a crapload of short stories as submissions to Niteblade and those anthologies, so overall I think I crushed this goal 😉
Post writing prompts/exercises in NaNoLJers on odd numbered Mondays
Run and participate in the writing bingo in NaNoLJers
Don’t forget that life is for living, not leveling
I did well on these ones 🙂 Sadly I didn’t make it to WorldCon, we had some unexpected expenses that needed to be dealt with (stoopid money) and I kinda sucked at putting prompts up for NaNoLJers but other than that I rocked the goals in this area. My month of letters was a lot of fun and I still write to several of the people I met that month (in addition to the friends I’ve always written to — I’ve fallen behind on that, but working on catching up. Let’s blame a crazy autumn, okay?), I did the Blogging from A to Z Challenge with a theme (Niteblade), ran the writing bingo at NaNoLJers and significantly cut back on the amount of time I spend playing World of Warcraft.
My social media retreats have gone very well, except for during the times when I’m in the midst of a promotion or such and need to pop on at least once a day because of that. I think next year I’m going to set a daily time limit for social media stuff rather than trying to avoid it completely for one week of the month. I think it will be better for consistency and also my sanity. Taking a break has definitely been good for my productivity though, and my state of mind. It’s really easy to get caught in a loop when every time something happens you think ‘I need to tweet this!’ Stepping away regularly definitely helped me shift my perspective and live a more balanced life. And that’s what it’s all about, right?
In the next little while I’ll look at my goals for 2014 and share those here, but in the meantime I think I’m going to bask a little bit in the glow of a year which, while it wasn’t perfect, was pretty damn good.
Don’t forget over 60% of the proceeds from Metastasis are being donated to the American Cancer Society to benefit cancer research.
One last thing? If you’ve read Metastasis, please take a moment to leave an honest review of it at your favourite website for that, Goodreads, Amazon, LibraryThing… Reviews are like cookies for writers and editors, we really, really appreciate them.
Fox and I have been engaged in a pretty serious poke war for the past couple weeks, but before that he was a contributor to Metastasis. I’d never heard of Fox before he submitted to Metastasis, but his ghost story engaged me and once I accept it I found him to be extremely easy to work with. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me while I was putting together such an emotion-laden project like this one. Fox is also contributor I’m interviewing on my blog today:
Who or what was the inspiration for your story in Metastasis?
I lost someone when I went through radiation treatment for Lymphoma, and I’m haunted—not just by her but all of them. Penn dealt with extreme cases. The Lady in the Doorway is a catharsis, one of my several attempts to try to heal.
How has cancer touched your life?
It’s touched all of our lives. I’ve suffered rare cell type of lymphoma. They didn’t think I’d survive it, and it shattered me when I did. I think about less in myself and more in others now. I worry for them. Cancer survivors have a connection, especially when you had it young. We’re esoteric, maybe even a bit pretentious about it, and we help each other survive each day. You never think yourself cured. You’re always waiting for it even several years later.
When it comes to cancer, what gives you hope?
Beauty gives me hope. I reel in largemouth bass at Peace, and I rejoiced when I release the fish back into the water. I adore the lights at Yule, the smell of pine. When I sell another story, I feel like my life means something. And then I’ll fall in love, and I know it’s going to rip me apart; yet I run into the storm and give it my whole self to rip and shred only to do it anon.
(POKE)
I am honored to be included in this anthology with such a fine and talented group of authors and artists.
T. Fox Dunham resides outside of Philadelphia PA—author and historian. He’s published in nearly 200 international journals and anthologies. His first novel, The Street Martyr will be published by Out of the Gutter Books this October, followed up by Searching for Andy Kaufman from PMMP in 2014. He’s a cancer survivor. His friends call him fox, being his totem animal, and his motto is: Wrecking civilization one story at a time. Site: www.tfoxdunham.com. Blog: http://tfoxdunham.blogspot.com/. http://www.facebook.com/tfoxdunham & Twitter: @TFoxDunham
Sandi Leibowitz is one of the contributor’s toward Metastasis. Her story, “Alchemical Warfare” is one of friendship and magic (not the My Little Pony kind).
Who or what was the inspiration for your story in Metastasis?
My inspiration for “Alchemical Warfare” was my friend Karen Spencer, who had leukemia. At the time Rhonda put out the call for submissions, I was spending a lot of time visiting Karen at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, during the third of her several-month-long hospitalizations for chemo treatments. This was the third and last, because she’d developed a fungal pneumonia. I couldn’t come up any ideas for the book, so I put the idea completely aside. Karen knew I was working on reviving a children’s book about dragons that I’d dropped a long time ago. In despair one day she said, “Make me a dragon to fight the leukemia.” I wish I could have. Instead, I was able to make her a story. Karen died on September 1st, just before Metastasis became available. But she did read and enjoy my story, making sure to correct my mistake of placing Recreation on the wrong floor.
How has cancer touched your life?
I’ve known a lot of people with cancer, mostly stories with good endings. Two childhood friends, and one college friend, had breast cancer but early detection has kept them healthy. Another childhood friend has a sister with lung cancer, currently undergoing treatment. Yet another childhood friend has been treated for colon cancer and is in remission.
When it comes to cancer, what gives you hope?
I am hopeful that scientists are coming up with new treatments and technology for early detection every day. I’d like to see cancer wiped out utterly in my lifetime.
Sandi Leibowitz has been the Sands Point hag, a medieval psaltery-player, a fundraiser ghostwriting for a Monsignor, a secretary at the Museum of Natural History working behind the caribou diorama and a school librarian. She is a native New Yorker whose speculative fiction and poetry appears in Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons, Niteblade and other far-out places. She has been known to consort with dragons.
Happy Halloween to you, and Happy Anniversary to Jo and me 🙂
The picture there is the most recent one I have of Jo and I together. It was taken at the book signing for Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories in February. Jo and I co-wrote a story that was included in that book, Sea and Sky. Anyway… this isn’t about that book, it’s about our anniversary 🙂
Today is our 9th anniversary. Ask me how I know it’s the 9th… c’mon, ask me. I know it’s the 9th because Danica is in grade ten and she was in grade one when we got married. That is also how Jo knows it’s our 9th anniversary. We are so screwed once Danica graduates from school LOL It’s kind of appropriate that we keep track of our anniversaries that way, though. I don’t know that we would have gotten married it if weren’t for Dani. We both loved each other very much but we didn’t really feel like we needed a ceremony to prove that however Danica really wanted us to be married, it meant a lot to her and so we did. Now I’m happy that we did. We didn’t need a ceremony to prove anything, but there’s something that really appeals to me about being Jo’s wife and partner.
Now, you don’t need to run away, I’m not going to spend a whole blog post gushing about how much I love him but I do want to share one short story with you that will illustrate just how awesome he is.
A few years ago I was all like ‘Gawd, I need a new job!’ and Jo said, “Well, if you could do anything in the world what would it be?” I replied, “Writing, but that will never happen.” Jo looked at me, I mean really looked at me and said, “Why not?” Why not indeed. If not for that question I might still be stuck in a job I hated and so many stories I’m incredibly proud of would never have been written.
Thank you for being awesome Jo. You rock and I love you.
And now… back to business.
Anniversary or not, today is also the last day for two work-related things. It’s the last day you can enter my draw for a goodie bag full of awesome:
