Skaldic Press – A Most Unreliable Narrator

introductions, introductions

The cottage from The Holiday. — The cottage from *The Holiday*.

Dear Internet,
Happy early Svein Forkbeard day. I’m in the wilds of Connecticut prepping for the series of holiday events that will be happening over the course of the next few days. Tonight most of the Connecticut family is heading to the midnight service and I’m thinking of joining them. There is something about theological rituals during the holidays that I still yearn for even though I do not prescribe to any particular religion.
Like previous years, I’m in the throes of making holiday cookies. This year the list is small: macaroons, white chocolate cranberry oatmeal, no bakes, sugar, and finally, gingerbread cookies. I’m shipping cookies to my brother and TSTBEH and of course, leaving some for the Connecticut family. Since the next couple of days is going to be jammed with family activities, I’m stealing time when I can – like waking up at 5:30AM to start the prep work for the cookies and the cornbread stuffing for the big meals that are happening today, tomorrow, and Boxing day.

It’s also time for holiday episodes of my favorite British TV and radio shows. So far Stella, the first part of the Zurich episode of Cabin Pressure, and first episodes of Good Omens have played. Then of course come the regulars and new shows that are upcoming like: Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, and Miranda. This is yet another reason why I love the British: the unabashed love for holiday episodes of their favorite shows which Americans give no fucks about.
But I have to reaffirm the bigger news than holiday cookies and TV shows; though in my world, those are very good things.
Skaldic Press Presents
Reminder about the 4x a month newsletter from Skaldic Press (my publishing arm) that includes updates from Exit, Pursued by a Bear, so glad is my heart, and other adventures in addition to Skaldic Press. Includes themed GIFs. You can check out the archives for a better taste of what to expect and then subscribe below.

The Lisa Chronicles, Vol 1: 1998
Also another reminder that my book is now available for pre-order. Publishing date is January 31, 2015.
From the blurb:

In 1998, having an online diary was a brave new world. Mailing lists, communities, chat rooms, and more all sprung up over people’s favorite diarists. Now we would call them bloggers. But then, THEN was a whole ‘nother beast. Then writing online was intimate. Then it was more personalized and personal. Then writers had less shtick. Not much was expected of these online exhibitionist scribes other than the ability to tell a good tale and regularly update.
I miss those days.
I never expected to get rich or famous, but what I wanted was to be able to connect to others who were like me. The scared, the frightened, the brave, and the bold. (No relation to the terrible soap opera of the same name.) I wanted to eat the world and in 1998, what better way to do that was through the Internet?
What can you expect from the first volume? Love, conflict, obsessions with people, places, and things. Rotating cast of characters and adventures. Sprinkle of song lyrics here and there. Pop culture references galore. Sex. More sex. Profane words and a bipolar girl desperate to connect with a world she did not understand.
While this work has been edited for grammar, clarity, and the obvious typo, it remains largely unchanged from when it first appeared online nearly two decades ago.
And lastly, every word here is true.

So if you’re intrigued by the book description or want to help support me thanks to the saga of #teamharpy, I would be most grateful if you would pre-order the book.

[amazon template=image&asin=B00R2808QE]

<<<<>>>>

Not much else is going on in my world right this very second other than prepping for the holidays and editing my book. Typically I feel some sort of sadness and isolation since my family and I are not very close, but while I feel some semblance of that feeling this year, being around people who care kind of lessens the pain. I still feel awkward and out of place, but when do I usually not feel a disconnect to others’ lives?
The drugs may stabilize my moods, meditation may help me deal better with impulse feelings, but some things about me will just never change.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2011, 2002

look, it stopped snowing

Dear Internet,
I unintentionally woke up this morning at 6AM but it ended up working out as the early wake-up meant I could take Kristin to work. We walked outside to discover that it had snowed over night; nothing serious but it was the first time this season I’ve seen snow sticking to the ground. It snowed once when I was on the east coast, on Thanksgiving, and it was giant fluffy snow; the kind that melts as fast as it hits the ground.
caravaggio
Since I graduated from undergrad in 2005, I’ve made it my personal mission to see every Caravaggio in existence. I am so enamoured of the idea, a few years ago I made a mini-site (okay, a page really) of his known complete works and started checking them off. I haven’t updated in awhile but as of today, I’ve seen over 40 of the 90 Caravaggios open to the public and I have 18 more pieces to catalog before the page is done with the exception of me checking off new ones I have seen.
I really need to hie thee to Florence and Vienna.
The Lisa Chronicles, Vol 1: 1998
…is now up for pre-order. Delivery date is January 31, 2015.
At long last my project is starting to come to fruition. The goal is to take each year from 1998 and forward, clean it up (grammar, spelling, clarity), bundle it as an eBook and sell it on Amazon. The content has been free for years on EPbaB, but no one reads archives anymore unless there is a direct link within the piece referencing it. There has been requests to eBookify the back content for easier reading, so I’ve done just that.
From the blurb:

