True North Issue 7, December-January 2024: The Hush Of Midnight
Special End-Of-Year Edition of my monthly newsletter where we talk all things bookish and everything in-between
Pour lire ce numéro en français, cliquez ici.
Hi book friends!
As I am writing these lines, I am slowly recovering from COVID which I had managed to avoid for almost 4 years. Though I was in China during the initial outbreak in 2020, I never got it. I guess I can say that now I have joined the club. (Is this even a good thing?). I spent the last couple of weeks resting mostly, reading and getting back into writing, which isn’t so bad after all.
What does the title of this issue mean? For me, the end of the year is a time to reflect. It is the darkest time of the year since we can barely see the sun for a couple of hours a day here in Canada. The snow-blanketed city is less busy, people stay home most of the time, and whenever I go out, more often than not, there is a very peculiar, overwhelming silence. Thus, the Hush of Midnight.
In this special edition of True North, I will be sharing my end-of-year review with you along with a sneak peek of what is to come for 2024.
Here is an overview of what I will discuss:
What happened in November-December?
End-of-year Review of 2023
My plans for 2024
Are you ready? I sure am!
1. What Happened in November-December?
November was a busy month. I was neck-deep in drafting a business plan and attending events. Plus, I caught COVID and was bed-ridden during the last week. This is why you haven<t heard much from me these last couple of weeks. Here is a breakdown of what happened:
NaNoWriMo 2023
I guess writing 50k words wasn’t meant to happen for me this year. I still managed to write around 15k words, but then I was too busy with events to commit and I got very sick right after.
Congrats on all those who came out as winners! It does take dedication and it’s a great way to get started or get moving in your writing projects.
Promised Land Rewrite
I have had more time to focus on this project especially since the beginning of December. Every morning, I try to write for a couple of 25-minute focus sessions. I have been consistently hitting 1500-3000 words per day which is a relief. Around 25% of the book has been rewritten for the third draft. My hope is to send it to my editor by the end of January. Wish me luck!
Montreal Book Fair - Salon du livre de Montréal
It was my first time at this event and I met a lot of interesting people, old and new, such as writers, authors, publishers, editors and eager readers who came to see me to get their books signed. Every time I go to a live event, it always gives me the energy to keep writing. No doubt, I went back to editing Promised Land afterwards.
This was the last event of the year and I am looking forward to taking part in more of those next year.
Swimming Lessons
I have completed the first level of my swimming lessons. I cannot swim confidently yet, but I am amazed at all the progress I have made in only two and a half months. Back in September, I was still utterly terrified of putting my face in the water let alone let myself float. Now I can float on my back and on my tummy, and swim using a few basic techniques. I am still working on the crawl as I am struggling to breathe. I always end up having to stop to catch my breath. Swimming is pretty hard on the cardio so I find myself running out of air too quickly and I can’t seem to take in enough air to keep going.
Swimming in the deep has always been a big fear of mine and I’m glad I dipped my toes — and actually my entire body — in the deepest part of the swimming pool. I still don’t feel comfortable, but I can tread water a little and swim around if I have something close by to grab in case I suddenly feel uncomfortable.
Baby steps can definitely take you a long ways. I should take another swimming class next semester so I can build up my skills and confidence. My objective is still to not panic if I am thrown into deep water unexpectedly. That way I can better enjoy my travels. More work is needed but I know I can do it…. eventually.
The Ark-Hives Reports - Bonus Content
VJ’s next report is not available yet because I am trying to focus on Book 3 which absolutely needs to be completed soon. So, I am temporarily putting on hold any bonus content development to focus on book writing.
If there are any aspects of the series you would like to know more about, you can leave a comment here or send me an email. I’ll pass on the message to V.J. to see if they can look into that. 🥸
Call for Submission
As I have already mentioned in a previous issue, I would like to launch my imprint Flame Arrow Publishing and publish other authors. I have officially shared a call for submission and I’ll be honest, I was terrified at first. I thought to myself that nobody would want to submit their manuscript to a new publisher without a solid reputation, but I have received a lot of unexpected support. I now have a few dozens of manuscripts to sift through and I am hoping to find a few gems to publish.
2. End-Of-Year Review of 2023
2023 has been hectic in a lot of strange ways. Not only it was my first year back in Canada, but I felt like I was at a standstill. We’re still waiting for my partner’s immigration approval so until then it’s very difficult to plan ahead.
I decided to take it easy and focus on building future assets so that I can eventually make a living with my writing without having to sacrifice my sanity and freedom. On the contrary. I want to use my writing to build an evergreen business that will support myself and my family in years to come. I decided to go all out by first building a strong foundation.
