Sewing Happiness by Sanae Ishida

sanae ishida sewing happiness via besotted blog

What a thrilling day to finally be able to mention our dear friend Sanae’s new book Sewing Happiness!  We have been waiting for the day when we could and we can not believe that day is here! Firstly, we are truly excited for her, this is her second book, her first the wildly successful Children’s book Little Kunoichi, The Ninja Girl was released in May of this year (my daughter and I give it a huge thumbs up!) on the tail of her first release she’s releasing a second book in a totally different genre a sewing-cum-memoir book, talk about a force to be reckoned with!  Btw, if you want to know all the ins and outs (and financials) of how she got to where she is now and how big of a success, Sanae does a monthly membership which is a newsletter/goodies project, she is absolutely 100% transparent about her process and her writing is beautiful, honest and witty. The book is not out yet, it will be released in April 2016, but it is available for pre-order!

Another reason we are so thrilled is because this was one of our first major professional projects as a team!  I’d like to say “we ” shot the cover and styled it, but really it was Michelle’s beautiful eye + talent that shot the cover and styling, well, it was truly a team styling effort Sanae had the most insane props to choose from and Michelle’s feedback was invaluable to the end results. It was an incredible learning experience and we are so honored that we were able to take part in it, so a huge thank you to Sanae and the Sasquatch Books team for allowing us to partake.  Wishing Sanae tons more success!

P.S. Michelle was able to see a copy and she said we even get credited in the book! Talk about EXCITING!!!!

P.P.S. We wrote about the experience here the equipment here and the tech stuff here

Miss Tristan B. is the co-creator of the world’s best + easiest product photography editing tool-Foto Rx | Shopkeeper’s Helper and one of the writer’s of this delightful blog. Her lofty goal here is to make this a creative resource repository and to inspire you to fall truly, madly, deeply in love with your life.

AROUND HERE…

BUSY BEE BESOTTED

Hello!  How are you? Happy holidays! What goodies are you working on???

It would seem that writing a bajillion (ok, 50K) words in a month, plus client work, plus laying foundations for an extremely exciting new business venture (oh boy – it’s a good one!), oh yes, and recording a new Skillshare class for Foto Rx (there’s another set of actions in the works too), and let’s not forget hosting a dozen loving family members over the holiday, maxed out my brain power and severely limited my ability to write and/or provide photos for this beautiful blog. Luckily for me, I have the most understanding business partner ever, who not only successfully resisted the urge to murder me, but saw fit to mention me kindly as she held down the fort! (Thank you Tristan, there will be dark chocolate bribes on the desk tomorrow, maybe caramels too.)

I can’t seem to fully emerge from novel writing mode (a good thing?), so I hope you’ll indulge me as I use a technique from one of our character profiles to catch up with you!

A glimpse into Miss P.’s thoughts as she begins the second week of December…..

HANDMADE HOLIDAY GIFT

When will that last ingredient for my handmade gifts arrive? -better see if there’s a tracking number.

Should the label be set type, or a hazy black and white photo?

Where can I get my hands on fresh lavender this time of year? Chamomile?

Should we share a how-to on the blog?

HOLIDAY HOSTING

Is ordering a prepared meal from Whole Foods or Metropolitan Market cheating? We’ve never done it before, but it’s so tempting. Husband suggests ordering pizza.

WRITING

Gah! After writing every day for a month, I feel guilty for having taken a week off! Must write. Reminder to write with more imagination, maybe try to take it too far.

INSPIRATION

Ooo, The Jealous Curator, Danielle Krysa just added a new Art for Your Ear podcast with the magnificent Bobbie Burgers. Must listen. Should also make it to Foster White Gallery to see her work in person. (Insert thoughts of becoming friends with Bobbie. Discussions about the poetry of dying flowers would abound. Maybe she’d let me photograph her dropcloths….)

Bingeing on  Roald Dahl stories, which are every bit as wonderful as I remember. The covers are ripe for redesign, wondering what someone like Katrin Coetzer could do with them.  Remember being similarly enchanted with Where the Sidewalk Ends as a kid, note to revisit.

PHOTOGRAPHY

I purchased a shiny new mirrorless camera! Have taken it out to shoot exactly once (argh), review forthcoming. Must buy flowers and let them wilt first.

SPECIAL PROJECTS

We are working with an amazingly talented illustrator and promise to tell you all about her! Must write interview questions for L. (We are working with two illustrators actually, but the other one is for the TOP SECRET project).

Need to find beautifully minimal holiday cards to send to clients. Have you found any good ones this year?

We know you must be feeling the holiday and end of year pinch as well, here’s hoping we can all find a way carve out some peaceful moments!

Author / Miss Michelle P.

Miss Michelle P. is a photographer, and the co-creator of Foto Rx Premium Photoshop Actions. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her muse is light.

VICINITY STUDIO | PINTEREST | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER

What to do after you finish your Nanowrimo novel?

WROTE A NOVEL FOR NANOWRIMO, NOW WHAT?

