Hi everyone, it’s Dalni back for another blog post!
One question that I get asked fairly frequently is: where did I get the name from? While I wish I had some great back story to tell on account of the name, really it came about as just a silly coincidence. When I originally began my mermaid activities, I had planned to be Mermaid Dani, after my name Danielle. The first account I made under the mermaid theme was a Tumblr, so that I could share picture of my projects. When I went to get the URL for my blog, every possible way I tried Mermaid Dani was taken already. It seems to be a pretty popular name! I didn’t want numbers in my URL, because that would make it harder to remember and tell people. I tried every combination of dots and dashes; between words and even between letters. After so many multiple attempts I was getting exasperated, but finally one of them worked! I was so happy with myself for finally getting a free URL. I went back to check what had finally worked and noticed that an L had slipped in by accident. At first I was so irritated, but I thought about it for a moment, and decided that all things must happen for a reason. After saying it a few times, I started to like the name. It was unique and almost musical. It was very much a mermaid’s name. Because this name derives itself from a misspelling of ‘Dani’, I personally pronounce it DAHL-NEE, with a nasal ‘A’ like the name Dani itself has. It’s a difficult name to pronounce on sight, and many people stumble on it at first. A lot of them will come to pronounce the name as DOLL-NEE from only reading the it. I like both pronunciations, and won’t correct anyone when they say one or the other. It’s just great having people know my mermaid name! I’ve looked up the name, and found nothing for ‘Dalni’. I instead went and tried the name ‘Dalny’, and this wasn’t really a known name either. The only results I found for it were that there is a small town in Russia with the name Dalny. I guess I may have made up a new name! Or maybe it’s just a mermaid name the humans didn’t know about yet. What pronunciation do you like best? As a side note, I’ll be at the Pirate Day as part of the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival on the Burlington Waterfront in Vermont! Pirates day is a free event that runs from 10 am to 2 pm, make sure to stop by!
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Hi Everyone it’s Dalni!
I’ve been doing lots of exciting things lately, and I’ve been traveling a lot! Last weekend I visited Albany, and two weekends before that was another town in New York a little further south. I surprised everyone at the pool party with my tail. Everyone was so excited to see a mermaid swimming in their pool! I’m used to fresh water like Lake Champlain, but pools are great too, especially when there’s a lot of new people to meet. They had a lot of neat blow up toys in the pool, also. I have some of my own blow up pool toys for when I visit pools, like a giant dolphin and turtle you can ride on, inflatable swords, beach ball and floats, and big rings to swim through. I also have fun games to play! One of my favorite games is turtle eggs. I bring five treasure chests filled with turtles and “turtle egg” ping-pong balls. Everyone breaks into teams and stands at the edge of the pool, then we throw the turtles and their eggs all into the pool. The kids have to go retrieve them and put them in their treasure chests. The team with the most wins! This is a really fun, safe game for swimmers of all levels because the turtles and the eggs both float, so even kids with life vests or floaties can play! Traveling and meeting new people are some of my favorite things. I love to visit other states for parties and events, and I travel pretty far. In August, I’m tentatively visiting Boston, and later in the month I’ll be in Bermuda for a little more than a week. I’m so excited to see Bermuda, this will be my first time visiting! I’ve heard that the water is beautiful bright blue, and the sand is pink. The beaches are supposed to be beautiful, and I can’t wait to swim in the crystal clear water. There will be lots of different types of fish than what we have in Lake Champlain. Hopefully I’ll get some great underwater photos to show everyone from out there! The weekend after this I’ll be at the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival’s Pirate Day! I’ve heard that sometimes pirates are scary, but I think that these ones will be really fun. There are a lot of fun kids activities going on Saturday July 30th on the Burlington waterfront for this event, and Rockin’ Ron the Friendly Pirate will be there singing and putting on a show. Come visit us! http://www.lcmfestival.com/event-information/kids-activities/ That Sunday I’ll be taking Wayne Tarr into the depths to shoot some great underwater mermaid tricks. Look out for photos from the shoot after! Hi guys, its Dalni back again! This week’s post will be about the picture book I’m working on! I’ve written the story for it, and am now working on the illustrations. It’s about three quarters of the way completed. It really just started as a fun little side project, but now I’m really hoping to finish the book and have it published. More than anything the picture book started as an excuse to do some drawing. I drew some sketches, and those developed into characters, and once they became characters, that’s how their stories started evolving. I started thinking about what they would be like if you met them; what their traits would be, how they would behave, and what kind of back story they would have. I’d like to make this picture book into a series, with each of the characters ending up with their own individual story. The story I’m working on currently centers around Delphie, a shy little mermaid who has trouble talking to the other mer-kids. I’ve written and staged the entire story, and I’m a little more than* halfway through the illustrations. I can’t wait until I can bring this project to life! Click here I think this story will be really relatable for a lot of children out there. Delphie is close to my own heart. I was very shy as a child myself and sometimes a little awkward in social situations. That lead to a kind of anxiety forming around trying to make new friends. I know there must be a lot of other people out there with a similar struggle. As I got older, it became a little easier, and now I love to meet new people! I’m hoping that this story will help kids realize that making new friends isn’t so scary after all, and that the other kids probably want to play with them as much as they want to play with the other kids! I hope that this story will help inspire children to branch out, and be the first step towards helping them shed off the feelings of fear and isolation that can come with shyness or anxiety.
I think the hardest part about this little story writing adventure of mine will be actually getting it published. I’ve heard about self publishing, but I’m not sure that that is the route I’d like to take. I’m honestly a little lost about how I would go about getting this story published. I’ve done a little research, but that actually just seems to be confusing me more! There’s a lot of old, or conflicting information out there, and it seems like things may have changed a lot in the past few years in regards to publishing. I’ve read that I need an agent to be published, or else no publisher will look at the manuscript; considering it “unsolicited”. I’ve also heard however, that it can be a good idea to forgo the agent, thereby avoiding paying a portion to an agent, and try to find publishing houses who accept unsolicited manuscripts from new authors. I’ve also heard that it may not be the best idea to illustrate your own story, and while I’m not 100% attached to my current drawings, I’d love be to able to both illustrate and write the picture book. I may be just getting ahead of myself. Once the book is actually finished is when can hammer out all of these confusing issues. Until then I will continue work on this little project! I know you will all be patiently waiting for it to be done. If you have any questions or comments, or know a little more about publishing than I, feel free to leave me a comment! Thank you all for reading; until next week!to edit. |