The New Floodgates of the Mind

I’ve been curious about something recently.

You are a creator. Your creation (book, art, story, article, etc) is released and available to the public at large (be it a specific target audience or not).

You get feedback on the work. This is always nice and ALWAYS appreciated (unless that feedback happens to be nothing more than trolls, of course).

Now, the question I have is this: WHICH (or probably WHOSE) is the one you are MOST anxious for? In other words, whose feedback will… “validate” what you’ve done in your eyes? Do you understand what I’m asking? Is there any one particular person (or magazine review) that if they positively review your work, you will feel a slight “lifting of the shoulders”? One of those “I don’t care what anyone else says, THIS PERSON liked it” kind of moments.

Please reply as I’d really like to hear from you. Thanks!

(and by the way, I don’t need to hear anything like “you shouldn’t be creating anything for anyone” because that’s still not the point I’m asking about 🙂 )

could I be? …

back to reality? Nah. Reality is no fun at all. In fact, to re-quote a favorite old slogan, “Reality is for people with NO Imagination” 🙂

Hey Folks! Offline for over a week and it feels strange to be putting my toe in the water again! 🙂 Seems like so many folks have had really crappy 2007s that it makes looking back on mine somewhat warped.

Yes, 2007 was challenging as all heck, but I can’t look at that. Not because I actually “can’t” but more because my brain is wired to forget it, move beyond it, and look at the positives. I won’t go into a month-by-month breakdown because I don’t have the time. But I will point out some very obvious ones:

New Baby Girl, Charlize Makenzie Aragona-Turgeon joins the household in June! Yes, it’s true that she was born with a heart defect that required Open Heart Surgery, but so what? She was re-born or survived that surgery if you will! On the day of my 4th Wedding Anniversary no less! What a gift! What a blessing! 🙂 As far as I’m concerned, my little girl with two names has two birthdays 🙂 (Note to baby girl reading this many years in the future: this does not mean you get twice the amount of birthday gifts! 🙂 )

New Novel, The Anti-Bodies: Heaven Can Wait released on Halloween! Selling well and (so far as I know) being enjoyed by all who’ve purchased a copy!

I know there were other items of great importance/ significance/ or value, but these two, for me, stood out right now 🙂

So, as much as 2007 (which I coined Two Thousand and Heaven) was not as Heavenly as expected, at least Heaven didn’t take my baby girl! But, for 2008 (coined Two Thousand and Great) I imagine beautiful, wonderful, and amazing days to come! 🙂

Now, I do have a few more personal items that I wanted to talk about (like the fact that Charlize has started to eat solids recently and that Kyle is still an amazing kid – within 2 days of being up North, he was speaking French like a pro! and that Xmas with a household of kids was beautiful and that Kyle and Charlize both loved having James and Melyssa over for such a long time, etc, etc) but don’t have the time now. I will, soon. I want to 🙂

Time for perhaps one more coffee before I head home. I’m quite fatigued at the moment but it’s been a really good day!

the Happiest of New Years to everyone!

And to all, a good night! 🙂

I had to coax Kyle back to his bed this morning at 3am, telling him that it was way too early and he needed to stay there a bit longer before joining Chantale and I in our bed.

He came to join us at 5:30am 🙂 Now, I would normally not let him (let’s say 6am should be the earliest) but seeing as I had to get up to come to work, I figured, “why not?” After snuggling in for a bit, he suddenly sits up and says to me, “Babbo Natale…uhm… cadeux a Kyle!” reminding us of what we had been telling him for the last little while (and last night). That, today, Santa Claus would be coming to give gifts to Kyle. 🙂 Too cute 🙂

Coming in this morning was surreal. It always feels that way when it’s still very dark outside, the roads are CLEAR of both traffic and weather, and the people in the train are sparse. I enjoyed the drive (KT Tunstall on the CD) and the train (reading Back Issue #4’s Byrne/Claremont Pro2Pro). A very relaxing 2 hours when you add in the walk from the train station to a very deserted downtown!! 🙂