Learning about Business & Marketing
This was the biggest challenge of all. I have a background in linguistics, though I always had an interest in business. I picked up marketing and sales for books to become a self-published indie author, but never at the scale of an entire business that is not only about selling your own books but other people’s books as well.
I bought online courses and books, and absorbed as much knowledge as I could. I quickly found out that marketing & sales is very challenging but also necessary. I started collecting successes that showed me that I was able to apply what I had learned and it gave the boost I needed to learn about other aspects of running a successful business.
I haven’t read all the business books I bought because at some point you have to be able to say you know enough to get going and that it’s a lifelong journey anyway. Business is such a different world but once you start understanding its inner workings, everything makes so much more sense. Alongside that, getting a proper financial education has enlightened me immensely. Without it, I don’t think I would’ve been able to come this far.
I was scared of numbers, financial statements and balance sheets before, but I went out of my way to familiarize myself with those crucial tools for any business person. My main motivator was to launch profitable businesses that will allow me to do what I love. I absolutely don’t want to go back to the mindless daily grind of being a full-time employee for a corporation that stifles my creativity. This freedom must be earned and I know I have to put in the effort. Learning business is my path to this freedom.
Spark Word House
Since I didn’t want to go back to a full-time job working for someone else, I decided to offer editing services. I spent the entire year helping other professionals and writers write, publish and market their books.
It was such an enjoyable experience. I am a linguist and teacher by trade so I could still do those two things on my own terms. I even managed to earn enough to make a living, thus enabling me to pursue my other interests like writing fiction, publishing other authors and learning foreign languages.
Launching this business was a practice test to see whether everything I was learning about business could actually work out for me. It wasn't easy, far from it, and a lot of things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to. However, there are a few things that did work and so I am focussing on that to grow. I would love to run a huge business and make millions, but those are not realistic expectations when you first start out. I need to learn the process, find solid ground and build from there.
I realized I was putting myself unnecessary pressure to become profitable as fast as possible like online gurus constantly drill into our minds. But the reality is: it’s not easy and you need to give yourself the time you need to learn or else you run into the risk of crashing and burning, which is the last thing you want to happen.
Slow and steady is key. Once things get out of hands, it’s really hard to steer your business back on track.
I am very glad about how things turned out for Spark Word House and I can’t wait to see what will happen with this project next year!
Fiction & Non-Fiction Writing
From January through April, I was busy writing my first non-fiction book What If You Wrote That Book? Your blueprint to writing, publishing & growing your business. It was definitely no easy task. I experimented with dictation which actually turned out to be not so bad, but then I realized most of what I had written just wasn’t what I was trying to go for. After 65,000 words, I decided to scratch everything and rework the plan. it was a lot of work and I’m glad I was able to complete this book. It’s not officially out yet as I am sharing it only with clients I am working with to get their feedback.
Writing non-fiction is an entirely different world and I really felt like I had to throw out everything I thought I knew about writing a book. But because of this experience, I am fully aware of the challenges some of my clients go through and I have grown tremendously as a writer.
Will I write another non-fiction book? Perhaps. There are a lot of topics I would like to research and delve deeper into, but at the moment, I’d rather spend my time writing fiction. I believe non-fiction could be a good way for me to ‘‘take a break’’ from writing fiction, which brings me to the next point.
I definitely didn’t write as much fiction as I wanted to.
It’s funny because when you think you have all the time in the world to actually write, you don’t get much writing done. You find other, better and more important things to do. This is what happened to me.
I think the fact that I moved back to Canada right at the beginning of winter made it harder to adjust. I ended up not reading any novel in the first three months of the year. It’s only by the end of March that I finally read my first book of the year. I think there’s also the fact that I was working hard with my first clients, learning about business, etc. Too many things were happening at the same time and I couldn’t find the energy or the headspace to write fiction.
Thunder Hearts
This is the only piece of fiction I worked on in the first half of 2023. It’s a Fantasy Romance, a genre I have never written in. Again, I wanted to challenge myself especially since I was taking part in a professional workshop with other published authors. Although the short story didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, I have learned a lot from this experience. I realized I needed to go back to learning story fundamentals which set me down a new path of learning. I bought a few books about the craft and binge read them. As a result, I overhauled my entire writing process, and I daresay, for the better.
I remember actively learning about the craft back in 2015-2017 when I started writing the Amaranth series. At the time, I told myself I had to stop because I couldn’t write the story I had in my mind. The flurry of new information was just too much for the writer I was before. But after having written and published 3 novels, I needed a major update. Professional development is extremely important and I now consistently read books about the craft on an ongoing basis.