Now that we finished the Nanowrimo challenge, the most common question is ‘Now what?’ It’s a fair question to ask and one we only have some pat answers for–edit, rewrite, etc. but inevitably the question remains after that, ‘what are you going to do next?’  Here’s the honest answer, we have something that feels ‘novel-ish‘, we have developed characters that we love, but our protagonist may be a little one dimensional, it’s only 50k words, not quite novel numbers, but not too far from it. Our plot is weak, if you can even actually even call it a plot but there are such tiny, shiny gems that are sparkling brightly throughout, that we feel it’s worth moving forward. Our intention originally was to make it a creative exercise now it’s to see it into an actual edited, finished, cohesive piece that we can actually share with others. Now what?  I am thinking we may need to get help from a professional. I wasn’t sure if they had professionals that will help shape the amoeba like thing that is our Nanorwrimo ‘novel’ into an actual one. I did a little research and thought I would share some of the results in case you too are sitting there with a finished 50k of words (or more), that may have a spark of something, but without advice may just forever live on your hard drive.

//A BOOK COACH//

Hmmm? Interesting…  Michelle and I don’t have a budget to hire one, but the idea of one is very intriguing and up until yesterday I didn’t even know they existed.  Here’s a few I found some with proven track records!

Jennie Nash-She gives workshops as well! Here’s her success story page. Great interview here.

Ginger Moran

Steve Adams

Sandra Byrd

Here’s a directory of Book Coaches and Ghostwriters

//BOOK EDITING SERVICES//

Again, another service I had no idea existed, but I think would be invaluable before you sent your manuscript off to an agent or publisher (or wherever you send it, another thing I have no idea about!)

Lori DeBoer Lori offers coaching but also Developmental editing and Manuscript Evaluation

Manuscript Critique

Edit my novel

Mill City Press

We know a few of you have participated (and won Nanowrimo!) any tips for editing and turning the first draft into something that feels more like a true work

Miss Tristan B. is the co-creator of the world’s best + easiest product photography editing tool-Foto Rx | Shopkeeper’s Helper and one of the writer’s of this delightful blog. Her lofty goal here is to make this a creative resource repository and to inspire you to fall truly, madly, deeply in love with your life.

We did it!

Nanowrimo winners

Firstly, let me wish you all a belated Thanksgiving, we are always so very grateful for your visits, support and kind words! Secondly, when I had my daughter I wasn’t sure if I ever would get a chance to read a novel again let alone WRITE one!  That’s right my friends, Michelle and I actually completed and won our first Nanowrimo! We are both in shock and are giddy with accomplishment. My husband whom I abandoned this month asked me, ‘So, what are you going to do with all your free time now that the project is over?’ Without missing a beat I answered ‘Edit’. Michelle and I are thrilled with the start of this ‘novel’, we know that we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have come this far and we don’t want to abandon this labor of love.

We would love to continue working on it, polishing this little lump of coal and hopefully it will turn into a brilliant diamond.

We would love to continue on this journey and see what exciting landscapes we can conquer.

We want to continue our explorations and see where we may land.

We want to spend more time with our characters, we have grown quite found of them and their adventures and it would be heart-rending if we didn’t have an opportunity to enjoy their company for a little while longer. We thought we would leave you with a tiny snippet of a beloved character:

Emeline Thames was a born charmer, not of snakes but of people. It is said that the doctor who delivered her was so startled at his urge to claim her for his own, that he gave up medicine and moved to Mexico the very next day.

We look forward to sharing more of our story in the near future!

P.S. We didn’t just abandon you for our novel writing endeavor but have been hard at work with client work, some new Foto Rx sets, a new Photoshop class and a super top secret project that we keep pinching ourselves that it is actually coming to fruition!

Miss Tristan B. is the co-creator of the world’s best + easiest product photography editing tool-Foto Rx | Shopkeeper’s Helper and one of the writer’s of this delightful blog. Her lofty goal here is to make this a creative resource repository and to inspire you to fall truly, madly, deeply in love with your life.

When elephants fly | Nanowrimo update

http://gallery.photo.net/photo/14560577-md.jpg

Can you even believe that this month is nearly over? Heck, that this year is nearly over?  When we started this month, Michelle and I mentioned that we were participating in National Novel Writing month. It truly was a particularly absurd thing to add to our already very long list of to-do’s.  The thing is I’ve always wanted to write a novel, it has been one of my deepest, most cherished ‘secrets’. I suppose a lot of people have this same desire or else Nanowrimo wouldn’t have over 300,000 participants this month alone! I have always enjoyed writing and have felt at times creative, but I never had the discipline or the ‘vision’ to write something that remotely resembled a novel. Sure, I could write a lot, but nothing that had any sort of cohesion. It never crossed my mind to work with a writing partner, maybe because I have never met anyone as wildly creative as Michelle before? Individuals like Michelle are about as hard to find as a Yeti or pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, let’s just say impossible. We started this month with a few loose ideas and characters, ‘loose’ would actually be quite generous. We had one real goal in mind and that was to write every day, try to piece the story together and of course to hit the 50K word mark. This has been one of the most masochistic tasks I have ever taken on, it has also been one of the most rewarding. Michelle did a tally of words on Monday and we were at nearly 30k?!  What?  I couldn’t believe it!  We of course have six days left in November to reach our goal and I am hoping we can do it, Michelle wrote me an email, ‘Let’s be winners’, yes, let’s. It’s too early to go into details of our ‘novel’ but all I can say is that I have enjoyed the process immensely, that I can’t get the characters out of my head and I love being immersed in their world. I haven’t let my imagination run rampant like this since I was a kid and I am just feeling so grateful to have had the opportunity to even attempt anything like this. No matter what happens from here, I feel like we have accomplished something huge.

photo by beata bieniak

P.S. No, our novel does not include flying elephants with top hats (although what novel couldn’t benefit from that?), but this photo was sure to make you stop and read the post, no?