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January 2018 Fly-By Status Report – I joined a writer’s group!
Greetings, readers! Nice to see you on the other end of Christmas & New Years! Finally. Dang, I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to put my thoughts and hopes for this year in blog post form yet, til now, when January is ALMOST OVER! (I’m curious, who actually reads these updates, or are they pretty much just for me? If you do, leave a comment and say hi!) Right now I’m typing to the dulcet sounds of workmen trimming the giant tree in my front yard (buzz saws and thuds on my roof), and now that I finally got WordPress to upload images again (ugghh), it’s time for my January…
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Jan. 2017 Fly-By Status Report – My Favorite Time of the Year
Merry Christmas and Happy 2017! I’m still over here celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas, doing a lot of nothing, and baking ^_^ But it’s that time again to think about all the things I want to do next year that I didn’t do this year. I’m pretty enthused for a fresh start! Last year about this time, I wrote my 2016 New Years resolutions on a red Starbucks cup. Lots of good intentions, but the ones that really, truly happened and stuck were landing my perfect job situation, as well as taking significant and progressive steps to getting more physically and spiritually healthy <3 Of course, there’s always more to…
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Curly Vine Pumpkin Garland (FREE Crochet Pattern!)
WHOA, guys, it’s my first crochet pattern! And here’s its Ravelry page! I made this pumpkin garland to hang up in my house during autumn. It’s pretty long (~110 inches), made to fit into a certain location, but you can make it shorter with less pumpkins. I’ll mention how to do that when it comes up in the pattern. Stitch Key sl st – Slip stitch ch – Chain stitch sc – Single crochet dc – Double crochet hd – Half Double crochet tc – Triple crochet Supplies Hook, size H/8 (5.00 mm) Orange yarn to go with the hook size Brown yarn to go with the hook size Steel Hook, size 3 (2.10 mm) Green…
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May Madness
I don’t know how May always becomes a month of crazy, no matter how many times I try to make it NOT crazy. I have such good intentions, but by the time I hit mid-May, I’m consistently neck deep in work! But sarcastic JT aside, other than feeling stressed about it, everything that I’ve been doing the past month has been really awesome! I’ve been juggling two part jobs, as well as a Paint Love project. And I’ve still been crocheting and doing some other art projects, particularly card and gift making (because TONS of family members and friends have anniversaries and birthdays in May, more than any other time…
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Project S.T.I.R.: Mediterranean {Armenian} Egg Fight/Game of Eggs
In which I goofily teach an Easter game that my family has played since I can remember. It’s called an egg fight (or an egg war), and no, you don’t throw eggs at people. To avoid confusion, I’ve renamed it “The Game of Eggs,” where you either win, or you crack. Wervyn helps me demonstrate! Want More Armenian Food Traditions? Check out my family recipes for Rice Pilaf and Fassoulia (Tomato String Beans)!
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NaNoWriMo 2015 & 10 Twilight Zone Eps. I Want to Adapt as Flash Fics
Happy Halloween! And for all you writers out there, Happy NaNoWriMo as of Nov. 1st! It’s time for my annual Twilight Zone Episode list, you can read 2013 and 2014 here, but this year I want to do it a little differently. My plan for NaNoWriMo this year is to write a set of 30 short stories, each at a minimum of 1666 words. Longer flash fics, if you will. I’ve been wanting to write an anthology of re-written fairy tale stories and myths, but I’ve been really hankering to play with story ideas from Twilight Zone episodes. I’ve thought seriously about doing this since I saw Come Wander With…
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#WeeklyVenture Challenge: Finding Fairy Doors & Stashing my first #FAFATL!
So, dollhouses and miniatures are my vice, nay, my obsession! They’ve basically been one of my favorite things since I was tiny myself, and this has not abated as I’ve grown up. The Atlanta Miniature Society had a show & sale event going on this weekend, and I never remember to plan for it til its too late 🙁 So I decided to celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day this year with my favorite first mate, going on a quest for local burritos and fairy doors. The burritos were the best food outing idea we’d had in at least a month. The weather was fantastic, and the jerk chicken in…
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6 of My Favorite Kid’s Book Author-Illustrators | Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators Week!
