Monniblog

Circle Craft Christmas Market

monnibo — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:48:34 +0000

Wednesday marked the beginning of the 36th Annual Circle Craft Christmas Market. This is a fantastic event with over 265 artisans from coast to coast. With hundreds of different talents, these artisans range from glass blowers, to chefs, to fashion designers, to jewellery makers, and onwards. I get so inspired browsing through the market and seeing all the different exhibitors.

I have a hard time picking a favourite part, but I think that what sets Circle Craft apart is their show features — there are glass blowing demonstrations, an entertainment stage with musical and dance acts, and new for 2009, wood turning demonstrations.

Today I went to the market and watched both wood turning and glass blowing demonstrations. Tomorrow I’m getting the chance to participate in the glass blowing workshops — Ballz of Fire!! — where we get to make a Christmas glass ball. I’m very excited! My dad is joining me at the market tomorrow morning, and then in the evening I’m meeting up with the knitters to go back to the market.

Too Much Happiness

monnibo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:15:03 +0000

I chose to read Too Much Happiness because (to my knowledge) I haven’t read anything by Alice Munro before. I’ve been told that her novels are extremely well-written, but decided to start with her latest book of short stories.

I picked up the book one evening before bed and started to read the first story. I had to put it down before I finished because I needed to go to sleep; but when I picked it up next, I stormed right through the story. As it ended, I turned the page expecting the next chapter in this intriguing character’s story. I was oddly disappointed to be reminded that this book was short stories. I took the time to go back and reread the last page of the first story and let the finality of it sink it. This happened with countless stories in Too Much Happiness — I didn’t want to let the characters go.

Someone told me that they weren’t an Alice Munro fan because all of her characters were middle-aged white folks who were of average-income. I could totally understand the point this person made — coming from an ethnic background. However, I ended up getting so immersed in the characters thoughts, feelings, and life that I didn’t care what colour they were, how old, or how well-off. It was the character’s motivations (not their physical descriptions) that stuck with me. I also really liked the stories placed in BC, bringing them close to home and all the more real to me.

This stunning collection of new stories demonstrates once again why Alice Munro is celebrated as a pre-eminent master of the short story. While some of the stories are traditional, set in “Alice Munro Country” in Ontario or in B.C., dealing with ordinary women’s lives, others have a new, sharper edge. They involve child murders, strange sex, and a terrifying home invasion. By way of astonishing variety, the title story, set in Victorian Europe, follows the last journey from France to Sweden of a famous Russian mathematician. — from the Publisher

I definitely would like to read more by Alice Munro. If you like short stories, these are very compelling and leave you wanting for more.

Full disclosure: I requested this book for review from the publisher.
This did not affect my review or feelings regarding the book.

Lest We Forget

monnibo — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:27:05 +0000

Today is Remembrance Day — In 1918 World War I was formally ended with the Germans signing the Armistice. This signing occurred at the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month. Remembrance Day (also called Armistice Day, Veteran’s Day, Armed Forces Day) now remembers all our armed forces who have served their countries during wartime. Some of these brave people died for their countries and in Canada, we wear a poppy on our lapel to recognize those people. Why do we wear a poppy? Not only do poppies grow wild in Flanders Field — full of battlefields, spoiled earth, and burials for soldiers — but the poppies are also written about in one of the most famous WWI poems, In Flanders Fields.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

— John McRae

Happy Friday

monnibo — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:41:52 +0000

I haven’t done the Friday Fill-in for a while.

Plans and schedules keep me sane .
I’m happy when things go as planned .
The last thing I drank was ginger ale and cranberry juice.
One of the most valuable things in my life are those I love .
I like anything except meat on my pizza.
Dear November, while you have lots of fun things, and smell great, and beautiful colours… please hurry up and get to December 20th already.
And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to relaxing, tomorrow my plans include recouping from this cold and grocery shopping and Sunday, I want to find someone to help me sort out my knitting!