There are so many aspects of story mechanics to master, aspects we neglect in our own writing, new techniques we can incorporate to bolster how our story resonates with our readers. Continuously reading about the craft ensures that you can cover all your weaknesses and give yourself more control over your ideas and what message you are trying to convey through your writing.
Thunder Hearts is a story that should be made into a novel and I think I need to amp up my game before writing in this new genre. My main priority should be to focus on finishing my sci-fi, oceanpunk series, first and foremost.
Promised Land
This was a tough one. I was glad I already had a completed first draft of over 142,000 words, a personal record of mine. I even made it 40% into the second draft, but then I found out there was something that wasn’t working. I went back to the drawing board and applied the new writing process I learned during that time.
There is a lot of pressure in finishing a book series. I want to avoid disappointing at all costs and I felt I needed to rewrite a lot of the book to make it more faithful to the idea I originally had for this story. It can be disheartening to do so much work, but I don’t see it as a bad thing anymore.
When I had to rewrite book 1 of the Amaranth series 5 times, I nearly saw this as a failure, but in fact, it’s simply part of the process. I can see that now. So, reworking book 3 just as much gives me confidence in that it will be a better book than what it was going to be. This change of mindset just shows how much I have grown as a writer and I am glad I made those choices.
Of course, in-between projects, I still keep brainstorming new story ideas that may or may not get written in the future. But it keeps my creative mind alive by stoking the embers of passion I have for storytelling
Flame Arrow Publishing
I published the paperback and hardcover editions of Amaranth following the successful Kickstarter campaign of November 2022. I also published the hardcover edition of Flower of Memory so that people could have the complete set in this format.
I did a lot of networking at events like the Salon international du livre de Québec (SILQ), Blue Metropolis, Ottawa CanCon, Congrès Boréal, and the Salon du livre de Montréal. Those were extremely rewarding because building connections in this business is crucial if you want to succeed. It was also a nice break from only working online. I don’t think live events will go away anytime soon because there are things that you simply cannot do online.
I also decided to go forward with publishing other authors, a longtime dream of mine. Since it takes years to build and that there is never a perfect time to start, I thought it was better to just go along with it and see how it goes. I shared a call for submission and have received more manuscripts than I could have ever imagined.
Something I noticed is that over the years, I become more and more fearless. The doubts are still there, but they are not as crippling as they used to be. Failure doesn’t seem as scary, because in the end, you never really fail. You learn, you grow, and you meet new people: You have done something no matter how big or small. Changing this mindset has really helped me put down barriers I didn’t need to succeed. I also know that nothing is ever going to be perfect, but that ‘‘good enough’’ works just fine. The perfectionist in me is still screaming at this, but my hope is that it will get easier over time.
I also revamped the website and launched it on Shopify. I had a lot to learn again but now everything is integrated. Readers can easily buy my books (and future authors’ books) on my online shop, which is convenient since I still need to find a distributor and build a distribution network.
I’m very satisfied with how the website turned out. It’s essential to have a good platform for my books and the business. By merging the two, I can remove some of the extra work I was doing by promoting my books on the side. Now, Flame Arrow Publishing will be actively taking on the marketing and sales part of my books like a traditional publisher. Meanwhile, I will be able to focus on running multiple businesses, posting on my Substack, Instagram and TikTok, and writing more books.
Personal Challenges
Translation
I submitted 2 book translations Kiss of Fire (Le baiser ardent) and The Man With Two Names (L’homme à deux noms). Those were big projects that taught me how to apply my translation skills to other types of writing, but also different genres (fantasy romance and historical fiction). The first is available on all major online retailers while the second is currently being published.
Learning New Skills & Being More Active
I was looking for ways to challenge myself during the year. Obviously I thought about learning a new language, but then I stopped myself. I really wanted to get out of my comfort zone and language learning, although it’s very enjoyable for me — I love memorizing vocabulary lists and discovering new grammar patterns; it’s very geeky I know! —, it wouldn’t challenge me in a new way.
Instead, I took up rollerblading and swimming, two skills I had been wanting to learn for over 10 years, but which I kept putting off for various reasons. I also liked the fact that once you learn rollerblading or swimming, muscle memory will make sure you never forget those, unlike learning a language which fades over time unless you are ready to regularly expose yourself to the language or open to spend a couple of weeks to review to get back on track.
Becoming More Fit and Running
After spending the entire winter hibernating, I went back to working out at the gym and running outside. There’s a nice cycle road that borders the St-Lawrence river here right across from the house and the view is stunning. Whenever I needed to take a break from work, I would go out for a run. I thoroughly enjoyed that time of the day, so much that I ended up running almost every day for the entire summer.