Happy Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators Week! This week is a great excuse to sit back and think about, or re-read, your favorite books from when you were little. If you look some up, you might be surprised (like I was) at how many were written and illustrated by the same person! There’s truly something fantastic about a well-written and illustrated kid’s book, whether textured by an author and a complimentary artist, or if both parts grew out of the same mind. I have a lot of respect for artists who dance in that middle ground, and there are so many with such rich talents! They have my undying admiration,…
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A Tolkien Christmas Eve Story
T’was the eve before Christmas, and all through the house, Both Panger and Mossling awaited a mouse A mouse they could chase and play with all day And at night they could eat in a mousie souffle. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE! Long time no see, dear readers! I’ve been busy with all the customary Christmas projects: volunteering at church, working the obscene hours of the retail machine, and getting presents together. And this little bit of Christmas cheer, dear readers, is my humble gift to you! So wrap yourself up in something cozy, perhaps grab a warm drink, and I’m going to tell you a Christmas story. For a while, I’ve been wanting to…
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NaNoWriMo, Thankful, and Christmas AdvenTea
I update you on my most recent things, go over some of the biggest things I’m thankful for, and announce an excited string of Christmas videos, and it involves tea! Thanks to an awesome present from my father-in-law, I’m doing a tea advent calendar on my Youtube Channel. I’m posting them in a playlist, which you’ll find below. Enjoy!
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10 More of My Favorite Twilight Zone Episodes
It’s just a few days away from Halloween, so you know what that means. It’s time for my yearly Twilight Zone episode review extravaganza! Check out my first one here. I also want to take this moment to say, happy 55th anniversary, Twilight Zone! The first episode, “Where is Everybody?” originally aired on October 2, 1959. Man, I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. In my last post, I’d only seen up to Season 3, but I sat down and finished the whole dang thing! There are very few shows that I can say I’ve watched all of, and even fewer that I’ve watched a few times, at least…
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New shiny site design!
Hi everyone! Welcome back to the new and improved canelsonauthor.com! Not only has the URL changed a little, hacking off the superfluous “official” part, as you probably noticed, but I’ve made some design changes as well! Hope you like it! I certainly do! It’s been a long time coming. Just letting you know, I deleted all my extra post categories and listed everything under “Blog,” and I’ve been cleaning out my list of tags, which might mess up some page linking throughout the Web (to say nothing of changing the urls). But thankfully, everything should still point to this site, and I didn’t delete any posts, so between the search…
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10 of My Favorite Twilight Zone Episodes
Imagine if you will, a rented out room in a cozy bungalow in Franklin, TN. The young, rather pretty young woman sitting on the bed, channel surfing and eating ice cream out of the carton is Miss Christina Nelson, aged in her mid-twenties. Right now she’s lamenting her single status and just wanting to unwind after a long day at a job in the city. But soon, she will run across a channel running a marathon of an old 1960s black and white TV show. Miss Nelson doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to stumble right into…The Twilight Zone. I could probably talk forever and ever about the awesomeness…
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Thanksgiving
As a wise man once said, “December was Christmas, January was New Year, April was Easter and The Fourth of July, but now it’s Thanksgiving.” (If you’re confused, go here. Don’t hate me too hard.) But seriously, Thanksgiving deserves mad respect. It’s smushed between Halloween and Christmas and gets almost none of the air time…except for turkey sales, Thanksgiving Day sales, Black Friday (ugh) and The Macy’s Parade (which is awesome ^_^). And why are there almost no decent Thanksgiving songs?! (See above paragraph for example.) In a world where I have to literally turn off all distractions (and there are always tons) just to think straight and reorganize my priorities,…
