Today I’d like to share with you my very first e-book. Calling it an e-book might be a little generous, because it’s less than 20 pages long, but it’s a mini book I’m distributing electronically, so e-book it is!
This mini book/manifesto is a collection of my favourite quotes, thoughts, and ruminations on happiness. I (obviously) still have a lot to learn about being happy, so this is not meant to be a “step-by-step guide” from an expert’s perspective. I’m nowhere near an expert! I simply wanted to share the lessons I’ve learned and epiphanies I’ve had that have slowly taken me from sad to glad. Think of this book like a conversation with someone who cares: I’m trying to share in the hopes that what has helped me on my journey may be able to help you in some small way.
You can get a free copy of The Happy Life Manifesto by joining my monthly newsletter here! The download link will be sent your way as soon as you enter your email. Thanks, as always, for your support!
Resources
I mention a few people/ideas in my little bibliography. I want to give them their due here.
As always, thanks for your support. I am really proud of this project, as well as the podcast that I recently started. But I’m not sure I would have been confident enough to pursue either one if not for the love and support of my family, friends, and all the wonderful readers that stop by here and leave great comments. Thank you!
Please leave comments on the book here, or email me! I’d love to hear your feedback. Thanks for reading.
I am beyond thrilled to introduce: The Book Learning Podcast with Steph (that’s me!) and Gabrielle (my good friend from the interwebs!).
I’m so incredibly excited to finally share this project with you. It’s been simmering for months now, while we worked out the details – and there were a lot of details. My to-do list for the podcast, if I wrote it all out now, would overwhelm me beyond words. But luckily we just took it one step at a time, and are still sort of muddling through. The most important thing, though, is that it’s launched! Boom. Bam! Out into the world goes my incessant giggling and Gabrielle’s awesome work ethic, and our baby of a podcast.
Watch the video above or here + listen to/download the podcast here!
I’m anticipating some questions. Let me head them off here!
What is the podcast about?
Gabrielle and I are both amateur writers, with 16 novels collectively under our belts (it’s a skewed distribution..one of us has 15 of those, and it ain’t me). We realized that we wanted to get to know each other better, share our writing/reading tips with each other and the world, and discuss our favourite (slightly nerdy) topics to our heart’s content. If you’re like-minded, tune in!
Can you give me some specs about the podcast?
The first episode is 40 minutes, and it was a length that felt natural. You can probably expect future episodes to be about the same length. We plan to podcast roughly once at week. We record our podcasts through the Google+ service, Hangouts on Air. That means that they’re live while we record! In future, we may even alert you to when we record, so you can stream it live if you so choose. After recording in a video format, we pull the audio directly from the video and convert it to mp3. Then it becomes a magical podcast! So you can watch or listen to the format of your choice: the video and audio versions have identical content.
Why should I listen to your podcast?
Well, because it’s awesome! And this is the first episode, so it can only improve with time. We have a lot of fun ideas for upcoming podcasts, including but not limited to:
How we feel about books being adapted into movies
Self-publishing
Writing schedules
Our favourite books
Where we get inspiration
How to successfully complete National Novel Writing Month
Being professionally critiqued
Handling rejection
And so many more! (Listen to the podcast for a few more)
What you can expect from the podcast is a light, fun conversation between two young writers who love to write and read, but don’t take themselves too seriously. Become friends with us!
What is the first episode about? I don’t have time to listen right now, but I want to get excited for when I can listen to it later!
The first episode introduces the podcast and the podcasters (that’s us!). We talk about how we “met”, and how we hope the podcast will make us better friends. We also tell the stories of writing our first novels! Then we discuss what we’re currently reading. That’s the short version, for the long version you’ll just have to listen to the podcast!
Share + Rate + Comment + Suggest!
As we try to get this podcast off the ground and up into the air, we need all the help we can get. We would be so appreciative for your feedback: any and all of it! Leave comments here, under the youtube video, at my email, on iTunes, wherever! Rate us on iTunes! Share the podcast with your friends using that beautiful thing called social media! Suggest topics for upcoming podcasts, or make suggestions about books we should read, or ask us questions. I can’t tell you how excited we would be to hear from you. I’m serious. I’m talking to you.
And last but not least: thank you to everyone who has already been supportive of this project, before they’d even heard it. You know who you are, and I love y’all so much. Thank you for the excitement and support. Keep it up!
Last night, on a probably-unnecessary-but-very-necessary late night Skype catchup call with my BFF who lives about 10 minutes away, she said something very interesting:
I need to get back into the habit of reading for pleasure.
Booyah. There it is. Right there! Reading for fun is a habit, just like any other pass-time. The more you do it, the more you enjoy it, the more you work it into your daily schedule – the better it is. I am also of the opinion that reading the wrong things can bum you out and steer your clear of reading altogether. There’s probably some deep metaphor in there for life, but I’m a little out of it this morning so just bear with me.
I have a simple rule, most of the time: I read what I’m really, really excited to read. Choosing a book at random off my shelf can work in a pinch, but most of the time I try to read things that I can’t wait to get my hands on. This might seem like it’d be expensive, but I rely quite heavily on the libraries at my disposal (my school’s system and the Montreal library), which, among them, carry most things. Of course, for the brand-new ones that aren’t yet at the library, I can usually save $10-15 by buying them on Kindle. And sometimes I decide to be patient, and wait until I can get them for free.
All of this is to say: I believe in you! If you decide to make this summer the summer that you get back into reading for fun, you can do it. Let me help you by sharing my personal picks for the next few months! These are all books I’ve either read and enjoyed, am reading, or am psyched to get my hands on.
This is what my summer looks like. A little jar of colour, that I’m not allowed to open until May 1st. It’s like Pandora’s Box, I’m telling you!
I pinned a date night jar a few weeks back, but I thought it’d work well for summer plans. I realize that it’s not likely for us to be at much of a loss for things to do during the summer, because there’s always something happening that’s fun. I still kind of like the idea of emptying the whole jar before September 1st!
My best friend and I sat in my bed, scrolling through our brains and online summer activity lists to come up with all the most fun things we could think of. I scrawled them all onto multicoloured slips of paper with a black sharpie, and she folded them in quarters and put them in the jar. Teamwork!
We used a little colour-coding system (because I’m more of a nerd than you know) to keep track of which activities take more planning (ex. camping) and which take less (ex. making sangria). We ended up with:
Red = we can do it today! (ex. swing on swingsets)
Pink = we can do this in a day or two! (ex. throw a dinner party)
Orange = we just need to plan a little, but we can probably do it this weekend! (ex. go camping)
Like I said, I doubt we’ll ever be at a loss for what to do, and I’m sure a lot of activities listed in the jar will be ticked off without even having to look at the slip of paper – they’ll just happen naturally. But just in case we do need inspiration, my little colourful jar of summer will be there to offer it.
This is an amazing thing to do on a study break, because it makes you so optimistic about your life post-exams!
Today I’d like to share with you my very first e-book. Calling it an e-book might be a little generous, because it’s less than 20 pages long, but it’s a mini book I’m distributing electronically, so e-book it is!
