Fantasy Gathering A dash of wizardry and dragons

The Daily Post asks: Have you been to where your parents were born?
Have you been to where your parents were born? What was it like? If you haven’t been, describe how you imagine it to be.
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Yes, I have. Many, many times. My parents were born and raised in Vermont. It seems practically everyone in the family was born there. That’s why doing the family tree was pretty easy. I didn’t have to dig for information in lots of other states, just pretty much Vermont since they’ve been there for generations on end.

While growing up, I dreaded the family trips. No matter where my father was stationed at the time (Retired Marine and living on base housings in different states), we always went by car. I absolutely hated the trips. I hated being shuffled from house to house. I hated the sleeping arrangements.

I’ve never been to any of the touristy areas of Vermont. I don’t know these big tree-covered mountains and ski resorts that Vermont is often represented as. It usually depends on where the relatives lived. Some lived by themselves near/in woods because they were hunters. My grandmother lived in a regular neighborhood. There really isn’t anything that stood out that made it a beautiful place to visit. It was always rushing around so that my parents could see their family before we had to leave.

I do remember once that we ended up in the middle of nowhere with lots of farmland. My mother pointed to this really old house and said that she grew up there as a kid with her siblings. That was pretty neat at least…

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Ah, a new season of True Blood starts tonight on HBO at 9pm EST. Can’t wait! I also love how LiveJournal’s “Writer’s Block” question for today is this:
Would you rather be a vampire or a vampire hunter, and why?

I would definitely be a vampire hunter.

I don’t want to live forever and always be thirsting for blood. I know there’s stories where vampires are ‘sane’ until they smell blood. There’s stories where vampires don’t die if they haven’t had blood in so long. On and on.

I’m not sure about what kind of Vampire Hunter I’d be. I know there’s some where they have to invent special weapons that can move faster than vampires. Then you have some ‘hunters’ that are endowed with powers and strength in order to keep up with vampires.

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I was stunned the proof copy arrived today when the estimated date was the 7th. It arrived in a box but nothing to hold it in place. Upon opening the box, the book looks like one of those ‘gently used’ books because of the cover being a bit banged up.

There’s this weird not-quite-bent-but-you-can-see-it edging…

The inside is pretty awesome. The text looks like it’s fading but that’s just the camera flash killing the text. The text is really easy to read.

The very last page at the end of the book has a page inserted that says in large letters “PROOF” with a barcode and the date. I imagine that’s there to let the company know that it’s a proof.

I think if I had more time before the ‘free proof copy’ code expired (It was a code given to NaNoWriMo 2010 winners in order to get a free proof copy from CreateSpace), I would’ve taken the time to make my own cover. Now that I have the book in my hand, the cover does make it seem painfully obvious that it was designed by a template program. I was worried after reading threads on CS that I might hit into unexpected setbacks where they might turn me down for something I did wrong and it’d take longer and longer to have it approved. Everything was approved on first submission so I managed to get it in before the code would’ve expired June 31st.

I was also asked this twice so I’ll place it here in case. CreateSpace does require you to order a proof copy of your book before you can start selling it. Therefore CreateSpace is not a ‘totally free’ option to publish a book. Had I not had the code from NaNoWriMo, I would’ve had to pay $7.74 for my proof copy (5×8, cream paper, 304 pages). I don’t know if shipping is free for proof copies but I didn’t have to pay for it.

And thus, this ends my journey. It’s weird to look back at the first post I made about NaNoWriMo and trying to decide if I should do it or not. Now I face a new concern. If I were to do NaNoWriMo 2011, will I not make as much effort because I might feel, “I did it before, I don’t need to prove myself again”? I don’t know. I guess we’ll see when the time comes around again…

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