In 1998, having an online diary was a bold new world. Mailing lists, communities, chat rooms, and more all sprung up over people’s favorite diarists. Now we would call them bloggers. But then, THEN was a whole ‘nother beast. Then writing online was intimate. Then it was more personalized and personal. Then writers had less shtick. Not much was expected of these online exhibitionist scribes other than the ability to tell a good tale and regularly update.
I miss those days.
I moved my diary (or journal, which was used interchangeably) around to many domains but kept the same name: The Lisa Chronicles. Who better to tell my life story other than me? I never expected to get rich or famous, but what I wanted was to be able to connect to others who were like me. The scared, the frightened, the brave, and the bold. (No relation to the terrible soap opera of the same name.) I wanted to eat the world and in 1998, what better way to do that was through the Internet?
What can you expect from the first volume? Love, conflict, obsessions with people, places, and things. Rotating cast of characters and adventures. Sprinkle of song lyrics here and there. Pop culture references galore. Sex. More sex. Profane words and a bipolar girl desperate to connect with a world she did not understand.
While this work has been edited for grammar, clarification, and the obvious typo, it remains largely unchanged from when it first appeared online nearly two decades ago.
And lastly, every word here is true.

So if you’re intrigued by the book description or want to help support me thanks to the saga of #teamharpy, I would be most grateful if you would pre-order the book.
[amazon template=image&asin=B00R2808QE]
Skaldic Press Presents
The eBook announcement reminds me of another thing I launched this past week: Skaldic Press Presents. It’s a newsletter of updates of my projects, including Exit, Pursued by a Bear, so glad is my heart, and other adventures in addition to Skaldic Press. Includes GIFs.
tl;dr I tweet and write too much, but you want to keep up with me? This newsletter is how to do it.

where in the world is lisa going to be now?
The constant changing of addresses and locations are baffling peeps, so let me clear some things up. If you have an east coast address for me, mainly for snail mail, you can send me mail there until early January as I will be on the east coast until January 14. After then, I’m back in Michigan to finish up writing my book, continue with The Lisa Chronicles project, and finalize my divorce. I have given out a PO Box to which mail can be sent to and this PO Box is active now. So yes, technically from now until January 15, when I take possession of my apartment in Michigan, I’m homeless.
adios Throbbing Manor (for real this time)
IMG_0884 (1)
The house closed yesterday and the stress of prepping and selling it is now gone. Finally. I’m not sure who is going to be more thrilled about this decision, me or TSTBEH, but we had a very tearful goodbye in the parking lot of the title company before parting ways. I have no idea when I’m going to see him again since he doesn’t need to be present when the divorce is finalized. He headed south for his move, I headed north to Kristin’s to crash for a few days.
And that, they say, is that. I know right now I’m grieving, again, for the loss of my marriage and I’m okay with that. Even knowing what the pain IS doesn’t make it hurt any less.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013