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Best Anniversary Gift Ever
My husband got me the most wonderful anniversary present a writer could ever dream of! Oh, and vote 🙂
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The Death of the Little Hen – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Well, friends, Halloween is almost upon us! And that means this is the last Freaky Fairy Tale of October 🙁 But I saved you a good one for last. It’s one of the wackiest and most morbid-for-no-reason fairy tales I’ve probably ever heard. Are you ready? BEHOLD! Day 1 + Day 2 + Day 3 + Day 4 + Day 5 Sweet and silly piece by Ross Sullivan-Wiley THE DEATH OF THE LITTLE HEN [Original source] – I’ve added punctuation and fixed formatting here. You don’t expect it. It builds with the sunny, round-faced optimism and sweetness you’d expect in a 1940s Disney short. And for the record, an old-fashioned term for a rooster…
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The Iron Stove – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Good day, fair readership. Is that a mug of hot cider I see next to your mouse? Enjoying the season, I see, as you should be! Thoughts of colored leaves and warm pumpkin pie will make the Mondays go away. Come on over and cuddle up next to the hearth, kids, it’s time for another Freaky Fairy Tale! Today’s tale….rambles. It sounds like it’s about to end, and then it goes on to a whole other story arc, and then it looks like it’s going to end, but goes on to another one! It’s more bizarre and amusing than it is Halloweenish, but I give you an iron stove, err, ironclad…
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The Three Snake-Leaves – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Hello, darlings! It’s time for another Freaky Fairy Tale! BETRAYAL! Betrayal most cruel! Frailty, thy name is woman! And as a woman myself, this story makes us look crazy, and I resent that! WE AREN’T CRAZY, YOU GUYS ARE THE CRAZY ONES!!! *coughs* Sorry about that. Let’s just start, shall we? BEHOLD! Day 1 + Day 2 + Day 3 + Day 4 + Day 5 THE THREE SNAKE-LEAVES [Original source] – I’ve added punctuation and fixed formatting here. So, a father can’t take care of his only son anymore because he’s so poor, and the son decides to go seek his fortune. He’s sad to leave, but he knows that…
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The Singing Bone – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Happy Monday again, readerlings! Well, we’ve been enjoying autumn, getting pumpkins for carving and going costume shopping. Hope your first week of October was as fun as ours! So! Are you ready for another *thunderclap* FREAKY FAIRY TALE? I hope you are! (If you’re confused about what the heck I’m talking about, visit the first entry for some background.) Cuz I’ve got a tale so weird, so morbid, it’ll make your bones sing with fear! BEHOLD! Day 1 + Day 2 + Day 3 + Day 4 + Day 5 THE SINGING BONE [Original source] – I’ve added punctuation and fixed formatting here. OooooooohoooooOooooOooooohhh…..it’s, it’s the sound of a singing bone…it’s….it’s…
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Writing Throwbacks | “Just Dracula and Me”
Cleaning through the old family books and files at my parent’s house a few years ago, my mom came across a bunch of my old stories I wrote in the early to mid 90s. I plan to present these stories in their original glory, with no added punctuation or corrected spelling or grammar. This is the first in what I hope to be a fun tradition, and serve to remind that all authors have to start somewhere 🙂 I figured this one would be perfect for Halloween! This is supposed to be a conversation between me and Dracula, and I definitely had the writing bug, but I hadn’t mastered the…
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The Hare’s Bride – Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Ahh, October is upon us again, and you know what that means! That’s right, Halloween! As I’ve said before, Halloween is basically a holiday revolving around stories, particularly creepy ones. For good or for ill, I’m a sucker for a good scary story, but invariably I’ll be up late thinking I see shadows or hearing ghosts making weird noises…which just end up being an overactive imagination and an old apartment building. But you know where some of the weirdest, goriest stories come from? Fairy tales. Seriously! If you read the original versions of some of your favorite tales you’d be surprised what has been conveniently removed over the years to be more…
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Seek me? Find me here! (also, BAAACK!)
