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December 2023 Fly-By Status Report – I got probably my coolest job to date
You know how I lamented in my last blog post that I couldn’t make money being creative and doing what I loved? Well, THANK YOU, JESUS, I have a job again! But hang on, I need to give some back story. (If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you’ll already know the scoop, but some of this stuff I haven’t mentioned there.) I met a new artist friend earlier this year at church, who took me under her wing, and encouraged me to apply for a spot at a local artist/antique/gift market shop I’d had my eye on, but never dared to pursue. She had a spot there already, and…
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May 2023 Fly-By Status Report – The Search for More Money 2: The Searchening
My continuing quest for gainful employment is not new. But I refresh this quest, this time with a new perspective on my career and my mental health journey. Maybe I’ll go into that later, but mostly I just want to write this out for the record. It’s not an easy or fun decision, and digging into it makes me a little morose, and I’m trying to be positive and focus on the fact that money is important and a good thing. As the job market happens to be abysmal right now, to help make myself more marketable, I’ve been taking a Coursera Google course on UX/UI, and I’m planning to…
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September 2021 Fly-By Status Report – The State of the Art
Ahoy there! Just swinging by to update you on what’s been going on since my last report. View this post on Instagram A post shared by PuellaDocta's Minlandia (@myminlandia) The Etsy shop sales went slowly this summer, even as I was investigating other selling avenues that haven’t panned out yet, so I decided to take a break until Dragon Con got closer. I’ll come back to Dragon Con a little bit later in the post, but if you haven’t followed Sunlit Nook on Instagram or Facebook you totally should! I’m taking a break from MomoCon this year. Because of COVID Delta shenaniganery they decided to postpone til winter, and I…
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January/February 2021 Fly-By Status Report – 2021 Vision
Well, looks like I totally blew past my Fall/Winter 2020 Status Report. I think because nothing really changed in the goal department for 6 months! What even did I want to do *consults last post*…OH YEAH apparently I got rid of my agenda thing cuz it was boring. Good idea. So here’s what I’ve been up to, and what I hope to achieve! The Etsy shop is doing pretty well! Still not making a ton, but I am making a little money from it, and I’m having fun, so that’s all that matters! I’ve been doodling more with my Wacom tablet, and I designed the shrinky dink Japanese heart jewelry…
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January-March 2020 Fly-By Status Report – Creating in a Time of Coronavirus
Hello everyone! I’m sitting on my couch, where I do most of my work & editing, and I’m here with my cats and Wervyn, and despite the coronavirus spreading outside, with this social distancing we’re in introvert heaven! But I was having a lot of anxiety for the last couple of weeks; in addition to not knowing if I was going to have enough groceries, my church office coworkers and I were scrambling to get everything together for live-streaming Sunday services, which was mad hectic. But I’m taking off work till April 1, and we have enough food, so I’m feeling a lot better already! And with the open schedule,…
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May 2017 Fly-By Status Report – Just Keep Swimming!
It’s time for another Fly-By Status report! And I’m up to my waist in MomoCon directing duties. But omg, we’re already a third into 2017! Dang, where does the time go? And I feel like I have very few brain cells to even process this blog post with everything going on right now. However, one of my part-time jobs just ended, so I have more time to do everything else I’ve been too busy to work on (in theory). SO, did I achieve my goals for the past 4 months? Long Term Doing some hardcore outlining and rewriting the style of my YA fantasy novel Sign of the Redwing in preparation for an…
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Sept. 2016 Fly-By Status Report – Super-Charged Summer
*careens into blog, hair flying, adjusting glasses* Whew! Hey guys! How was your summer? Mine was great, and relentlessly busy, including 4 trips in 4 months, getting an additional part-time job, and being in a play! Which, in addition to regular life stuff, means I had no extra mental space for blogging! I know it’s the last day of September, and I want to get my tri-annual update in to keep myself honest. So let’s see how much I got done that I wanted to do. Here’s my Summer Agenda 2016 plans from my home page. If it’s crossed out, it means it’s finished, or I’ve edited the original plan,…
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VLOG: MomoCon 2016
At long last, you can see video evidence of me actively crocheting a cosplay piece, and working hard for and geeking out over another amazing time at one of my favorite conventions!
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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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May 2016 Fly-By Status Report – I GOT A REAL JOB!