The results speak for themselves. I lost 15 pounds and I have significantly improved my time. I can now run 5k under 25 minutes and a 10k well below 1hr. I didn’t go out much since most of the people I know in the area are gone after being away for so long, but going out for a run was my way to stay sane and enjoy nature at a level I hadn’t experienced living in China, where the hustle and bustle of the city makes it hard to relax.
Conclusion for 2023
It’s only in retrospect that I realize just how much I have accomplished and learned. At times, it still feels surreal that I truly moved back, but I think things will fall into place once I rent my own place.
It also amazes me to see how this year turned out compared with the plans I had. From what I remember, I was able to accomplish most of what I had set out to do, and even more. I lost last year’s end-of-year post I had written because I wasn’t using Substack. But anyway, now I won’t have to worry about this for next year :)
3. My Plans for 2024
Things always change but I like to list what I would like to accomplish for the next year. It’s the north star that guides me throughout the year, though I always remain flexible. I know I tend to have an impossible list of things to do and if I truly wanted to do all of it, I would burn myself out to misery.
If you’re considering what to do with your life, I hope these things can give you some ideas or inspiration of what you might want to do. And for the eager readers among you, you’ll get some comfort in knowing that a book release will be coming your way.
Moving to Vancouver
This is what I was hoping to accomplish in 2023 but couldn’t because of the extremely long immigration process so that my partner can move over and settle down with me. We’re at the mercy of this bureaucratic hellscape, but at least we have a lawyer who takes care of it for us. Once my partner gets their landing papers, we will be able to plan accordingly.
We picked Vancouver because it has a great balance between nature and the perks of living in a big city. It’s closer to Asia, thus convenient. Plus, the blend of Asian culture will make it easier for my partner to adapt. I also miss the atmosphere and I know Vancouver will at least have my favorite Chongqing spicy noodles if I have a craving.
I’m really looking forward to going hiking in the mountains. This is what charmed me about the West Coast in the first place. But I won’t lie when I say that the climate also weighs heavily in the balance. I am not a fan of winter by all means. Vancouver has the mildest winter across Canada so that won’t make my life miserable. It’s also very close to the border. I will be able to easily visit Seattle or even California, and drop by a Barnes & Nobles to meet my favorite authors which is nearly impossible to do in Canada.
Travelling Abroad
I desperately need to travel overseas. China aside, I haven’t travelled since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. There are so many places I want to visit and I want to make this a reality in 2024. Of course, as much as I’d like to travel to many places, I will also be very busy with launching and growing my businesses.
I’d like to visit my partner in China and travel around to places I didn’t get to see while working there. Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Tibet are just a few places I would love to see. I wouldn’t say no to visiting a few Asian countries while being there such as Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, South Korea and Japan. We’ll see how much time (and money) I can spend. This trip would probably happen by the end of spring around May-June.
There are a few writers’ festivals that I’d like to attend like the WorldCon for Sci-fi and fantasy in Scotland in August, SPS Live in London in June, 20booksVegas or its successor Author Nation in Las Vegas in October, les Utopiales in Nantes France in November, on top of local events such as book fairs all year round. I’m not sure how many of those events I will actually be able to attend, but travelling for business would be a good excuse to satisfy my urge to explore the world.
Launching Flame Arrow Publishing
My goal is to publish other authors starting (hopefully) by the end of 2024. If not, then it should happen in early 2025. It does take a lot of time to publish a book. But more importantly, I need to work out those numbers so it’s a viable endeavor. If it turns out to be successful, I think it’s a push that will greatly benefit my books as well.
I will mostly focus on book sales through crowdfunding campaigns using Kickstarter for the English edition and Ulule for the French edition of my books. It’s the quickest way to make a significant amount of money to cover production costs and also reach new readers. I can also indulge in making collector’s editions which I am crazy about. I have contacted a new printing company that can make all the beautiful customizations I want (sprayed edges, foiling, case laminate, embossing, etc.) so I am really looking forward to making this kind of luxury product available for my readers.
I’m also hoping to continue working on the fiction magazine Brins d’éternité which aims at publishing new voices in the speculative genre scene.
2 Book Releases
North Star will be available in a Kickstarter campaign in March, then made available as a pre-order on Flame Arrow Publishing’s website, and will finally be released in the summer of 2024 on online retailers and a select bookstores. If I can secure a distributor by then, it may even hit shelves nationwide, but we’ll see. I don’t want to get my hopes up until it is confirmed. It is a long process to get everything up and running in this business.