This week I took Wednesday and half of Thursday off of work in an attempt to quell this cold. No I don’t have H1N1 or the regular flu… just a cold with a sore throat and runny nose. I was feeling dizzy and I know myself: if I didn’t take some time to recoup once I felt it coming on, I’d be fighting it for at least two weeks. So I’m relaxing, drinking lots of fluids, knitting, reading, and watching TV.

Speaking of knitting — I have been working on some Christmas gifts and working with some good quality yarn. Well, Henry has a history of licking, rolling in, chewing on, and kneading anything that is 100% wool, alpaca, llama, or similar. Yes, this has happened more than once. Yes, I need to store my knitting where my cat cannot reach it. Yes, I now need help figuring out where my stitch marker goes in a circular pattern so that the pattern isn’t thrown off whack. Uuuuugh. But because it is semi-secret it’s not light I can post a picture on the blog!

Oh and December 20th? That’s when I leave for Christmas in England. I’ve taken some time off work in January to go travelling because this will be my fifth Christmas in England and I’ve seen lots of London and Manchester, but not much else. My plans aren’t set but I’d like to go to Stonehenge, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Bristol, Bath, Leeds, Liverpool, maybe Dover… and I have a desire to go to Guernsey now… haha

Night for All Souls

monnibo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:20:34 +0000

On Halloween night we decided to head over to Mountain View Cemetery for the 5th Annual Night for All Souls. It started on Friday October 30 as a celebration for the deceased with candles, shrines, flowers, and other personal memorials. They also opened the cemetery registry to locate specific graves and there was a world tea ceremony in honour of the First Nations peoples.

On Saturday October 31, the shrines were all lit up and we began by visiting the shrines.

Inside the cemetery’s hall they were hosting a Day of the Dead celebration: “Vancouver’s Helping Mex y Can Society co-hosts an evening of Mexican traditions to honour the dead. Featuring mariachi, ancient dances of the Aztecs, and traditional refreshments such as café de olla and pan de meurtos.”

And here are some less-than-friendly photos. We wandered around the cemetery and the various tombs, but it didn’t feel creepy at all. Oddly, the photos turned out much creepier with the flash than it felt. The atmosphere at Mountain View Cemetery was very welcoming and more of a celebratory feeling for our ancestors and deceased family members.

Happy Halloween!

monnibo — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:06:42 +0000

Halloween is my favourite holiday; I love dressing up, carving pumpkins, and the general fun atmosphere.I’ve had some very creative costumes over the years — last year I was a fairy (sewn from scratch), I’ve been an Oompa Loompa, Edward Scissorhands, a hobbit, Cinderella, and more.

Last night I dressed up at Magenta and we went to Rocky Horror Picture Show at The Ridge Theatre. It was really fun because while the movie was playing, a cast acted out on stage, and then there were props that audience members brought. When it rained in the first scenes, there were water guns; during the wedding, people threw rice; when Frank proposed a toast, everyone threw (unbuttered) toast. People also shouted different things during the show — asking questions at the right time and the next line in the movie would produce a funny answer.

This year is the first year that I haven’t carved a pumpkin. Normally I carve a pumpkin for my parent’s house to denote it as “open” for trick-or-treating. But because I’m living in my own basement suite, there will be no trick-or-treaters coming round tonight. (Pumpkin/cat photo is from last year)

Tonight (Halloween night!) I’m going to Mountain View Cemetery for the Night of All Souls event. It goes on all weekend honouring the dead and celebrating life. You can create memorials, look in the cemetery records, participate in ceremonies, and listen to local poets. The special event tonight is a Mexican Day of the Dead celebration including mariachi, special food and drink, and traditional dances. I’m looking forward to checking this out!

BookCamp Vancouver 2009

monnibo — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:22:33 +0000

The inaugural BookCamp Vancouver was organized by Monique Trottier of Boxcar Marketing, Nick Bouton of Protagonize.com, Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio, John Maxwell of SFU’s publishing program, and Morgan Cowie from BookNet Canada.