Moving Part Deux

Dear Internet,
Well, here we are again: I’m moving. This time Two Men and a Truck put what I pillaged from Throbbing Manor (thanks to the generosity of TSTBEH) into storage for a month while I’m out on the east coast; then they will move me into Valkyrie Estates (name may change) in mid-January. Then, THEN, work will start on my book(s).
My pillaging helps TSTBEH out as he would have had to either donate, sell, or take with him the remaining furniture he decided he did not want after the split. With the exception of a bed, I’ve almost completely furnished Valkyrie Estates. I’ve got a list of smalls I need to pick up when I get back (like laundry soap and toliet paper), but really, that is it.
This manic last two months, easier to give it a simple explanation when the explanation is really much more complicated, has been financially AND mentally expensive. Truth be told, if I wasn’t counting on the settlement from the selling of the house to pay off my debts, I may have reigned the spending in but that’s an excuse for my own folly. I must accept the responsibility of what I have done financially.
It’s now mid-Sunday afternoon and I’m camped out at a hotel. Again. This time the only thing I’m running from is sleeping on an air mattress in a house that is freezing. Between the consignment shop swopping in on Thursday and my movers on Friday, all that is left until Monday is an air mattress, a 50″ TV and related stereo equipment, dining room table and chairs, TSTBEH’s boxes, and the art deco hutch. In 3200 sqft. We attempted to sleep on the air mattress every night until the closing of the house on Tuesday but I just couldn’t do it. I gave in to my inner diva, left late Friday night for a hotel, and here I am.
And yes, I’m keeping track and earning points with all of this hoteling, flying, and other travel.
My entire life is now split between two suitcases and my messenger bag of electronics. There are a few odds and ends in my trunk but my worldly possessions are now in those two suitcases; it’s a freeing feeling and an exhausting one. Now that my mind is finally clearing and I’m starting to put things into better perspective, I want to nest. Now.
I have to learn patience, I have to learn that waiting is okay and things will still be there when I’m done waiting. Not everything is gossamer and clouds but water and dirt. Things are tangible, holdable, and lovable. These are things I need to remember and need to not forget ever again.
So let’s move on to something other than my mental geographical quandary.
Part of ThePlan is bundling the previous years entries into an ebook volume and publishing it on Kindle and other eRetailers.
Today I finished the first draft of volume 1 and it clocks in at roughly 114 pages.
The plan is to take previous years (beginning, well, at the beginning) of The Lisa Chronicles, bundle them by year into an eBook version and see if I could shill it on Amazon (and maybe Apple) to make some passive income.
The idea was pitched to me about four years ago when a library school friend offered to go through these entries, edit for clarity and grammar, and help me format them for the Kindle. I was a bit trepidatious at first, for I often do not find myself to be that fascinating, I just happen to get into fascinating circumstances. But apparently there is a market for this type of writing and I had oodles of it already written at my disposal.
But I stalled, as I do, on the project when I was working full time; I started nibbling at the idea again when I started planning for my sabbatical. The process seemed simple enough: get the back entries of The Lisa Chronicles up online on EPbaB for completist sake. Then move the content over to Word for formatting and editing. Find a cover. Set a price. Write a forward and a description. Upload and BOOM. Book is on the Amazons.
But it wasn’t that simple, rather, it was much more complex than my simple plan. Two things were happening in parallel. First being I had to set up as a business entity to help with writing off things related to my sabbatical AND to properly handle any income coming in from the sales of the eBooks. Second, that I had to find the content (easy enough as I kept multiple copies), get it on to EPbaB so the archives were complete, then move it to Word. I knew how prolific I am, so I figured I’d break it down by year and each year would be roughly 50 pages of formatted book text.
Did I mention that year one is at 114 rough pages? And only from April to December 1998? So I was obviously wrong in my page prediction.
I consider 1998 to be the very beginning for the sheer amount of content, though I have pieces that were published much earlier. I have gotten 1998 and 1999 into the EPbaB archives, so the first two volumes of the eBook project are going to be easy to do. I’ll have to work in tandem with getting the later content up and editing the current project and writing the fiction book.
I’m going to be a very busy girl.
Getting it up on Kindle was not that difficult: I opted out of the KDP Select option which means the work would have only been sold on Kindle and I opted out of having DRM on the eBooks. I was able to, with the help of TheBassist and cmmrb, figure out the cover design (Amazon has a free cover creator). I have my EIN and LLC name (Skaldic Press), so everything on the business side was ready to go. It was just a matter of getting the content up, formatted, and edited.
So basically the hard part.
You know where you can find me for the next month.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 1999, 1998

introducing skaldic press

dear internet,
i am a ceo and now own my own company.
it’s true. i even have my own EIN and some fool gave me a business credit card.
i own 100% of a company which is (currently) worth $0. but that’s all about to change.
skaldic press, llc came into existence in the spring of 2014 when i started planning my year long writing sabbatical. i needed a business front for all of my writing activities and a way to track expenses related to research and other necessities. as most of you know, however, the last few months of 2014 have been unbelievably hellish and the concept was shelved.
now that I’m better equipped emotionally and rationally to handle all of this change, it was time to kick start skaldic press, llc back into existence AND i needed a way to make an income.
what exactly will skaldic press, llc be publishing?
easy.
me.
on a more specific scale, skaldic press, llc current projects on the table are the eBook front which will be volumes my online diary entries from the late ’90s and early ’00s bundled in eBook format, which i will be selling on amazon and ibook. the entries will always remain free on the website.
there is also a literary ‘zine, so glad is my heart. which i’ll be launching in the spring. plus i have a few other projects that will be coming to fruition in the next couple of months.
i’m pretty fucking excited, let me tell you, about this whole endeavor.
skaldic press social media presence is pretty bare bones at the moment, but you can follow us at:

will this be hard? yes.
will this be a eating bon-bons money maker? probably not.
but i’ve got IDEAS and a burning passion to make this succeed. i have no interest in turning this some sort of MLM with videos, podcasts, and other gewgaws; rather i want to just quietly publish my stuff while i write my books.
wish me luck.
xoxo,
lisa

this day in lisa-universe: 2013, 2013, 2008, 1999