Celebrating the Lunar New Year 2015

If you're from the Ottawa or Eastern Ontario area, you will commiserate with me as we receive more snow.

My excuses for not going out today:

1. I am completing support tasks for my writing group and enjoying the meticulous order of things;
2. There's too much frickin' snow - especially for a short-legged bus mouse.  

It would be nice to get out to the inaugural Lunar New Year celebrations in Ottawa or some kind of winter carnival activity. I would much rather attend the former because it happens indoors, celebrates the anticipation of spring and a new year coming on February 19th. There will likely be tasty treats, colourful decorations and firecrackers. 

Forget the firecrackers!  I'm not fond of sudden, loud noises.  I understand the original intention was to scare away the nasty lion or dragon that would come down from the mountains. 

I'm not all that superstitious but I like to explore and appreciate different traditions.  The Chinese New Year is special to me and Sera Fletcher, a character in the novel.

In less than two weeks, we will enter The Year of the Sheep (or goat, depending on whom you consult).

The resident artiste finally finished the Sheep illustration I commissioned a while back.  She has been creating Zodiac pictures in lieu of paying rent yet took a little longer than expected due to her personal projects. 

Delays aside, I love her style. I like to think creativity runs in our family - or  frolics and bounds as we monkey around. 

I'm not sure if or how we will use all of the illustrations in the next print edition of the novel but they sure provided a nice distraction and collaboration exercise over the past couple of years. We also got to fine tune our communication skills.

You may want to see the artiste's comic art work on Patreon. You can support her quest to be independent and to move out from under my "motherly oppression".  

Kidding aside, do you want to know more about The Year of the Rabbit?

• Drop by the novel's domain;
• Read some excerpts;
• Download a few free chapters from Smashwords;
• Read comments from others;
• Like the novel on Facebook;
• Stick around for a few years as we work on the second edition (by 2023).

Thanks for dropping by.

T (aka Flo)