HI GUYS!!! Happy New Year!!! Whew, that was a WONderful break! I still feel like I’m playing catch-up in many areas of life, now that I’m officially married to my wonderful Wervyn and the holidays are over, but I am planning to get back into the swing of blogging and vlogging and officially writing, as well as hopefully work on some other fun projects! It’s a lot, really. In fact, listening to myself, I’m hoping I’m not gonna tap out, as I’m also looking for some freelance web design work hopefully in the new year, so wish me luck, and if any of you are praying folks, please pray for…
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Book Cop & Independence Day
Happy Independence Day, American readers! In honor of this day, may I present Book Cop, from a hysterical webcomic Axe Cop.
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{ VACATION }
Well guys, I’m taking a vacation from this blog, my vlogs and all other updateables. That’s right! I’ve taken hiatuses before, but this is a vacation. I have way too much going on in my life to focus on, and just thinking about what to vlog or post next is something I don’t need looming over me, even though I do enjoy it. I’m even having a hard time getting my writing to talk to me, so I feel that I should give the muse a break as well. I think it will be healthy! If something happens with the book, though, I’ll definitely keep you updated, but updated for…
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The Real Deal
There are so many stories of dysfunction in the world, and we see it everywhere. Not only is it in real life, it’s in the stories we see told on TV or movies, read in books, it’s all over. I never realize I get as worn out watching stuff like that, until I see videos like this: That’s what it’s all about, guys. That is true love. I’ve been saving this video for Valentine’s Day because it’s so perfect! It’s a beautiful story, and it’s all true! The people who made this video, Story Corps, specialize in collecting and relating real stories from real people. They’re like a mass electronic…
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The House That Built Me
While with my parents over Christmas, I find remnants of a younger me with writerly aspirations. Also, made this entirely on my new Gen. 4 iPod Touch with the iMovie app, which is simplified but quite nice once I learned how to use it! Wherein I play around with my new iPod touch and shoot a vlog about a younger me, and the pieces of her I found at my parent’s house. The centered video with black sidebars reminds me of a certain Imogen Heap video, just with significantly lesser production values ^_~
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Joyeux Noël 2010!
I know I’ve been scarce, so I’m considering calling another hiatus, but instead I’d rather say: “It’s the holidays! Chill!” ^_^ MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE! Whatever you celebrate, hope you have fun and enjoy yourself today! With rumors of snow flying in the next few days, sounds like we’ll have a white Christmas after all! Even though I haven’t been writing much at all I’ve had a wonderful time with family and friends, and that counts for a lot. I have some plans and some New Years writing resolutions, so it will be forthcoming! Random Tolkien nerd moment that I think everyone can appreciate: According to the Lord of the Rings…
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Thanksgiving (in a series of soundbytes)
Well, it’s that wonderful time of year again where we look back and reflect on all the things we’re thankful for! I’m definitely thankful that I have this blog, and that technology has evolved to the point where this was possible </nerd> Of course I’m thankful for the world’s rich history of storytelling in all its forms, but more importantly (and more corporeally) I’m thankful for friends, family and a loyal readership like you (thaaank yoooou!) who encourage me so much in my writing endeavors! Today I wanted to tell you about my favorite Thanksgiving book, Squanto and The First Thanksgiving. This has been a family favorite in my house…
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Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Happy Veteran’s Day, and the lesser-known Origami Day! The origami is ready to salute! Among the many random things I do to pass the time or divert myself, I’ve always loved crafts, and paper art is no exception! The tradition of paper art is found in many different cultures around the world, but the best known is probably Japanese origami, the art of paper folding. Anything that old with mysterious origins has legends surrounding it, and with origami the most famous legend centers on the paper crane. They say that if someone folds 1000 paper cranes they will be granted one wish. I’ve tried it, but never succeeded. You need a dedicated…
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Join the Jamboree!
Take a ride through the Disney Haunted Mansion in honor of this ghoulishly delightful day! Happy Halloween! Hope everyone has an awesome time tonight! Be safe, and hope you gather lots of candy and books!