BookCamp Vancouver was an incredible experience! It took place on Friday October 16, 2009 and there was so much to absorb! I wasn’t able to make it to every event that I wanted to because there were four events going on at a time. The great thing about BookCamp is it was organized as an “unconference”; instead of having a speaker or a lecture, the person was more of a moderator or host.

Grab a cup of something warm and get comfy, this post is a long one!

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After the opening remarks, I went to listen to author Tris Hussey talk about Tech Tools For Editing Workflow. First Tris spoke a little about writer’s workflow and ranted that Microsoft Word was not built for writers. He suggested several applications designed for writers to organize their thoughts: Scrivener or Ulysses for Mac or Page Four or Rough Draft for PC. The best thing about all these programs is you can usually export to Word so you can send to your editor(s).

When you have large files, Tris mentioned using a free service called DropBox to send the files back and forth. It’s better than email, FTP, or YouSendIt because it acts like a shared folder. You can open and edit a file while it’s in the DropBox and it as an “oops” feature if you messed up.

Tris stressed the need for version control — not overwriting old files and keeping track of what you send and receive. I’ve already got this under control when I export PDFs, but I really need to work on this with InDesign documents too. And the other thing that Tris couldn’t stress enough was backing up. He really wanted everyone to set up an automatic backup on their system. Some suggested tools or programs that people had were Time Machine from Apple, CrashPlan for Mac, Carbonite, Mozy, SugarSync, and SuperDuper! (which I use).

Some other community tools that the group discussed included: GoogleDocs, Google Wave, OpenOffice (instead of Microsoft Office), EndNote for bibliographies (costs money), ShortCovers through Indigo, BaseCamp for project collaboration, Writeboards for collaborative writing, and InCopy for CS4. All these programs have their own uses and strengths. I am very jealous I don’t have InCopy on my CS3 because it’s all about collaboration during editing workflow.

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The next session I went to was about Digital Rights Management vs. Free Content moderated by Sean Cranbury from Books on the Radio. Sean started out by defining the terms for everyone (so we were all on the same page): Digital Rights Management (DRM) is any lock on a file that contains creative content which prevents the buyer from modifying it. Lack of DRM results in piracy or file-sharing. “Free” Content is content that you’ve paid for but are free to share.

The main concern and reason for DRM seems to be that the creators think that people are going to pirate and share the file/program/item illegally. We also discussed how a lot of people think that just because something (like a book) is digital, it doesn’t cost as much. But in terms of the prices, 40% of the profits go to the retailer, 30% to the publisher, 20% to the printer, and 10% to the writer. Just because it’s not sent to the printer, doesn’t mean that it didn’t still get edited, designed, written, etc.

Another issue we discussed was licensing issues: users want clearcut info abou what you can do with a digital file you purchase. With books, you buy the object and it’s clear that this object is now yours to do what you want with it. But with digital books, can you use it on multiple devices? How do you lend it to a friend? What if you get a new device? Can you transfer it?

The music industry was used as an example for what could happen in the DRM debate: first they rejected that it had an effect, then they got angry, then they began to sue people. We discussed how the publishing industry can learn from these mistakes, especially with the development of ebooks. We also discussed the recent uproar about George Orwell’s 1984 being yanked from e-readers. People joked that the Book Police aren’t going to come into your home and pull a book off your shelf. We also discussed how the terms “licensing” and “buying” confuse people; you can buy a book, but you only buy a license for an ebook.

Sean mentioned a survey done by O’Reilly Media and RandomHouse USA called “The Impact of P2P and Free Distribution and Book Sales”. This survey measured the impact of file sharing on book sales. Many thought people pirated/torrented immediately, but they found out that it wasn’t really until 5 months later after release that people started trying to download it. The most surprising data is that once something was leaked, the legitimate sales spiked again. Many publishers think that free distribution negatively affects book sales.

Then we had a break for lunch, sponsored by BookNet Canada and provided by Out To Lunch Catering. It was very good! Everyone milled about and chatted with each other.