So, I’m once again in a great mood, rested even through a couple of hours of sleep only, looking forward to the time off and the sharing of gifts, food, and moments with family, the house FULL of kids, and story ideas just bouncing around my head like crazy! 🙂

In other words, I’ve been having a really great couple of days and it’s still going! 🙂 A very hectic Saturday consisted of getting up early to get a haircut and then head off to the Post Office to mail out Comicopia #104. I also took the opportunity to give the woman at the counter an Xmas gift! She’s been taking such great care of all my mailing needs since I moved into the area that I wanted to thank her. I did this by giving her a personalized copy of my novel! She was so touched and thrilled that it made my day 🙂

The rest of the day was just as fun and with the evening consisting of a great supper with all the kids plus our best friends Francisco and Line, it made it all that much more enjoyable and wonderful 🙂

Anyhow, seeing as I’ll be on LJ sporadically, I wanted to take a moment now and wish you all the Happiest of Holidays and the Best of Times for the New Year! All your dreams and wishes will come true if you honestly believe in them!! 🙂

And in the immortal words/ voices of Steve Perry from Journey: “Don’t Stop! Believing! Hold on to that feeling!” 🙂

Another late night, but it was worth it! The Comicopia packages are all ready as are the Anti-Bodies packages. Tomorrow, I mail them off and get things started for issue 105!! 🙂

It’s the curse of putting a book out on a regular basis. You don’t really get much of a chance to enjoy the fruits of your labor because you’re always stuck looking ahead to the next and upcoming issues! 🙂 Oh well, there’s still a lot of pride in it all 🙂

Anyhow, it’s past 1230am and I have to get some shut-eye. It does feel great to have everything in place, though. Almost as good as having all the Xmas gifts taken care of 🙂 Oops! Actually, I just realized I picked up another stocking stuffer for James today! Strangely, it’s too big for his stocking so I’ll have to wrap it up!! Sheesh! And here we thought we were done with the wrapping paper! 🙂

Tomorrow. Now sleep. And to all a good night!

Really bizarre morning so far! Firstly, on the nice side, I was actually able to walk on the sidewalk on my morning trek to the train 🙂 With that massive snowstorm of Monday, walking was insane. We’re talking snow 5 foot high everywhere! No sidewalks in sight! So, every day as I walked the 5km to the train, it was all done on the streets. Walking the 5km home in the dark was also an adventure, but what the hey.

Anyhow, got downtown and they still haven’t cleaned the sidewalks here. No 5-foot high piles, though, just lots and lots of ice and small places to step. But… hardly anyone around! It’s almost as though folks have started their xmas holidays early and took all the cheer with them. Weirdly silent.

Worse, I went to the copy shop this morning and the ENERGY was so low as to feel like I was in a morgue. Outside of one small red plant there was nothing to indicate that they’re operating in a festive season. What the hell?! Service centers should ALWAYS be hopping! Sheesh.

I got all my copies done, though, so that’s great! And, I even made another sale after pimping The Anti-Bodies 🙂

So, all in all, I’m fighting some kind of weird gloom in the air but I’m so stoked (must be the lack of sleep because there isn’t any caffeine in me.. YET) that it’s not bothering me much more than that 🙂

Oh yeah, one more thing! Charlize cut her first tooth yesterday! In fact, by last night, she was cutting her second! At one point she had started sucking on my shirt sleeve (white!) and when she pulled away there were little blood stains! eeek! 🙂

Ah.. the holidays… (big grin)

I realized last night as I was reviewing my LJ for entries to share in Comicopia that I have been unnaturally silent these last 2 months. I’m not entirely certain why (outside of energy and time) but I’ll try to get back in the swing of things.

For now, I just wanted to post 2 photos of Charlize that a friend of ours sent me from an earlier visit. I believe Charlize is about 4 months in these shots:

You can click them to see slightly larger images 🙂