For those of you who have been following me since 2020 and who have read Amarante a while ago, you’ll be happy to learn that the French edition of Terre promise, the last book in the Amaranth series will come out in the fall. There will also be a crowdfunding campaign a couple of months before on the Ulule platform. I am pretty confident that I will make in time, seeing how the edits are going right now. Although there have been delays in releasing this book, I think it was necessary to do it justice. For the English edition, you guys will have to wait until 2025. I don’t think I’ll have enough time to translate it until we’re well into 2024.
Growing Spark Word House
I’d like to take on more clients to help them write their book. I’m also not closed to the idea of teaching private academic writing lessons as well when settling in Vancouver. There are a lot of international students who need help with taking IELTS. I would do anything really to avoid working full-time for a corporation. My plan is to also offer workshops and group coaching to help me scale this business online.
If everything goes well, I could even hire some staff, but that might be too hasty. I know I will need to adapt along the way. My main concern is that I won’t have time to do everything I want, but that’s to be expected. I must say that sometimes I dream of being able to hire a few people just to be able to do more with the time I have.
Upcoming Writing Projects
The first half of 2024, I will be focussing on finishing the edits of Terre promise so that it can be ready for an Ulule campaign in the summer and a fall release.
In the second half of the year, I will be translating Terre promise into English (Promised Land) which will take quite a while. The manuscript is sitting close to 150,000 words right now so I expect a longer-than-usual book. Translating a book of this length takes a minimum of 3-6 months, and that means working daily on it. I know I don’t want to be just translating the book because it can get pretty monotonous.
Since the Amaranth series will be over, I am still unsure what I will be writing next. I have a couple of manuscripts that need to be rewritten and also a ton of new stories to write. I think I will make the decision only once I will have finished the edits of Terre promise.
In an ideal world, I would also have another book ready to submit to my editor by the end of 2024, but that might just be a pipe dream. We’ll see what happens!
Personal Challenges
I will be starting ice-skating lessons at the end of January and I would like to continue learning how to swim. In the spring, I will go back to rollerblading so I can learn how to skate uphill and downhill, and hopefully learn how to do a crossover.
I also want to get back to studying Chinese so I can one day reach Level 6. It takes at least 2 years to get there or some 2100 hours of study time, so I’d better get started early.
Since I love languages so much, I kind of miss learning a completely new language. I have already dipped my toes into Arabic, so I might try to reach level A1. There are some online classes available at a reasonable cost too, so I might enrol.
There’s also Japanese that is tickling my mind. I started studying it when I was only 11 years old, have even studied it in college for a couple of years, and eventually passed the first level equivalent to A1, ironically called JLPT N5 (they count in descending order, meaning JLPT N4 is harder and JLPT N1 is the hardest which equals to C1). I think it would be nice to finally pass JLPT N4 = A2 to feel like I haven<t wasted all these years.
There are other languages like Spanish and German which I learned in school but never got the chance to take an international examination to attest my level. I’m also considering what I will do with those. Perhaps reading a couple of novels in those target languages would spark my interest in studying them further. The German book market is dynamic and very interesting for business. This might be the incentive I need to get back to it.
I’d like to read more than 50 books next year. With my ever-growing TBR, the only way to get through it is to up my game when it comes to reading. I am pretty confident I will reach my 2023 goal of 50 books. Considering that I didn’t read any book for 3 months, but also the fact that I have quite a few chunky books to read, perhaps 65 books might be doable.
Finally, I will continue to run and might even try to run a half marathon. I’ve only ever dreamed to do this, so perhaps 2024 will be the year for that. Of course, I will keep going to the gym to stay healthy and to give me the energy I need to work on all my projects.
Conclusion
And that’s it! Thanks for sticking around until the end of this pretty long post. You’ll hear from me soon because I will be launching an Ulule campaign in February for a collector’s edition of Amarante (in French) and a Kickstarter campaign for the release of North Star in March.
Let me know how 2023 went for you and what you are planning for 2024. Will you be committing to reading 50 or 100 books a year? Will you be writing a book of your own? Let me know in the comments or send me an email!
Thank you for supporting me and my work. Please share this blog with your friends who might be interested so we can grow our community.
Happy bookish end of the year!
Dave Dufour a.k.a David M. Snow
It’s already the end of the Monthly Issue of True North. Here are a few things you don’t want to miss:
Download your free digital copy of Flower of Memory, the prequel novella to the Amaranth series, a sci-fi oceanpunk dystopian story with a touch of fantasy, for a limited time. Ideal for fans of Hugh Howey’s Silo and The Last of Us.
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