Yes, you read that right: I GOT A REAL JOB! The ultimate happy dance! | via GIPHY It’s a part-time administrative and communication assistant job, which is only a few hours a week, and a few minutes away from my house (YAAAAAY), so hopefully that means I can structure my life around that to get some stability for my creative work! I start today, and I’m really excited to see how it goes! Also, hi, I haven’t seen you since Easter! I’ve been super busy working, arting, volunteering, story researching…in fact, that’s why I decided to do tri-yearly status reports. I figure, if I haven’t blogged or vlogged in a while, I want to make…
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Summer in Review & Looking Ahead
AT LAST, a post! This is what I’ve been up to, and why I’ve been so busy! BG music: “Porch Swing Days” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) LINKS to cool stuff: Follow my writing progress: http://puelladocta.com/writings/ Art portfolio coming soon! Cosplay Comission coming soon! FinnyPuppet’s tumblr: http://finnypuppet.tumblr.com/ Dragon*Con Tolkien Track site: http://middleearth.dragoncon.org/ Check out the movie my group made at Camp Flix this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQNdDqCAoYI Original Maleficent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p78C3dmLI_c&feature=youtu.be AWA cut of Maleficent video coming soon!
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Puelladocta & the Search for More Money
Alas, my dear readers, I regret to tell you that I am taking a novel writing hiatus, in favor of that most persistent of goals, The Search for More Money. Unfortunately, though I’ve been looking for consistent full-time and part-time employment in the graphic design field, I’ve been neglecting my design and programming skills, in favor of writing. Which seems counter-intuitive now that I think about it. That and my portfolio site needs a serious overhaul. Plus, I want to sharpen my dulled artistic strengths, and I have other interests I want to investigate, like technical and article writing. But to develop those things, I must take a break from…
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BACK UP YOUR WORK, a lament {UPDATED}
Come all my dear computer lovers And take a warning how you work If you don’t save your efforts elsewhere It will be there, and then it’s gone. I wish I’d known before I’d lost it Time I had left, my files to move For when it died, without a warning It left me here in grief to moan. Inspired by Jim Moray’s “Fair and Tender Lovers.” On Valentine’s Day, I opened my laptop, signed in, the screen was on for a few seconds, and no sooner had I plugged in my headphones, it completely turned off. No blue screen, no pop up error warnings, just black. With a whirr…
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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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Keeping my writing alive, even though I’m busy!
I lament at the lack of writing and editing I've done recently, but I share in 3 steps how I plan to change that, and how you can too. I again sing the praises of National Novel Writing Month, and share my list of editing plans. Click the blog header to read more.
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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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Lots to Look Forward To (Starting Draft 6 & Purple Hair)
It’s amazing how a few months can change things! I finally got my editing groove back after a long brain break. What a relief! It’s not an easy process, and it’s going slowly, but it’s going. I’m also doing some more character studies as I get inspired. I’m planning on relaunching this site, and I have some plans for guest posts and some of my own posts. I’ve also finally won the Search for More Money and will be starting a part-time seasonal job soon! Oh, and I got purple highlights too 😀 It’s been a good summer’s end. Posted this vlog on Youtube on Aug 22, 2014.
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Vlogs that I forgot to post on here
Remember how I used to have a Youtube video importing plugin that stopped importing my vlogs a number of months ago? Yeah. That was fun. As I’m updating my site I have to go back, delete the random vlogs I don’t really want on here (they’ll still be up on my Youtube channel) and re-embed the ones I do want, cuz I just got sick of the plugin. SO, in honor of Throwback Thursday, I’m posting some of these older ones from this year and the end of last year, which I really like a lot, but never made it here. They’re posted from most to least recent. Do enjoy!
