Celina Lawrence
Where fiction is Reality
The author needs in-person assistance with secretarial work, typesetting, marketing and distribution, website design, maps and floor plan making, event hosting, and researching. Beta readers are only needed occasionally — ask, or wait for notice to be posted.
Monetary donations are in great demand. Donate any amount now.
Current projects
This would be a great way to introduce yourself to Penultimate Breath. It would give you the background information into the process, the characters, and Cedar. Mostly the task includes finalizing the documents by finding typos, spacing issues, and matching material in the documents to the book. The project is wrapping up for this book. But will come back around for the rest of the books in Cedar Series and series yet to be written.
Virtually no knowledge on the book or series is required. This project is all about being out in the community to get people engaged. It will involve handing out materials and answering general questions they have. If you've ever gotten people to attend events you've hosted, you'll do well at this. A large part is getting people to spread the news through their own networks and come to events. Secondarily it involves aiding in formatting new materials and giving advice on ones to update.
The writing of the website is something I am seeking a second eye on. What looks good to me might not look good to others. I don't have anything specific to give here other than the website is the most neglected aspect of what I do. There are numerous sections or pages that need updated or created from scratch. No skills in website design are required, but are a bonus if you have them. I have built this entire website from scratch, so have an okay handle on it. I just require someone sitting beside me and giving me suggestions, feedback, and helping me catch errors. This is not about designing the website, SEOs, meta data, etc. That would require someone skilled in website building. This is about words, pictures, layout, and coloration; essentially adding or deleting words and pictures then moving them around on the screen.
This is a brand-new project for me. I plan to go as basic as possible until I become proficient in the program(s). As of March 12, 2025, I have recorded the first 68 pages in Audition. I have put each character on their own track while learning how to do simple cuts and manipulations. At this time I'm not asking for anything more than a willing participant to help me hear out for what sounds good, what needs cut, and what needs recorded again and to help me get the tracks set up with adequate pauses between them, labeled, and ordered correctly.
Video recordings will be a similar process to audio as far as technical matters go. I am seeking a portable video camera if you have one to donate. Until then, they will be done with a plug-and-play webcam. An editing program is yet to be determined. It will involve script writing, working with props, and recruiting people to be in the video(s) with me.
If you are more skilled than me, I am all for being the student. Distribution will be from this website, other sites to be figured out, and with hard copies.
Upcoming projects
There is no end to what I will be doing. I will be reading a dozen revisions, fixing scenes, researching, fact checking, updating tracking documents and floor plans, and cross-referencing other books in Cedar Series. The readers will get the fun part of reading hard-copy drafts of my next book to publish either by reading aloud with me, hearing it with me as an AI voice reads it, or reading it on their own. Beta readers can read one or more revisions of the next book to publish and potentially read more unpublished books in the Cedar Series. The task is to catch errors, provide me written and oral feedback, give me opinions, and ask me questions on the content. The conversations that come out of the beta reading will be enriching for everyone. The Boy & The Body's beta readers enjoyed the process.
This will be a fun project that can cause me to veer off from the point. If I let myself, I will just do the decorating until the website crashes. However, the goal is to find any structural damage to the buildings, put on the roofs, install proper-style doors and windows, and to add decor and furniture that is described in the book(s). In parallel with that, is reading all the descriptions from Cedar Series to make sure the 3D houses match the books' descriptions. Once the structures are public-ready, we will make the videos without going through walls. Editing will involve adding text so people know where they are being shown and a soundtrack about the structure and process of creating it. No experience or foreknowledge is required on building floor plans. You will be fully trained and get to know the structures well as we finalize them. The buildings for The Boy & The Body are mostly done structurally. The only major things that need finished are stairs and roofs. Anyone who is skilled in playing video games with a mouse and keyboard while moving in a systematic and non-zigzagging manner would be great for the task of recording the 3D structures.
Maps will require transferring what is only on paper into a digital format for easier editing, merging what is already digital with the new material, correcting scaling issues, and overlaying natural land features, and matching maps to scenes in the book(s). Finalizing work will be to make roads look more naturally curved, label characters' houses, and drawing boundary lines between municipalities.
The preliminary draft has already been done. Voices have been picked out for most characters. This project involves working out the 'emotional tone' of the voices, recording human voices to supplement the AI ones, recording music or sounds that are necessary, and properly arranging all the tracks. Distribution will be from this website, other sites to be figured out, and with hard copies.
Odds and ends
Other ways to volunteer or donate is to help with accommodations for the author with or without her aide. Either by sponsoring the sleeping arrangements in your community when she is traveling for field research or for an event at your organization or educational institution.
This involves coordinated event planning with people from your or other places of business or community venues, following policies pertaining to the event site, doing outreach, and creating engagement.
As the story goes, I can't do it without you.
Thank you for those who have already volunteered and those who will in the future.
This award goes to The Boy & The Body's beta readers:
Amiel, Anna, Annie, Caleb, Cheryl, John, Nick, Richard, Tina,
a college professor, and the student–admin team in Lowell, Oregon.
This award goes to 'Troy's Series' beta readers:
Tracy
This award goes to financial donors AF, HA, JK, and the rest, the extraordinary print shop people Brian and Chris, and wonderful librarians — especially Taylor and Cara.
* People with the first letter of their name underlined beta read every book in Cedar Series once or multiple times. Additional people have read a portion of the earliest copies of TBTB when it was still skeleton scenes and ideas.