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After lunch I went to listen to Brendon Wilson moderate a session on The State of the Electronic Book. I already knew a lot about the technology and products available, but they had some e-readers to pass around the room which was great. There were also some statistics and views I hadn’t even considered regarding e-readers. The ebook revolution was even likened to Gutenberg and his printing press: he destroyed the role of the scribe but progressed us further than ever imagined.

Brendon gave a bit of background about e-readers: in 2007 e-ink and e-paper got cheaper and that’s when the Amazon Kindle really took off. The main difference between e-readers and laptops is that e-readers use reflective light and laptops are backlit. Even though Sony came out with the first e-reader, Amazon now controls 60% of the market. One surprising stat is that 21% of e-reader purchasers are aged 50-59. We discussed that this could be the cost of yet another device: the Sony Pocket Reader averages $200.

We then got onto the question: In a world of ebooks, are publisher still relevant?”to which there were many answers. The thought was mainly YES, but that the role and purpose of a publisher in a traditional sense was changing. We still need editors, designers, and distribution (all roles of the traditional publisher) but the “gatekeeper” role is dead. Going through a publisher is no longer the only way to get your work out there. We discussed that the role of the publisher will probably develop into more of a facilitator or curator for the written word.

How do ebooks affect the publishers? Some of the challenges discussed included piracy, broader competition, multiple devices, but the opportunities include access to out-of-print titles, new revenue models, and new avenues of exploration.

How do ebooks affect the authors? The author can now sell books through Amazon, the booksellers are becoming publishers, you have self-published authors too. Some of the challenges are lack of support (via a publisher) and more competition in a world where anyone else could do the same things. However, there are greater opportunities to access the audience, get more than just 10% of the proceeds, and explore new formats and revenue models.

How do ebooks affect the readers? Challenges are mainly the expense: not only are you paying for a $200+ device, but then you’re paying at least $10 per book. Ebooks are also difficult to share (DRM licensing debate), and the product can be yanked away (see above Orwell discussion). But the opportunities to access new materials are nearly unlimited.

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After another quick break, I went to listen to Morgan Cowie of BookNet Canada talk about New Business Models in Publishing and Bookselling. While this wasn’t my favourite session, I still learned a lot about an area of publishing which I’m unfamiliar with. Morgan discussed that the new business models are based around what your purpose is.

If your purpose is faster delivery, Morgan mentioned that the current time frame for producing a book is a year to year and a half (after the manuscript has been written). Now there are other options including print on demand, which opens new doors for backlist revitalization and out-of-print titles.

There are opportunities for convergence — one type of genre all together from different publishers (vertical) or all titles from one publisher (horizontal). Convergence with movies, video games, and other leisure activities was also mentioned.

There was also talk about Revenue: HarperStudio now has a 50/50 split between publisher and author, but there are no returns. During the revenue discussion, the price of electronic items was debated; it’s hard to price these items because we don’t know what they will garner. We also discussed monetizing through textbook rentals, Bookriff (trade titles), Syntext (fragments) and OpenRoad (backlist).

If your purpose is collaboration, there are many different ways to have content collaboration before printing. But some of the current models out there include BookOven, Whole Art Books, and Bookriff.

If you want to mix your mediums, there are digital books, webisodes for books, vooks (book movie), online interviews, book trailers. One of the main problems people had with medium aggregation was when does a book stop being a book?

If your purpose is for a pre-release or a production cycle, you can allow people to buy the manuscript and comment and help form the book. This was the part that I had the most trouble with. Sure, you may get experts having some input, but what about something creative where a group of individuals just don’t care for the ending? Sometimes these commentators can get a credit in the book too.

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During our final break, everyone gathered in the auditorium to determine the final sessions. These were left open so that any unanswered questions could be addressed in another 45 minute session. I chose to attend What the FAQ? with Monique Trottier from Boxcar Marketing, Darren Barefoot, and Deanna McFadden from HarperCollins Canada. This was by far my favourite session. Not only did I learn things that are valuable in a professional setting for me, but also in a personal setting (on this blog and my other domains).