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Halloweek 2010: 4 More Classic Spooky Stories (Guest Post)
I hope you guys don’t mind a 5th guest post in one month! My dear friend Rosie is somewhat of an expert on the creepy genre, particularly for teens and young adults, and she always adds a wonderful dash of librarian knowledge to all of her reviews, so I asked if she’d do a little follow up on my post earlier this week on books of her choice (though I gave a few suggestions). Hope you like! ~CAN At the behest of my former roommate and very talented, dear friend, the authoress Christina Nelson, I bring to you a few reviews of my favorite scary stories in time for Halloween.…
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Halloweek 2010: 6 Classic Spooky Stories
This is the promised blog post! Wooo! In six days it shall be Halloween! Other than Christmas, Halloween is probably my favorite holiday, because of the costumes and the candy, but also because there’s so much to DO and have fun with! I love a good story, and Halloween is FULL of them! Just look at the old ghost stories and creepy tales you find tacked on houses or buildings in old historic towns: they all talk about people who used to be alive, and there’s something dramatic about the idea of spirits hanging on. How many stories have focused on ghosts over the years? But I digress. As you know,…
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Halloween Approacheth! And HIATUS!
“And a ship, a black freighter with the skull on its masthead…” Hallo, all! It’s already the second week of October, and already the air is filled with ghost stories and candy bowls are filled with candy! And my life is full of events and busy things which are really dragging on my ability to write good posts, so I’m definitely thinking a hiatus is in order. I’m planning at least one vlog, so I won’t be totally silent, but no blog entries until closer to Halloween. Thanks for understanding, guys. I love autumn, and I’ve been collecting–at my own mental peril–crazy murder & mayhem stories and ghost stories about…
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April LOLs Day (& some writer link spam)
Usually I avoid April Fool’s Day as much as possible, but for whatever reason, feeling cheeky today, I posted an April Fool’s joke telling all my personal Facebook friends that I was getting published by Random House. When I clarified that it was a joke, there was talk of medieval torture and witch burnings XD Had a fun instant message conversation with a friend about it that I wanted to share: Friend (F): Shouldn’t you be on a hawaiian yacht or something, celebrating your contract? 😛 I mean, you couldn’t have possibly been kidding, right? Me (C): ^_~ No! of course I couldn’t have possibly…trust me, I would have broadcast…
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Obligatory Valentine’s Day Entry { a series of haikus }
Of all the WalgreensIn all the towns in the world,It had to be mine. My plans were simple.Some milk, maybe some crackers,Box of cereal. I knew I shouldn’t,And yet I found myself there,Red, pink and white aisle. Everywhere: all ’round:I could not escape my fate.And then there he was. His face was shapely,His coloring was ruddy.I felt a tremor. Irish! And so sweet!I picked it right off the shelf.Cuz I love truffles. SpecificallyBaileys Irish Cream trufflesNon-alcoholic. I must be crazy:I buy my own candy andI still love V-day! Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! If you have someone, enjoy them today, and make sure to treat them this way all year long!…
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2009 Year in Review
A new decade. Funny how those things creep up on you. This time last decade I was barely out of middle school. The dream of becoming an author was a warm flicker in my heart, and I’m not sure if I’d thought up my novel at that point yet. But in the subsequent ten years, I have carried that novel series with me, through the highs and lows of school life, and after college graduation I set out for the trip of a lifetime: the journey to authorhood. I’ve grown. So has my novel and its series, and we’ll continue to. So many wonderful things have happened in 2009, including…
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The Delightful Maud Hart Lovelace
Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! I have a special Book Byte for you. On this wonderful night, my heart is warmed by thoughts of Christmases during my childhood, and all the happy memories I have of days gone by. So, I felt it only fitting to talk about one of my favorite heartwarming book series. I’m only sad that it took me so long to finally hear about it, but I’m so happy that I can read it as an adult. It’s even more of a pleasure. Maud Hart Lovelace is not an author many recognize by name, but those who do, it’s safe to say they are fierce fans of…
Artist, Author, Geek
