One particular Winter day, Hypersensitivosaurus had almost run out of dragon breath, which made it impossible to heat up his cave.
He was about to hibernate and needed plenty of fuel,
so this wasn't a small problem.
By now it had gotten so cold, that icicles started to grow from his cave's ceiling.
For quite a while, he had been wanting to ask Harry Beaver to cut him some wood, but one way or another he had been postponing this
and now he was confronted with his lack of pro-activeness the hard way.
The above is a fragment of a story titled Out of ( dragon ) Breath – Axing a Friend for Help'.
As is usually the case, it is ( more or less ) loosely based upon my actual life.
I warm my house with a single wood burner. And although I order wood, I have to splice some of it, with an axe, on an almost daily basis.
I don't have a friend named Harry. I believe the character's name came to me, inspired by the soccer/ football playing lamb, that was the favorite pet of @justinparke , @sreypov and @kidsisters , back in Suriname.
I loved to see this furry fellow in action!
The full out-of-dragon-breath-story can be found in my upcoming book The Life of Hypersensitivosaurus – 22 Short Stories about dinos and other animals.
I have 6 days left till the target date that I set for finishing ( a first edition ) of my book. Days ago, I asked my younger brother and his girlfriend whether they want to be my middlemen in the Netherlands and print a couple of copies, soon after the 22nd, for themselves, my other sister and her family and - most importantly - for my parents.
I now realize that two copies for me and for my twinsister and her family, here in Portugal, would be nice too: 5 copies all in all, of the very first edition, for family ony.
I know that some of you can't wait to have my book in your hands, but I'm just not sure whether international shipping of a color print of about 100 pages is gonna be feasible.
I'll have to think of some kind of work around.
There's no rush though...
The main goal for me, as mentioned in previous book updates,
is to have a first edition finished on the 22nd.
All the other head breaking stuff can wait till later, although I can't promise to not do some of the (p)research in the next couple of days.
First, though, I want to finish my book.
Getting there, no doubt about that.
- Finished editing the 22nd ( and last ) story, yesterday.
- Made yet another illustration today: the oil pastel and water color drawing above this post.
- I actually did a little bit of a rewrite too. One addition was the part with the icicles. It wasn't in the original story.
What remains to be done, is one more read through ( and edit ) of the entire book. I also still need to add a couple of illustrations and I want to write a prologue. I feel the latter is gonna happen at the very end. I made some attempts but it didn't feel right, I didn't feel inspired.
Then there will be some fine tuning and, if I get a chance, lay-out polishing. I feel thought, that the lay out - done by my twin sister - might need to wait till the second edition. There just isn't enough time and I'm borrowing my sister's laptop to finish my book on ;<)
No sweat.
Six more days till count down.
Six days from now, I will sent a finished ( enough ) version to my brother, no doubt about that.
I am already looking forward to updating you about that special moment!
Was Signed,
Hypersensitivosaurus
who can't wait to make it all the way to your bookshelf!