Basically Monique, Darren, and Deanna fielded questions from the audience. We started on the topic of keywords and positioning yourself (or your product) in the marketplace. GoogleKeywords was suggested to generate synonyms — if someone doesn’t know the title or author, what terms would they use to try and find it? Then you can use GoogleTrends to measure the success of specific keywords.

Someone then asked about author publicity. In terms of twitter and blogging, it was important to keep everything in the author’s authentic voice. You can also encourage the author to explore these things: You can lead a person to Twitter, but oyu can’t make them tweet. Also in terms of Twitter, pure publicity language (ie: Buy my book now!) does not work well. You need something personal behind it.

Then the purpose of websites was discussed and the need to easy navigation. The purpose for your website should drive your online marketing, for example, Firefox wants you to download their browser, so there is a Big Ass Button on the homepage. “Everyone needs a Big Ass Button” said Deanna. You need structure: a specific strategy of what you want your web marketing to do. One useful tool was P.O.S.T. — People, Objective Strategy, Tool.

We then spoke about the budgets for social media campaign, which our moderators felt you could spend as much or as little as you could afford. They suggested we try different free tools and it really depends on what you want to get out of it. If you can drum up enough publicity simply through your free online activities, maybe you don’t need print advertising or traditional marketing models.

I then asked about social media sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and other lesser-known ones. Monique basically explained that individuals submit links and other people vote on the links. They described any traffic you get from these links to be a ‘low quality’ traffic — they click just that one link and leave the site quickly. You want a higher quality of a visitor who will stick around and click other things.

This led to a discussion of Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Delicious, and Twitter. Flickr is good for sharing slideshows and ‘back stage pass’ photos. YouTube is great to host the content for you to embed. Delicious is a higher quality link-sharing tool. Facebook and Twitter are used more as talking avenues and promote a high quality of association.

The final question was about blogger outreach — how to reach your bloggers (from a publisher’s standpoint). They really stressed for less marketing and more publicity, not sending unsolicted books, not blasting out press releases, and not to mass mail your contacts. Deanna fielded this question and mentioned that she often finds a blog, reads their posts, and sends a personal note. She stressed that a pitch should be personal and have a link to the title. All these little things will demonstrate that the publisher values the relationship with the blogger.

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WOW! That’s all folks! It took me forever to finish this blog post, and I am so glad I took tons of notes during BookCamp. I am so excited to participate in another unconference and hope that BookCamp Vancouver happens again next year! Now to go add this blog post to the Unconference Wiki (where the schedule and news was posted).

FO: My Red Cowl

monnibo — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:43:32 +0000

Before the Knitter’s FOtoshoot, I managed to finish up my red cowl! Yaaay! Now I just need a grey coat (my current Autumn coat is turquoise). The red of the Cascade Luna yarn is very true in the first photo. Kinda too pinky in the second photo (based on my monitor).

And yes, that is purple in my hair! I dyed it again over Thanksgiving weekend. I needed my colour!

Once again (I feel like I’ve updated about this damn cowl so many times for such a small object) the pattern is the Quickie Cowl.

Knitter’s FO-toshoot

monnibo — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:42:57 +0000

Those of you following my Twitter or my Flickr might already know that last Sunday we Terminal City Yarn Wranglers had a photo shoot with our FOs (finished objects). This was certainly the first of many because it was a huge success. There were cameras going off in all directions and I even brought the tripod. Take a look at our new Terminal City Yarn Wranglers Flickr pool or my personal Flickr to see all the lovely FOs.

A couple knitters commented afterwards that my photos were really good quality (yay!), but there were so many FOs that I was glad to not be the only FO-tographer (like my puns?). Here are some of the funnier pictures that resulted from our shoot:

Janel makes lovely faces while showing off Tammy’s shawl

Sexy Nadia… work it! work it!

How you dooooin’?

More silly Janel faces

Boob shot!

Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret Sara!

*SQUEEEE* so cute!!

Ninja Cowl!

Okay, so this one I was trying to photograph the tam… but look at the BACKGROUND!

Too funny!!

Purdy smiles or just more funny faces :)

Chelle and Faye!

Rawk on! Sara and Erin sittin’ in a tree!

Us all taking a photo OF a photo! I had to use my cell phone camera cause my real camera is on the tripod taking this photo. Heheh (This is the only picture where you can kindasorta see Hilary — she and Tammy are the only ones who never modelled anything)

Audrey Niffenegger at the Writers’ Fest

monnibo — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:03:26 +0000

Last night’s event at the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival was amazing, despite my embarrassing fangirl moment(s). Jerry Wasserman was a fantastic host who had insightful questions, observations, and genuinely connected with Audrey and her work. I was very pleased that the session didn’t just focus on The Time Traveller’s Wife or Her Fearful Symmetry. In fact, Jerry discussed her beginnings as a visual artist and bookbinder. My only regret is not getting to hear more about her upcoming projects and ideas (besides The Chinchilla Girl which sounds hilarious).

It’s difficult to summarize an hour and a half of conversation between Jerry and Audrey, but I will do my best to mention some of the evening’s highlights:

While discussing Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey mentioned that everything in the novel has an exact opposite or mirror event. Upon first read, this is very interesting in how the characters mirror each other; for example, Elspeth can’t leave her apartment as a ghost and Martin also can’t leave his apartment due to severe OCD, Julia and Elspeth both have strong control issues, and both Marijke and Valentina want to leave their current situations. But apparently the novel’s structure is also symmetrical and all the events also have mirror events. I can’t wait to reread the book to look for these small details.

One of the things we kept coming back to was the “rules” that an author sets up for themselves. Not only does Audrey’s writing have a supernatural element with an underlying love-story, but the supernatural ideas are different than anything else out there. For example, when they were discussing The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey set certain rules around Henry’s time travelling to avoid paradox. In The Time Traveller’s Wife, everything can only happen once — even if you go back in time, you cannot change the past. Audrey stressed that she wanted the time travelling element to reflect memories more — Henry keeps returning to places with strong memories.

Jerry Wasserman asked some of her favourite authors and inspirations. She mentioned Kelly Link, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James, among others that I can’t recall. Audrey admitted that she hasn’t yet seen The Time Traveller’s Wife movie because she doesn’t want the actors to replace her vision of the character. One of the audience members also asked who she would have picked to play Henry instead of Eric Bana, and she replied “Egon Schiele, but he died in the early 1900s”. Another audience member asked about the inspiration for Henry’s daughter’s name, Alba. The answer is twofold, Audrey was inspired by Delacorte’s character Alba, and also the name “Alba” means “white, or blank”.

Now for my embarrassing fangirl moments:

My question (the last of the night) was regarding her inspirations for characters. She mentioned that Jessica in Her Fearful Symmetry was inspired by the director of the Friends of Highgate Cemetary (Jean). She also said that Martin’s particular form of OCD was based on a close friend’s condition. Also, several of the minor librarian characters who work at the Newberry Library with Henry in The Time Traveller’s Wife hint to friends of her own at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

I got to meet her and get my copy of Her Fearful Symmetry signed! I would have gotten The Time Traveller’s Wife signed, but my copy is quite beat up after being lent to a number of friends.

I got my photo taken with her! I then told her I was excited about The Chinchilla Girl because I have a chinchilla…

Monniblog

Circle Craft Christmas Market

Too Much Happiness

Full disclosure: I requested this book for review from the publisher. This did not affect my review or feelings regarding the book.

Lest We Forget

Happy Friday

Night for All Souls

Happy Halloween!

BookCamp Vancouver 2009

FO: My Red Cowl

Knitter’s FO-toshoot

Audrey Niffenegger at the Writers’ Fest

Full disclosure: I requested this book for review from the publisher.
This did not affect my review or feelings regarding the book.