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Making Good
All right! After a few weeks to start getting a few of my health/house maintenance resolutions in order, this week I’m starting Phase 2 of the plan: adding in 4 hours of writing and 2 hours of freelance work a day on top of that. This entry is short to keep me on the move today, and once it is posted will serve to keep me accountable to myself. This means REALLY starting to think of everything I want to get done as a full-time job, even though I’m my own boss, and can be a very lax one at that. But this is exactly what I need, a schedule…
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Reminiscing on MomoCon 2012
MOMOCON! Ohmigosh Momocon! I’ve worked it for two years now (my husband tons more), and it’s just getting better. I even got to join the media group, and entered some artwork that they used around the con! Shameless plug for my portfolio, but seriously, they were super fun to do. Other than working, it’s always fun to see everyone dressed up in costumes, play games, go to interesting panels, browse the artist’s alley and support the talent, and of course hit up the dealers room with your spare cash (or maybe not so spare). This year I also learned how to play Settlers of Catan, and even tried it out in…
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Writer Dreams Writing Dreams
BOOK Y U NO EDIT URSELF?! I HAS JOBS TO DO!No wait come back I miss you 🙁
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A Good Nightmare Always Begins in a Dark Cellar with a Coffin
Zzzzzzzz…. The pirate video ate up so much time that I’m finally getting back to editing Draft 3! I just felt like writing a real entry, since all I’ve done the last two weeks was tweet, make promises, break them, and eventually upload a pirate movie 😉 I have plans for other entries, but this one is getting back to the basics, where I actually write about writing. It’s been hard the last few weeks to get writing in, between visiting friends and work, so tonight I’ve started to be a bit smarter with my time. In addition to editing, I’m taking notes. Why? I live in mortal dread of…
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The Dead Time
And my brain hath shut down 😀 I don’t want to touch the darn second draft until I get it back and can start on the next (and hopefully final) round of editing. I’ve even tried writing a bit of Book 2, but what I have just doesn’t feel right. I have ideas for other stories, so I jot down my thoughts, but my brain can’t hold more than one comprehensive world at a time! So I know I should finish the world of Thoglan stories before I move on to exploring other places. But the website thing is still a little maddening (in all senses of the word and…
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Dagblangit
So I was gonna write an entry, but it’s too late to finish off any of the ones I’ve started when my brain is this far gone to the night 😛 But I’m posting this cuz I’m compelled to put something up. Tonight I’ve been tweaking this site mostly, but as a friend of mine says, “it all goes into the pot,” since it all has to do with the writing! Tomorrow I’m planning on really getting somewhere with the editing, as I finally have a free weekend again! I’ve been so busy lately I’ve had to snatch time for writing/editing when I can. Sleepiness and taking care of new…
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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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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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Still Here, I Promise!
Twitter has eaten my proper blogging again! Writing Process Update: I’m onto Chapter 24!!!! The best part is, I forsee Ch. 25 being the last one in the book, so I am VERY close to being done! Things of Note: I’ve been doing a lot of web-wandering for writerly resources, and I found an awesome listing of 101 Best Websites for Writers from Writer’s Digest Magazine. This list is amazing, and it covers everything from databases of publishers, to sites that tell you about publishing scams, to little ways to spark your muse! Definitely worth checking out! And for all of you who have been wanting to start a blog,…
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The Great Struggle
“It is of the utmost that I speak to you about a great struggle, which is taking place [at] this mortal temple we call the [writer’s desk]. The contestants are those aged combatants…art…and commerce. And art, it would appear from the [lack of income]…is in its usual position of jeopardy.” – edited quote from Nicholas Nickleby movie. Since I am, sadly, not a full-time writer, the great quest (as Mel Brooks put it), The Search for More Money, takes precedence over any deadline I might have set for myself. I am so close to the end that I can see the finish line, but I have realized that setting a…
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Traveling is an education
I get ideas from all sorts of unexpected places, especially since I work with people from so many different backgrounds with varied histories and experiences, including many who were born in other parts of the world. I found myself in the middle of a wonderful conversation yesterday, listening to two foreign-born coworkers talking about the fun, creative things they would think up to entertain themselves as kids, all involving some sort of mischief and lots of wonderful local color. My inner anthropologist was absolutely delighted, and my inner author was equally pleased with the influx of new mind-expanding ideas. And this was not the first conversation I’ve had/heard like this.…
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Decisions, decisions (Traditional vs. Self-Publishing)
I am pleased to say that since I have time to actually organize my life now, I feel safe in saying that I have time to write again. I keep finding myself scribbling story ideas on little pads or scraps of paper as I work throughout the day. I just had an interesting conversation with my friend Todd over lunch, a fellow writer. We were discussing the pros and cons of publishing with an acutal publisher vs. self-publishing. Big publishers have been losing ground recently, not unlike the music industry with the indie movement, where artists are pursuing their dreams on their own terms. I’d agree that self-publishing is becoming…
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Draft Two hath begun
I’ve been settling into work nicely ^_^ w00t w00t! And today I’ve had time to actually do some REAL writing, which is super fab. I originally decided that before I went back and did an intense run through on draft one, I’d finish the entire story. However, I am having a hard time figuring everything out with just the old draft, since there are a lot of changes I’ve wanted to make. So, I’m starting draft two tonight, cleaning through, editing, etc. It feels good to be back again.
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Life Developments
Rather blessedly, I must say, the gainful employment has occurred. Huzzah 😛 However, as all work does, I feel that my time to write will be significantly zapped. Although, even with all the time in the world, I wasn’t doing much for my story. *facepalm* A friend of mine told me today that I’ll probably be able to get more done, since I’ll have more structured time and I’ll have to prioritize, and I believe she’s right. Besides, there’s nothing like life experiences to inspire more stories to write. I think I will do a bit of notebook-writing before I drift off to bed.
Artist, Author, Geek
